The breath does not come easily. Not because there´s too little air, but because there is too much. Every time I open my mouth, more oxygen than I require enters my lungs. 1 can feel the sacs resisting this intrusion, but the air pressure is too much. In the end, unable to withstand the effects of Low Altitude Sickness (LAS), I am bundled into a portable de-pressure sat ion chamber, the Pokhrel Bag, It is named after the Nepalganj doctor who invented it as an emergency measure to save highlanders from this lowland specific syndrome.
Inside the Pokhrel Bag, as the air was evacuated to simulate the Himalayan heights, I had time to meditate over how it is that I find myself here smack in the middle of the Grcal Plain of Bihar. I was in town to inaugurate and deliver die keynote address at a UNESCO-funded workshop entitled, "Stranded; How lo Take Advantage of Being in the Middle of Nowhere".
As I said, the town is Muzaffarpur, and if you stand on your toes you can see Patna. That´s how flat it is. And it was this horizontality that first began to affect my health and wellbeing as soon as I got off the narrow gauge train from Jayanagar at die Nepalo-India frontier.
Without mountainous markers I was completely at sea, cr, plain. I kept searching for geographical signposts and there were none. Up where I live, that´s Makalu in the north and dint´s the Barun river jostling its way south. How do I orient myself here? There´s this mango tree coming up as 1 take the rickshaw to the conference venue, but its hardly any use as reference point. Mountains do not shift, but mango trees seem to.