In my planned talk, not delivered, for the Newa Pasa Puca Guthi last night, I had intended to return again to the question of locality as a key determinant of Newar culture and identity. Even though Newars can be found everywhere, and indeed there were economically significant settlements of Newars in Lhasa and Calcutta, nonetheless even now Newars in London pine for the Kathmandu Valley. They do so for two reasons. First, it is the centre of Newar culture, where being Newar is neither strange nor trivial. In London or Edinburgh, Newars are just another kind of Asian. Their culture and language codes a specific difference in Nepal generally and especially in the Kathmandu Valley, where others recognize them as a specific group and Newars feel a sense of solidarity (towards outsiders). Moreover, rivalry among the many different Newar castes and locality groups is a basic feature of Newar life in the Valley, but it is an experience that is unattainable outside dense Newar settlements.
Second, it is the only place where the embodied and highly social experience of being Newar is possible. The ritual and religious architecture is there, such that it is possible to perform routine daily rituals as well as less frequent rituals such as digu dyaḥ pūjā or ihi and bārha.
Third, it is not just the availability of deities and shrines, but the actual urban space that Newars miss. The architecture of the cities and towns of the Kathmandu Valley supports a very high population density, while enabling specific purity rules concerning food and public gestures. It also allows for chance social meetings and routine ritual behaviours that are impossible in a scattered community.
Where ever Newars have actually settled they understand themselves to be from Nepāl Maṇḍala. This is unlike, for example, Punjabis or Gujaratis, who retain a sense of identity in diaspora through music and so forth.
Areas of the UK are mapped out has ‘having Newars’ or not noticed; so Manchester, Birmingham, London and even our humble Aberdeen are on the map.
Now as I passed from the Richmond/Hounslow border, where Arjun’s new house is, through to Kings’ Cross and then on up the line, I’ve realized that I map places in a different us/them continuum. For me it’s a question of dividing the world into
• University towns where I might live and work
• Urban or peri-urban areas, with no university, that I find implictly unwelcoming, such as Stevenage or Peterborough
• Urban areas with fieldwork possibilities, like Hammersmith or Bradford
• Rural areas, which seem welcoming and soothing.
So the most inaccessible and alienating places to me are the suburbs and new towns, places where I would never choose to live, nor am likely to know anyone. Nothing new there, then.
