The prologue to Nigel Robert’s memoir-like book begins with lines that will resonate with many of his generation:
‘For a long time … I put my work first; that was where I looked for purpose, identity and affirmation. Now, though, having lost whatever influence I once had, I find myself relatively indifferent to what I did or did not achieve, or how I am remembered by my colleagues. Those accounts feel settled.’
Those words set the tone for The Leopard and the Moon: A Journey in Dolpo, Nepal in which Roberts makes a cathartic journey retracing the footsteps of Peter Matthiessen and George Schaller half a century ago.
Matthiessen wrote the classic The Snow Leopard, which is mostly about working out his own demons and not about the elusive Himalayan big cat. Schaller wrote Stones of Silence about the zoological research into the Himalayan Blue Sheep.
The lives of Roberts and Matthiessen follow similar trajectories of family illness and tragedy, reckoning, and an arduous journey through one of the most desolate landscapes on the planet in pursuit of purpose. Matthiessen’s son, and Roberts’ grandson both happen to be named Alex.
GRIEF AND MEMORY
Nigel Roberts first came to Nepal in 1974 as a volunteer, served with the Britain-Nepal Medical Trust and was the World Bank representative in Nepal in the 1990s at the time the country was in turmoil as the absolute monarchy was replaced with a constitutional one, and just five years before the Maoists took up arms against the state.
This is a deeply personal, confessional, book taking us on a journey from then Nyasaland to Nepal, Virginia, and then this trans-Himalayan journey to Dolpo, Phoksundo, and over Kagmara Pass to Jumla.
The Leopard and the Moon is more than a travelogue retracing the Matthiessen’s onerous route, it is also a journey through grief, memory and personal duty. At 65, the author was trying to understand the meaning of suffering and existence, and find answers in Nepal’s wilderness.
The rugged terrain represents the emotional turmoil of the author’s inner scape. While Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard is mostly navel-gazing, Roberts knows this country well and reflects on Nepal’s transformation since when he first walked through eastern foothills.
It took Roberts nine years to write this book during which time lots has happened (and also not happened) in Nepal. The manuscript is overtaken by events, and as it went to press, there was the GenZ movement last year. That is included in a postscript to the last chapter on the political history of Nepal, which feels somewhat out of place in such a deeply personal and reflective book.
What we have then is not a snapshot of Nepal, but a before-and-after of how much Nepal has changed with connectivity, migration and rising living standards since Matthiessen, and over the many times Roberts has been here.
Interestingly, Dolpo is still roadless although a seasonal track has arrived at Dunai, bulldozers are in action opening a motorable route to Mustang, and traders ride motorcycles to the Chinese border.
PHYSICAL LIMITS
We learn about how pushing the body to its physical limits has the power to heal emotional wounds. Unlike Matthiessen, Roberts says he was not seeking spiritual absolution: ‘So much of me is invested in Nepal, and a trek like this will bring back when I was still innocent of family responsibilities … to a time when happier futures still seemed possible.’
Roberts writes that the happiest time with his family was when he was in Nepal in the 1990s: ‘Here, in Nepal, I do not feel rumbled. I feel at home, or more at home than anywhere else. Not being able to blend in here is the whole point…’
This is not a book about trekking in Nepal. It is about life, and of reckoning with bereavement. Towards the end, Roberts writes: ‘The journey may not change you, but recollecting it just may. Writing about an experience transforms it into a story-releasing emotions that were absent, or latent at the time.’
The Leopard and the Moon
A Journey in Dolpo, Nepal
by Nigel Roberts
Vajra Publications, Kathmandu 2026
287 pages, Rs1,200
