We do not travel because we have to get from one place to another. We travel because we yearn.
From the earliest days, people have been crisscrossing the face of the earth in pursuit of something. Often, what was being sought was a precious resource like water. It could also be respite from violence and hunger.
I suppose we could make a distinction between traveling to the Middle East to take on a job on one hand, and on the other, touring the Riviera. One might say that the former was a necessity while the latter, a luxury. Yet both journeys may have been inspired by an aching need for a better life.
For untold centuries, humanity has searched for a haven, a place of perfection. This place has taken on many avatars: Arcadia, El Dorado, Never-never land.
In a way, it is the same country in many guises. It is embedded in tales retold in countless languages, clothed in different intentions but all with equally maddening results.
In our time, efforts to find an ideal Eden have been localized in one spot: Shangri-la.
This is a monastery that presided over a fairytale valley hidden from outsiders by snowcapped peaks.
It was first introduced to the world by the writer James Hilton in his 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon,” which has the added distinction of being reissued as the world’s first paperback.
In the popular imagination, the evocative name of the monks’ residence had come to apply to the entire mountain-ringed enclave where it sat.
Hilton’s description of his paradise is quite seductive: “Shangri-la was touched with mystery. Listening intently, he could hear gongs and trumpets and also the masked wail of voices… The whole atmosphere was more of wisdom than of learning… The monks had discovered the key to longevity, to semi-immortality.”
Soul-shattering skies
Some say Hilton based his work on the exploits of the swashbuckling botanist Joseph Rock. Rock’s adventures in Yunnan and Tibet along with many evocative photographs were featured in the National Geographic and read by a growing audience.
At about the same time, Russian artist Nicholas Roerich was also traveling in Central Asia. Looking at his paintings, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the endless plains and soul-shattering skies he had depicted. I especially marveled at how he would capture the moment when light broke through the clouds, bejeweling a distant peak.
Despite its fictional debut, many insist that Shangri-la was based on reality. Historian Michael Wood noted, during his television series “In Search of Myths and Heroes,” that the legend of a magical valley lost in the Himalayas had long tantalized the peoples of Asia.
He traced the present fame of this captivating story to the 16th century when European priests brought back accounts of the lost kingdom of Shambala after a visit to the court of the great Mughal emperor, Akbar.
Toward the end of the documentary, Wood explored the ruins of the city of Tsaparang in a desolate section of Tibet. This was the capital of the now forgotten state of Guge. Buddhist kings had founded Guge as a refuge from raging wars. Sadly, things didn’t pan out well.
From Shambala to Camp David
The rulers of neighboring Ladakh attacked and beheaded the royal family. Despite the destruction, memories of what was once a verdant oasis must have lingered and been transformed into the story of Shambala and, eventually, Shangri-la.
Watching Wood walk around the crumbling temples clinging to steep slopes, seeing the bright crimson walls against the blue skies, one could easily believe that all these had inspired the legend.
Hilton’s sanctuary became an indelible part of global culture. Franklin Roosevelt would name the presidential retreat in Maryland after the fabled utopia. It probably sounded too foreign and not macho enough for Dwight Eisenhower who rechristened the place Camp David, after his grandson.
Then, of course, there is the tony hotel chain. I sometimes wonder if James Hilton’s heirs had any say about the use of his literary creation. Imagine how J.K. Rowling would react if a school would start styling itself as Hogwarts!
Capra to Bacharach
Films have been made of Hilton’s novel. The first was in 1937, directed by Frank Capra. In this particular version, the monastery was remarkably modernist in design. I am reminded of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in La Jolla or even by the much mourned Jai Alai. The sets with their pristine white walls, pools, sunscreens and courtyards were the work of Stephen Goosson.
Four decades later would come a remake—set to music by no less than Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The movie was a disaster. Critics panned it. The David-Bacharach tandem supposedly dissolved after this collaboration. I, however, with a host of friends loved the whole kitsch enterprise.
Admittedly, there were those among us—lecherous even in high school—whose only concern was to ogle as Olivia Hussey bent backwards while dancing to a ditty that began with the line, “Friendly doors, open wide…”
On my part, I felt the first stirrings of the need for global peace as the chorus of “The World Is a Circle” and “Living Together” filled the theater. It was also wonderful to see the pupils of a lakeside classroom being taught to “Question Me an Answer.”
It has been said that James Hilton’s novel was a bestseller in the ’30s because it promised comfort to nations facing a great planet-wide battle. For us schoolboys in the ’70s, living in the throes of Martial Law, the sight of students admonished to challenge authority must have been an epiphany.
China
Much later, when visiting the monastic complex of Sumtseling in Western China, I found myself cheerfully humming a tune from Bacharach’s “Shangri-La” score while climbing the great steps. When one of my fellow pilgrims eyed me too intently, I almost wanted to retort, “At least it isn’t ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’!”
Surveying the main tower, I could see that its golden finials were like those in the second “Lost Horizon” production. Hollywood was very efficient in appropriating the imagery of other cultures in the quest for entertainment.
In truth, the setting was most ironic. The lamasery was situated in a county that had campaigned for the right to rename itself Shangri-la. There really was no limit in the pursuit of the tourist dollar.
For the moment, certain things were still withheld. Even in Sumtseling, huge curtains covered the doorways of the temple halls. One had to squint to make out the murals within, their colors as sharp as a sutra. And when the crows rose from the monastery fields to fly, brushstrokes of ink, across a moist sky, I knew that, perhaps, we need never be certain if there was a Shangri-la.
Fixing it to a spot by tacking on a name was as feasible as catching the moon with the branches of a tree. The clandestine kingdom may linger briefly, just beyond the curve of a road, then, once more, it is gone.