Dubby Bhagat

Kathmandu:

This is quite literally a shaggy dog story that’s about finding out that the old saying, “Where there is a will there is a way” is true. It is also a story that is a little bit about immortality. Which is not always about living forever but sometimes about being remembered after you are dead. The American Embassy in Kathmandu was just being opened in those long ago days by a young Foreign Service Officer called Doug Heck who had come to the valley from Calcutta when suddenly he learned that the White House wanted Lhasa Apsos and even as he found out about it so did The Palace. A Palace Official decided that a person as important as the American President needed a hugely important dog like a Tibetan mastiff. And because it was for the very important American President he should have two dogs not one. Doug Heck was summoned to The Palace and there in a huge cage were two snarling, snapping beasts which the Palace Official said were only puppies despite they being almost as big as Doug and more ferocious then him. They came with a Tibetan handler who fed them table-sized portions of meat. It took Doug a week of bribery and corruption with entire rooms full of meat to make the dogs friendly, convert a truck into a cage and get rid of the handler. Doug loaded the dogs into the moving zoo and set off for Delhi since Indian Airlines refused to carry the dogs. The journey was full of curious onlookers and a continual search for meat.

In Delhi Indian Customs said they were Tibetan and not Nepali dogs so unless they were refugees and human they could not be exported. In despair Doug took them to the Nepali Ambassador in Delhi who I think was General Daman but I am not sure. Doug pleaded for help. The Ambassador pondered and finally said, “Since the dogs are a gift from the king of Nepal they are Nepali,” and signed a document that said so. Doug Heck arranged for a passing KLM plane to stop off in Delhi and take the dogs to America. Only KLM had flying arks and only KLM were as helpful then as they’re now. Even as the dogs were flying to the White House the story broke in the Press. It was discovered the dogs were for a White House aide and not the President. The aide as it turned out was the President of the local Rotary Chapter.

A headline in The New York Times said, “Wrong Dogs for Wrong President.” Upon landing in America the dogs found a home and love on a farm in Arizona and Doug Heck who later became Ambassador to Nepal told us the story. He said that the pregnant Kanchhi and Bhotia (for those were the dog’s names) were the founders and ancestors of The Tibetan Mastiff Society of America. The society was alive until a few years ago.

Doug Heck has gone, Kanchhi and Bhotia have gone but now that you know this story, everytime you see the American Embassy in Kathmandu or a Tibetan mastiff in America remember Doug Heck and Kanchhi and Bhotia. And while you think of them they live again and so are immortal, however briefly, and that proves the old saying about where there is a will there are many ways and many people to help you on the journeys you take.