Very Sad!!!
December 13, 2009
Night and Day
By COREY KILGANNON
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/nyregion/13sherpa.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print
PEMA SHERPA was opening the door of his rented yellow cab when the first blow came. A meat cleaver sliced open the back of his head and everything flashed white. The sun had not yet risen over the stretch of attached brick two-story houses on
The cleaver came down again, this time on Mr. Sherpa's chest, chopping through the layers of clothing he had donned against the early-morning chill. And again, slicing gashes into the rubber soles of his sneakers.
Bleeding on the pavement, Mr. Sherpa beheld his attacker: Debindra Chhantyal, his mild-mannered partner and countryman.
Each man had come from
They seemed to be running side by side on an all-too-familiar treadmill. But their lives were actually mirror images of the immigrant experience in
Mr. Sherpa, 28, drove days, chauffeuring strivers bound for business meetings, power lunches and auditions. Mr. Chhantyal, 30, shepherded the denizens of
Mr. Sherpa, also known as licensed taxi driver No. 5301202, had succeeded in attaining his asylum visa, and recently married a cheerful Nepali woman here who encouraged his Buddhist faith. He adored playing with their baby daughter, and spent evenings on the soccer field with friends. Mr. Chhantyal, driver No. 5303727, had grown increasingly worried that he would be deported after his coming immigration hearing. He had few friends, shared a small, spartan apartment with two other night cabbies, and suspected that his wife, back home in
And Mr. Chhantyal was about to start being Mr. Sherpa's employee instead of his partner. Mr. Sherpa had just secured a loan to buy a 2010 Ford Escape hybrid for $30,000, and a small metal medallion riveted to its hood: a city-issued concession that cost him $575,000 but turned the vehicle into a 24-hour money-making machine.
Nepali people pride themselves on being peace-loving, but also fierce fighters if provoked. They cite their countrymen known as Gurkhas, after the eighth-century Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath, who have been part of the British Army for decades.
That September morning on a
Bleeding profusely, the day driver leaped to his feet and ran to a nearby gas station; he spent five days in the hospital, but survived. The night driver hopped back into their cab and drove three minutes to the
A short account of the attack appeared in The Everest Times, which comes out every other week and has a circulation of 2,000 — it was the newspaper's first
Friends and relatives of each driver said there was never any bad blood between them. Still, Mr. Sherpa stunned Mr. Chhantyal's relatives when he turned up at his memorial service, cuts from the cleaver still fresh.
"There was never any problem between us," Mr. Sherpa said. "We are both Nepali, but we never had much to say to each other — he kept to himself."
MR. SHERPA received Mr. Chhantyal's usual wake-up call at 4 a.m. on Sept. 12. He said his morning prayers before the Buddhist shrine he had built above the TV set, then grabbed the bag with his soccer gear, for after his shift.
Typically Mr. Chhantyal, to avoid complications from one-way streets, would park and wait for Mr. Sherpa on busy Broadway, which comes to life early with cabs and service vehicles headed toward
"I could not understand what was happening," Mr. Sherpa recalled later. "This man, my partner from my own country, he's trying to kill me. He was a crazy man, like he didn't know me. He said nothing — he just kept chopping me."
The two men had shared little of their personal lives, but Mr. Sherpa had never seen his partner excited or unhinged, not even the one time Mr. Chhantyal visited his home. He came with a mutual friend, stayed late and left drunk on the homemade rice wine that Nepalis call chhaang, Mr. Sherpa said. Mostly, they exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes twice daily; each Wednesday, they went together to Woodside Management on
The two were from different sectors of Nepali society. But both came from big families whose political affiliations had made life difficult amid the country's current civil strife. And both left small villages in the country's midsection to seek political asylum in the
As Mr. Sherpa's name implies, he belongs to the renowned tribe of mountain people who have helped many a foreign adventurer up
Mr. Sherpa grew up in the Sindhupalchok District, in the Bagmati Zone, not far from
Mr. Chhantyal was a member of the Chhantyal caste, which boasts its own proud heritage of valorous copper miners and mythical origins. He came from a village in the Myagdi District.
He landed in the
He and his two roommates paid $400 apiece in rent for an apartment on
Both men, at different times, joined the crowded classes run by AJ Yellow Taxi Tutors in a basement under a Thai restaurant, opposite the Himalayan Yak. A framed photograph of the Dalai Lama hangs next to a sign that reads "Cell Phone Rings: $5 Fine" Mr. Chhantyal also attended the taxi-driver training institute at LaGuardia Community College, and scored a 92 on the city's taxi licensing exam.
He met Mr. Sherpa through a mutual friend who knew both needed a driving partner. Mr. Chhantyal embraced the night shift's less frantic pace, lighter traffic, fare surcharge and good tips from partygoers.
"He liked driving at night," Mr. Sherpa said. "He said the daylight was too bright for him."
Splitting a leased cab is a common arrangement among new immigrants with little money and a willingness to work long hours, said Andrew Vollo, the director of the LaGuardia program.
"But we tell our students, 'If you drive seven days a week, you will not be in your right mind," Mr. Vollo said. "This is a tough job at night — a lot of strange people come out," he said. "You find yourself in corners of the city that even the police don't want to go. For a new immigrant, that's culture shock."
MR. CHHANTYAL and his two similarly nocturnal roommates awoke around 2 p.m. on Sept. 11, a Friday. He went out for coffee and sandwiches with one of the roommates, Tak Chhantyal, 32, whom he had known since high school in
Mr. Chhantyal seemed fine, the roommate recalled, and indeed, his shift started out normally. But, according to a satellite system and the fare box in the cab, Mr. Chhantyal stopped picking up passengers around 10:30 p.m. and just roamed the city, idling for long stretches. Then he stopped home around midnight to type an e-mail message to his uncle in
The e-mail, in Nepali, listed Mr. Chhantyal's disappointments and failures. He had lapsed in his Hindu faith and become obsessed with following the political turmoil in
"I think that in one man's head, all these troubles of the immigrant came together," said Mr. Sherpa's wife, Yangji Lama. "And then he sees things going well for my husband."
Mr. Chhantyal wrote in the message that he was distraught that he could not keep his parents, back in
He thanked his uncle for all his help in
The uncle, Ram Chhantyal, said in an interview, "I read it and I could only assume the worst."
"He was a very hard worker and a perfectionist, and things weren't going well," the uncle said. "All the frustration was too much for him to handle. He living a very uncertain life here — he was afraid of being deported."
"He thought people were gossiping about him and slandering him," he continued. "Often he wouldn't make sense and was convinced people were talking behind his back."
Mr. Chhantyal never came back to the apartment, and the roommates realized later that the biggest blade in the kitchen was missing from its drawer.
KEVIN CHANG, a 17-year veteran of the New York Police Department, arrived at the 108th Precinct station house in
He knew he had an injured victim at
Since Mr. Sherpa remained conscious at the hospital — doctors told him the cleaver had narrowly missed severing nerves and arteries — Detective Chang interviewed him there, hearing details of the attack and the background of the two immigrants' relationship.
Then he got a call from the
"To have someone stab someone is unusual here," Detective Chang said. "But to have the stabber jump off the bridge is even more so."
Mr. Chhantyal apparently drowned in the waters of
The case was officially closed after Tak Chhantyal identified his roommate at the morgue. "The cleaver was never recovered," Detective Chang said.
Mr. Chhantyal's body was cremated, and his ashes remain at St. Michael's Cemetery, just off the
Mr. Sherpa walked in gingerly and shook hands with Mr. Chhantyal's Uncle Ram. The two men concluded that the suicide provided some closure to the bewildering attack.
"People there said it was beyond comprehension that he showed up," the uncle said later. "Pema had no anger. He said, 'I would like to know if I did anything wrong.' I told him, 'Listen, both of you had a loss.' "
Mr. Sherpa returned to work last month, driving his shiny new Escape, its new medallion gleaming. For spiritual protection, he has draped a ceremonial Buddhist shawl over the steering column, and hung traditional pendants on the rearview mirror. He has not yet chosen a new driving partner.
"This time, I am more careful," the Sherpa said the other day. Then he drove off toward the mountains of
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