Who is Mango Chutney?

By Bo Gregner

The year 2001: at a Swedish summer resort, a young female journalist enters an exhibition with Tibetan relics. The visit triggers what appears to be an epileptic seizure. A monk present discovers a hidden language in her outbursts. Some messages are enigmatic, others down to Earth to prove authenticity. The two are Eva-Anna and Tashi.
Some 32 years earlier in the Indian Himalayas: a Tibetan is on a secret mission under the alias of a monk. He too suffers from a seizure. A Western woman who wants to become a Buddhist monk likewise finds a meaning in the alleged epilepsy. They are Dorje and Jill.
Rumours of the incidents reach a shady part of our world where too many economic strings are held by some faceless individuals.
To them the idea of access to realms beyond the normal is tempting, to say the least. Or devastating. The same goes for an eccentric Tibetan lama who tries to undermine the rules of evolution.
Caught by situations so contrary to common sense and science, where do Eva-Anna, Tashi, Dorje and Jill put their loyalties? It’s about love, greed and a rip in the illusion of time and space.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398458321

Bo Gregner

Born in Sweden, Bo Gregner has travelled Asia and the Middle East as a journalist, photographer and filmmaker. With a background in national news media, his stories have stretched from security issues to human touch. Though, while covering politics and economics, he discovered that issues were sometimes influenced by less obvious energies. In order to stay true, he decided to abandon the news stage in favour of fiction. Bo shares his time between Sweden and the UK.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Summer 2001, Bohuslän, Swedish West Coast

A rhythm from somewhere was the first Eva-Anna Strid noted when she came to consciousness in a free fall from one reality into another. It was like reluctantly returning from a refuge. Memory of a vague rhythm had nothing to do with her heart rate.

Her next observation was floor. Hard and hot. A strong scent of detergent. And then again, there was the rhythm, though dissolving as her consciousness registered it. She had been surrounded by music, words and letters.

The air was stagnant. She didn’t want to be trapped in this straitjacket of the present holding her in a grip of senses. It was with great hesitation that she opened her eyes. Something red and yellow appeared under a blurry face.

Hello? You! OK? Are you in pain? Hello! OK?

She realised that everything unfolded from a floor perspective. The voice behind the flickering face expressed concern.

You! What happened? Should I call for an ambulance? Are you OK? Hello!

The face came nearer. It changed from an aquarelle display to contours. A young man about her own age but with dulled features and what appeared as a tan. Short black hair. Or a beard depending on what was up and down. Rough white teeth. Almond-shaped eyes looking into her own. An orange-coloured shirt and a burgundy something jacket. She remembered. He was a Tibetan monk. Relief. No matter what had happened; her brain was able to think that it could think. She was functioning and suddenly didn’t want to go back to that-whatever-else or to the rhythm or the music or the letters or what-it-was. Her journalistic instinct instead came up with two questions:

1) What had happened?

2) When, how and why?

The monk’s face hung over her as if held by an invisible thread. He continued to ask.

You. Has this happened before? Have you ever had any seizure like this before? Epilepsy? Any memory of what happened? Any memory of what you said?

Where were her glasses? A hand picked them up. She received them, pressed the stems behind her ears and saw lama Tashi Phuntsok in all his sharpness. A few curious bystanders left. Kind of a context became clear.

As a journalist she sometimes experimented with the motto, Check out something that you are the least interested in! Exactly! To kill time, she had entered the summer resort’s Culture Centre and ended up in a rather unlikely exhibition, Tibetan relics! How about that? The discovery had cheered her up because the idea was so absurd.

The hand lowered. A beautiful hand, she thought and took it.

Thanks.

Eva-Anna Strid got on her feet and brushed the dust off. So, what had happened? It was clear that she had fainted. But why then? She recalled an aimless roaming between the showcases. She had been surprised that they didn’t contain skeletal parts as expected. Instead, the visitors were confronted with a series of tiny objects reminding of pearls. She had strolled randomly and stopped in front of the text, Unknown lama; two beads on a pillow of burgundy velvet.

For some reason she had remained on that spot. Then a diffuse fatigue had overwhelmed her. Well, not so strange considering days of partying, the long journey and last but not the least a vibrating heat in this non-ventilated room. But then? What the heck had occurred?

She had lost all perception of reality as if one of the pearls had kidnapped the senses and shrunk her beyond its glimmering surface. The outside world had been replaced by an increasing white light. She recollected LSD trips, some years before, when fiction and reality had merged and turned out the same.

You! Are you really OK? Remember anything? Nothing?

The monk found himself a bit too close to the woman and backed-off with a shy smile. During the silence that followed, she could hear her voice utter two words without knowing from where they came.

Mango chutney?

Pardon?

Mango chutney?

Eva-Anna was as surprised herself as was Tashi. The words had appeared from nowhere in the shape of a question. She didn’t have a clue how it happened.

Just something that showed up. Sorry. Simply not myself. A bit giddy or so, everything dizzy and so.

She laughed.

Mango chutney? A jam, isn’t it? Or?

The monk nodded. He studied her intensively. She didn’t mind. Kind of relaxing. But what was wrong with his eyes or rather one of them? A shift? Well, the left eye was definitely as brown as one would expect, but the other one? A shimmering of blue within the brown? The man’s lips moved.

Why did you say those words, mango chutney?

Forget it! I don’t know. Just happened.

He switched tracks. I’m Tashi, a Tibetan monk as you may have figured out.

Eva-Anna. Journalist.

She was in Strand to cover the Swiss Watch Manufacturers’ conference Purchase Triggering Sales Measures, a workshop set to take off the next day at the Conference Hotel. She assumed that the clock guys had a different view on time than the monk in front of her. The thought caused a jolt on her lips. The monk gestured.

You, Eva-Anna! Can I offer you a cup of tea or something? In the kitchenette here behind. I’ll close the exhibition anyhow. Sure you feel OK?

Oh, yes. I’m fine now.

Which was generally speaking true. Here she was on the Swedish west coast, in an alleged tourist Paradise. After tomorrow’s gig with the clock people, she would enjoy a week or two of freedom to catch up with life. To help out awaited her best friend Tara who had a summer job at the resort. The plan was to relive mutual wild memories. Like before, the two 31-year-old women would drink themselves insanely intoxicated and dance with Godly men until the sun rose. About every night.

Did you say yes to a cup of tea?

Hell, she liked him! What was his version of the events?

The last visitors left the room. Tashi put up a sign closed and locked the door.

You! Tea? he asked a third time.

Yeah! OK! Please!

She looked around. The exhibition was rather modest. It was composed of a dozen white-coloured glassed cubes on stands arranged in a ring in the middle of the room. Behind glass were small, dark blue velvet pillows. On them rested the pearl-shaped relics that everything was all about.

Very neat. At some distance one could imagine the beads floating on light. Some shimmered in turquoise and pink, others were sparkling white. A few indicated enigmatic curved shapes. Others were pear-shaped or twisted as if they were in some sort of an ongoing process.

On their way to the galley, they passed the text Shakyamuni Buddha. She simply had to ask.

Is this Buddha. I mean the real Buddha? From him so to say?

So says the tradition.

Those relics, Tashi told, had been found 2,500 years ago right after Buddha’s cremation. Weird, she thought, recalling stories about the cross where Jesus was crucified. The alleged chips from that wood would be enough for a small forest in mankind’s insatiable need of myths. Tashi felt her scepticism.

For those who don’t believe, there is never evidence enough. For those who believe, there is no need for proof.

She liked him. What a different world. Her mother used to say that everyone gets blessed by her or his own Faith. What was the faith of Eva-Anna Strid? Booze and alpha males?

Tashi went on talking. As she understood it, those so-called rinsels were regarded as crystallised spirituality, although disputed by some Tibetan scholars. All beads had been found in the ashes after cremations of bodhisattvas, men regarded as highly spiritual. And a few women.

They stopped at the showcase where she had fainted. He was still fishing for answers.

You OK? Right here, you don’t perceive anything? No memory? Nothing coming up within?

In journalism there is an approach called the nagging method. She recognised it, the same question again and again until every shell around a possible answer had been removed. She smiled and remained silent. What did the text on the showcase say? Unknown lama.

Did a sudden imagination pull her legs? A distant melody loop? Infinitely far away? Like a thistle? But just as quickly, the tones were gone. Probably a delusion in the stagnant heat.

She moved her legs.

Nothing. Nada. How about that tea?

They passed one last showcase before the kitchenette. This one presented a shimmering, oblong, pale light blue pearl. Padmasambhava, she read when passing. Tashi came slightly too close and stepped a few decimetres aside.

This rinsel is from the monk who introduced Buddhism to Tibet over 1300 years ago. First most Shamans, the spiritual advisers, opposed him but then they gradually decided to incorporate Buddha’s principles with their own faith.

He made a short break as to await a reaction. Nothing happened. He continued.

Important, there were a few dangerous Demon Energies who refused to cooperate. They had to be tied down with various secret enchantments and mantras. And so they remain to this day.

Tashi looked intensively at Eva-Anna. Then a phone rang. He excused himself and ran away with astonishing speed, his mantel flapping. As if about life and death, Eva-Anna thought.

She walked up to one of the windows. Blue sky. Far away between rooftops, the glittering sea of Skagerrak. Holiday time! No mystery there were so few visitors at the exhibition. People had come for hello and hullabaloo to The Salty Capital of Sea and Sun, as the brand of Strand had been phrased to meet the demands of modern times. Hence, the old Spa Hotel Strandbaden, where the clock people would preach tomorrow, had been reborn as The Cosmopolitan Royal.

All was quiet in the building except for the monk’s distant voice in the kitchenette. He spoke in a foreign language. Must be Tibetan. She turned back to the showcases, glanced over the stands and noticed that something in the room was missing. Ah, the sound from the speakers. Earlier there had been like a rapping men’s choir in slow motion, probably monks. Now she could only hear the voice of Tashi far away.

She contemplated the relics of Unknown lama. Lama? Surely the word stood for some kind of a religious leader? Why unknown? A new memory fragment flew by. When it all had happened, the beads had mesmerised and devoured her into an atmosphere of thistle-like tones.

But memory is an unreliable companion. The inner projections disappeared as soon as she tried to embrace them, leaving a vague feeling of discomfort bordering to fear. What if she really suffered from some kind of an illness? Tashi had asked about epilepsy. The Health Centre tomorrow? Where was the monk?

Eva-Anna could not have known that back in the kitchenette one pulse rushed faster than anywhere else in Strand. Admittedly, Tashi Phuntsok had been instructed on what might happen, but still! And now it had happened! Indeed! He was shaken in his innermost as he stood at attention with the handset pressed to his ear.

He had previously been specifically informed about biochemical links between the neurological disease epilepsy and transcendent reactions. And now it had worked out like from a blueprint. The woman had definitely ended up in trance in front of the crucial stand. And the symptoms had been similar to epilepsy as described. The woman had not only sunk down on the floor with shakes and convulsions, she had also emitted a stream of hisses, coughs and burps.

Yes. He had learned that rinsels, like other relics, under exceptional circumstances could generate such reactions. And this response was actually the secret purpose of the entire exhibition. And now the miracle had occurred, the pearl from Unknown lama had found its alter ego. And not only that! Tashi had found a meaning in the woman’s wheezing, coughing and burping! The abysmal sounds had been uncovered by his soul creating a meaning.

Hence the phone call.

*****

Heavy rain clouds rolled in from the sea across Isle of Glenn on the west coast of Scotland. Not a single soul to be seen. One could hardly imagine anything but sheep farming and small-scale fishing on this sparsely populated outpost. However, there actually existed another kind of business with nets and lines and sinkers and hooks. At the rear south-western cape was a small colony with eccentric foreigners called Sera Nag. No outsider had a clue as to what that meant. A Buddhist centre of some kind, they said. The idea was apparently to sit down with crossed legs and do nothing.

Sera Nag was made up of some scattered white buildings. Next to them was a church ruin with long-forgotten tombs. The idyll was reminiscent of a Greek village had it not been for rows of multi-coloured Tibetan prayer flags.

According to the official registration, the centre arranged retreats and meditations for people who would isolate themselves in order to achieve enlightenment as described within Buddhism. The centre was not affiliated with any organisation. Never any festivals. There were, in fact, never any invitations for the locals.

Everything was managed by the Tibetan lama Gto Nag Tulku. His epitome of Tulku indicated that the man was qualified to step in and out of the Wheel of Life in order to help suffering sentient beings. However, the truth was that Gto Nag remained in the Wheel without the slightest thought of leaving it. So had been the case throughout hundreds of years of rebirth. So it was meant to continue. The Tulku’s agenda only concerned himself.

The enclave was dominated by a two-storey brick house near the beach. The windows were covered with burgundy curtains. One of the outer corner rooms contained a grey telephone and a black answering machine and right now Gto Nag sat there, a handset in his hand.

He waited for someone to answer at the other end. It took seven long signals until a voice was finally heard. It was familiar but the protocol still had to be followed. The Tulku read out the ID code for the current hour, 264-312.

A voice on the other side verified with two and three-digit syllables according to the code key.

Balun olavi.

Clear text, cleared.

The Tulku was aware that there was no scrambler on the other side but never mind. Who would overhear this seemingly innocent conversation?

Confirm the discovery!

The person at the other end obviously found it hard to hide his excitement.

Confirming, Your Highness! Your humble Tashi Phuntsok confirms! Your Highness, things just happened! Magic! It was really true magic!

Good. No names. Continue!

The Tulku could hear how the monk lowered his voice as if he was afraid that someone might hear them.

So it happened! It happened exactly according to the algorithms for channelling the actual Energy. An individual coming in to the exhibition from absolutely nowhere. She responded! One hundred percent! And I could link up! I could interpret, I understood! Must have gone into symbiosis with her and the Energy!

The Tulku was on his feet. He had to mobilise a considerable amount of inner strength to overcome those dangers that lurk in emotions.

Who is it? Without name. Just describe!

A young woman, a journalist as far as her profession. And I could interpret her! A true miracle! As if a meaning grew within me when I heard her! Different from a translation, more like the revelation of a dream. She’s still here in the premises. What am I to do now, Your Highness? What’s the next step?

Gto Nag let nails of his free hand sink into one leg so that no exhilaration would cloud the brightness of his intellect.

Make sure you have a continuing contact! No further communication over phone.

But how then, Your Highness? I mean, ehh, how?

There will come a handler to you. Wait for him!

The voice from Strand became eager.

Have to say this, she is, how should I put it? She is kind of so alive! Her eyes are like turquoise. She is blonde and short-haired and very natural and she is like such a great person!

Gto Nag cut off, Over and out.

He hung up and consulted his photographic memory; the young monk Tashi had been an orphaned child from Tibet. The boy had come to India in the mid-70s exactly as the astrologers had predicted. The final identification had been made a few years later and then the Tulku had immediately become the boy’s main teacher, thus shaping him into a useful tool. And today, it had been confirmed, he was one of two optimised keys to the future!

In order to find that key number two, the Tulku had come up with the idea of an exhibition. One of the showcases had secretly been arranged with two conclusive rinsels provided by grace, Unknown lama. Although, it was not true that the origin of the pearls was unknown. The Tulku knew very well from whose ashes those crystallised rinsels had been collected. And here he was with a quantum leap for the Grand Plan!

Gto Nag left for the bathroom where he washed his hands with lavender soap. He looked in the mirror. Like most Ngakpa Yogis, he had refrained from cutting his hair and instead put it up in a huge crown. A matter of power. Nothing for outsiders to understand.

He wiped his hands on a linen towel and proceeded to a nearby chamber to briefly meditate in front of a thangka image showing a blood-coloured goddess. In her lap rested a short, double-edged sword with barbs. Nor was this meant to be understood by uninitiated.

Half an hour later he was back in his office. Time for some practicalities. The exhibition, now in Strand, was financed by a Cultural Foundation, which in turn was controlled via a link to an insignificant and dirty grey concrete building in the Chinese financial epicentre of Chongqing. This unconventional connection made it possible for the Tulku to start the scrambler and call the Chinese embassy in Stockholm to put wheels in motion. He reached Mrs Liang who was a shortcut to Chongqing and Bureau 17 which, without going into further details, had access to more or less unlimited resources.

Mrs Liang in turn was the right person to activate TB Nomark. He was a correspondent for the Chinese Communist Party’s News Agency Xinhua. Among many other things, he had a reputation for putting all those efforts into his work that follow from political conviction. Possibly some lavish fees contributed to the loyalty. Mrs Liang had never been forced to motivate him with the subtle hooks stored in a metal cabinet near the door of her office. He was a trusted handler.

Four hours later, TB embarked an afternoon flight to Gothenburg. The same evening, he steered towards Strand in a rental car.

In Scotland, lama Gto Nag Tulku mixed an earthly drink on gin and tonic, bathed his cheeks with after shave and moved to the opposite side of the big brick building where he entered a narrow spiral staircase of dark metal.

On the next floor was a flat to which only two people had access, the Tulku himself and his daughter Ki. She was also his sister. In time, she would moreover become a mother. She would carry an offspring with genetic traits of himself. This was a cornerstone of the Grand Plan.

*****

Once, Strand had been a fishing village. The golden age was in the 19th century after the herring period. Then there was the age of mackerel from Skagerrak before lubb fishing days with catches below Shetland. Now, the 21st century marked fishermen worked with bait named desire.

While Tashi was on the phone, Eva-Anna remained at the window. Below on the narrow street, love couples criss-crossed carefree and what appeared as aimless. Soon, she thought wishfully. All required was a man.

You! Here’s your tea!

Tashi was back. She took the mug, sipped from its content and was surprised by the taste.

Kashmiri tea, he informed. Milk and cardamom. Should be buffalo milk, though.

He took half a step back once again having come too close. She wondered how old he could be? Younger than her own 31 years? He had traits of a teenager. At the same time, parts of his face were like scratched to fine wrinkles. Contradictory. Why did his fingers pluck on a rosary? Did he see something she could not perceive?

I might ask you for an interview, she heard herself saying at the same moment when he put a question.

You. Ever tried meditating?

They had spoken at the same time. She was the first to respond.

God no! Doesn’t fit in on me. Religion is not my bag.

Oh. She didn’t want to hurt him.

I respect, of course, everyone’s personal belief.

Damn! She didn’t have to be so considerate.

So no. No religion for me. Thank you but no thank you.

Tashi laughed.

You! Very favourable. No religion. Very good. Excellent!

His answer was formula one, always positive taking into account the individual’s status within the life cycle. How to proceed now? The woman right up front happened to be the very special precious requested person the entire mission was all about.

She had collapsed and he had managed to interpret a meaning from her wordless sounds during the seizure. While spring-time turns silent, fewer tables turn richer and richer, from interest rate of hate and fear. Spring time silent? Rich tables? Interest rate? Whatever the meaning, the significance was far beyond his modest horizon. A riddle for his Guru and teacher the Tulku.

Eva-Anna sat down on a visitor’s chair. He took up position opposite her. She looked down at her tea.

Look here. Think I might just to be on the brink to be burned out. Worked like mad lately. Guess it takes its toll. Thanks God I’m on holiday after tomorrow.

Here? In Strand?

To start with anyway. Planning to stay for a week or so, with a friend.

Eva-Anna had a sip. The taste was exotic, yet familiar for a reason she didn’t understand. She looked up.

You are a curious guy, aren’t you? So my turn now, it’s fair, isn’t it? Before, when I was gone, while unconscious and so on, did I say anything embarrassing? You know, our hearts are full of secrets.

He returned her smile.

You gave away some noise. Like a foreign language.

Like German or French or something?

Not quite, more like a secret language.

Tashi had never been so close to a woman. In addition, a revelation about trust? He immediately turned away the temptation and cursed his weakness. Any step aside of his mission would be a fatal betrayal to his beloved Guru Gto Nag Tulku, it would also jeopardize a favourable rebirth.

What are your thoughts, she asked.

You said something about an interview. Why don’t you pop in at some point tomorrow afternoon, after opening hours around five?

Afternoon then, she heard herself agree. She jumped up with one arm high in a spontaneous gesture. He noted that the blouse slid aside, revealing an eye-catching tattoo on her shoulder. Or was it a birthmark? Like a new moon, he thought.

She unlocked the entrance door and was gone. Tashi rushed after, put his ear to the door and heard departing footsteps down the stairs. He returned to the centre of the room and took up a lotus position for meditation. Ziné was a basic tranquillity exercise that came in handy. He had to silence the crowd of mind-chattering monkeys in his jungle of emotions.

Eyes fell on a backpack. Her backpack. Forgotten. And now it was too late to run after her. He raised and bent over the tough canvas. He opened the main tab and inhaled. A faint scent from the owner. Then he stowed the pack away and returned to his Ziné.

Thus, another attempt to transform thoughts into clouds, light and bright enough to pass the mountain of his ego with the aim of having them dissolved into an empty nothingness. The result was so-so.

Chapter 2

Summer 1969, Himachal Pradesh, India

Even a scratched plexiglass windshield can define beauty, as was the case this morning. A battered surface for certain but still able to render a landscape of mountain ranges against a foundation of dawn green. The image was viewed by His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. The projection surface consisted of the oval side window on an Indian army helicopter carrying him eastbound along the Himalayan slopes. The picture was beautiful but flat. The real landscape existed on the other side with more dimensions than two.

The Tibetan leader was worried. Ten years in exile had proved to him any theory to be infinitely multifaceted. His Holiness changed position. The gallon seat was manufactured without consideration of comfort. He slithered back, stretched out two long legs in the middle aisle and wrapped his purple