Indra B. Tamang

Romy Ashby

Told as much through images as through words, a young Nepalese man’s globe-spanning relationship with "the father of American surrealism" changes the course of his life and gives him a new set of roots.

In 1973, poet, photographer, collage artist, and sculptor
Charles Henri Ford convinced a
young Nepalese waiter at his hotel in Kathmandu to come work as his all-purpose
helper. Nineteen-year-old Indra Tamang, who spoke minimal English, was soon
enjoying an education and a life he could not have imagined. He quickly
graduated from cooking and running errands to attending social engagements with
Charles, to accompanying the artist on his international travels, eventually
becoming his collaborator, and more of a son than an employee.

Charles was a magnet for creative people, and during the ’70s,
’80s, and ’90s, Indra found himself at the center of seemingly every fantastic
little universe in New York, Paris, Crete, and Kathmandu, often as a quiet
observer taking photographs and making mental notes. There was Studio 54, Andy
Warhol’s Factory, the teas that Charles would host at the Dakota, attended by
regulars such as Tennessee Williams, Quentin Crisp, Patti Smith, and Henry
Geldzahler; there were special dinners at the United Nations; visits to Mary
McCarthy and Leonor Fini; and chats in the elevator with neighbors like John
and Yoko and Lauren Bacall. Charles gave Indra a second upbringing, one that
Indra absorbed with tremendous curiosity and enthusiasm. In turn, Indra brought
Charles into his family’s village in Nepal, introducing him to a world that not
many Westerners were privileged to see, especially then. Indra managed to shuttle
between these two vastly different worlds, marrying and having children in
Nepal, though not revealing this to Charles for quite some years.

In 2010, Indra Tamang became the object of global
fascination after inheriting two apartments from Charles’s sister, the actress
Ruth Ford. The story in the Wall Street Journal described a Nepalese “butler”
who “grew up in a mud hut” and ended up owning property in one of New York’s
most famous buildings. The attention that followed inspired Indra to write this
richer and more accurate account of his life. Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and ephemera from the private collections of Charles and Indra, some never before shown, and gathered together for the first time,
readers will discover that nothing about Indra’s “curious years” with Charles
and his friends was ordinary or predictable in any
way.

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