The Autobiography of Indra B. Tamang

"In 1972 Charles Ford, widely considered the father of American surrealism, hired 19-year-old Indra Tamang as a sort of all-purpose helper in Kathmandu, where he had rented a glorious old Rana-era house. Eventually Indra became Charles's artistic collaborator and almost a son. In 2010 Indra Tamang became the object of global fascination after inheriting two apartments in the Dakota from the actress Ruth Ford. He was her sole caregiver in her last years, as he was for her brother, Charles Henri Ford, in his. The initial story about his inheritance broke in the Wall Street Journal with the headline, "The Butler Did It-at the Dakota," and described a Nepalese butler who "grew up in a mud hut" and ended up owning two apartments in one of New York's most famous buildings. The attention that followed inspired Indra to want to write a more accurate account of his life, the real story of which is much more interesting, eccentric, and unusual than what any of the news outlets presented, beginning with the fact that he was never actually a butler. During the decades of the '70s, '80s and '90s, Indra found himself at the center of every fantastic little universe and scene, in New York, Paris, Crete, and Kathmandu, often as a quiet observer taking photographs and 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 such as John and Yoko and Lauren Bacall. Charles gave Indra a remarkable education, one that Indra absorbed with tremendous curiosity and enthusiasm. Nothing about Indra's life during his many years with Charles and Ruth, surrounded by their constellation of notable friends, was ever ordinary or predictable in any way. His memoir is at once delightful and surprising on many levels"--