I need new clothes, Ami thought. It was that thought that roused her, because getting new clothes meant going shopping, and to do that she needed to go into the walled city, and that was where Dev was taking her. It was 8:45 by the time she’d gathered her backpack and camera and met him outside, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was talking with a blue-turbaned Sikh standing beside a motorcycle rickshaw.
Dev was wearing the same khaki pants, button down shirt and navy blue fleece jacket he’d left Delhi in. His pants were still creased and his shirt still crisp, showing no evidence that he’d spent 48 hours mostly driving. His hair was still damp and combed neatly to the side, and he was clean shaven, sporting a pair of dark-framed sunglasses. When he saw Ami, he pushed the glasses up on his head and smiled at her, which was something new.
“Madam is well rested?” he asked, with barely a smirk.
Ami sensed he was poking fun at her tantrum the night before, but she couldn’t be sure. She just nodded.
“Good.” He was all business. “I have arranged guide for you inside fort. We are taking motor rickshaw—passage is too narrow for the car.” Dev ushered Ami into the rickshaw’s backseat. For westerners, two people was a tight fit—it was the vehicular equivalent of a narrow loveseat. But in India, many times, whole families piled into the motorized carts. School children, whole masses of them, crowded in, some dangling from the sides and back. Still, Ami was overly aware of her thigh brushing Dev’s thigh as they chugged toward the impressive fortress that loomed over the newer, uncontained sprawl of Jaisalmer.
Dev was talking, telling her some of the history. She was barely listening, catching only a word here and there as she took in sari-clad women carrying market baskets, children in starched school uniforms, diminutive herds of goats and ambling cows.
The rickshaw climbed up the twisting, cobbled entranceway, into the fort, finally passing through the main gates that once held invaders out of the desert city. Ami tried to take in what she was seeing. Not a museum piece, like the fort in Bikaner, but a thriving and modern city clutched by ancient walls and towering, carved Havelis hundreds of years old. As they rolled to a stop, Dev spoke low in her ear.
“This guide is very good man. His fee is included in your tour, but if you like his service, you are giving him some tip.”
Ami nodded. She was glad for the advice.
They climbed out of the rickshaw and met a young man waiting for them by the wall.
“I am Arun,” he shook her hand. “Very nice to meet you, Madam.” He turned to Dev with a confident air. “We’ll be done in two hours time. She will meet you in this same place?”
Dev looked at Ami with a worried expression. “You are needing my services this afternoon, madam?”
She wasn’t sure what to say. “I can just wander around,” she tried. “I wanted to do some shopping.”
“Then I am having the afternoon off?” He looked hopeful, and Ami understood.
“Yes, of course.”
He grinned. “Thank you, Ami. I am seeing you at the hotel—six o’clock dinnertime.” With that, he swung back into the waiting rickshaw and was off.
Ami turned her attention to Arun who was, she noticed, not at all unpleasant to focus on. He was tall, with short, tousled hair and amber eyes, his teeth all straight and white when he smiled what could only be described as a winning smile. He wore a yellow windbreaker, dark blue jeans and polished leather shoes. Nothing about him said “India” to her. He wasn’t the sort of Indian tourists wanted to photograph on the temple steps. However, he was the sort of Indian tourists wanted to guide them through claustrophobic, chaotic walled cities.
“This is my home,” Arun gestured grandly. “I have been to university in Delhi, but now I’m working some to earn money. Maybe next year I’m traveling to London.”
“Why London?” Taking in the mystery, the color and the festivity of Jaisalmer, Ami couldn’t imagine why Arun would want to leave that for the bland, cold climate of London.
“My brother has a business there. I want to join him.” He flashed his smile again and guided Ami out of the path of an oncoming scooter. “You must look out. They are flying through these streets.”
Ami nodded, and felt a bit nervous.
“This is sometimes called the Golden City,” Arun continued, cupping her elbow as if he sensed her timidity. “This is because the setting sun bathes the stone in honey-colored light. It’s breathtaking; you must see the sunset.”
Jaisalmer’s walled fort, rising up form the desert floor, was nothing short of amazing to Ami. And as she followed Arun into the labyrinth of streets, the mystery only deepened. Sometimes the tall buildings soaring on either side of them gave way to clearings where cows munched on garbage, or women washed dishes, or temples appeared and pilgrims jostled to get in.
“There are seven Jain temples here, all built between the 12th and 15th centuries,” Arun informed her. “Only two are open to tourists, the others are for Jain people only. Would you like to visit the temple?”
She nodded, and Arun promised to guard her sandals—she’d decided to wear them just in case she’d need to slip out of her shoes quickly—while she went inside. The queue jostled her, bodies pressing into her as she made her way through the narrow entrance. People must have been smaller in the 12th centuries. Inside, Ami wandered the circuitous hallway, gazing at the elaborate carvings and sliding her bare feet along the marble floor, perfectly smooth from so many feet passing through. In every corner, Jain idols peered out at her, their thin white bodies seated in perfect lotus positions, their jarring black eyeballs seeming to pop from their heads.
Arun was ready to move again, as soon as she’d slipped her sandals back on. A man was calling to her from a souvenir stand (“Hello, what do you want? I have nice carved camel for you. You like elephant?”), but Arun was ushering her along, back into the clutch of alleyways and houses.
“These are Havelis,” he pointed at a group of several-stories high mansions seemingly carved into stone. “You know Havelis?”
She shook her head no.
“These houses were built by the merchants in Jaisalmer. Some are from hundreds of years ago, and some are from only the late 19th century. This one is Nathmal-ki-Haveli.”
Ami craned her neck to look up.
“This one was built by two brothers. See? Two sides, almost the same, but not quite.”
She followed his finger as he pointed out the details—one had more flourishes. The other, an extra window.
“Ami,” Arun asked, standing close to her, “Would you like to see some nice handicrafts?”
She noticed the ease with which he used her first name, comfortable putting her on equal ground. He reminded her of most of the men she knew back home—presumptive, assertive, self-assured. Why had she thought Indian men would be any different? “Okay,” she shrugged. After all, he was running the show.
“Jaisalmer is famous for mirror work,” he explained, setting off at a brisk pace. Ami jogged a bit to catch up. “Rajasthani ladies are known for their embroidered dresses, and many antiques are now worth a lot of money.” They entered a gleaming shop, scrubbed clean of the desert dust. An immaculate proprietor sidled up to Ami, gesturing her to take a seat on a cushioned bench.
When she looked up, Arun was about to slip out the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m coming right back,” he promised with a gleaming smile. “You are just looking. Enjoy!” And he disappeared.
She knew the deal. This was a high-end shop and Arun got a commission if she made a purchase. She couldn’t resent him for that; it was just business.
By the time Arun returned, maybe twenty minutes later, Ami was knee-deep in artful tapestries. Each was crafted from a collection of random fabric shapes, some richly embroidered with intricate flowers, animals and the occasional human shape. Others were studded with tiny, jagged bits of mirror, held in by delicate stitches. Sometimes the stitches gaped where the mirrors had gone missing.
“You see?” Arun asked, sitting next to her, leaning in so their elbows touched. “Each wall hanging is made from the ladies dresses.”
She didn’t see, until he outlined, with his finger, the shape of a kameez yoke. That explained the odd shapes.
“Some of the pieces are antiques,” Arun continued. “The older ones have more detail; also more mirror work. The newer dresses are bright colors, but not so pretty.” He lifted a blue tapestry onto his lap, gazing at the many-hued fabrics.
“Do you have anything in red?” Ami asked the proprietor, who smoothed his thin moustache and thought about it. “Something small,” she added.
“We can ship this for you, Madam,” the shop keeper added. “You like large piece? No problem.”
“I have a small budget,” she replied.
The shop keeper pursed his lips, displeased, but went in search of a suitable souvenir. Arun, to Ami’s relief, looked amused.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the street, with a 400 rupee swath of fabric tucked into Ami’s daypack. Arun led her to a stretch of wall rounding the edge of the fort, and helped her clamber up a well so she could stand on the ledge and gaze out over the city sprawl.
“Jaisalmer is magical, no?” he asked, wending his arm around her waist. He stood like that, gentlemanly, holding her protectively from the edge. She was careful not to lean into him, but allowed herself the smallest enjoyment.
“It seems to be,” she answered. “I guess I’ll have to have a look around for myself.”
When Arun dropped her back at the first gate, Ami handed him a 100 rupee note, hoping that it was an appropriate tip. She didn’t know what his services cost, to figure a percentage. He simply grinned again, shook her hand, and walked swiftly away.
If Dev asked, he’d say that the American wasn’t so bad. She was different from a lot of tourists he met—and he met a lot of tourists. There were the westerners who came on a week’s holiday, just to see the sights and take their pictures. They didn’t even care about the cities so much, or the history, they mostly wanted to do some shopping and go on camel safari. Sometimes Arun found himself making up facts, embellishing stories and throwing in bits of sensationalism here and there. This is the place King Akbar beheaded his first wife, he would say, pointing to a soaring Haveli. He liked the Henry the eighth effect. And they stared at him in gape-mouthed wonder, but after ten minutes they would have forgotten.
There were spiritual tourists, the ones who came dressed in Indian garb, their heads wrapped in scarves, ready to prostrate themselves in whatever temple they were shown into. And sometimes Arun wanted to like them—they appeared sincere in there interest in Indian culture, but they were just so silly. As if reading a couple books and taking a month-long holiday put them on par with the ascetics who spent their entire life in meditation and renunciation. As if they could ever understand what it meant to be a Hindu, to live and die in India.
But for the most part, Arun didn’t concern himself with such ideas. He was working his way out of the twisted knot of streets, along with the strangling dharmas that Jaisalmer offered. He was heading to London, starting over, recreating himself as a westerner.
The good thing about the American, Ami, was that she was just there. Just taking everything in, bumbling her way through with no particular agenda. She wasn’t a white woman trying to come across as an Indian. She was just a white woman; a stranger passing through.
In fact, if she were younger, she’d be the sort Arun would like. He’d invite her to dinner, talk with her, pretend they were in London together on a date. But Ami was already past thirty, and though Arun knew that western women did often remain single late into life, sometimes forgoing marriage and child-bearing altogether, he didn’t really understand why. He couldn’t help thinking that even if a woman seemed nice, looked attractive, if she was past twenty-five and still single, she must be marred in some way.
But if Dev asked (and he wasn’t likely to), Arun would say that she was pretty. He liked her long brown hair, her green eyes, her completely American wardrobe, her awkwardly charming way of talking, of taking in her surroundings. Yes, she wasn’t so bad, as tourists went.
Alone, then, in the twist of the old city, Ami decided to go shopping. After all, she rationalized, that was the American thing to do. If in doubt, shop. Her plan was to buy an Indian outfit; something flowing that would travel well. But after visiting two different kameez shops and sitting for unbearable lengths of time, being plied with chai while the shopkeepers spread dress after dress onto the floor in front of her, she found her sense of delight waning.
“No. No elephant print. I simply can’t travel around India in an elephant-print kameez, no matter how nice you tell me it is.”
The shop keeper looked at her, alarmed. “No print?”
“No print. Plain fabric.”
He grabbed wildly at whatever was at hand. A bright orange polyester. A lime green cotton with a purple hem. Something with tropical flowers.
Ami fled the scene, embarrassed. The shop was a wreck, and she hadn’t even made a purchase. She wanted to retrace her steps, walk the same route she’d taken with Arun, but the cobbled streets seemed to curl in on each other, and she was utterly lost. Nothing to do but go on, hoping at least for a nice restaurant where she could sit and have a cold drink.
It was while she was wandering in that way, gazing up in hopes of spotting a rooftop café, that a hand reached out and grabbed her.
“Madam, you like henna hand?”
The voice was inordinately cheerful, the English clipped and crisp, and the hand belonged to a young woman.
“I am Bobbi,” she continued. “I can make a nice design for you in my shop. Come, see.”
Ami let herself be charmed. Bobbi looked to be in her early twenties and she was anything but a shy Indian girl hiding behind her sari. She wore her thick hair in two braids, her nose was pierced with a gold stud, and she wore several bands of gold around each wrist.
“My house,” Bobbi announced, pulling her through the door, into the cool room of a carved-stone dwelling.
“You live here?” Ami asked, gazing at the staircase that ran up the outside, leading to a second floor.
“Yes. This is my family’s home for many generations. I am only living here now until I’m married.” Bobbi leaned in close. “You know a nice Indian man for me?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.
“I only know Dev, my driver,” Ami said. “I’ve only been in India a few days.”
“How do you like my country?” Bobbi asked.
Ami rather liked the idea of the whole of India belonging to this boisterous young woman. “I like it very much,” she answered.
Bobbi began to draw a design on her palm with henna paste. “This design is very special. Very good luck for you,” she promised. “Now, I’ll work and you tell me all about this Dev.”
Ami laughed, and offered what little information she had, doubting that it would be enough to make a match. Bobbi didn’t seem, to mind though, and in return, she jabbered on energetically about her three sisters—the oldest was married and gone to Delhi—and her business in Jaisalmer.
“Many people are liking henna,” she explained, “but not only on the hand. Some are wanting henna painting on the arm, the shoulder, even the belly.” She shrugged at the thought of immodest westerners. “Whatever they ask, I can do.”
“You don’t mind that they don’t follow tradition?”
Bobbi shook her head and grinned. “What is your good name?” she asked.
“Ay-mee,” Ami replied, pronouncing it carefully.
“I am writing it here, on your hand,” the woman showed her how she’d scrawled Hindi script across Ami’s wrist. It looked pretty.
"Is your name really Bobbi?”
“No, I’m having a Hindi name, but I’m meeting many tourists, and one lady is calling me Bobbi” she explained. “The name stuck.”
Ami nodded, wondering if the cheerful woman ever longed for her real name, or if the western name had become hers.
“Would you like to sign my book?” Bobbi produced the ubiquitous guest book from a cupboard and flipped the pages so Ami could read complimentary notes left by Canadian, German, French, British and Australian tourists.
“Bobbi, tell me where I can have a kameez made,” Ami said, looking longingly at the woman’s softly faded dress. It was short sleeved, and covered in a cheerful yellow print. Bobbi wore blue cotton trousers underneath, gathered at the ankles with a band of the same yellow flowered material.
“Oh, my sister is making this for me,” she laughed heartily. “But I will take you to nice dressmaker, okay?” She looked at Ami’s left palm, covered in green goo, and pronounced it dry enough to leave the cool calm house. They made an exchange—two hundred of Ami’s rupees for the henna work, and Bobbi’s card, for Ami to carry with her in case she were to return to Jaisalmer. Then, together they wandered through the winding streets toward an open shop where a white girl sat on the steps, carefully stitching scraps of embroidered Rajasthani dresses to a white square of muslin.
“You ask at this place,” Bobbi instructed her, then dashed back toward her house, hoping to catch another tourist in need of henna hand.
“Are you the dress maker?” Ami asked the blond-haired girl, who looked up and smiled.
“No, I’m just an art student. Go on inside.”
Once into the shop, a small nervous man leapt to Ami’s assistance, taking her measurements and sketching an outfit designed the way she explained it. Pants loose but not baggy, the tunic made of plain fabric in a dark color, with short sleeves and a v-neck collar. “Madam, you are returning one hour,” the man announced curtly, and directed Ami back to the street.
“One hour? Really?” She asked of the art student.
“He’s fast,” the girl promised.
So, Ami began to wander back toward what she hoped was the market of sorts. She bought a mango lassi with no ice, and then sat in a restaurant and scribbled a post card to Holly.
“Here in Jaisalmer, we’re stopped for a day or two. I don’t know the itinerary.” She didn’t want to mention that she’d hired a driver. Holly would never stoop to such a Memsahib-type scenario. “I have time to think, to relax. I’m in the fort, in this narrow, twisting walled city with the tall Havelis and bright fabrics. I have henna on my hand, which is sweating as I write. I’m waiting to have a kameez made.” Holly would approve of that—wearing Indian dresses, delving into the culture. She hated tourists who stayed in posh hotels and ate western food, demanding toilet paper and English-language news papers.
Home seemed far away. It occurred to Ami that Philadelphia could have completely vanished in the five days since she’d left. The thought only bothered her a little. She ducked into a cramped internet café and logged on to her email, scanning several pieces of junk mail and a nervous note from her mother.
“Don’t drink the water. I know that friend of yours probably told you it’s safe if you boil it, but you should stick to bottled water. I don’t know what possesses you kids to travel half way around the world—why not just take a trip to the British Isles? Did you know that Ireland is as close as Los Angeles? And much safer. Well, I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Your father says hello.”
Ami considered sending a group email to the list of addresses she’d collected around work before leaving for her trip, but when she started to write, nothing came to mind that wasn’t mired in cliché. She logged off, paid for her time, and found herself back on the street.
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Though Jaisalmer was small, it still afforded a number of tourists to be lost, together in the walled city’s confines without having to acknowledge each other. And so, each felt that in some way they could claim the adventure as their own.
Melita was enjoying herself in India—she was glad she’d agreed to take the trip with her friends. The three of them were on a break from college, and Cheryl, the adventurous one of the bunch, suggested they take a six-week backpacking trip. Melita’s parents weren’t all for it, but like usual, when she pressed the subject, they forked out the money. And the platinum card.
So far they’d only been to Delhi, Jodhpur and Pushkar. Jaisalmer was the fourth stop. Melita liked Pushkar the best—lots of other backpackers to hang out with. Cute guys who’d traveled all over the world, stayed in such exotic places as Bali, Thailand, Viet Nam. In fact, even though she’d only been traveling for two weeks, Melita felt she could just keep on going. It bothered her to think that her trip would be over in a month, and then it was back home to mom and dad, and she’d have to find a job for the rest of the semester.
It was Cheryl who brought up the round-the-world ticket idea. She suggested maybe the three of them could go home just long enough to get the money together, and then they could travel for a year—maybe longer. After all, they had the rest of their lives to finish college, but they would only be young once.
Ashley was the most timid of the three. She hedged whenever Cheryl brought it up. It wasn’t that she out-right objected, but Melita had noticed that India brought an unfavorable change over Ashley. India had changed them all—well, maybe not changed as much as enhanced certain aspects of their personalities. It made Cheryl bossier, more driven, louder. It made Melita reckless and hungry for adventure. But Ashley turned meek, uncertain, afraid of rickshaw drivers, unsanitary food, dirty bed spreads and the ever-present monkeys.
It was Ashley who cautioned against Arun.
“But he’s practically British,” Melita had argued. The three girls had spent an evening with the charming Jaisalmer native, taking in the sights with him, enjoying the sort of back-stage pass treatment he provided. Cheryl and Melita vied for his attention, basking in his praises, his warm hand falling on a shoulder or gripping an elbow as they climbed into roof-top restaurants and the out-of-the way homes of his friends. Ashley seemed to shrink for the shining smile, the musky after-shave and the almost-but-not-quite western mannerisms of their handsome guide.
In the end it was Melita he chose, though, asking her in a thick whisper if she might could get away the next evening, accompany him to dinner. And Cheryl was a good sport about it—she had a boyfriend back home, anyway, so she couldn’t, in good conscience, compete with Melita for another man.
But Ashley was worried. “It just doesn’t seem safe to go off with a strange man. We really don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he’s hot,” Melita retorted.
Ashley rolled her eyes. “You’ve heard those stories about college girls being abducted in third world countries. Their families never hear from them again and then those fliers turn up in the hostels begging for any information about them.”
Melita had seen the posters in the hostel they’d stayed at, briefly, in Connaught Circle. The black-faced missing person—almost always a blond-haired girl or boy—peering listlessly from the colored paper, as if they’d been absent long before they’d actually vanished. “Cults,” she answered matter of factly. “Lots of kids come here and get sucked into some ashram or something. Maybe they join the Hare Krishnas, I don’t know. I bet they always resurface once they’re ready.”
“You don’t know that.”
Melita shrugged off her uptight friend and went back to brushing her hair. She’d bought a new wrap-around skirt in the market—a royal blue, almost metallic piece of cloth that reached to her ankles. She decided to go with sandals—they looked better, even if it was too cold—and a tight-fitting long-sleeved t-shirt. “Don’t wait up for me,” she said with an evil little wink, grabbing her passport bag from the bed and slipping out the door.
It seemed an hour must have passed—maybe even more—so Ami started walking in the direction she remembered the dressmaker being. Nothing looked particularly familiar, or unfamiliar for that matter. Outside a guest house, a small man with bad teeth called to her. “Like to see sunset?”
Was it already sunset? She shook her head and continued walking, until her path led her to a dead end at the fort’s wall. She turned around, retracing her steps.
“Madam, you are lost?” the same man asked.
Ami stopped this time. “I guess so. I’m supposed to pick up a dress, but I’ve lost the shop.”
“What is shop name?”
She shrugged helplessly.
“No problem. You come up to roof, see sunset, then you will find shop.”
Ami thought of Arun calling Jaisalmer the Golden City, and decided it would be a shame to miss the sunset. So, she followed the man with the bad teeth up an ever-narrowing flight of steps.
“My name is Sunil,” he told her when they reached the roof. “You are calling me Sunny.”
Ami noticed that he was a full head shorter than her, and that when he smiled, his face lit up despite his dental woes.
“This my hotel,” he continued, gesturing around the roof where small clusters of western travelers in hippy outfits smoked bidis and ate plates of curry.
“Your hotel?”
“I am staying here a long time, working and living,” he clarified. “Since I was fifteen only. Now I have thirty-four years.”
“You’re thirty-four?” Ami didn’t know what she’d expected. “We’re the same age!”
“Yes, I am thinking we have special connection.” He touched his chest lightly, over his heart, and Ami felt ashamed for treating him like an annoying tout earlier. “Come, I am showing you the best room.”
Her doubts returned—she didn’t want to follow him into a bedroom no matter how small he was—but before she could protest he was opening a carved wooden door on the edge of the roof.
Ami peeked in. She’d noticed the door, but assumed it was some sort of storage closet. Instead, the room was an efficiency of sorts, just large enough for a single bed and a writing table, but it boasted an extraordinary view. Squeezing past the mattress, Ami looked out the window.
Sunil opened it for her, and she found she could reach out and touch the ornate ceramic decorations along the building’s roofline. Across the street, a woman sat in a similar room, writing a letter at her table. Over head, the sky turned yellow and then red from the setting sun.
“This really is the best room,” she admitted, sinking down onto the bed.
Sunny sat beside her in the chair. “Then you are coming tomorrow and staying this room. I will reserve it for you.” He smiled again.
“Yes, maybe…”
“You are seeming sad, Madam.”
“Ami.”
“Ah-mee. You are not enjoying.”
“No,” she argued. “I’m enjoying this trip. I’ve only just arrived, really.”
“Then you are having the love problem?”
“Which love problem?” She couldn’t help smiling.
“You are having difficulty with your boyfriend? He is leaving you alone is Jaisalmer?”
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said.
“Really? Because I am sensing you have some man with you.”
“No, just my driver.” She wondered how he knew. Just a lucky guess. Fifty-fifty chance of being right.
“That is all? Because I am sensing a love relationship for you.” He looked away, confused.
“Sorry, Sunny. But really, I have to go now. I’m expected back at my hotel.”
“Okay, okay,” he agreed with a friendly wag of his head. “But I think you are coming back. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.”
“Why do you think so?” she asked.
“Because I am knowing an English girl who came one time with her mother. I met her, but she did not stay this hotel. She is coming back after one week and staying two months time.”
“She did?” Ami looked closely at him. “And was she your girlfriend?”
He gave her a sad grin. “I, too, am having a broken heart, Ah-mee.”
“She’ll return,” Ami told him cheerfully. “Your English girlfriend will come back. You’ll see.”
Sunny grinned once more as they reached the street, and he shook her hand firmly. Then Ami ran back the way she’d come, hoping to find the gates of the fort so she could reorient herself. Almost instantly, the dress shop appeared, and she gathered her newly stitched kameez, paid the nervous dressmaker and tipped him generously, then hailed a rickshaw and let herself be carried back out of the fort, into the sea of traffic leading away from the town area.
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