“Your wife will be upset,” Dev announced to his friend, who had stayed out all night, drinking and poring over the old stories.
“No, she is away with her sister. Anyway, she would be more angry is I was drunk and drove the taxi into a ditch. Then how would I earn money for her to spend at the market?”
They laughed again, though Dev felt an itch at the back of his mind as he searched for empathy with his friend’s plight. A wife to keep track of your whereabouts. A wife to spend up the money you earn.
“Don’t look so serious,” Surrindar threw an arm around Dev’s shoulders. “It sounds like prison now, but you’ll see — a wife keeps the house, gives you some place to go at the end of the day, someone to talk to. She gives you sons. Marriage is good. Better than always being on the road.”
Dev shrugged. “I like to drive. For now, it’s a good job.”
Surrindar stood, stretched, pulled on the shirt he’d thrown over the back of the chair and ran his fingers threw his short hair. “You don’t mind the tourists? Don’t they treat you like a servant?” His voice rose to falsetto and he minced about the room. “Boy, carry my bags. Fetch my jewels. Help me onto this camel.”
Dev couldn’t help laughing. “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s like that.”
“And this one?”
“This one isn’t so bad. At least she climbed onto the camel by herself.” He grabbed his towel and went into the bathroom to wash up.
(image from www.imagecache2.allposters.com)
Maybe she was just bored with her tapes, or maybe the monotony of driving was getting to her. Something made Ami yank her headphones off and let out a deep sigh. Dev looked into his rear-view mirror.
“What is problem?” he asked.
“No problem.” She had to smirk — it was such an overdone phrase in India. Everything was no problem, no problem, whether it was cockroaches in the bathroom, an extra charge for taking the camera into a palace, or a request for another glass of chai.
“What is music?” Dev asked.
“Music?”
“Tape.”
“Oh.” She looked down at the walkman she’d just been listening to. “Rolling Stones. You know them?”
“Yes, I know.” He smiled into the rear-view mirror and caught her eye. “I can listen?”
“Sure.” She started to hand up the walkman, but he waved it away.
“Just tape,” he pointed to the Ambassador’s tape deck.
Ami passed the cassette over the seat, and soon “Sympathy for the Devil” filled the car, sounding strangely foreign in the larger space.
Dev nodded his head to the beat, rolled down his window all the way and rode with his arm hanging out, tapping the side of the car.
“What else do you like?” she asked, suddenly curious. All this time, they could’ve been listening to music blaring loud over the car speakers as they crossed the desert.
Dev named a handful of Indian musicians, which Ami guessed where Hindi-pop stars, the sort she heard in crowded market places but didn’t recognize.
“Also Beatles, Sade, Madonna,” he added.
They drove for a while in the comfort of the music, Ami soothed by English language, the familiar preening voice of Mick Jagger cutting into the warm, dry day.
“What place you are living?” Dev asked her, catching her eye in the rearview mirror.
“In America?”
“Yes. New York? California?”
“No, Philadelphia. Have you heard of it?”
He looked back at her blankly.
“Philly?”
No response.
“Tell me about where you’re from.”
He smiled, seemed to relax. “From very small town near Himalayas. Very nice place—very clean. Not like Delhi.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Will you go back there?”
He bobbled his head in that infuriating half-yes, half-no gesture.
And then she told him a little bit about her home, the grey dirtiness of the city in winter, how she had escaped the cold for this trip, how she lived in an apartment close to the Schuylkill River and sometimes rode her bike to her job. But she found she couldn’t talk about any of it very much, because it seemed so far away, like a place she’d seen in a movie or heard of, over and over, in stories, but had never actually seen. It seemed a place of legend, not a place she’d return to in a matter of weeks.
When Dev looked at his watch and suggested they stop for lunch, Ami leaned over the seat and blurted out, “Okay, but do we have to go to these tourist places?”
“You don’t like?” He sounded surprised.
“No. They’re overpriced and the food isn’t so good.”
“What place then?”
“I don’t know. What place would you go?” She expected him to put up a fight, but instead he grinned to himself, and within minutes he’d pulled the car off the road beside a low concrete shack lined by charpoys.
They climbed out of the Ambassador, stretching their legs, and Dev pointed Ami to one of the charpoys. “Sit there,” he instructed. “Washing hands there,” he pointed to a makeshift sink near the building.”
“Toilet?” she asked.
He consulted with the sarong-clad man tending to several large pots in the open-air kitchen. “He says it's around back. You want I am showing you?”
“No, I can manage.” Ami set off around the building, the back of which butted up against a goat farm where the livestock frolicked in a field of mustard.
There was an outhouse of sorts—a one room affair with a hole in the ground over which one squatted—and a plastic bucket of water for washing up afterwards. It was obvious why Dev hadn’t stopped at this sort of place before—he was probably afraid he’d lose his tip if she had to wipe with her left hand. But Ami found herself almost proud when she traipsed back around the building and washed her hands under the faucet, as if proving she’d managed to attend to her bodily functions, Indian style.
Others had arrived—two men had parked their lorry and were sprawled out on charpoys. Ami took a seat on the rope bed–turned-settee, and Dev asked for her order. “You like palak paneer, alu ghobi or dhal fry?” He asked, as he lifted the lids of the pots.
She asked for spinach and cheese—palak paneer—and chapattis. The cook carried everything over, steaming hot and swimming in ghee, and Ami ate ravenously, bathed in warm sunlight.
Dev always tried to warn his tourists when they reached Pushkar, but more often then not, they left the city with an air of disillusion. It was such a Westernized town, in its own way, jammed full of back packers and lecherous types—white kids posing as Sadhus, young girls strung out and sick, students who’d dropped out of school to smoke hash and live off Thali plates, fighting off dysentery in dirty dorm rooms.
The picturesque desert town, situated around a large, sparkling lake, caught the imaginations of the Westerners who rolled in from other parts of Rajasthan. They sensed the spiritual energy, almost electric in the air, and were pulled magnetically to the ghats around the lake. And from the waters edge they witnessed Indians performing puja, making offerings to the lake and sending their prayers across the water in the form of flower petals and grains of rice.
Dev went himself, as soon as Ami was checked into JP’s Tourist Village, a comfortable hotel with rooms arranged on two levels, overlooking a courtyard with a swimming pool. Of course, it was too cold to swim, but the hotel was clean and safely away from the heart of the town. There were better hotels—the Jagat Singh Palace Hotel, designed like a fort and situated around a lush garden—but Ami wasn’t one of Dev’s wealthier fares. He learned his customers quickly—for some it was a matter of finding the greatest comforts, the most sumptuous restaurants and most luxurious rooms. For others it was all about a good bargain. Ami was in between, perhaps even oblivious to her range of choices, and so Dev felt a certain pang of responsibility for delivering her to a clean and safe hotel.
He lifted her bag out of the car as she came bouncing down the step. “Nice room?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s fine. Too big for one person, really, but it has a little balcony.” She looked pleased.
“I am carrying your bag for you?”
She blushed a little and grabbed the pack. “Don’t be silly, I can manage.”
“Then today you are taking some tour of Pushkar, visiting Brahma Temple and the Ghats.”
“Okay. And I can find my own dinner, so you’re free.”
He nodded, and offered his spiel about the priests offering puja. Some priests are bad men, he told her, offering a flower to cast into the lake and then demanding a large fee. “If you make puja, set the price before. And do not take any flower,” he warned her.
With that, Dev delivered the Ambassador around back, to the driver’s quarters, and set off to make his own offerings at the lake, Ami’s confused expression etched into his mind. He could feel her unasked question—why would someone want to rip her off over making a prayer? And why should she have to pay to cast her prayers into the holy lake, anyway?
The answer was simple—this is India—but the sentiment knotted itself like a fist in Dev’s stomach. He removed his shoes at the ghats and made his way to the water, performing the rite on his own, chanting his mantra and throwing the rice, the sugar, the handful of jasmine blooms into the water, which was already heavily decorated with floating grains and blossoms. As he turned from the lake, a priest marked Dev’s forehead with tikka powder and offered the red ribbon—the Pushkar passport—which Dev tied around his wrist to show he’d completed his prayers.
Then he sat on the steps of the ghat for a while, watching as tourists made their way to the water’s edge in various degrees of respect and disregard. He watched two women, their short hair uncovered and their feet shockingly white when they removed their track shoes. As soon as they approached the lake, obviously charmed by the rituals that they couldn’t understand, a nervous little man in trousers and dress shirt approached them, talking quickly, offering to guide them through the process.
“Are you a priest?” one of the women asked, looking doubtful.
“Yes, yes. I am clergy,” the man insisted, guiding the woman by her elbow a few steps closer to the water, out of Dev’s earshot.
He found himself hoping that Ami wouldn’t get pulled into the whole ordeal—that she might find a way to view the lake from afar, or have the audacity to fend off the predatory holy men. And he felt a little guilty for thinking such thoughts—as a Hindu shouldn’t he want for all human beings to receive the benefits of puja? But he’d met enough westerners and knew that few of them comprehended the complexities of the Hindu religion—to them it was just a lot of pomp, an exotic amusement. And really, they were just passing through. No matter how sincere their efforts to understand the rites, a few weeks or even months in India’s temples would never be enough to erase their karma and earn them a more auspicious rebirth.
So he wished for Ami that she might pass unscathed through the ranks of the fraudulent priests, even if it meant she missed out on the experience of a real puja, guided by a genuine holy man.
Dev twisted the red string absently about his wrist, noticed the angle of the sun over the water, and decided he had enough time to get a bite to eat before returning to the lake for sunset.
(image from www.info2india.com)
She stood on the concrete steps hugging herself, pretending to be deaf to the cajoling men around her. She focused on a group of Indians squatting by the water, releasing handfuls of rice, and forced herself to think nice thoughts. Beauty, she thought. Inner peace. Bliss.
Just a little way down the ghats a couple in matching kurtas and the short, baggy pants favored by travelers who’ve trekked through Nepal made their own puja with a young man—maybe a tout—who guided them through the motions. All three were laughing, joking and nudging each other with their elbows, not taking the ceremony too seriously.
There were plenty of tourists. Westerners. She could’ve been any of them, she told herself. She didn’t really stand out. In fact, if she had the audacity, she could probably join any of them, insinuate herself into their conversations, invite herself to their dinners, join in their bragging and complaining about the Indian subcontinent. But it seemed too much of an effort, too much distance to cross, and then what would she say? Her mouth felt dry, empty of words, of the normal conversations that might roll off her tongue.
The day was falling away. She shivered a little, hugged tighter into herself. It wasn’t really loneliness that settled over her, but an absence. An absence of the known, of the usual ways of connection, of the bridges that had always existed in the past. And then her self was falling away, vanishing like daylight from the sky, and she was a ghost alone at the ghats, a dark and empty thing, a shadow with no body to cling to.
(image from www.indiatourism.com)
Ami went with the long-haired man not because she was attracted to him, not really, but because in the back of her mind she wanted for him to be attracted to her. In truth, when he approached her near the Brahma Temple, she’d been put off. He was wearing a glossy track jacket and white jeans, pulled up too high the way Indian men wear them, showing off their narrow waists.
“Hello,” he said, “Do you speak English?”
She nodded, wondering what he wanted to sell her. Pushkar put her off. She was still angry at the so-called holy man who tried to charge her a hundred American dollars to perform puja at the lake, then cursed her when she refused (“Stupid girl,” he spat, “why do you come here if you know nothing about our religion? Go back to America!”).
But the long-haired man didn’t try to make a sale. Instead, he used the other line: “May I speak with you? I am trying to improve my English speaking.”
She wanted to refuse him, but it seemed rude. She was in his town, hanging out on his street, and she didn’t even have the excuse of planning to visit the temple. She no longer cared that the Brahma Temple, right behind her, was the most famous of its kind in the world. She wouldn’t go in—she’d had enough of the confusions of religion. When Dev asked her what she thought of it, she’d say it was nice but very crowded, which seemed to be the case.
“My name is Amrit,” the man informed her. “What is your good-name?”
“Ami,” she told him.
“Ay-mee,” he repeated smoothly. He had a handsome face, if somewhat mean-looking. Chiseled, high cheekbones, hair slicked back into a ponytail like one of the garishly macho actors in a Bollywood flick. None of the softness Dev possessed. “Would you like to see my hotel?” he asked.
“You have a hotel?”
“Yes, very famous for tourists. The Pink Floyd.”
“You named your hotel Pink Floyd?”
He nodded, grinning so that his teeth showed a bit. “Very popular band. We are having a nice party tonight. I’ll meet you here at 9pm and bring you.”
She agreed, perhaps against her better judgment, which is how she ended up following Amrit through a maze of dark alleyways, wondering the whole time if she wasn’t being utterly foolish, if she shouldn’t just turn back and hope for the best in retracing her steps. After all, wasn’t that just the sort of thing single women travelers were forever being warned about? Rule 1: Don’t pin your Travelers Checks and credit cards to the front of your shirt. Rule 2: Don’t follow strange men into dark alleys.
But she wanted so much, just for an hour, an evening, to feel desirable again. To feel the sense of normalcy that rose out of attraction, the admiration of a man. And Amrit was good looking, wasn’t he? Even if a bit too smooth, too calculating—he had flare, he looked at her with a certain degree of hunger, and he was offering a party.
She was wearing a blue satin skirt, calf-length, the slinkiest thing she could find in the market that day. She wore it with her sandals, baring her lower legs and feet to the cold of the evening. Cold, cold, cold. Cold in India — who would’ve thought?
In her homesickness and the absence of the self she knew and wore with the comfort of old jeans, she followed Amrit obediently, pausing only to offer the briefest prayer of gratitude when he did, indeed, usher her through a door over which a sign read “Hotel Pink Floyd.”
“Ay-mee,” he spoke low into her ear, “Can I offer you a drink? Some whiskey?” He slid a glass into her hand and guided her by her elbow, pointing out the guest rooms, the back garden, and the out-door stairway which ascended the building toward the roof.
“I’ll introduce you to my friends,” he offered, the gracious host, though Ami still wasn’t sure that it was actually his hotel. “Then we can have something to relax.”
The words oozed over her, oily, but she managed to catch the meaning. “What sort of something?” She tried to hide the nervous annoyance in her voice.
“This way,” he ushered her, showing the toothy smile again. “How do you like my hotel?”
“Very nice—”
“Roof is having best view. Many many travelers are coming. I’m meeting people from all over the world—”
And then they reached the top, and sure enough groups of Western back packers were strewn about, drinking King Fishers and smoking hand-rolled joints.
Ami didn’t have time to feel excited by the gathering, or curious about the others, hanging out in cheap India clothing, playing American pop songs on a portable tape deck. She didn’t have a chance to question Amrit’s motives, or wonder how often he picked up hapless single women in the market and ferried them off to flops that passed as parties. As they moved toward the edge of the roof, they passed a large German Shepherd, laying sprawled out, waiting for someone to drop a bit of food. Ami pulled back instinctively, but Amrit just laughed. “Come,” he said brusquely. “No problem.”
She moved passed the dog, feeling her skirt swish around her legs, looking for a place where she could sit down and make herself less obvious. And then she felt it — the rush, heard the snarl before she even knew what was happening. The large dog had leapt up and was angrily attempting to sink its teeth into her calf.
Ami jumped sideways, letting out a scream. Her glass dropped from her hand, shattering. The dog lunged again, but someone caught its collar and pulled it back.
“Bad Sammy,” someone scolded.
Ami tried to examine the damage, but couldn’t see much on the dim, torch-lit roof. “I want to get out of here," she announced, her voice shaking.
“It’s no problem, no problem,” Amrit was clutching her arm, his fingers digging in a little. “Have a seat. I’m fetching a new drink.”
“No, I want to go. I’m going, now.” She tried to steady her voice, sound firm.
Amrit squeezed her arm again, hurting her a little. “Just sit,” he said sternly, but she didn’t. She pulled free and limped toward the stairs, making a wide girth around the dog, which was being soothed by a willowy blond woman.
“He’s usually so friendly,” she called out. “We all just love Sammy.”
Ami rolled her eyes and continued to limp away from the rooftop scene, the party, the stupid hippies and their vicious beast.
Amrit caught up with her at the door. “You are leaving?” he asked. “You have only just arrived. You must stay awhile. No problem.”
“Yes, problem,” Ami barked at him, waving toward her sore leg. “This party is horrible. This is a very bad place.” She hated her ineloquence, but wasn’t sure how much English Amrit would pick up. Simplicity seemed the best policy.
“Okay, okay.” He resigned. “You go. I’m showing you the way back.”
“I’ll go myself.”
“You will be lost.” He opened the door and pushed her through, onto the dark street.
Ami felt fear prickle at her temples—he was angry now, and they were alone, and her leg hurt too much to run if she should need to—but Amrit didn’t assault her. In fact, he didn’t even speak to her, just marched sullenly ahead of her until they reached Sadar Bazar Road—the main drag.
“I take you to your hotel?” he asked.
“No, I can find my way from here.”
“You are telling bad things about my hotel?” He looked at her suspiciously.
“What?” her calf throbbed, and she wanted him to leave.
“To the guide books.”
So that was what it was all about. He’d wanted some sort of a guide book mention—mistook her, perhaps, for a writer. “No, I won’t say bad things,” she vowed, and turned from him, limping away, hoping he wouldn’t follow.
He didn’t.
Back at her hotel, Ami stopped in the lobby and surveyed the damage. No blood—the dog hadn’t broken the skin. There was just a significant purple bruise welling up through the swollen tissue. She showed her wound to the desk clerk who kindly offered some iodine and gauze from a kit, and bandaged, Ami took her injured leg—and pride—off to bed.
(image from img2.travelblog.org)
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