On the road to Orchha, Day 18

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Orchha rose like a mirage on the dusty road. Not a destination, really. Just a stopping place. A small village lodged between temples and mustard fields, a respite from the circular huts Ami had been watching from the window of the Ambassador all day.

“What are those?” she’d asked, pointing out the window. The huts sat squat and cylindrical in a field, surrounded by an incandescent sea of new green grain.

“Where the country people are living,” Dev explained.

Ami found herself looking for the simple houses, longing for them. When they stopped in the middle of nowhere so Dev could urinate behind a scrubby bush, Ami fantasized about wandering away into the fields, and never leaving. Just living out her life in that idyllic pastoral setting. She didn’t really even know what that would entail—perhaps sleeping on the dirt, living off a diet of potatoes and leafy vegetables gleaned from the land, tending a water buffalo, learning to carry pots of water on her head.

Still, the green of the land called to her, beckoned her.

As she stood by the side of the road, she noticed a motley band of men making their way toward her. She watched them, curious, and by the time Dev returned the group was almost upon them. At first Ami thought maybe she should be scared—perhaps they were thieves of some sort. But then she saw that one of the men—more of a boy, really, with only the faintest shadow of a moustache on his top lip—led a small bear by a string threaded through the animal’s nose.

The bear was small—maybe just a cub—and as scruffy as its human captors. It ambled unhappily along, not really arguing, but managing to look doomed.

“What are they doing with it?” Ami asked Dev, pointing to the animal.

“These men are catching him in the jungle,” Dev explained.

“For the circus?”

“Maybe circus. Maybe to teach some tricks.”

The group of men stopped, looked over Ami, and offered Dev a greeting.
“He is saying you like to make snap with the bear?” Dev motioned taking a photo. “He is asking twenty rupees.”

“But I don’t even approve of capturing animals. I think it’s horrible and cruel.”

Dev looked at the frowning girl. “This man will not understand what you are saying. Best to make snap and then we are leaving.”

Ami wasn’t pleased, but she agreed. It wasn’t like Dev would interpret her diatribe against cruelty to animals. She handed her camera to the driver, then crossed the road to the gang of dirty men who were already posing against a low wall.

Ami stood stiffly. The boy holding the bear nudged his ward closer to the girl and grinned widely.

Dev aimed the camera and counted ek do tin.

The bear trainer issued a command and the beast rose up on its hind legs.
Just as the camera clicked, Ami shrieked and leaped backwards, nearly falling over the wall to the delight of the men. She steadied herself, glowering, and stomped back to the car.

Dev handed the oldest man a crumpled twenty-rupee note, his brow creased but his lips turning up in the corners. He did his best not to look right at Ami as he started the Ambassador and eased back onto the road. As he passed the group of men, he didn’t wave, but his eyes twinkled.

By the time they reached Orchha, Ami wasn’t really angry anymore. She was glad to be somewhere. All the days on the road were taking a toll, making her lazy, her legs continually cramped from sitting so many hours. She longed to take a stroll, to be in the countryside, to see flowers, trees, some semblance of peace.

And Orchha would’ve offered that sort of peace, had it not been for the groups of pilgrims returning from Allahabad, from the juncture of the Jamuna and Ganges Rivers. By late afternoon, they’d poured into the small town—some one foot, others in motor coaches, claiming most of the hotel rooms.

Dev tried one guest house after another, routinely being turned away, and when he did finally find a room for Ami, she was horrified by the state of the place. It was a single, dirt-floored dwelling with no bathroom and, apparently, no electricity.

“Toilet is in courtyard,” Dev gestured to the bare-earth garden with a ramshackle outhouse. “Manager is saying power is returning maybe two-three hours.”

Ami refused. She didn’t argue, didn’t cry, just squared her shoulders and walked resolutely back to the car.

When Dev gave up, they drove into the center of the town, the narrow street crowded by people passing between the few restaurants and the temples. Ami pointed to a pedestrian street, cordoned off to vehicles. “It looks like a guest house right there,” she said.

Dev looked gloomy.

“Maybe I’ll just go ask. I mean, it’s not too far to carry the bags.”

“Yes, but this place is not having driver’s quarters. No car parking.”

“But maybe you can park off the street somewhere. It’s just for the night, right?”

He nodded without conviction.

Ami slid out of the front seat of the car, shut the door behind her and walked up the few low steps and through a gate of sorts designed to keep the cows off the walkway. The hotel, from the outside, was faded but still cheerful, and the guests gathered on the balcony seemed in high spirits. She took that as a good sign and went inside.

“Only one room remaining, Madam. But very nice room for you.” The toothy desk clerk came around from the counter he’d been leaning on and opened the door to the first room, the one closest to the entryway and the street.
Ami was expecting the worst, but found the room surprisingly pleasant. It was painted pink—with the usual betel nut stains in the corners—and the single smoked-glass window faced the alley rather then the main drag. There was a small, tiled bathroom scrubbed impeccably clean, and a neatly made double bed.

“What is the price?” she asked.

“Only one hundred-fifty rupees.”

“Really?” she was surprised.

“Yes, madam. Please come sign register.” He ushered her back into the hall.


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Dev wasn’t so sure about the plan, but Ami had looked positively gleeful as she ran back to the car.

“I have a room,” she announced breathlessly. “It was the last one.”

He started to point out that he wouldn’t be able to stay then, but thought better of it—he’d slept in the car before, there was no reason for this time to be any different.

But before he’d even completed the thought, she continued, “You can stay there, too. It has a double bed—it’s a nice enough room.”

Dev smiled at her, but shook his head. “I am not staying in this room. The manager will not like this at all.”

“It’s none of his business,” Ami announced brusquely. “And anyway, I told him I’m traveling with my husband.”

That startled Dev into a few moments of silence. Could she do that? Would anyone believe her? And then he thought, why not? She’s an American—preposterous by nature. Who would argue with her? Besides, there was nothing left to do but gather the bags and go to the room. It was worth a shot.


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Mithun Ramaswami had noticed the tall, thin woman earlier, though he knew she hadn’t seen him. He was just coming out of the Ram Raja temple, having offered sweets and flowers, when he noticed her running toward the street. It was actually the running that caught his attention, because he knew very few women who ran. After a brief girlhood, they tended to lumber, either from weight gain or pregnancy or under the burden of water canisters, rocks, tools and children.

It wasn’t even that he found the woman so pretty—she was certainly plain compared to the great beauties he’d known growing up—but she moved with such freedom that he was instantly intrigued by her. Not that he would have ever approached her, or any woman for that matter. It just wasn’t proper. So, he simply watched as she dashed out of sight, her hair swinging, her long legs stretching out from her body.

Mithun considered it an auspicious act of karma when the same woman happened on to the very cassette tape stall where he was passing the evening, chatting with the stall’s proprietor and enjoying a particularly pungent bidi.

She appeared out of the dusk, breathless, her hair loose around her face.
“Do you have anything like… well, like Indian pop music?” she asked, looking confused at the selection laid out before her.

“Yes? What do you like?” The stall-keeper asked unhelpfully.

“Something like they play in the movies.”

“Yes? You like Rambo, Bruce Lee?” He threw a karate chop at an imaginary assailant.

The girl shook her head. “No, like in the Indian movies. Movie music.”

Mithun decided to help, murmuring a few suggestions to the other man. Together, they looked over the selections and chose a few. Sound tracks from Muskan and Zameer.

“You are liking the Bollywood films?” he asked shyly, and she noticed him then.

“I’ve only seen a few movies, mostly in passing. But I did go to the Cinema in Jaipur,” she told him.

“I, too, am fan of these films,” Mithun announced. He extended his right hand and she shook it warmly. “Mithun Ramaswami, at your service,” he said.
The woman laughed then, but not unkindly. She had a happy, free sort of laugh and she didn’t cover her mouth like the village girls. “I’m Ami,” she replied.

“Please. Come sit. You like bidi?” He indicated an upturned crate beside the cassette stand.

“I’ve never actually had…”

Mithun cut her off with a flourish of his hand. He signaled to the shop keeper who handed over a thinly rolled cigarette, the paper made of a brown leaf tied with a red thread.

Ami slid it between her lips and her new friend lit it for her. Then they sat in silence, side by side, smoking and gazing down the darkening road toward Betwa River.

“Tomorrow you must let me show around the island,” Mithun said after a while. There is a fort with a palace in the middle of the river.”

“No, I’m leaving first thing tomorrow. Right after breakfast. But thank you anyway.”

“Where are you going, then”

“To Khujaraho.”

He suspected that she blushed a little when she said the name. He felt a tingling at the name of his own neck, but it emboldened him. “Please, Madam Ami, may I ask you a personal question?”

She shrugged noncommittally.

“Why is it that the Americans are so free with the sex?” Mithun asked, surprised by his own daring.

“How do you mean?”

“I am hearing about the sex, that many young girls and boys are doing this before marriage. In India we are not so free.”

Ami tilted her head to the side, thinking. “I guess it’s just a different culture. Many things are different. In America people are concerned with material things, sensual things. I think, in India, people are more concerned with the spirit.”

Mithun noticed that her bidi had gone out, and reached to relight it for her. He noticed that she was wearing blue jeans under her shawl, a shawl of questionable quality undoubtedly purchased in a street market. “Yes, what you say is true, but still I think there is much freedom when the young people can enjoy with each other.”

“Enjoy?”

“Yes, the sex.” He wondered if she understood his point, his longing to be so uninhibited. “Are you practicing this?”

“Practicing what?”

“The premarital sex.”

She looked a little cross. “Isn’t that rather personal?”

He nodded. “I am not meaning to offend. It’s my nature to be curious. I am a lawyer by trade, you know.”

She looked impressed at that bit of information. “Really?”

“Yes. I have finally completed my schooling and am just this year beginning to practice in Delhi. At thirty-two years my life is just beginning.”
Ami gazed at the man, surprised. He was already balding, and despite his clean-shaved face he looked definitively older than she would’ve guessed, when in fact he was two years her junior.

“We’re practically the same age,” she offered. “That’s one thing different with Americans—I don’t think so many of us are feeling constrained by age. Maybe that answers your question—there just isn’t a belief in a prescribed age for the various stages of life.”

“Are you not married then?” It was Mithun’s turn to be surprised.

“No. But where I live, that’s not altogether unusual. Many women are focusing on their careers instead of starting families.” The words sounded hallow as she said them, but her companion didn’t seem to notice.

“I, too, am unmarried,” he revealed. “I have been waiting to begin my career. But lately I’ve been thinking of marriage. I’ve been thinking of returning to my village, focusing on the family life and the social work.”

“Are you from a village?”

“Yes, only close by this place, one-two hours.”

“Really? Is it, by chance, one of those villages with the grass huts?”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “You like the huts? I can show you if you like. Yes, yes. Come to my village. You can meet my mother and stay in the grass hut as long as you like.”

Ami smiled at the idea. This stranger, this lovelorn lawyer wanted to bring home an American girl to his mother. “Maybe someday I will,” she answered.
Mithun freed a business card from his top pocket. “This is my address in Delhi, and my telephone. Please, call any time you like to visit. I will come with you to the village.”

She took the card, slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.

“You like another bidi? Perhaps some chai? I can send the boy.” Mithun gestured vaguely, but sure enough, a boy eight years old appeared at his sided.”

“No, thanks though.” Ami stood and stretched. “I’d better be getting back to my hotel.”

Mithun stood, too, extending his hand again.

Ami shook the outstretched hand, amused at the realization that the man only came up to her chin. Surely they’d have made an odd couple in the village.

“Maybe I am seeing you in the morning,” Mithun called after his new acquaintance. She didn’t turn back, but waved over her shoulder as she moved away, blending quickly into the dark of night.


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Dev was almost, but not quite, awakened by the sound of the door opening and shutting again. A shaft of light from the hall poured in briefly, but he’d fallen asleep facing the wall. Through the fabric of his dream he heard the water run in the bathroom, and then clothes falling to the floor. He felt the bed shift as a body lowered beside him, and then an arm snaked around his rib cage.

He wasn’t fully asleep. He was aware of the soft hair falling over his chest, the smell of bidi smoke and night air, the intoxicating blend of smoke and sweat. He debated rising through the layers of consciousness, waking enough to become aroused, to pull her on top of him, to stroke her skin and feel her lips against his, but the weight of sleep was so delicious.

Just a few more moments, he told himself. Just a few moments of laying her in this cocoon of darkness, and then I’ll rouse myself.

But it had been so long since he’d slept that way, suspended in the dream, completely at ease, all cares washed away. It had been forever since he’d felt another body beside his, warm, equally heavy with sleep, sturdy and comforting. He didn’t want to lose the sweet gravity of it to the frenzy of lovemaking. Surely a decision he’d regret in the morning, but there, in the night, all he wanted was to lay there with her and slip into unconsciousness.

And so he slept, so deep that even the dream fell away and there was only delicious oblivion. He dozed into the morning, as if he hadn’t slept for years, not even noticing when Ami woke, climbed out of bed, dressed and went out in search of breakfast. He knew nothing of her lonely meal of cold toast and sweet chai, her walk past the Ram Raja temple and the sweet vendors, her gazing out across the countryside filled with longings she couldn’t name. And then the empty temple, the one she found by accident, and the boy who showed her the way in through the window, showed her to the roof where the eagles nested.

Dev slept on through her soaring realizations, her abandoning of fear, her feeling of expansion, the self falling away into the cool morning air. He slept on, even, as she longed for him, longed to share the clear, bright moment with him, tried to memorize every detail so she could bring it back to him.

As she descended into the temple darkness again, he slept still, his body unmoving, completely surrendered to his own darkness. And even if she had asked, he couldn’t have explained how, to the insomniac, sleep is more intoxicating than any aphrodisiac.



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Interlude

In some stories, Ganesh married. The marriage was a reward for good behavior—hardly a love match. It’s said that Shiva and Pavarti told their sons that once they’d traveled the world, they could take a wife. So the one son, Skanda, set off immediately on his journey. Ganesh, however, dawdled around the house, taking a leisurely bath, dressing in his best clothes and building a comfy seat for his folks to sit on.

Once all of that was finished, the elephant god asked his parents to take a seat and then he circumambulated their throne seven times with a great deal of ritual and reverence. Having finished his revolution, he stood in front of Shiva and Pavarti and demanded a wife.

They were a little confused, until Ganesh pointed out that the Vedas say a man incurs as much merit by walking around his parents seven times as he would by walking the circumference of the globe.

Shiva and Pavarti had to agree. So, for his cleverness, Ganesh was rewarded with not one, but two wives—the sisters Siddhi (success) and Buddhi (wisdom). And sometimes the pachyderm is depicted balancing the two women on his knees.

However, there’s another school of thought in which Ganesh doesn’t marry, but instead lives the life of a renunciate brahmacharim—a holy man. For more often than not, the deity is shown all alone, with no consort in sight.

And still others believe that the elephant boy remained just that—a boy. And so he lives on in childlike bliss, untroubled by the concerns of adults and free of the complications of romantic love and the confines of marriage.