You alone are the truth in visible form;
You are the sole creator; you are the sole supporter,
You are the sole destroyer, you alone are all this:
The Brahman.
(image from www.lotussculpture.com)
Jodhpur, Day 9
Dev lost himself between the tender feeling of familiarity and the sting of embarrassment. Not that she knew what was going on, either way. In fact, he could see her now, the infuriating American, strolling easily along the path toward the Umaid Gardens. She was pointing her camera at a family of blond monkeys who were loitering along the road, hoping for a handout.
He tried to look at her with some degree of disgust, or ridicule. Ridicule usually worked. She was there, alone, making a spectacle of herself without even doing anything. Just her being was a spectacle—a white woman walking into the gardens alone, unaccompanied by a man. Not even a group of women surrounding her.
And then her dress. Ami was wearing a kameez—dark blue cotton gauze, reaching past her knees; loose pajama pants underneath. She’d had it made in Jaisalmer—a decent tailor job if rather plain. Dev wanted to think her foolish for wearing Indian clothes, but in a way he found it charming. Ami of the tennis shoes and t-shirts was walking toward the gardens in her blue kameez, alone, out of place, and oblivious to her oddness. She lifted her scarf—the same burgundy rectangle of cloth she’d taken on the camel safari—from her shoulders to her head, mimicking the Indian women by wrapping it loosely over her hair. And then she vanished around the corner, out of eyesight.
Dev found himself wondering why he’d taken her to that place—the gardens held little interest in the winter months, and the Government Museum located on the grounds was neglected at best. She’d find herself in a sea of Indian tourists, off from work and school, picnicking and swamping the park’s concession stands. There were no real sights, other than the demanding monkeys.
Nonetheless he’d driven her from the hotel—a motor-lodge she seemed to delight in, insisting it reminded her of the American Motels of the 1950s, minus the swimming pool and strangely incorporating a dinner served in the proprietor’s own dining room—telling her it was time for some sightseeing. She hadn’t argued. Outside the park he’d forced her into the clutches of a coconut vendor, but she’d seemed only too happy to purchase the king coconut and watch the vendor hack an opening in the green shell. Then she drank liquid through a pink straw, watching traffic pass on the busy street.
Even when Dev had pointed down the path to the Gardens, she’d only asked, “Are you coming?” and then seemed content to go on alone when he’d announced he’d stay with the car.
He was upset by the dream, not that it was much of a dream, really. He’d dreamed that they’d arrived at Mister and Missus Bhattacharya’s guest house, only the proprietors—a retired school teacher and his matronly wife—mistook them for a married couple and booked them into the same room. In the dream, Dev lifted their suitcases from the boot of the Ambassador, and Ami walked behind him into their room. All of the rooms opened onto the courtyard where Mrs. Bhattacharya tended her roses, and Australian tourists attempted to cook over the decrepit grill. As they entered the room—a decent sized room with a wide bed, pink walls, a small writing desk and a tiled bathroom—Ami lifted her arms and pulled her t-shirt over her head.
He woke up right away—didn’t even allow himself a dreamy imagining of her naked torso. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of intimacy, of having shared something with her.
And she, of course, was oblivious.
There had been an English girl once. Emily. It was early on—he was only nineteen, and she was the same age, traveling with her aunt. In Udaipur she came into his room, late at night, said she’d been thinking of him since they’d first met. She was forward—too pushy—but he couldn’t help himself. At first she was just kissing him, but then her hands were unbuckling his belt. He did think to put a stop to it, but reason didn’t stay with him.
Emily was a surprise—she made love with such authority, such efficiency. He’d heard that English girls learn about sex early, that they don’t wait for marriage. But it still surprised him—her lack of embarrassment, her total ease in her naked body. He touched her breasts and she sighed. He pressed his hand between her thighs and she moaned.
After that, he felt guilty, though. And afraid. Afraid she’d tell her aunt, that he’d be fired. Afraid to ask her not to say anything about it. He suffered alone for two days, until she came to him again. It had never occurred to him that she wanted to keep the secret, that she desired him, that he could allow her to slake his lust.
When the trip was over, and Emily parted, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a sly wink, and that was it. No tears, no promise to write, and never a single card. He’d just been one of her many adventures in India. Something, as Arun would say, to write about in her journal.
(image of the Umaid Gardens from www.hotelresidencypalace.com)
When Ami returned to the Ambassador, Dev seemed remorseful, apologizing for the over-crowded Gardens and the sad state of the museum. Then drove her up above the city to the Meherangarh Fort.
Ami gave his odd behavior little thought, taking in, instead, the way Jodhpur spread out below them. Against the stark backdrop of Rajasthan, the old city rose, in shades of blue, from the blander new buildings.
“Why blue?” She asked.
“Jodhpur is blue city,” Dev answered, as if it were obvious. “Brahmin
people started this—painting their houses, but now the non-Brahmins are painting, also.”
She nodded, wondering at the blue buildings—angular, multi-level dwellings of brilliant indigo, set against the browns of the desert.
As she walked toward the fort, wrapping her scarf around her head again, to protect her from the bright sun of the afternoon, a small woman, squatting at the edge of the car park, pushed her tiny daughter into Ami’s path. The child’s father, outfitted with a bright yellow turban, began to play a wooden flute, and the girl, a serious child with kohl-rimmed eyes and a fuchsia kameez, began to dance.
Ami couldn’t move, and so transfixed she watched the scene unfold.
The girl sang along with her father’s flute, a high, nasal song punctuated by the mimicked grace of her arms and bare feet. As she twisted her small hands into the various mudras, her wrist full of bangles chinked, almost in time to her singing.
And then the song was over, and Ami didn’t know whether to clap or to bow in a respectful Namaste, until the mother unabashedly muttered “baksheesh,” and Ami remembered her place. She freed fifty rupees from her pocket, unsure as to whether that was an obscene amount or far too little, and handed it to the still-crouching mother, who folded her hands in an unemotive thank you.
And then that moment had passed, and Dev was directing her to the fort’s entrance, telling her to meet him at the car in thirty minutes.
(image of Jodhphur from www.photosbymartin.com)
There were moments, stolen moments, mostly, when the rush of the day gave way to delicious stillness, which was how she’d imagined India.
In fact, in her mind’s eye, India had been long, languid days strolling the grounds of the Taj Mahal, wondering at the smooth white marble and the exquisite architecture. The trip, in fantasy form, included a meeting with a guru of some sort in a hushed and cool temple, the floor scattered with jasmine blossoms and the air carrying the occasional waft of Nag Champa. She would fold her hands, clutching a strand of prayer beads, and as she bowed at the guru’s impossibly clean feet, he’d touch the crown of her head and pass some bit of knowledge onto her.
In short, India would make her peaceful. She’d return filled with calm and perspective, understanding the intricate workings of life, elevating herself above the material-driven hustle of her former life and residing, instead, on a plane of compassionate detachment.
She’d return to her apartment with tapestries, cushions, statuary and incense—things to remind her of her new-found inner peace, and she’d take up meditation, finding it suddenly easily within her grasp to empty her mind of the usual tangle of thoughts. Invariably, she’d meet a man who “got” her—someone who wore loose cotton pants, practiced yoga, and had traveled to India himself. They’d have meaningful conversations over feasts at the local India restaurant, eating the food with the fingers of their right hands and laughing appreciatively at the other diners who didn’t understand the custom.
All of that would come from three weeks traveling through the Northern part of the country. And if not that, then at least Ami would return to Philadelphia better rounded, more adventurous, less afraid of being alone. She’d be a bit more like Holly. She’d offer travel advice to the timid younger women she worked with and say, brimming with confidence, “Oh, Agra is so lovely this time of year…” or something like that.
Reality, of course, was different. The moments of clarity were few and far between, wedged among the far more prevalent moments of horror at the squalor, annoyance with the traffic, the filth, the betel-spit stains on every hotel wall and the hair oil clinging to every pillow. She wavered between relishing thali plates and feeling nauseous at the passing scent of mango pickles, curry, and bidi smoke. She sometimes hated the rickshaw drivers, yelled at hotel clerks about the outrageous prices, and sent her lassi back in a tantrum when she spotted crushed ice floating in the sweetened yogurt.
But there was one morning in Orchha, while Dev slept late, that she wandered out of the town center and found her way to an abandoned temple. Climbing the crumbling outside walls, she tried the massive carved doors, only to find them locked. Peering into a narrow, glassless window she could almost make out the cavernous interior, the murals of Krishna and Radha flaking on the walls, the spiraling dome that rose above the temple’s main chamber.
At that moment, a boy appeared from nowhere and pointed to the same window. “You like to see in temple?”
She nodded.
He scampered up the wall, pulling himself to the windowsill and slipping inside.
She followed. There seemed no other choice but to follow the boy, her self-appointed guide.
It was easy to slide into the opening, easier that she’d thought, and once into the half-dark room, he was calling to her. “This way, Madam.”
Together they circumnavigated the inside of the temple.
“Do you come here often?” she asked.
“Yes, my mother is cleaning the temple. She is having the key.”
Of course. A key. And yet they’d crawled through the window. But there wasn’t time to think about it, the boy was pointing to a flight of stairs, and Ami followed. They wound their way through a near-dark passage onto the next level, coming out on a balcony overlooking the main room.
“Do people still come to this temple?”
The boy just smiled and waggled his head. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t there gathering historical or sociological data.
“You'll see the roof now?” he asked, “See the baby eagle?”
“Baby eagle?”
“Yes, come.”
So she followed her guide again—he was certainly no more than ten years old—allowed him to lead her into an even narrower, steeper stairway that led into complete darkness. And just as fear settled over her, Ami felt the warm little hand grasp her own and pull her up the last stairs—only a foot wide, but easily two feet apart—and into a shaft of bright sunlight.
“See? Roof,” he announced, as if she hadn’t believed him when he’d first suggested it. And sure enough, they were walking around the temple’s dome, clutching the buttresses for support. Ami allowed herself to look out over Orchha, over the small town and the vast expanses of rolling landscape and fields. She felt something then—the soaring sense of detachment that she’d longed for—but she couldn’t pin the feeling down.
“Baby eagle,” the boy whispered, close to her now. He pointed to a nest built tightly against one of the buttresses, and sure enough, aviary warbling emanated from the clutch of twigs and leaves.
“Really?” But she didn’t have to ask, because the mother bird swooped in then, guarding her young.
“We'll go now,” the boy announced, seriously, leading his tour of one out of danger of the protective mother bird, and together they clambered back into the dark temple, back into the large round room, and then, much to Ami’s surprise, out the front door where the boy’s mother was busily sweeping the stone floor.
“Thank you,” Ami said to her young companion, feeling that money was inadequate for what he’d shown her. But she tipped him handsomely, and handed him, also, the cheap plastic sunglasses she was wearing. He grinned and ran back to his mother.
Walking away, Ami realized she didn’t even know his name. Nor did he know hers. And somehow that suited her.
(image of Orchha temples from varungiri.googlepages.com)
Surrindar Singh steered his taxi with one hand, the other arm rested lazily on the back of the seat. His good friend Devesh Marugan sat beside him in the front seat, and they spoke together easily in Hindi. Ami, riding in the back, looked blandly out the window.
“This my good friend, Surrindar,” Dev turned to Ami. “We are knowing each other many years, always visiting in Jodhpur.”
She nodded. “Are you both from Jodhpur?”
“No!” Surrindar laughed at the absurdity of it. “Dev is from tiny town near the Himalayas. He has not told you?”
Ami shook her head.
Surrindar shrugged. “He is very odd, my friend. Sometimes too private, I think. But I will tell you. Dev is having two older brothers and one sister. His sister is younger than he, but even she is already married and living in Delhi. Only Dev is not married. His poor mother!”
“Don’t listen to him,” Dev announced, half-laughing.
“Listen to me!” Surrindar insisted, twirling the ends of his moustache. “When will this man settle down and make a nice family?”
“Yes, when?” Ami joined in the fun.
“First I’m starting my own business,” Dev told them. “Then I’ll start the family.”
“Yes, when you’re very old.” Surrindar looked at him with a serious face, but neither of them could maintain it, and both burst into laughter.
“Surrindar is married only one year, and now he can tell me how to live my life,” Dev told Ami, shaking his head.
“Hey, where are we going?” she asked, watching the city pass by her window again.
“Clock tower market,” Surrindar informed her. “Most famous market. Really, the name is Sardar Market, but you see—Market is near clock tower.” He pointed out the front window and she could see it—the landmark raising above the crowded throng of market stalls.
“Even at night this market is open?” she realized the question was a stupid one—if it weren’t bustling, they wouldn’t be caught in a traffic jam.
Dev turned back to her. “You can get out here, go shopping. We will meet you at the car park in front of the clock tower—one hour.”
She looked around nervously.
“It’s okay, Madam,” Surrindar insisted. “You are very safe here and we are waiting for you.”
She nodded and jumped out of Surrindar’s cab at the next stop, waving goodbye as the throng swallowed her up.
(image from www.majanile.com)
There was nothing in the market, really. Or, rather, there was too much, but nothing Ami wanted. She strolled past booth after booth, ducking into a few of the shops that lined the crowded streets. As far as she could tell, the market stocked an over abundance of plastic wear, cheap shoes, packs of socks, utilitarian underwear, and ready-made dresses hermetically sealed in plastic packets. There were polyester shirts in garish colors, tacky children’s toys, gaudy costume jewelry and packets of bindis. It wasn’t the sort of market Holly talked about, where peasant women in cholis and wide skirts sold hand-sewn pillow shams pieced together from scraps of brilliantly dyed saris. Instead, it was an orgy of cheap crap, and people were scurrying about snatching up as much as they could, elbowing each other to get in and out of shops.
Ami decided to look for another kameez. She felt comfortable in the one she’d had made—comfortable enough to imagine that she blended in, somewhat. She’d left the kameez back at the hotel, though, drying in the tiled bathroom. Though the bathrooms with the shower uncontained in the center of the room left all of her toiletries soaked every time she attempted a bath, Ami did find the eastern contraption convenient for doing laundry. She could just lay her dirty clothes on the bathroom floor while she soaped and scrubbed her body, and then let soap run over her clothing as she washed. Not that anything ever got too clean, but it was better than nothing.
She wondered if that was how Dev managed to stay so tidy. He’d finally appeared in a new outfit—a pair of purple-tinted slacks and a blue plaid button-down. He never exhibited a wrinkle or a sweat stain, though he’d worn his other two ensembles for days at a time.
Several shops in a row boasted Punjabi suits hanging in the window, so Ami picked one and wandered in. The dresses, she found, were stacked on shelves in the basement, and there seemed to be no particular system to the stacking.
“Yes, what-do-you-want?” A salesman demanded.
“A kameez… something in green, perhaps…”
He began madly snatching packets from the shelves—anything with the slightest hint of green was fair game.
Ami lifted one plastic-wrapped square and examined the design. A fairly mute paisley. “This is nice..." she began.
He yanked the dress from the plastic, shaking it to it’s full size—a massive muumuu of fabric, accompanied by a pair of baggy pajamas in a contrasting cream color, with a matching scarf. “You like?”
“Yes, but… too large.”
“Small size!”
He began grabbing more packets, this time emptying the contents and holding them up for Ami to see. They all seemed to be cut from the same one-size-fits-all pattern—a design surely intended for obese or pregnant women. “Do these fit Indian women?” she wondered out loud. “They seem so…big.”
“Yes, big size. Very good.” He held up a lime green number with a red scarf.
“I can’t wear that. Anything plain? No pattern?”
The hunt began anew, but in the end, despite the valiant efforts of the clerk to convince Ami that a tropical flower print in aqua was, indeed, subdued, she left the shop empty handed.
“No shopping?” Dev asked when Ami found him and Surrindar sitting on the trunk of the cab.
“Nothing my size.”
“Impossible,” Surrindar declared. “Everything is in the Sardar Market. All sizes.”
Ami just shook her head.
“No problem,” Dev offered. “You will find nice shops in Pushkar. Tomorrow we are going.”
(image from mumbaidailysnapshot.blogspot.com)
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