Udaipur, Day 13

(image from www.cache.virtualtourist.com)

When they’re standing on the wall of Sajjan Garh, the Monsoon Palace, overlooking Udaipur from what seems a remarkable height, he won’t meet her eye. She’s acting oblivious, chattering on and on like a fool.

“It must have been grand, but it’s almost hard to imagine now, being in such disrepair.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I read a little bit about it,” she continues, as if they’re having a normal conversation. “It was built by the Maharaja Sajjan more than a century ago. I guess he came here with his family to escape the summer heat.”

Dev nods at her, furrows his brow. He had tried to get out of the trip, had gone so far as to suggest to Rafiq that maybe Adil could manage the trip on his motor scooter. He pointed out that Ami could fend for herself and certainly Adil’s feeble come-ons would amount to nothing. Plus, he was the perfect guide to show Ami through the wildlife sanctuary and to spend the late afternoon climbing around the abandoned palace with the American.

But Rafiq wouldn’t hear of it. He needed Adil to tend to the garden, and anyway, the hour-long drive would be much more comfortable by car.

So Dev went, but he wasn’t happy about it. He shoved a Kumar Sanu tape in the dashboard and played it loud to avoid talking to Ami, hoping that they could put the previous evening behind them and get on with business as usual.

In the fading light of the day, the brightness all turned to thick gold, spilling down the back side of the fort. Dev had to admit he was, if only secretly, glad he’d come. He didn’t know if he’d ever really seen the palace, even though he’d been there many times. Before, it was just another tourist site. Another crumbling scrap of architecture, the history of a country—his country—becoming dust under so many pairs of hiking shoes and sneakers. Usually he sat in his car, listened to the radio, dozed, thought about when he’d be able to take a little time off, get a good rest.

This time, Ami had wanted him to come along, to scramble over the broken stone and gaze out at the view. She was sitting on the ground, gazing up at the palace’s steep walls, her face full of wonder.

He relented. “Give me the camera,” he said. “I’m making nice snap.” He mimed pointing and clicking.

She handed it over, then returned to her dreamy pose, which was how he wanted it. That perfect moment of Ami in her own world, buoyant against the darkening sky, part of the Indian landscape and yet completely separate.

Which was how he’d found her in the restaurant garden, long after Octopussy had finished and most of the other tourists had moved on to other bars, other means of entertainment. Ami was sitting in her chair, legs pulled up, her shawl wrapped around both of her shoulders and her knees. She was gazing up at the sky, which revealed no stars for all the lights in the town.

“You want to go to roof?” he asked.

“No, I like it here. I like to pretend about the stars, pretend I’m seeing the sky from my apartment at home. I think if I saw it as it really looks, with all the constellations in different places, I’d feel terribly homesick.”

He sat down beside her, looking up, trying to remember what the night sky looked like from his home town. He knew it was dark enough there to see the stars, to see beyond the solar galaxy, it seemed. So clear and dark. And surely he’d watched the stars, found the constellations and recited their names as a boy, but he couldn’t remember. His mind was full of night driving, dark roads, the tunnel vision of headlights.

Ami ordered drinks, poured whisky from a bottle into two glasses and they’d toasted to ridiculous things. James Bond, the German Shepherd, the Taj Mahal.

“You have to see Taj,” he told her. “You can’t visit India and not go to Taj.”

“Will you drive me then?” she asked, her eyes watery and bright. “And also to Khajuraho. I read about it in my guide book.”

“All this way?” he asked, wondering if she was serious.

“Yes. Already my trip’s ending, and I feel like I’m only just arriving.”

And then they were leaving the garden, stumbling together along the cobbled streets toward the car. Far too drunk to drive. Dev was looking for a motor rickshaw to carry them back to the hotel. Ami swooned, wavered toward the wall.

“Madam, you must be careful.”

The rickshaw came hurtling around the corner too fast for Dev to flag it down. He grabbed Ami against him, pulling them both back from the street.

She smelled like shampoo, the antiseptic clean of Westerners, but also like curry, alcohol, and sweat.

There faces were so close he could see her eyes widen, almost sober for a moment, smell the sweetness of her breath underlying the whisky, breathe her in.

“It is late,” he said, but time was of no importance.

She crossed the three inches of empty space between their lips. She was without language, insistent, urgent, reaching across boundaries, racing over highways, worlds colliding in her wake.
Dev brought his hands to her face, met her on her wordless course, met her over and over again.

He brought the camera down, let the memory of the previous night wash over him, tried to weigh out his options, his two roles: driver versus suitor. She was gazing up at him.

“I wonder if the Maharaja had many wives, and they all came to live here, or if he built this for his one true love…” Ami dropped her hands into her lap and looked at them as if they were two strange birds that had just fallen from the sky. “Forget it. That’s just cheesy.”

Dev swallowed hard. “Tomorrow morning we are leaving early, Ami. We have much driving to see also Jaipur, Agra and Khajuraho.”

He watched her mouth curve into a smile, hoped he was making the right decision.


(image from www.travelphotosforyou.com)

Interlude

By day, Ganesh sat stoic on the dash. As stoic, that is, as a fat-bellied boy wearing an elephant’s head could be. He was not a serious god. Not one of those fire and brimstone characters. Not even all about the visceral aspects of life—the birth blood, guts, pains of death, fluids. That was the business of his father Shiva.

Ganesh was more about the humor of it all. He laughed at suffering, laughed at success. All of it a cosmic game. He included himself in the big joke, knowing it was his uniqueness, his massive elephant head, that gave him his strength.

It is known that each of the Gods and Goddesses has an animal vehicle; a familiar of sorts carrying him or her along on his divine errands. For Shiva a bull, for Lakshmi an owl for Durga a tiger, for Saraswati a swan. When it came time for Ganesh to choose his vehicle, he chose a mouse—a selection that surely must have made the other deities chuckle and roll their eyes. But though the mouse—and everyone else—was expecting nothing more than a splattered rodent when the elephant-boy mounted his transport, nothing of the like happened. Instead, Ganesh sat upon his mouse as light as a cork. And that is a lesson in how spirituality must rest upon the soul—always buoyant, weightless.

It is said that to an elephant, his tusks are his most prized possession and devout pachyderms keep theirs always clean and polished. So, too, did Ganesh love his tusks, and yet one was broken.

Some claim that the childish deity broke his in a quarrel with the moon. The young God was a glutton for sweets and had gorged himself to the point of bursting on rice balls and jaggary. As he traveled along on his mouse, stomach bulging, a snake happened onto the road and frightened the poor rodent. Ganesh toppled from his startled ride and in the crash, his belly exploded like a piñata. He gathered his sweets, crammed them back into his gut, and used the snake as a belt to contain himself. Which was what the moon spotted—and laughed at. The elephant, in a rage, snapped off one of his tusks and hurled it at the insolent moon as punishment.

Others tell a different story—a far more dignified account. It seems that the cherished tusk was broken and used as a pen to scribe the sacred Mahabharata. And so Ganesh showed the world that all possessions are valueless but for their service to God.

For Ganesh was hardly a God of comical buffoonery and party-trick luck. He was far too clever for that. With his great ears he listened to the prayers of his worshippers and with his great wit doled out both blessings and obstacles. Because, he mused, the greatest blessings came from overcoming hardship, from learning to meet challenges with humor and grace. And so Ganesh was not just a deity of favors, but the one who set the road blocks in place—and the one who removed those same road blocks at the exact perfect moment.