The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  The detective motioned for me to step closer to the holy man.

  “What’s he here for? What’s going to happen?”

  “Just watch.”

  The ascetic continued to sit cross-legged in meditation. A few minutes later another man appeared, dug a shallow hole in the earth with his hands, and left. We continued to wait. A modest crowd, about fifteen people, turned up and circled around the Aghori. They appeared to know exactly what was going on. The godman stirred from his trance and rose to his feet. Then, having wrapped a rag shirt around his head, he leant over and pushed it into the hole. Sand was carefully filled in around the head, with the sadhu now balancing upside-down.

  “Vatson, what’s happening?”

  “The Aghori is going into hibernation,” said the sleuth.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” said Vatson.

  “Human hibernation … I’ve heard about this … it’s all an illusion!” I shouted.

  Vatson gave me a stern look.

  “I know it’s illusion,” he whispered, “but be quiet.”

  An hour passed. The crowd watched the pandit’s upturned body with great concentration. Another hour went by. A pye dog was warded away with a stick when it made a run for the Aghori’s drinking skull.

  After another hour of waiting I was mad with boredom. At last Vatson turned to me.

  “Did you notice that very fine, dry sand was being filled in around the Aghori’s face?”

  “Yes, I did, it was different from the earth around it.”

  “Exactly: look closely, and you’ll see that the ground here is clay. The hole was filled with dry sand. The sadhu can breathe through it.”

  Four hours after his hibernation had begun, the Aghori suddenly pulled his head from its sand-filled hole. He unwound the cloth from his face and took a sip of water from the skull. Vatson and I might not have been persuaded, but the crowd was visibly moved by the feat.

  As Vatson Private Eye led me away, I told him about the most famous of all human hibernations, which I had once heard about.

  In the 1830s, fabulous tales of hibernation came from a remote mountain community near Jammu. They told of a slight, dainty man with calculating eyes, named Haridas, and this soon reached the ears of the Maharajah of Lahore.

  The Maharajah, who was a skeptic, sent for Haridas, requesting that he perform his feat under controlled test conditions. Haridas arrived, and the experiment began.

  Various distinguished English physicians and soldiers were present at the Maharajah’s palace. At the initial examination, one of the doctors noticed that Haridas had cut away the muscles beneath his tongue, allowing him to push it backwards, sealing his throat. In the days preceding the burial, Haridas took hot baths up to his armpits, flushed out his bowels, and consumed only milk and yoghurt.

  The day before the burial, he swallowed a piece of linen, thirty yards long. Officials and courtiers looked on in stupefaction as, before their eyes; Haridas withdrew the bandage, dislodging any remaining material from his digestive tract.

  At last, preparing himself for hibernation, Haridas sat in the lotus position, sealed up his nostrils and ears with dainty wax plugs, closed up his throat with his flipped-back tongue, and folded his arms.

  His pulse was no longer traceable, and the European physicians were already at a loss for words. Haridas was placed in a great chest, fastened with a padlock embossed with the Maharajah’s own seal.

  The trunk was carried out ceremoniously into the palace gardens, a cavity was dug, the box was lowered down, and the hole was filled with earth. As a further precaution, a crop of barley was planted above where the hibernating sadhu lay. A towering wall was constructed around the entire area. Palace sentries guarded the spot day and night.

  Forty days passed. The court was rife with anticipation. With the courtiers unable to stand the suspense any longer, the Maharajah gave the order for the wall, the barley and the soil to be removed. The chest was hauled from the hole, and the padlock was smashed away. Hesitantly, the box’s lid was opened. To everyone’s amazement, the godman was alive, sitting in the same position as when buried more than a month before.

  A doctor removed the nostril and ear plugs, pulled the ascetic’s tongue forward into position, and breathed air into his lungs. Within an hour he was as fit as ever before.

  Haridas was lauded by the Maharajah, who presented him with a handful of diamonds. The people of Lahore rejoiced in the streets and followed the sadhu wherever he went. Further public hibernations took place in cities across India. Haridas became a celebrity, shunning his simple clothes for more resplendent attire.

  Wined and dined, and courted by high society, Haridas forgot his humble birth. When complaints accumulated that the godman had seduced a number of high-ranking ladies, it was too much for the government. Haridas was sent back to his mountain village, and was never heard from again.

  I asked Vatson for his impressions.

  He thought hard for a few seconds. Then, looking me in the eye, and screwing up his face, he barked:

  “Poppycock!”

  FIVE

  Waiting Out the Jinns

  Kipling called the Grand Trunk Road ‘such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world”, and he was spot on.

  Carving a route from Calcutta westwards, to the wilds of the Hindu Kush, the G.T. – pronounced “Geetee” – is not for the faint-hearted. My decision to continue to West Bengal by bus was one inspired by lunacy. What kind of deranged simpleton would give up the gentle rocking of a locomotive for the jarring, back-breaking ride of an Indian bus? This was a question I asked myself many times, as the antique vehicle of the Express Bus Company strained to reach its cruising speed of nine miles an hour.

  Seething forward in a savage whirlwind race to the finish line, the maelstrom was thick and furious. There were bullock carts loaded with towers of sugar cane, buses with passengers swinging from the windows; Ashok Leyland trucks piled high with baskets of rotting fish, cows with nowhere else to go; gasoline tankers steered by chain-smoking drivers; taxis and rickshaws, steam-rollers and articulated trucks; a full traveling circus, complete with a wagon of clowns, a convoy of elephants, a cohort of cyclists with their families riding two up; and a man on crutches trying to keep up. At the eye of the tornado’s vortex, helpless amid the intense black fog of diesel fumes and blaring klaxon horns, was the Express bus.

  After forty fearful hours, with other passengers and me bent double in the crash-landing position, the vehicle rumbled into Calcutta. I half expected a welcoming committee, a brass band, and a commandant with medals of valor for each survivor’s chest. But no one noticed us arrive. The bus slid to a halt in a rest area on the banks of the Hoogly River. Before being spewed out, I patted the driver on the back and saluted. He was a man with iron nerves. Like comrades in a forgotten war, we now shared a special bond. I gathered my few belongings together and heard the other passengers murmuring, “Geetee always drives someone crazy!”

  * * * *

  Calcutta has spectacular over-employment. In the West, where we’re obsessed with slashing the numbers of workers for the sake of it, we drool at the idea of more, faster computers, fewer humans. But as we struggle to adopt an ever-changing technology, we lose sight of the satisfaction that only a finely tuned human system can provide.

  As I toured the city’s municipal bastions in search of Feroze, I marveled at just how many people were engrossed with work. The General Post Office, situated on the site of the infamous Black Hole, is a splendid place. The Renaissance dome, Corinthian colonnades and traces of Baroque adorn what is an imposing building. Yet far more impressive is the postal system itself. Purchase a postage stamp, and the extended machine of clerks activates.

  The first clerk calls out to the next customer in the queue, the second listens to the customer’s order, the third writes it down, the fourth weighs the envelope in his hand, the fifth checks the price for that weight, the sixth explains to the seventh which stam
p to select from the stamp folder, the eighth tears out the right stamp, the ninth applies glue to its underside, the tenth affixes it to the envelope, the eleventh takes the customer’s money, and the twelfth makes out the receipt.

  Heartened by such a meticulous procedure, I hailed a taxi and directed its crew to the bank, where I had arranged to collect my money. In Calcutta, the driver has an assistant who interacts with the customer. Sitting in the front passenger seat, he also navigates, takes the money, mumbles pleasantries and maintains the taxi’s dashboard shrine. I reclined in the back seat safe in the hands of professionals. The hulk of a car veered into the fray like a battle tank on maneuvers.

  As we swerved from one lane to the next, I took a moment to inspect the lavish dashboard shrine. Crafted with rare workmanship, it possessed multiple moving parts. The centerpiece was a foot-high golden figurine of Kali, weighed down by garlands of skulls. Six cleaver wielding arms flagellated rhythmically in time with the taxi’s 1970's disco sounds. Every nine seconds the mouth of the black-faced goddess flew open. Like some fiendish cuckoo-clock from Hell, she retched crimson blood-like dye down her torso. A miniature receptacle at the base of the statuette collected the liquid, which was then pumped back to the mouth. Excellent stuff, I meditated, as the driver and his subordinate swayed their heads to “Night Fever”, I wondered how many people were involved in making that.

  As he handed over the money, the bank manager suggested I search for Feroze at Kalighat, Calcutta’s temple of Kali. It seemed a peculiar place to look but, being new in town, I took his advice.

  With its rounded domes, lines of jostling beggars, widows, and pilgrims with shaven heads, you might expect Kalighat to be like any other of India’s temples. But rather than being a sanctuary designed to celebrate life, Kalighat is dedicated to venerating death. The overriding association with Kali ought to have hinted it was no place to find Hakim Feroze.

  Non-Hindus are forbidden from entering Kalighat. But I went unchallenged, proceeding through a low doorway into the main courtyard. The first sight to greet me was that of infertile women tying oyster-sized stones to the branches of an enchanted cactus. The procedure is said to make any barren woman bear a child.

  Despite the life-giving plant, a sense of gruesome debauchery hung like a curtain over the shrine. Glaring images of Kali scrutinized every footstep. Garlanded with decapitated heads of the vanquished, and feasting on human blood, Kali’s voluptuous form is far more ghoulish than anything Hollywood has ever dreamt up. Her tongue hangs out, lusting for death; her ten hands wield executioners’ swords; and her large, bloodthirsty eyes hypnotize her foes.

  The temple was constructed in 1809 on the site of a former shrine. Hindu scriptures tell that it was built at the exact spot where one of Kali’s toes fell to Earth. It was here that Thugs would pray before rambling off to strangle unsuspecting travelers.

  In one corner of the courtyard a goat was being tempted to a simple enclosure with some lush leaves. The animal chewed away at the foliage, green-eyed and trusting, content as all goats are. Greed blinkered it to the garnet-red goat blood in which it was standing. But even if the creature had attempted an escape, odds were against it. Within seconds, an executioner’s hand tilted its head east, and clamped it tightly in a vice. The glint of a blade followed. Before it could bleat in protest, the goat was dead.

  At a second enclosure, opposite the first, a pair of butchers hacked up the meat. Heaped at their feet like a pile of bloodied boots were the goat heads.

  Up to two dozen sacrifices to Kali are made at the shrine daily. Until the last century, human immolations formed an important part of the temple’s busy routine. Before an animal is slain, devotion is offered in honor of the mighty goddess – consisting of milk, blended with Ganga water and bhang, cannabis paste. The goat, or other offering, is washed and garlanded with jabba flowers, red hibiscus, before it’s sacrificed. Then, as the ritualistic knife is made ready, the devotee whispers a prayer into the goat’s ear. The message is taken directly to Kali by the goat’s soul.

  I suspected the bank manager had been well aware that Kalighat was a red herring of the most bloodthirsty kind. Splendid, I mused as I made my escape from the macabre shrine. Practical joking is very much alive in this town. I think I’ll enjoy it here.

  * * * *

  For five days I did nothing but hunt Feroze.

  Calcutta is a large city, but within a week I felt certain I was searching for someone who did not exist. Had Hafiz Jan been wrong in directing me to Calcutta? Or had Feroze moved elsewhere? Both were strong possibilities. Yet I knew very well such questions were liable to remain unanswered.

  I suspected that the harder I pursued him, the less likely I was to come across Hakim Feroze. In honored tradition, the jinns had obviously seen me engaged in the chase. Having a bit of fun, as jinns like to do, they had hidden Feroze from me. In time, a virtuous spirit would pull back the shroud and reveal the teacher. Meanwhile, I would have to wait out the jinns.

  Avoiding a tram rattling towards me like a hopper at a coal head, I crossed the road and turned left on to College Street. Famous for its hundreds of bookstalls, College Street must be the largest graveyard on Earth for out-of-date books. Faded by the sun, dampened by monsoon deluges, and eroded by the continuous abrasion of city life, all the books on sale have seen better days. I ferreted about in the skyscraper stacks. Half the books found on College Street are concerned with lost programming languages of early computers. The other half is romance. I inched my way down the central promenade and stumbled into the Mills and Boon Bazaar. Tussling over the squared-edge piles, businessmen and schoolgirls, office clerks and taxi drivers were searching zealously for a racy romantic read.

  Peeking up from a disintegrating copy of A Chance Encounter, a stallholder in the Mills and Boon Bazaar suggested I have coffee at his beloved haunt. Guide books like to tell you that the Albert Hall is Calcutta’s answer to a cafe on Paris’ Left Bank. It’s a nice line which once – very long ago – might have been true.

  Albert Hall Coffee Shop is a square second-floor room, where a high ceiling and steep walls hide beneath a thick layer of powdery soot. A score of antique fans rotate in slow motion, their sharp rounded blades slicing the air like scimitars. Inside the Albert Hall there were no vivacious intellectuals, debating important issues of the day. Nor was there the impenetrable silver smoke of Gauloises. The twenty or so tables were empty. Empty, that is, except for a single elderly, hunchbacked man at one end of the room, who was mounting stamps in an album.

  The figure seemed lonely, a feeling which disturbed me. So I went over to his corner table and sat down. The hunchback’s head was round, like an orb, his clothing shabby, ingrained with Calcutta’s own indescribable blend of pollution. His complexion was so waxy it reflected the chipped pearl-blue vinyl tabletop over which he was leaning.

  “Those are nice stamps,” I said admiringly.

  “What? What is it you’re saying?” replied the man, who appeared to be hard of hearing.

  “I said those stamps are nice. Very colorful.”

  I hoped to endear myself to the gentleman through praise.

  “What stamps?”

  We seemed to be having trouble getting a conversation going.

  “The ones in your album … those ones are very nice and colorful … Brazilian, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, like stamps, do you?”

  Marvelous, I thought, he’s getting the hang of it. There’s no stopping us now.

  “Yes, I like stamps very much. Do you like stamps?”

  The man’s expression suddenly turned from one of angelic tenderness to one of extreme acerbity.

  “No!” he bellowed. “I hate stamps. Think they’re wretched little things.”

  “Then what are you collecting them for?”

  “This isn’t my album,” the hunchback confessed, lighting a cigarette. “It’s my friend’s. He’s in the bathroom.”

  At that moment, a tall figure, suave as a
toreador, with strong Pashtun features and turtle-green eyes, returned to the table and sat down. His zinc-gray hair was sculpted back with lavender brilliantine; his face was clean-shaven, save for a neatly clipped mustache. Over a white sailcloth shirt, he wore a tan vest, its last button undone. His fine beige twill-woven pants, and expertly polished Oxfords, hinted of a stern, wealthy upbringing. His hands, with manicured nails and plucked of their hair, were flecked with liver spots, leading me to suspect he was in his mid-sixties. Seldom does one come across such a well-presented gentleman. But far more forceful than his appearance was the aura of solemn confidence which encircled him.

  Turning to his friend, he said in an exquisite low, silky voice:

  “Rublu, who is your new acquaintance?”

  The hunchback replied, without looking up:

  “Haven’t any idea – he was interested in the stamps.”

  “I couldn’t help noticing – a wonderful collection you have, sir,” I said.

  “Oh, thank you, young man, I have been collecting stamps for many years. I’ve got all the Indian ones, and most of the British ones, too, going back about …” he thought for a few seconds. “ … Going back about eighty-three years, I suppose.”

  ‘Stamps are vile things …” the hunchback repeated pensively.

  “Don’t pay any attention to Rublu, he’s jealous. You see, he doesn’t have a hobby – never has had.”

  The hunchback flicked cigarette ash into his coffee. Then he slurped the treacle-like liquid from a saucer, held to his lips. I watched with some interest.