The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  “Stop smoking! You’re much too young to smoke. How old are you anyway?”

  Bhalu scrunched up his eyes.

  “I’m seventeen.”

  “You’re nothing of the sort. You’re not even through puberty!”

  “Well,” he brooded, reviewing his answer. “People often think I’m seventeen.”

  “How long have you been tricking people, living on the streets?”

  “About six years … I ran away from that stupid orphanage when I was six.”

  “You’ve spent half your life on the streets of Calcutta?”

  “Yup … and I make a good living, too.”

  There could be nothing more fat-headed than a Calcutta-born trickster flaunting his successes. One after another, Bhalu advertised his deceptions, boasting like a playground bully. Many were illusions of a sort, but illusions executed to gyp the unsuspecting.

  From card tricks and simple sleights to advanced feats of escapology and mind-reading, the Trickster’s inventory was one to marvel at.

  But, as well as a straightforward con man, Bhalu had achieved extraordinary success as a salesman. Give him anything and he would have a go at hawking it.

  “Let me see,” he said, shading his young eyes from the early-morning sunlight, “I have sold bottles of dirty water: say it with enough confidence and everyone believes it’s Ganga water. Once I took out the microphone discs from twenty telephones in Howrah and sold them on the trains. Old men always believe they’re special sex aids. Put them under the pillow and they send out invisible rays to make any wife passionate!”

  As Bhalu laughed, I put my head in my hands.

  “Then,” he continued, “I’ve sold rat tails as lucky charms; cigarette ash as a special ‘miracle’ beauty treatment, and soap pellets as aphrodisiacs. Women,” he went on, shaking his head in disbelief, “they’ll buy anything. Slip into the Ladies Only carriage of a commuter train, offer fake beauty products to the ugliest women – you make a fortune. They lap the stuff up!”

  The Trickster may have had entertaining tales, and was amiable enough when he wasn’t ripping people off. But still I was wary. I felt certain that – any time now – when I least expected it, he would strike like a disturbed adder in long grass waiting for his moment. Why had he selected me? Out of all the people on platform nine of Howrah Junction, why me? When I put such questions to him, Bhalu replied that our meeting, and this journey, was fate.

  “Don’t you want to meet the ‘gasoline Man’?” he asked abruptly, changing the subject.

  “Who’s he?”

  Bhalu rolled his eyes.

  “He turns water into gasoline, of course. He’s just south of here, at Rourkela.”

  A man who could actually transform ordinary water into gasoline certainly deserved a visit. So we went back to Tatanagar Station and boarded the slow train heading south. The Trickster had already cottoned on to my prime weakness – I’ll drop everything in search of oddity.

  We took advantage of the free window seats. A salubrious middle-aged figure squashed up beside me. There was no reason to get so close so soon, as the coach was still almost empty. So I stared at the man sternly, and grunted, warding him off. He held his ground. I looked over at him again. On his nose was balanced a pair of oversized glasses; like a welder’s goggles they masked much of his face. His eyes were enlarged fourfold, giving him a meek, trustworthy mien. On his lap rested a brand new reinforced plastic VIP Luggage attache case. Another member of the Secret Army.

  Before long, he introduced himself.

  “P.D. Roy is pleased to meet you,” he said, running his fingers effortlessly through his bushy toupee, as if it were his own hair.

  “Happy to meet you, too. Are you from Jamshedpur?”

  “No, no …” he responded. “I am salesman … I’m in vigs.”

  “Excuse me, but I didn’t catch your line of business.”

  “Vigs.”

  “Figs?” I looked at the Trickster.

  “He’s in wigs. He sells wigs!” the boy sniggered. “You know, for taklu, baldies!”

  Since hair loss is a sensitive subject in any country, I would rather have progressed to another topic. But launching in at the deep end, Bhalu interrogated the salesman on his profession.

  The passenger had all the accoutrements of a member of the Secret Army – the VIP case, the red coral ring on the little finger of his left hand; the stainless-steel ball-point poking from his shirt pocket. However, P.D. was a salesman with a difference.

  At one time, he recounted, he had traveled India’s local railway lines touting braking assemblies for auto-rickshaws. Every year he endured months away from home: months spent on trains, with their balding, attache-case-carrying salesmen. Brake assemblies were a product line devoid of emotion. Either you need one or you do not. P.D. was tired of talking brakes. He yearned for merchandize which people could get passionate about. It was then that he had a brainwave.

  Why not create a special product, suited specifically to the Secret Army of salesmen who peddle their wares on India’s local line trains? After all, VIP Luggage had done it. No self-respecting sales executive would be seen dead without VIP’s finest. So, P.D. came up with his “Director Brand” wig.

  The true brilliance of the product is not that it covers a bald patch – the secret is far more subtle than that. Fashioned for businessmen, P.D.’s toupees are all the same color and shape. Director Brand wearers are proud of their splendid hairpieces. They sport them with pride, wearing them like a medal, rather than an accessory for the follically challenged, and take comfort in owning what they consider is a membership card to India’s most exclusive club.

  I asked the wig merchant when he had first gone bald. It was a delicate question which, I hoped, would divert the conversation from the mercenary subject of the used-hair business.

  P.D. tugged the Director Brand toupee from his head and held it out at arm’s length towards me. It resembled a miniature three-toed sloth. I stroked the length of its back with my palm, for fear of offending the executive.

  “You don’t understand,” P.D. Roy responded when I had petted his hairpiece. “I’m not a baldie.”

  A close glance at his scalp corroborated this.

  “I shave my head,” he went on. “You see, the best thing a salesman can do is to use his own product. I don’t need the product I sell … but this is irrelevant. When customers see me proudly sporting a Director’s Brand – even though I don’t require one – they are even more eager to snap one or two up!”

  “You ought to be put up for an award!” I roared. “It’s brilliant.”

  Even the Trickster had to admit that P.D. Roy was taking salesmanship to new heights.

  “Where do you get all the hair from?”

  P.D.’s answer was a single word: “Tirupati.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “In Tamil Nadu, just north-west of Madras. It’s where the Temple of Lord Venkateshvara is located.”

  “What’s that got to do with wigs?”

  P.D. Roy, salesman extraordinaire, smiled broadly.

  “Tirupati is India’s only ‘vig temple’.”

  As the local train pulled away from a station of uncertain name, en route to Rourkela, the chief executive of Director Brand toupees revealed the legend:

  “At Tirupati, in southern India, the people were always unhappy,” he said. ‘They had no gold mines like the nearby towns; they couldn’t grow wheat as the ground was too stony; and the drinking water was naturally salty. In their misery, the townspeople gathered together for a meeting. They looked at their poor situation and at the prosperity of their neighbors. Tirupati, they thought, must be cursed by an evil spirit. The only thing to do was to construct a vast temple at Tirumala, in the hills above the village, and implore the help of the gods. So this was done.

  “When completed,” P.D. Roy went on, “the temple was impressive in every way. Its walls were faced with shining white marble. Its floors were scattered with r
ose petals. The people were so happy they spent every spare moment worshiping there. But still their fortunes didn’t improve. The water was saltier than ever; the ground seemed more stony now than before; and there wasn’t a gold mine in sight. Then someone had an idea.

  “The people of Tirupati would spread the word that praying at their fine temple at Tirumala could cure even the most debilitating disease. Anyone who sought divine help at their temple would be made well again. The news spread like wildfire. Soon there was a line of ten thousand cripples wending its way to the temple. As the first lame person prepared to step over the shrine’s threshold, the priest threw his arms in the air. He ordered that each pilgrim must have their head shaved in honor of Lord Venkateshvara. The afflicted agreed, and barbers set to work shaving the ten thousand heads. Every day another ten thousand handicapped pilgrims turned up. Each had their head shaved. Weeks went by, and the people of Tirupati met again. They congratulated themselves, for their temple had become very famous. But someone pointed out that – as the sick were permitted to pray for free – the community was still impoverished. Then a child at the meeting had a bright idea. Why not bundle up all the hair which had been sheared from people’s scalps and sell it for vigs?

  “Hair from Tirumala became very sought after,” P.D. Roy continued. “These days most dark-colored vigs in the world are made from hair shaved off at the temple. The once-impoverished village is now a thriving town; and the people who live at Tirumala are wealthy beyond their dreams … all because of the vigs.”

  “I have to see this for myself,” I said, circling Tirupati on the Master’s chart. “I’ll go there straight away.”

  Leaving the wig merchant to his case of toupees, Bhalu and I descended at Rourkela, in search of the man who turned water into gasoline. As we stepped on to the platform, the Trickster nudged me in the ribs.

  “Tirumala’s famous for all the hair that’s shaved off the pilgrims,” he said. “And wigs are made from the hair,” he said. “But as for the story … he’s made most of it up. Take it from me: it’s pure sales pitch.”

  So, I pondered, as we walked into town, even the used-hair business… has sharp-talking salesmen these days. Whatever is the world coming to?

  * * * *

  After a night killing mosquitoes at the Aspara Hotel, the Trickster led me into the maze of Rourkela’s back-streets. Like all industrial towns, Rourkela is a miniature world … a world of interminable shifts. Day or night you can buy a tin of local fertilizer, get your watch repaired, or gorge yourself on a street stall meal. Barbers were busy snipping hair, or running ice cubes across newly shaven faces. Their wives were hanging out the washing; their children sifting dirt through their infant fingers as if it were gold dust. A man was touting a cart of yellow plastic sandals. An old crone rambled by with a dried mango seed balanced on her head. A swarm of union workers followed somewhere behind, protesting their right to protest with garish banners, like a flank of Janissary warriors heading to war.

  One shop was doing particularly brisk business. It was more of a specialized booth than a full-scale emporium. Off-duty barbers, sandal-sellers and hags were wrestling forward, desperate to reach the counter. The lucky ones hurried away clutching blue and white tins.

  “Looks like a dispensary to me,” I warned Bhalu. “We’d better stock up with whatever it is while stocks last.”

  Bhalu pushed his way to the front, fighting off the droves of barbers and crones. Without asking what the tins contained, he bought two. They only cost ten rupees each. Snatching one away from him, I scrutinized the label.

  “Shellac,” I read, “‘Pure shellac flakes’ … I’ve never heard of them before. Must be a new kind of liver tonic or something. We can try it out later.”

  Bhalu gave me a restless glance.

  “One spoon of this stuff and you won’t have a liver,” he said.

  “Nonsense! Look at those women over there; the mere thought of it has given them a new lease of life.”

  “You haven’t got a clue what shellac is, have you?”

  I stuck my nose in the air. It was usually I who doled out medicinal information.

  “So what is it, then?”

  “It’s made from the waxy gum which oozes from the female lac beetle’s back.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a liver tonic…”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said the Trickster, “it’s a not medicine … it’s a varnish. Where do you think the word ‘lacquer’ comes from?”

  Before I could answer, Bhalu was proceeding down the lane. Minutes later, he had located the gasoline maker’s workshop. It seemed impossible that he could have located the place with such ease. I asked how he knew the man’s whereabouts, but he declined to reveal his sources.

  The workshop’s door was crafted from a single sheet of copper. A series of religious symbols had been etched into the verdigris. Among those I recognized were a swastika, a cross, a crescent and a Star of David. At the base of the door was a pile of about ten broken beer bottles. Someone had placed a dozen chicken’s feet in the middle of the glass. Was it a mysterious offering to the gods? There was only one way to find out.

  I knocked twice. As the door swung inwards, I wondered whether the dilapidated shed was indeed the workplace of a man claiming miraculous powers. Surely, anyone with a bona fide system of turning water into gasoline would be working out of a modern, high-tech laboratory.

  A single beam of blinding sunlight bisected the chamber. Three or four forty-gallon drums were lined up against the back wall. A number of dirty tea crates filled much of the room. The walls, which had been painted a rich shade of magenta, were etched with more crude diagrams, almost like pharaonic hieroglyphs. Standing in the center of the shack, bathed in the brilliant shaft of sunlight, stood Mr. Jafar.

  Bandy-legged and with skin as dark as ebony, Mr. Jafar fluttered his nimble fingers in the light. His breath was heavy with garlic; his countenance one of greedy anticipation. He wasn’t surprised we had come. Indeed, it was almost as if he had been awaiting our arrival. I presented him with a tin of shellac, as a token of goodwill. Thanking me courteously, he begged me to sit on an upturned oil drum.

  Then he told of his amazing discovery.

  “You may think that I am telling lies,” he announced gingerly, in a voice as shrill as a piccolo. “Skeptics always prod fun at me: but I understand their suspicions. My process is one of high chemistry. Why should the ignorant be capable of understanding?”

  Mr. Jafar gazed over to me with his piercing eyes, as if warning me not to doubt him. As he stared, he disclosed a little more:

  “I sat in this room experimenting for fifteen years,” he said. “Every day I drew closer to my aim; to turn simple drinking water into gasoline. Only when I was at the end of my tether did I finally chance upon the answer … the key to turn in the lock of nature.”

  “What is the answer?” I asked, bidding Bhalu to translate my question.

  “The answer!” shouted the scientist. “That’s what the whole world wants to know. Of course I can’t reveal the formula.”

  “Well, can you describe the process?”

  Mr. Jafar picked up a glass beaker and filled it with water from the tap. He held it up to the light. The color of milk, it had a fluorescent green tinge. I suspected run-off sludge from the steel plants of Rourkela had already given the local drinking water a high octane level.

  “This is the raw ingredient,” said the chemist. “Pure water.”

  “What do you do with it?”

  “First,” he replied, “the water is filtered through a pad of hay; then it’s mixed with the juice of bark extracts and berries, like this … When the solution has been stirred for a few minutes, it’s warmed under a naked gas flame.”

  Jafar paused to light a gas burner. Within seconds, the liquid was foaming.

  “Now for the magic!” said Jafar, beaming. “Can you see what I’m doing? I'm adding the special ingredient. It’s a blend of fifteen more her
bs and spices.”

  The chemist was beginning to sound like a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  “Is that gasoline now?”

  “No … before it can be used to power a vehicle, it has to be stored in a cool aluminum tin for thirty days.”

  “Thirty days? But I can’t sit here for a month waiting for your liquid to mature …”

  “Well,” snapped Jafar, “luckily I have some to show you that’s been brewing for more than a month.”

  Stepping over to one of the forty-gallon oil drums, he siphoned off five gallons into a more manageable gasoline canister.

  “Here you are,” he said, handing me the plastic container. “That will be six hundred rupees.”

  “Six hundred rupees? That’s far more expensive than ordinary gasoline. In any case, I don’t have a car to use it in.”

  Mr. Jafar seemed very displeased.

  “Fifteen years I have labored in this chamber,” he thundered. “I have achieved something that scientists in your country could only hope to accomplish. Look me in the eye and tell me again you are turning down the chance of buying what is nothing short of magic!”

  With great reluctance I pulled six hundred rupees from my shoe and handed it to the chemist.

  “Here’s the money.”

  Mr. Jafar jerked the wad of bills from my hand and inspected them for irregularities. As he stuffed them into his shirt pocket, I sensed him snorting to himself with laughter. He opened the door for us to leave. The interview was at an end.

  “Get out quickly,” he lisped, “or the dogs will get in.”

  “What dogs?”

  “Dogs! Dogs! All kinds of dogs! They’re lured by the smell of my ingredients. It drives them mad! They stand here at the door, waiting to sneak inside. That’s when they fall victim to my trap.”

  “Trap?”

  “The chicken’s feet … they’re too much of a temptation for them … then the glass cuts their feet!”

  Mr. Jafar let out an abhorrent guffaw.

  “Have a good journey. Oh, and you had better be careful,” he murmured through a crack in the door frame. “My special gasoline doesn’t travel well.”