The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  The Trickster grinned his Charlie Chaplin grin and followed after me as I walked away.

  “How have you managed without me?” he chirped. “You must be missing me a lot.”

  Hafiz Jan had once told me that my ancestor, Jan Fishan Khan, had burst out laughing on hearing that India’s first railway had been built. That was back in 1853. The thirty-four kilometer track stretched between Mumbai and Thane. Rising up like a Siberian bear, the great warlord had poured scorn on the preposterous Western invention. He had proclaimed that railway tracks would never be laid in his homeland, Afghanistan. “Your trains may suit you in Europe,” he thundered, “but Afghans would never keep to the tracks!” While Jan Fishan’s prediction remained true in his homeland – Afghanistan has no railways – rail travel caught on in India … in a big way.

  Even for Bhalu, the third-class train heading southward to Nellore was unpleasant. I made a big song and dance about the drop in comfort, until, that is, I realized that the really destitute travelers were sitting on the carriage’s roof. Crowded with dark, silent faces, the compartment had hard wooden benches and an oily layer of mud on the floor. Until now, the Trickster had preyed on middle-class travelers. As far as he was concerned, they made the perfect customers. They had just enough money to splurge on cut-price products – such as cigarette ash beauty powder – and were too new to the business of luxury to doubt the effectiveness of his wares. Now presented with the lower-income echelon of south Indian society, he would need a fresh patter with which to entice our impecunious companions.

  But as the Trickster contemplated his vast repertoire for an ingenious money-making scam, a stocky man leapt at the train as it was passing a small station. Defying all laws of physics, the man caught hold, and pulled himself aboard. It was a remarkable feat of strength and recklessness. Stumbling through the cabin, he began to tout a single item.

  Bhalu was anxious that another was trespassing on his patch. He was about to hound the man away when I called him to heel. I wanted to inspect what the peddler had on offer.

  One by one, the dim faces twitched, dismissing the hawker. Within a few minutes, the man was standing before us. He was dressed in a heavy-knit pullover and canary-yellow pants. His eyes were the color of egg yolks; a dark plume of hair sprouted forth from his nose.

  “Can you ask him what he’s got on offer, Bhalu?”

  The Trickster gritted his teeth and translated my question. The man with egg yolk eyes blinked once and withdrew a half-size vodka bottle from his pocket. The bottle was empty.

  “He says he’s a follower of Yogi Radhakrishan, and that he has something very unusual to give away … for a donation.”

  “What is it? What’s he trying to give away that no one in a third-class carriage wants?”

  Bhalu put the question and juggled with the unwieldy response.

  “What’s he selling, tell me, Bhalu!”

  The Trickster seemed gravely impressed; not by the merchandise, but by the story which went along with it.

  “This man spent fifteen years at the foot of Yogi Radhakrishan, the famous sadhu from Madhya Pradesh,” Bhalu explained. “His master practiced many tapasya, austerities. For the last thirty years, the yogi consumed nothing but milk. He was ninety when he died, but he never changed his routine. He had spent twenty years in another penance, ekbahu, his arm raised up, propped by a crutch. Then, in his youth, he had tied a thick cast-iron chain around his genitals, to destroy all feelings of lust. And,” continued Bhalu, “the sadhu was said to have had supernatural powers. This man standing here was with his master when he died.”

  “That’s all very well,” I said, “but what’s in the bottle? It looks empty to me.”

  The Trickster asked the disciple to go over the key points again. Then he informed me of the contents of the bottle.

  “You’re right,” he winced, “there’s nothing in the bottle … just air … but it’s special air. It’s the yogi’s last breath.”

  * * * *

  Only once before had I heard of a dying breath being bottled. Even then it wasn’t for sale on the open market. Unlike the yogi’s voluminous exhalation, it was a far more dainty sample. The American automobile magnate Henry Ford was a known admirer of Thomas Edison. He was said to have bought anything connected to the great inventor’s life. His collection included all manner of personal and scientific objects. But pride of place was devoted to a small glass vial, labeled “Edison’s Last Breath”.

  I would have forked out a hundred rupees for the holy man’s last exhalation, but, as ever, my funds were too low for such luxuries. Bhalu could easily have afforded the bottle and its contents; but he was horrified at my gullibility. Wads of tattered rupee notes were stashed in each of his pockets, in a pouch around his neck, and in the folds of his underwear. He had been minting money since the trip began. Nothing was easier than fleecing unsuspecting citizens in the provinces. Such profitability must, I mused, have been the motivation behind the Trickster’s eagerness to embark on a grand Indian tour.

  There was little to observe on the train journey south from Vijayawada. Not that the landscape was dull; it certainly wasn’t. But my face was pressed up against a crate of over-ripe mangoes for most of the journey. The third-class carriage had a stupendous agitation of life. Gone were the wig-wearing, VIP-case-carrying salesmen of second-class. They had been replaced by another Secret Army … of astrologers.

  India is the most capitalistic nation on Earth. The Western world may think it has a fine tradition of commerce, but sadly, it’s quite mistaken. Give any executive from Frankfurt or London a dessert spoon, drop him down in Andhra Pradesh, and he would be starving inside of a week. But present an Indian with such a simple item of cutlery, and he has a foolproof way of supporting his extended family, for life.

  Two other ingredients aid capitalism in India. The first is people. The subcontinent has a billion potential customers for any product. The other is an unquestioning belief in the supernatural. Put the two together and, as I found out, a dessert spoon is more than enough to reap the rewards of a market economy.

  When the train stopped at Ongole, a stone’s throw from the Bay of Bengal, the carriage swelled into a makeshift bazaar. Boot-boys and peanut-sellers pushed each other aside, vying for custom. Hucksters, touting Rubik’s cubes, whistles and water pistols, showed off their wares. Blinking through milk-bottle-glass lenses, the mob of largely, elderly passengers seemed nonplussed. They had no need for water pistols or Rubik’s cubes. At their advanced stage of life, they were far more concerned about another matter … their destiny in the next life.

  Then, as the train surged from the station, the tide of pedlars ebbed away. Seizing the moment, the fortune-tellers revealed themselves.

  The infantry of astrologers appeared to be members of one extended family. Each had perfected a different method of peering into the unknown. One would read a person’s shadow; another could interpret the pattern of flies landing on a mango seed; a third deciphered a strand of one’s hair; and yet another would describe one’s horoscope merely by taking the pulse.

  Before I could select which method of divination most appealed to me, a man with an enormous frothy white turban, gnarled features, a patch over one eye, and a large amulet bound to his arm had pushed a dessert spoon at my face. In its bowl I glimpsed the distorted reflection of carriage life. Like upside-down specters, the fray of mendicants, mangoes, and boss-eyed travelers loomed up behind me. The medium spoke in a thick, raspy tone. Although the accent and appearance were unfamiliar, there was something recognizable about the clairvoyant. It was his smell. He smelt of lavender, a fragrance favored by Feroze. And his hands … they were very much like the magician’s. For a foolish moment, I wondered if my teacher had resorted to following me on my journey. No, I reasoned, Feroze would not have bothered himself with that. A mendicant’s life was not for him … he would never have endured the ragged costume and third-class travel.

  But this was not the time to question
the man’s appearance or the Master’s schemes. The polished dessert spoon, which was being thrust back and forth towards my face as sharply as a piston, was in danger of blinding me.

  “What’s going on?” I bleated. “Get that spoon away from me!”

  But the implement did not move away. Instead, it began to fluctuate more wildly than before, from side to side. Was this a crude form of hypnosis? Had the mystic lost his own eye in practicing the specialized system of divination? I asked Bhalu what was happening.

  “The man is saying that he can tell your fortune,” he explained. “Stare into the shiny spoon and he will read your eyeballs.”

  “I don’t want my eyeballs read. They’re private!”

  But the reading had already begun.

  Chanting mantras and pressing his bristly face closer to mine, the astrologer stared deeply into my eyes. He paused to lick the spoon with his tongue. Then he choked out my fate a few words at a time.

  Bhalu translated the reading of my destiny:

  “You came to India to study illusion,” he declared, interpreting the seer’s words. “After visiting the tomb of your ancestor, you traveled to Calcutta to begin an apprenticeship with Hakim Feroze, the master illusionist. And now you are on a great journey … of observation.”

  “That’s impossible,” I scoffed. “How could he know all that just from my eyes?”

  The Trickster, who appeared blasé at the man’s information, continued with the translation:

  “Now you are traveling to Tirupati and then to the temple at Tirumala. After that, you plan to venture to Bangalore and then up to Hyderabad, for the mysterious cure … for your asthma.”

  Again the astrologer licked the spoon with his eel-like tongue. Without a coating of saliva, the magic did not work. As before, he studied my eyeballs with considerable attention.

  “All right,” I said, “enough of my past and my plans, tell me the details of my actual future!”

  Bhalu leaned a little closer to heed my fate.

  “The destiny,” he said, “is to bring many good things. But if you know in advance what they will be, your actions may change. The result could send you on another path … leading to a different, less pleasing fate.”

  “Can’t he tell me a single thing that’s going to happen? He doesn’t have the right attitude … after all, he is a fortune-teller.”

  The spoon was licked for a third time.

  “All he will say is that your journey will end with a tremendous conclusion.”

  I handed over a rupee for the pleasure of having the man peer into my eyeballs. Then I launched into a studious analysis of the reading. Certain that this was nothing more than simple deception, I broke it down bit by bit. Since a blind dwarf fortune-teller and his accomplice had once hijacked my wallet to learn all about me in Mumbai, I had become far more skeptical in the face of supposed clairvoyants. Even so, I had no idea where the lavender-scented mystic had acquired his data. An hour after the man and his family had moved on from our carriage, the Trickster was tiring of my dissection. He couldn’t understand why I was taking the spoon-reading so seriously.

  “Let’s go through it one more time,” I blustered.

  Bhalu, who had been eying a girl sitting opposite, glowered at me.

  “Will you try to act normally?” he snapped. “You’re scaring away my little friend over there!”

  * * * *

  Ten hours after leaving Vijayawada, train 8079 heaved into Tirupati. Very often, when the locomotive screeched into a station, I couldn’t be certain whether it was my stop or not. The signs were either in an unfamiliar script, or were obscured by the general mass of porters, forlorn travelers and soda-water-sellers. But this time it was different. As soon as the hailstorm of porters threw themselves suicidally at the arriving train, I knew we had reached Tirupati. It was an easy deduction.

  Because everyone was bald.

  We alighted and pushed down the platform through the jam of pilgrims. I found myself staring at each one. Their shaven heads were powdery white, their expressions sorrowful and drawn. They looked like human guinea-pigs at a concentration camp, waiting lethargically for orders. The air was heavy with melancholy; one might have concluded that the departing pilgrims were sad. Far from it. Each had achieved a lifetime ambition: to pray at the temple of Venkateshvara.

  When traveling about India, it always seemed that everyone, except me, knew what was going on … rather as if the entire population had mugged up a set of crib notes which I hadn’t seen. But Tirupati was different. We were all strangers, all anxious. All, that is, except for Bhalu. As others trembled with trepidation, he shifted into a new gear of mercenary activity. I observed the unending supply of bald pilgrims around us. I was touched by their self-sacrifice, moved that they should have journeyed to Tirupati to worship Lord Venkateshvara. The Trickster’s sight was not tinted by the same rose-colored lens of compassion. Instead of bald devotees, he saw an infinite stock of clients.

  Next morning, as we boarded the tattered old bus bound for the temple complex at Tirumala, I asked Bhalu for his impressions.

  “Great, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It certainly is … I’m pleased you’re so uplifted.”

  “Going to make a lot of money here …”

  “Bhalu! How can you be thinking of money at a time like this? This is a place of pilgrimage … look at these people. They’re dressed so simply. Most of them are barefoot.”

  The Trickster was too busy planning to pay much attention.

  “There’s plenty of money, don’t be deceived,” he said. “No one’s as generous as a pilgrim who’s surrounded by other pilgrims.”

  P.D. Roy’s tale of Tirupati and his line of Director’s Brand wigs had been an appealing enticement. But now we had actually arrived I was, I must confess, rather embarrassed. For the other passengers taking the hour-long ride up to the hilltop temple, the head shaving was only a fragment of what was a profoundly religious experience. Although I was trying to appear appropriately meager, I had been lured by the idea of wigs. Bhalu wasn’t even bothering to keep up my meager level of pretense. He was in it for the money and nothing else.

  The road from Tirupati to Tirumala was formed from one hairpin bend after another. The bus jolted obliquely to the left, then the right, throwing us about like astronauts in a space capsule. Lazy visitors – like Bhalu and myself – risked life and limb driving by bus to the shrine. Pious pilgrims wouldn’t have been seen dead taking the bus. They made the journey on foot – barefoot – or even on their knees.

  Grinding and moaning like a battle-worn Panzer division, the turmoil of shuttle buses to Tirumala destroyed what might have been a harmonious experience. As they strolled, or crawled, through the wooded groves of mango and sandalwood, the pious must have been cursing us for shattering the peace.

  Tirumala was a pristine community built in what must once have been a sublime glade in the forest. The air was clean and warm. The place was as orderly as a military cantonment. There was no litter, no pye dogs, no sound of Hindi pop music, no stench of biris, and no one was spitting paan on to the ground. It wasn’t like real India at all.

  The passengers exited the bus like conscripts arriving at the base for the first time. They were eager to be part of the brotherhood, but they didn’t know what to do or where to go. They stuck out from the throng of initiated pilgrims. For they still had hair.

  Instead of following the newly arrived acolytes straight to the barbers’ hall, Bhalu suggested we first get our bearings. I sat beneath a mottled tree in a communal area, taking in the almost carnival atmosphere. All types of products were on offer, none of them any practical use. Balloons on bamboo sticks, cuddly toys with button eyes, yellow and pink cotton candy, plastic flowers, yo-yos and fairy lights – the range was certainly impressive. Bhalu hurried about from one stall to the next. Anyone else might have thought he was looking for a bargain. I knew otherwise. He was searching for a gap in the market.

  “So,
what’s it going to be?” I asked him.

  “Nice and warm, isn’t it?” he said.

  “You’re right, it’s only nine-thirty and it’s baking already. Imagine what it’s like for all these people with shaven heads. Their scalps must be frying.”

  “Exactly,” said Bhalu. “Frying scalps means one thing …”

  “A soothing lotion to stop the burning?”

  Bhalu cupped his hands and clapped them together.

  “You go and work on your potion,” I said. “I’ll meet you later on.”

  Several thousand pilgrims had lined up to have their heads shaved in the barbers’ hall, which was set apart from the main temple complex. Up to fifty thousand people have their heads shaved at Tirumala every day. Most spend months growing their hair as long as possible. The longer the hair, the greater the sacrifice, and the more raw material there is for wigs. I queued up with the neophytes, hoping to sneak into the tonsure chamber with them. After about an hour, the line had only moved a few feet. The man behind me was keen to pass on details of his unlikely devotion for Wycombe Wanderers Football Club. He had spent ten years running a corner shop in High Wycombe but, beset with arthritis, had recently returned to India. The pilgrimage to Tirumala was his last hope of assuaging the affliction. We talked football talk. Great tackles, fouls and memorable scores, conditions of the home pitch … we even discussed the stitching of the club strip. Another hour dragged by. For someone with no more than a passing interest in football, an hour on tackle-talk was an eternity.

  The queue had hardly moved. By my estimation, there was at least six hours to go of football purgatory. Unable to take a second more, I pretended to have forgotten my money. The Wycombe supporter replied that a full head shave was only two rupees. As a gesture of charity from one football supporter to another, he was willing to pay for my haircut. I responded with a catalog of implausible excuses. I had spotted a long-lost friend at the back of the line … I was about to have a nosebleed … I was claustrophobic. Once away from Wycombe Wanderers Man, I hurried to find a back door into the barbers’ hall.