Travelers' Tales India

by James O'Reilly

  The seductress of the Shoba Theatre undulated across the stage, singing a ballad of obviously erotic content. She was singing about her lover, with whom she was in bed, complaining he would not make love to her. Aditya translated: “Why do you not come to me my darling? My breasts are young and firm.” There was a groan from the crowd behind us. “My thighs are as soft as satin, my crop green and young, ready to be irrigated.” This brought the house down. Turning around I saw the barbed wire bulging outwards as the crowd pressed against it, frantic to reach her, followed by the whacks of the police sticks as they rained down on unprotected heads.

  It was a relief to be back in the relative peace of the Haathi Bazaar. Smoke rose in eddies through the rich foliage of the mango orchard from the fires round which mahouts were huddled, their animated faces illuminated in the ruddy glow, as they traded tales and secrets of their ancient craft. To reach our camp we had to thread our way carefully across a carpet of sleeping people. Inside, feet and arms protruded from under the kanat.

  Relieving Gokul, I took the next watch over Tara. She still was not her old self. There was something else, an uneasiness about her, which immediately transmitted itself to me. I felt that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that precedes impending disaster. She seemed to be trying to communicate with me. When I started to feed her sugar cane, she suddenly grabbed my arm and held it firmly in her mouth. She pulled me even closer and we rested against one another, like lovers in a long embrace. Eventually, she released me and lay down.

  All down the orchard, in night air hazy from the smoking fires, elephants lay sleeping. Disturbed by something, one would silently rise up like a monstrous spirit and then settle down again as it realised that all was well. Surrounded by six hundred tons of these huge animals, soothed by their snoring, like a ward of asthmatic old men, I felt for the first time a sense of vulnerability. I had never really given it a thought before, but as I looked back on the journey, I realised how much I had taken for granted. At any stage Tara could have killed me. Or any of us for that matter, as simply as swatting a fly. Now I understood that she had always been in control. My destiny had been in her hands. With that realisation, once again, she had taught me respect.

  Mark Shand is a British writer who worked at Sotheby’s before competing in the London-Sydney motor race, getting shipwrecked in the South Pacific, and writing a book—Skullduggery—about his search for headhunters in Indonesia. He is the author of River Dog: A Journey Along the Brahmaputra, and he won the Travel Writer of the Year award at the British Book Awards for Travels on My Elephant, from which this story was excerpted.

  Ganesh is the god of auspicious beginnings, and one of the most popular gods in Asia. All I could think of the first time I saw him was the Flying Dumbo ride at Disneyland, a passage that remains my very earliest memory from childhood.

  Lord Ganesh is the son of Shiva, the great god of Destruction in the Hindu trinity, and of Parvati, Shiva’s delicious consort. The story behind the elephant’s head varies on details from place to place, but the general scene was this: One day Parvati, taking a leisurely bath, decides that she wants a son, someone who will answer to her and her alone. She scrubs down her skin, collecting together a large lump of saffron, and fashions from this fragrant mass a boy. The moment he attains consciousness, Parvati names him Ganesh and puts him to work. She orders him to stand guard by the palace door, and to let no one—absolutely no one—enter.

  Shiva, naturally, picks this precise moment to return home from some messy mythical altercation. Our hero is, understandably, rather single-minded in his desire to frolic with lovely Parvati. Seeing this strange child haughtily blocking the door, Shiva demands to be admitted. Ganesh flatly refuses.

  Some say the battle was long; others claim it lasted only an instant. It ended, at any rate, with Ganesh’s head lying on the ground, a fair distance from the rest of his body. This accomplished, Shiva strolled into the parlor, but the homecoming wasn’t quite what he had anticipated. Parvati was furious, and all thoughts of romance were tabled until Shiva somehow put the situation to rights. Desperate to appease his wife, Shiva raced out and appropriated the head of the first animal he saw: a baby elephant. After the successful transplant, Shiva further sweetened the pot by granting his son special privileges, including extraordinary intelligence and high status among his fellow gods.

  Ah, Ganesh! Remover of obstacles, protector of children and thieves, patron of the poets! Ages ago, when the great sage Vyasa was suddenly struck by the inspiration to dictate the monumental epic Mahabharata in one sitting, Ganesh volunteered to serve as scribe. Halfway through Vyasa’s feverish and unflagging dictation, the pen burst into flame and disintegrated. Ganesh, fearful of missing even a single syllable, snapped off his own tusk to use as a quill. Peerless devotion to the art! What better ally, I ask you, for a writer whose pen is perpetually out of steam?

  —Jeff Greenwald, Shopping for Buddhas

  Shalom, Bombay

  FREDDA ROSEN

  All religions have a home in the vast cauldron of spirituality that is India.

  TO KNOW INDIA IS TO HEAR HER. VILLAGE ROADS AND CITY streets are stuffed with people and their transport. Horns blare, engines cough. People shout, people scream. I was in Bombay, and I’d been away from home too long. I had a headache from India.

  I also had too many hours to wait for my flight home. I’d already seen the Hanging Gardens and shopped myself silly. But I didn’t have a gift for my father.

  “There’s a synagogue in Bombay,” he had told me when I left for India. I smiled and ignored the implication. My father has been trying to get me into a synagogue since I left Beth El Academy in 1964. I’ve had other things to do. But now I shrugged.

  “Got nothing else today,” I thought. I figured there would be a synagogue gift shop like the one at Beth El, and I’d get him something there.

  A local businessman I met at the airport wrote the directions: “Jewish Temple, near Byculla Bridge, opposite Richardson and Crudder, Ltd.”

  Kuldeep, my driver for the day, scrutinized the paper.

  “Many temples in Bombay,” he said.

  “Not Hindu temple,” I said. “Jewish temple. Synagogue.”

  He gave me a blank look, but shifted into gear. We added our horn to the honks and screeches of the city streets.

  The sun followed us, searing through the car windows, making my clothes stick to my body. My head reverberated as we crossed a bridge labeled Byculla. Kuldeep braked in front of a snack bar, and consulted in Hindi with the owner and two customers. Arms waived to the left and right.

  Kuldeep took off down a tiny alley, scattering chickens and children. He drove through the dirt yard of an apartment complex, turned again, and pulled up in front of a large stone structure.

  He looked around and gave me a grin. I sighed. The building was topped with a huge cross.

  “Place for Catholics,” he said.

  In Keralaonce more, the Jews of Cochin deserve a special mention—their ancestry goes back to the sixth century B.C. They were a highly influential community in their time and the Cochin synagogue is the oldest in the Commonwealth....

  A more ancient, larger, and more significant Jewish community called the Bene Israel exists in and around Bombay. It is estimated that there are about four thousand Jews in the whole country but, like Parsis, their community is declining.

  —Frank Kusy, Cadogan Guides: India

  I took a deep breath. “Jewish, “I said. “Not Catholic, Jewish.”

  We began again, asking at a tailor’s shop, stopping a schoolboy. Kuldeep honked through cars, buses, trucks, and bikes. The air was thick with incense, carbon monoxide, and wood smoke. Two aspirins did nothing for my headache or my spirits. We found no synagogues.

  We did find a police station.

  “Anyone speak English?” My voice was plaintive.

  Khaki-suited men gave me the once over. One took the paper I waved and studied it.

  “Synagogue,” I
said hopefully. “Jewish temple.”

  The policeman brightened. “Oh,” he said. “You want Jain temple!”

  I stifled a hiss and tried a new tact. “Where is Richardson and Crudder? Richardson and Crudder, Ltd.?”

  He told Kuldeep, and we entered the fray once more. This time we scored. Kuldeep found the offices of Richardson and Crudder. I looked across the clogged avenue and saw a two-story building. It was adorned with a six-pointed star. A sign proclaimed Magen David.

  “There it is!” I pointed.

  Kuldeep responded with an Indian U-turn: a maneuver that involves crossing four lanes of moving traffic and staccato bursts of the horn. He pulled up to the synagogue entrance. Near the gate, a family had set up housekeeping. A woman chopped vegetables, her son washed his hair. They stared at me as I walked inside.

  So did the three gray-haired men who sat on the porch of the synagogue. They were small and brown and wore skull caps. I introduced myself.

  “Abraham,” said one of the men. He waved at the others. “He’s Abraham, too. And Ephraim.”

  They each gave me a smile that revealed missing teeth.

  “You want to see the safers?” the first Abraham asked, referring to the Torahs, the sacred scrolls.

  They ushered me inside the synagogue. Abraham pointed to two plaques. One commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the synagogue, the other touted a donation from a couple from Great Neck, New York. There wasn’t a gift shop in sight.

  The sanctuary was lined with simple wooden pews. In the center was a raised platform with two gilded chairs. It was cool and quiet. I heard horns, but they were far in the distance.

  Ephraim waved toward a corner where men worked on a scaffolding. He told me in careful English that the synagogue, which is over 120 years old, was being restored. But few people worship here now. Ephraim said they rarely have the ten men required to hold a service.

  “We don’t make minyan much. Sometimes on Saturday,” he said.

  The other Abraham told me that there are only six or seven thousand Jews in India. “We got the Torah from England,” he said.

  He opened the door to the arc, touched my hand, and motioned to the Torahs. They had embroidered velvet covers like the ones at home, at Beth El. I ran my fingers over the soft fabric. Then I remembered. I raised my hand to my lips, just as I’d been taught in Hebrew school. The three men lifted their heads and smiled. I noticed that my headache was gone, but my eyes were wet.

  I blinked, and told them that I wanted to make a donation to the restoration work. “In honor of my father,” I said.

  I signed over a traveler’s check. The men passed it among themselves, turning it over and over. Kuldeep, who had joined us, explained in Hindi how to cash it.

  Abraham pressed my hand. “I give you my card,” he said. He gave me a paper with the synagogue address stamped on it.

  “Pictures?” I asked, taking out my camera.

  “Oh, yes,” Ephraim said.

  I took one of the three men standing at the entrance to the sanctuary. Kuldeep took one of me in front of the synagogue. I made a mental note to have it framed as a gift for my father.

  After all, his errand had brought me a gift, too. The Abrahams and Ephraim shook my hand as I left.

  “See you at home, in Jerusalem,” Ephraim said. “Peace be with you.”

  And it was.

  Fredda Rosen has written for many U.S. newspapers and magazines and contributed a series of profiles to A Woman’s Place is Everywhere. She lives in New York.

  When I stopped in London on my way home from India, the city appeared empty, and disarmingly quiet. I felt, most of all, ignored: I actually had to hail the taxis, rather than wait for them to tear up beside me and shout me down with offers. Londoners left me alone, and I was lonely for the first time in months. The streets seemed like dormant movie sets—how I imagined Disneyland would look at five in the morning. Shoppers paid whatever the price tag said; cows were confined to Cadbury advertisements. As the Swedish sadhu had warned, I was bored within days. After the novelty of leavened bread and tap water had worn off, I’d grown impatient with the city’s pace. I boarded a shiny bus for Hampstead. People sat two seats apart, eyes averted, and coughed silently to themselves. I got off the bus at the Everyman Cinema and bought a matinee ticket for Salaam Bombay!

  —Peter Jon Lindberg, “The Confounding Allure of India,” The New York Times

  Lost and Found in Agra

  JOEL SIMON

  Our own two feet are still the best locomotion going.

  INDIA’S A BIG PLACE, HUGE TO THE NOVICE TRAVELER, BUT FRANKLY, I was surprised at how easy it was to become lost in even a small piece of it. The piece was Agra, home of the Taj, the Red Fort, and more sleepy pedal cab drivers than cab-driven passengers. Most of the rickshaws were parked in a line, with wallahs stretched out on bench seats, as motionless as the air, feet propped up on the handlebars, gazing with half-shut eyelids at the mid-day sky from beneath lofty trees. But amongst drowsy competition, one young driver was awake, actively chatting in Hindi with passers-by. Vibrant, and with a healthy smile, he was aware that he’d caught my eye. He beckoned me with a wave of his hand and then swept back an errant shock of black hair. “My name is Ravi, and yours?”

  “Joel,” I replied. I hopped on and we were off.

  I had arrived in India by ship with a group tour. One of the youngest aboard, I had been hired to photograph the voyage and its participants, individuals of means and plenty of leisure time to enjoy it. I was ready for a little time on my own, and willing to sacrifice a bite of the continuous feast for the sake of adventure.

  So with warm air softly brushing against my face, we were off, the pedal driver and I. Ravi didn’t speak much English, but we communicated easily. “Which direction?” or perhaps it was “Where to?” he asked. I replied in time—pointing to my wrist-watch, and pulled out a twenty rupee note to establish the fare. I had four hours before photographing a dance presentation at the Mughal Sheraton. We laughed, and with a smiling glance over his shoulder, he rose and fell with each stride, maintaining a steady rhythm on the pedals as we rolled away from the hotel and into the heart of the town.

  Before us the wide avenue curved in consort with the river. We quietly moved past slow ox carts, slower groups of sari-clad women, even slower wagons over-laden with heavy sewn brown bags, and all manner of vehicles parked or stranded in various creative positions. Ravi wove expertly through the meandering traffic, while the occasional car or truck careened by with surprising skill. A cluster of cows stood placidly beneath a sign advertising leather goods available at some nearby shop: shoes, purses, and belts. A few minutes later we stopped to allow another group to cross the road as they headed toward the river. They may have been cows, but I saw shoes, purses, and belts with legs.

  We came to a bend and Ravi stopped, turned around, smiled, and motioned for me to look back. Nestled between a break in the bushes was the Taj Mahal, distant and exquisite, reflected in the shallow waters of the river.

  And yet the Taj is not what I remember most.

  We continued on, rounding corners, and entering smaller, crowded streets, many of them dirt or half-covered with broken pavement. Children, some naked, some in tattered, faded t-shirts endorsing the Giants or the Red Sox or nonexistent distant universities, played ball with bottle caps and sticks. Clucking chickens scampered under carts as we rolled by.

  This was the India of my dreams, now before my eyes, in my nose, in my ears, at my fingertips. As we rode slowly by open houses, Ravi waved hello to some of the residents and we stopped near a door, once painted green and now almost brown with the native wood showing through. He got off the seat and invited me to follow. I did. We entered the dwelling, probably his home, but I’ll never know for sure. In the small dark central room, an aluminum pot of water was heating over a wooden stove. An elderly woman in a clean but subtle rust-red cloth offered me a chair, one of two. A cup of hot tea soon followed. I took both,
and sat in quiet joy. “Do you speak English?” I asked. She shook her head, smoothly, from side to side,“We speak Hindi,” she said perfectly, and added,“and a bit of English, mostly what we have learned in school and from films. Welcome to our home.”

  What most terrified Bernier [a seventeenth-century French doctor who treated the Mughal nobility] was the notion that his long stay in India would rob him of his cultivated Parisian sensibilities. This fear reached its climax when he saw the Taj Mahal: “The last time I saw Tage Mehale’s mausoleum I was in the company of a French merchant who like myself, thought that this extraordinary fabric could not be sufficiently admired. I did not venture to express my opinion, fearing that my taste might have become corrupted by my long residence in the Indies; but since my companion had recently come from France, it was quite a relief to hear him say that he had seen nothing in Europe quite so bold and majestic.”

  —William Dalrymple, City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

  After tea, I thanked the woman for her gracious hospitality. Outside Ravi was chatting with other young men, leaning on the pedal cab, still smiling. In a moment of inspiration, I reached into my pocket, withdrew the twenty rupee note and handed it to him, explaining that this was as far as I wished to go. Confusion turned to comprehension when I made a universally understood symbol, wiggling my first two fingers in imitation of legs walking.

  “You wish to walk back?” he exclaimed with his eyes, looking at his friends for confirmation. One of the fellows standing nearby asked me: “You wish to walk back?”

  “Yes” I replied, “Why not?”

  “Perhaps you will become lost?” this man queried. “And your hotel, it is far from here.”

  “All the better,” I answered. “Which way is it?” He pointed to his right. I thanked everyone, and after shaking hands all around, confidently strode off in the direction indicated, feeling proud, foolish, and happy to be really in India.