by Frank Kusy
The universe must have been in a good mood. The little steel balls span around and around and then – all of a sudden – about half of them landed in a large plastic bucket between my legs. Even better, as I cashed them in for 1400 yen (about £5) I realised that I could finally afford a cab.
‘Hiroshima City Hotel?’ I asked the first driver that pulled up. I had no expectation of being understood, but it felt like a lucky day.
‘Hiroshima City Hotel?’ I repeated the question. This time a look of comprehension dawned on the young Japanese guy’s wispy-bearded features.
‘’Ere,’ he said with a happy grin. ‘You come from London, don’t you?’
I was so shocked, I nearly fell off the pavement.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he continued with a chuckle. ‘I have that effect on a lot of people. My name’s Ringo. I’m working this job for the summer holidays. My folks come from Clapham, have you been there?’
Back at the hotel, courtesy of Ringo and his cheerful cockney chatter, I put my feet up and enjoyed Rocky II with Stallone speaking (or rather, squeaking) in a hilarious, high-pitched Japanese castrato. Then I got hooked into late night Japanese TV. Choice items on offer included a best-dressed-goose-to-come-out-of-a-limousine competition (the winner had a top hat and cane), four Japanese guys wearing raincoats and green Elvis wigs performing Shama Lama Ding Dong, and a ‘dare’ programme in which newly-wed couples were kidnapped outside church, placed on a large double bed and then pretend-shoved onto a busy dual carriageway.
But it was the mushroom judging competition which really caught my attention. A huge mountain of mushrooms was being judged one by one by an ultra serious panel of people with score cards in their hands. This went on till the early hours of the morning and half the mountain still remained.
The next day, shortly after Dick Causton laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park – to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the atomic bomb blast – I had occasion to revisit the mushroom judging competition. Some of us were invited to a banquet at some local member’s house, and the first dish that was wheeled out was a bowl of mushroom soup apiece.
‘I think I’ll pass on this,’ I whispered to Robert Samuels, one of Dick’s aides. ‘I don’t like mushroom soup.’
Robert’s pink cheeks flushed with agitation. ‘Try and like it,’ he hissed back. ‘We don’t want to upset our hosts, do we?’
I gazed down at the bowl of tepid green water with three little mushrooms bobbing up and down in it.
‘Do I have to?’ I said miserably.
‘Yes, you do,’ commanded Robert in an urgent tone. ‘These mushrooms won a competition on TV last night. They cost twenty pounds each!’
What really picked me up in Hiroshima was an exchange meeting in a local village hall. It was absolutely packed – about 300 people had come to see us and they gave us a real celebrity star welcome. We were sat down on stage, asked to introduce ourselves, and then treated to a succession of lively song, dance and music acts. Then, when the meeting had closed, we were engulfed by a swarm of people wishing to touch us, speak to us and load us down with presents. One young boy who attached himself to me had a badly stunted hand, but was so overcome that he was crying with joy the whole time. We all returned to the hotel absolutely charged up with life-force: the enthusiasm and warmth of these poor people had been incredibly powerful. Many of them looked old, sick and suffering, yet they all glowed with the will to give, together with extremely pure faith. All the gifts they gave us were hand-made, and some of them had been chanting every day for a whole year to be able to see us.
*
Someone else they had been chanting to see, and who was in Hiroshima at the same time as us, was the worldwide leader of our Nichiren organisation, Daisaku Ikeda.
As opposed to Dick Causton, whom I had avoided meeting for close on a year, I was really keen on seeing this guy – so keen indeed, that when a meeting was announced at which he would be present I barged my way right to the front, on the pretext of being a photographer.
Out of the corner of my eye I spied Dick gesticulating wildly for me to rejoin our British contingent at the back of the large hall, but I ignored him. I wanted to see this well respected spiritual leader as ‘up close and personal’ as the Dai-Gohonzon.
And then, with no pomp or ceremony or even a short announcement, he strolled in. Wearing a perky white baseball hat and a blue bomber jacket, and beaming away like a happy child, he looked like he had just come off a golf course. He led straight into a strong and invigorating gongyo, and then turned around and smiled at us all.
‘I’ve been told that I talk too much,’ he addressed us through his translator. Then, without any further ado, he went into a slow and dignified fan dance.
Looking back on it, I would have found it hard to believe that this modest, unassuming and yes, rather playful, person would become the friend of so many world leaders, from Prince Charles to Zhou Enlai to Gorbachev. Let alone that he would go on to garner more honorary university doctorates than Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. But there was something about the man: he exuded enormous charisma – not through physical dynamism and force, but principally through his all-embracing compassion and inner harmony, which affected all around him.
At the end of his dance, Mr Ikeda’s translator gave a short address on his behalf.
‘Welcome!’ he said. ‘All of you here from overseas are sharing this room with the strongest, longest practising members of Soka Gakkai International from Japan. Therefore you must be the strongest members, with the most important missions, in your own countries!’
That came as a bit of a surprise. Far too lazy and rebellious to be of any use to any organisation – I’d even failed as a Boy Scout – I was with Groucho Marx when he said: ‘I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.’ But I did appreciate the compliment – maybe I did have an important mission after all!
The next passage of Mr Ikeda’s speech really got me thinking:
‘As the strongest members, if you don’t stand up now, when will you? If you don’t exert yourselves now, when will you? How many decades do you intend to wait before you take your stand? There is no telling what condition you will be in then. You are most of you in the prime of your life. It is a precious time in this finite existence. I say this because I want you to have no regrets.’
This chimed exactly with what old Bertie had said back at the home – one day, unless I stood up and made my life count, I would blink and it would all be over. ‘Yes,’ I decided as President Ikeda closed his address and waved us a cheery farewell, ‘the time to stand up and exert myself is now!’
Chapter 18
Birth of a Travel Writer
Unfortunately, my exertions had a very slow start. As we boarded the plane to Hong Kong I began to feel a bit off-colour. By the time we touched down there, I thought I might be coming down with the worst case of flu in my life.
‘Please keep in good health.’ had been President Ikeda’s parting words to us in Japan. I wondered, rather arrogantly, if he had been speaking with me in mind. But no, as it turned out, he had also been speaking about himself – two days later he was in hospital with exactly the same kind of virus.
In Hong Kong, while everybody else in our party tucked happily into an 11-course Chinese supper on ‘Jumbo’, the largest floating restaurant in the world, I was sinking into a catatonic trance. I hadn’t felt this ill in years, not even when I’d endured 36 hours of amoebic dysentery on top of a speeding bus from Delhi to Kathmandu. ‘If one more person tells me how lucky I am and what a fantastic opportunity this is to clear lots of karma,’ I snuffled miserably to Dick Causton. ‘I won’t be responsible for my actions.’
Back in London the next day, Anna and I hardly exchanged a word as we drove to her place from Heathrow airport. I knew I was feeling sorry for myself, but my lung-busting cough coupled with a mood of gloomy negativity was shutting me down. As for her, I knew what she was thinking:
‘We’re going home. But going home to what?’
Opening the door to Anna’s flat in Crystal Palace was no fun. My eyes rolled as I opened my post and a heap of bills and book rejection slips came to light. I had returned sick, broke (£200 overdrawn), to an uncertain domestic situation, a relationship in crisis, and no security whatsoever. Even the cats were absent, having been taken in by a couple of sitters.
Everything around me seemed to be breaking down and crumbling. I tried to hold it together, but just couldn’t. The following morning, when Anna had woken and arrived in my room, I suddenly broke down and began to weep. The combination of illness, exhaustion and all the emotional uncertainty of the past few days made me feel incredibly lonely and vulnerable. It was the first genuine emotion I had felt in months, and the result was that Anna and I ended up in bed.
‘I guess we like each other after all!’ I quipped as I held her close later on.
‘Don’t push your luck, Mr Kusy,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Let’s just say we’re being “companionable.”’
*
The following morning, just as I was about to put my head under a towel in a mentholated steam bath, the phone rang.
‘Hello,’ I croaked, jamming yet another pair of plugs up my running nose. ‘Who is it?’
‘My name’s Jean Luc Barbanneau from Impact Books,’ said the unfamiliar voice. ‘Can I speak to Mr Kusy?’
There was a stirring of excitement in my chest. ‘That would be me,’ I said. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I just finished reading your travel diary. I think I might be interested in publishing it.’
My nose plugs exploded out of my head as I sneezed in disbelief. Was this guy for real?
‘Might, or will? I mean, do you really like it?’
‘Yes, I do.’ I could hear this Jean Luc smiling at my naiveté. ‘And the “might” depends on you changing the title. I don’t much like “Yes, We have no Chapatis.” How about “Kevin and I in India?”’
All thoughts of the steam bath were forgotten. He could call it ‘Back Passage to India’ for all I cared! I did a silent jig on the carpet and punched the air in triumph. Then, having got off the phone with Jean Luc, I did some very thankful chanting with Anna. Suddenly, all the hardship, suffering and effort of the past seven months – which was when I started writing my diary – seemed worthwhile.
And that was not the end of it. An hour or so later, the phone rang again.
‘Hi there,’ said another unfamiliar voice. ‘Is that Frank?’
‘Yes, that’s me. How can I help you?’
‘I’m Carolyn Whitaker. I’m a literary agent, and I’ve just had a look at your book on India. I think I might be able to sell it for you. Unless, of course, it has been picked up already?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it has,’ I said, trying not to sound too smug. ‘What a pity. I would have loved to work with you.’
There was a disappointed sniff at the other end of the telephone, and then the voice came back with another suggestion.
‘Maybe you still can,’ said Carolyn. ‘One of my publishers, Cadogan Books, are looking for someone to write a travel guide on India. Do you think you could do that?’
Erm, that was a tough one. Did bears poop in the woods? I had to pinch my nose tight to make sure the plugs didn’t explode again.
‘Yes, I think so,’ I gurgled happily. ‘Let me just check my diary...’
I looked at the little black bull which sat on my mantelpiece and smiled. It had been gifted to me personally by Daisaku Ikeda, and it was still in its plastic presentation box. For days, I had I wondered what it might mean. Now I thought I knew. ‘Keep banging your head against brick walls,’ it seemed to be saying. ‘Sooner or later, you will break through.’
Postscript
As I sat in the plush new offices of Cadogan Books in London’s Sloane Square and fingered the £2500 advance royalty cheque they had just given me, I was mentally giving thanks to people. To my grandfather for inspiring me to work with the elderly, to Old Bill, Brenda and Anna for getting me into Buddhism, to Dick Causton for encouraging me to seek my kyo and become a writer, to Kevin for giving me so much to write about in India, and even to Mr Parker for making me so determined to go there.
But the one person I felt most grateful to was Bertie. Without his exhortation to: ‘Go out and see the world, you’re too young to be old!’ my three crazy years in Clapham might have turned into 30 not so crazy years. Okay, the money from Cadogan wasn’t much—it would just about get me around India and sort my bills at home—but all my flights were paid for, and they were throwing in lots of free hotels. Suddenly, thanks to Bertie, I was doing what I’d always wanted to do: travel and write.
I could hardly wait to get started.
~ THE END ~
To subscribe to my mailing list just paste http://eepurl.com/bvhenb into your web browser and follow the link. You’ll be the first to know when my next book is ready to be launched!
Hi folks – Frank here!
Thank you so much for reading my book, I do hope you enjoyed it. If you did, I’d love it if you could leave a few words as a review. Not only are reviews crucial in getting an author’s work noticed, but I personally love reviews and I read them all!
I’d also love it if you checked out my other travel memoirs: Kevin and I in India , Dial and Talk Foreign at Once, Off the Beaten Track, and Rupee Millionaires Not to mention (though I just did!) my two quirky, award-winning cat books Ginger the Gangster Cat and Ginger the Buddha Cat. Thanks!
Oh, and if you like reading memoirs, there’s a really cool Facebook group called ‘We Love Memoirs’. We’d love it if you dropped in to chat to the author and lots of other authors and readers here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/welovememoirs/
P.S. Here’s where you can find me on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Wussyboy
And where to catch me on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/frank.kusy.5?ref=tn_tnmn
And if you get the urge, you can always email me:
[email protected]
Acknowledgements
Many, many thanks go to these lovely people: Ida of Amygdaladesign (for another amazing cover), to Cherry Gregory (for the first beta read and lots of helpful suggestions), to my good friends Terry Murphy, Philip Moseley, Fran Macilvey and Julie Haigh (for subsequent beta reads and yet more helpful suggestions) and to the amazing Roman ‘some man for one man’ Laskowski (for massive editing help in addition to his usual fab formatting.) Roman, you are an I.T. god!
A special mention goes to my wonderful wife Madge, for her constant support and encouragement: ‘This one had better sell – we’re running out of cat food!’
About the Author
FRANK KUSY is a professional travel writer with nearly thirty years experience in the field. He has written guides to India, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Of his first work, the travelogue Kevin and I in India (1986), the Sunday Tribune wrote: ‘Irrepressibly jocular, refreshingly uncontrived, this diary really works!’
Born in England (of Polish-Hungarian parents), Frank left Cardiff University for a career in journalism and worked for a while at the Financial Times. India is his first love, the only country he knows which improves on repeated viewings. He still visits for business and for pleasure at least once a year. He lives in Surrey, England, with his wife and his little cat Sparky.
GRINNING BANDIT BOOKS
A word from our sponsors...
If you enjoyed Too Young to be Old, please check out these other brilliant books:
Kevin and I in India, Dial and Talk Foreign at Once, Rupee Millionaires, Off the Beaten Track, Ginger the Gangster Cat, Ginger the Buddha Cat, and He ain’t Heavy, He’s my Buddha – all by Frank Kusy (Grinning Bandit Books).
Weekend in Weighton and Warwick the Wanderer – both by Terry Murphy (Grinning Bandit Books).
Scrapyard Blues, and The Albion – both by Derryl Flynn (Grinning Bandi
t Books).
The Girl from Ithaca, The Walls of Troy, and Percy the High Flying Pig – all by Cherry Gregory (Grinning Bandit Books).
Flashman and the Sea Wolf, Flashman and the Cobra, Flashman in the Peninsula, and Flashman’s Escape – all by Robert Brightwell (Grinning Bandit Books).
The Ultimate Inferior Beings by Mark Roman (Grinning Bandit Books).
The Worst Man on Mars by Mark Roman and Corben Duke (Grand Mal Press)