“There are only three things man needs for life,” he explained. “Air, water, and food. Is it not wonderful that God has provided the first, the most important, air, at no charge?”
My memory of that day seems terribly unreal. I remember the flies that dotted his beard like jewels, crawling up his robe, quivering on the brim of my teacup. I remember the filth. My teacup was disgusting, covered with black-stained cracks, sticky to the touch. And I remember that, despite this, I drank.
Then he mentioned Lord Krishna.
“It is this third essential, food, that we spend all our days running here and there for. And why? Because our teeth are flat.” He smiled down at me. “You see? For we are not flesh eaters but should follow the example of Lord Krishna and enjoy our days on this earth eating of the fruit and vegetables nature provides, and drinking of the milk from the cows that wander here and there.”
Krishna is the name those orange people at the airports are always chanting, a fun loving, flirtatious god fond of good food, particularly milk or cream or sweet butter. As a child he was constantly making himself ill by drinking fifteen gallons of cream in one sitting. As he matured, he began preaching a creed of universal love in long, intricately rhymed sermons. But the cow still held a special place in his heart. Cows, he taught, are beautiful. They are of the sweetest disposition. Their milk is full of vitamins. Treated with love, it becomes butter or cream or curd. Their excrement, properly dried, makes excellent fuel for cooking. In short, a cow’s orifices are veritable fountains of delight, providing all of life’s necessities, and anything it drips, drops, or drools is good for both body and karma.
I finally understood the Indian cup. Every religion has its sacred brew. Christians and Jews have wine; Buddhists, tea (said to have grown from Siddhartha’s eyelash); Muslims, coffee. For Hindus it is milk from the sacred cow. All that had puzzled me was now made clear: the man who had criticized a coffeemak-er for “putting water in his milk;” the huge vats of reducing cream used to make “special” coffee; the puzzled looks of vendors when I had asked for my cup black.
Every foreigner in India has his or her moment of enlightenment. This was mine. He was my guru.
“And so, Baba,” I said, “that is why the Indian puts too much milk in his coffee?”
“Yes, my son.” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “But you should drink only tea. Coffee is a bitter liquid that produces a rumbling of the bowels.”
1 A number of coffee historians believe it was the Dutch who first brought the bean to India around 1680. However, the British Journal of Mythic Society VII claims that in a.d. 1385 Emperor Harihara II of Vijayanagar (now Mysore) ordered that all imports for Peta Math enter tax free in “return for coffee seeds.” This certainly puts the Dutch claim to primacy in doubt.
2 Some Ethiopians credit the civet cat, which produces musk from a gland near its rectum, with spreading coffee via its droppings.
Mother Calcutta
“He was perpetually ‘going Fantee’ among the natives, which of course no man with any sense believes in.”
(Plain Tales from the Hills, “Miss Youghal Sais”)
WHEN RUDYARD KIPLING wrote that line in 1886, “going native” (or Fantee) meant that an Englishman had taken to wearing pajamas in public. The first warning that I was going native was my “enlightenment” near Jodhpur. The next was a growing desire to buy a pair of purple polyester slacks. They’re quite common in India, and though I struggled against the impulse, I finally succumbed in Bikaneer, a Rajasthani town where live rats are worshiped. Now, there is no excuse for such aberrant shopping. In my defense I can only point out that my lover, Nina, who normally guides me through the treacherous morass of high fashion, had returned to the United States. Furthermore, disease had reduced me to a shadow of my former self. I’d lost forty pounds, almost a third of my normal weight, leaving both my body and mind weakened. It’s a common condition among travelers hereabouts, and no doubt accounts for the number of Westerners who get religion while in India.
Fortunately my conversion was limited to couture. I thought myself quite chic as I swept into Jaipur in my luminous pantaloons, filthy sandals, and a straw hat that was now a mass of dusty leather patches.
“Nice pants,” was Yangi’s first comment. “You’ve really got a look now.”
After introducing me to an acne-scarred Sikh named Happy, he led me into a maze of alleys through which we wandered until we came to a two-foot-tall door. We crawled through and into a long, empty room with another midget door at the other end. We squeezed through this and found ourselves in his friend’s art studio, a windowless chamber covered with brilliantly colored Rajasthani miniatures depicting talking rats and elephant-headed gods. It was like finding a ruby in a pile of dung, all gold leaf and electric reds that glittered in the candlelight. I loved it.
The basic premise, as I have mentioned, was that I would carry these “antique” paintings (forgeries) to Paris, where, for a fee, I would deliver them to the artist in time for his show, thus avoiding taxation on antiques.
Business in that part of the world is a long-winded, intricate, and illogical affair. So I won’t go into details, like my meeting with the English traveler who had done a similar deal. Or the bizarre ceremony at the Ape God’s temple and the coconut shell of friendship. I shall also pass lightly over my meeting with an “official” underwriting the transaction.
Rather, let us skip to three days later, when I found myself in a dusty back-alley shop signing twelve hundred dollars’ worth of credit card slips for a package of paintings, the actual contents of which I’d never even seen. We then mailed the package to me care of Paris’s central post office.
“You must get there by February,” warned Yangi as we parted company. “I will see you in Delhi tomorrow.”
Some of my most vivid memories of India are of simple rickshaw rides like the one I took that day—the porters carrying ten-foot-tall bundles on their heads, the donkey carts and lowing bulls, the lunatic tuk-tuks (three-wheeled motorbikes) and occasional elephant. My ride to the train station that day proved particularly memorable because, as we neared the station, a motor scooter carrying two Sikhs zipped out of the chaos and rode parallel with my bicycle rickshaw.
“You, you,” shouted the fat Sikh on the back. “American, you know me?”
“Do I?” I yelled. Since all Sikhs wear the same turban, prescribed by their religion, I’m always thinking I just met them.
“We met in the café—Yangi’s friend!” I had met some Sikhs via Yangi. “You gave him money, yes?”
At the word money my driver looked back to see what was going on.
“Maybe.”
“I’m sorry, but you will never see your money again,” shouted the Sikh. “I wanted to warn you.”
We all swerved to the right. An elephant stacked with palm leaves lumbered past. I controlled the urge to throw up.
“Thanks!” I screamed. “Bit late now, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “He’s an old friend.” A swarm of black and yellow tuk-tuks buzzed past. “How much did you give him?”
“Too much,” I yelled. “Leave me alone.”
He grinned and zoomed off into the traffic. I immediately directed my driver to a telephone center, where I tried to cancel the payment. This, of course, was not allowed. Then, in a moment of self-fury, I tore up my credit card. I was obviously too stupid to be entrusted with one. During the four-hour train ride to Delhi I went through a hundred schemes to get my money back. But they had me. There was no way to reach Yangi, or cancel the payment. After the maze of alleys they’d taken me through, I didn’t even know how to find the painter or the shop where I’d used my card. I’d never felt so stupid. Idiot! I kept chanting in my head, dumbdumbdumbdumb. The outskirts of Delhi began to flicker past outside my window; mud huts plastered with dried cow dung, children in rags, putrescent pools of black water. I noticed that my reflection in the window was smiling. I’d had an idea.
I spent the next day waiting in the café where Yangi had arranged to meet me. When he failed to show I sought consolation in my tattered copy of a P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves, Superbutler. Around page 89, I looked up to find Yangi was sitting at my table.
“I knew I’d find you here,” he drawled.
For a second I hesitated. Did I dare to go through with my scheme? Then I sprang out of my chair.
“Yangi!” I said, as if furious. “What the hell is going on?”
“What? I am late. We had problems with the car.”
“Really? And would you like to tell me why the police were waiting for me at my hotel last night?” I hissed. “Do you have any idea?”
“Police? What police?”
“You mean you know nothing about it?”
“Know?” He looked mortified. “No, no…”
My story went like this. No sooner had I checked into my Delhi hotel than five police officers dragged me off to the nearest station, where they questioned me all night about my “activities” in Jaipur. Had I bought anything there? Did I have any Sikh friends in Jaipur? Had I mailed any packets out of India in the last week? The questioning, I told Yangi, had continued until two in the morning.
Yangi was stunned.
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing, nothing—but they kept asking about taxes.”
“Taxes?”
“Yes.” I lowered my voice. “And drugs.”
“Drugs?” His eyes widened. “But why would they ask about drugs?”
“How should I know? But you have to tell me—were there any drugs in that package?”
“No, no drugs! No drugs!” He moaned. “This is crazy!”
“Because,” I continued, “I protected you—I denied everything—but if there were any drugs in there…”
“No, no. You saw…”
“No. Remember, I never looked in the package.” I had a sudden idea. “Did you pack the paintings in the box yourself?”
“No, not me. The painter’s assistant packed them.” He looked ill. “Could he…but no, this is crazy. There were no…no drugs.”
“Because the police kept talking about heroin from Pakistan.” Jaipur was renowned as a clearinghouse for the stuff.
“Heroin?”
“Could someone else have put heroin in the box?” I acted as if it were a foregone conclusion now. “And how did the police know my hotel? Only you and Happy knew where I was staying.”
“No, no, no. “He put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand how this could be happening…”
I prattled on for a bit. Yangi seemed stunned.
“Look,” I said finally. “There should be no problem. As long as there aren’t any drugs.” I put my hand on his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. “You swear there were no drugs?”
“Yes, yes, yes…”
“No heroin?”
“Nothing, nothing!”
“Then there should be no problem. They can’t prove anything. I gave them no names.” He looked relieved. Then I snapped my fingers as if I’d remembered something. “Oh, no…”
“What?”
“I didn’t use my credit card to pay, did I?”
“Yes, with the card…”
“Hmmm. They took my card number down.” I frowned. “Do you think they can trace it?”
“I don’t know…”
“That could be a problem.”
“But there is no crime in using your credit card.”
“Yes. Except I told them I didn’t buy anything in Jaipur. Now they’ll know I lied.” I shook my head uneasily. “If only I’d paid in cash.” I paused. “You’ve put the slips through, of course?”
“Yes, this morning.”
“Too bad. If we could have gotten them back I could just give you cash instead.”
Yangi’s ears perked up. “Cash?”
Within minutes he was on his way back to Jaipur to try to cancel the credit slips. Successful or not, he would meet me here day after next. Before he headed off, he made one last suggestion.
“Maybe is better if you just leave India, Stewart.” He put his hand over mine comfortingly. “Maybe safer for you.”
“I can’t,” I said in mock despair. “The police took my passport.”
My plan (obviously) was to get the slips back, destroy them and take the first plane out of India. The problem was I had almost no cash and, having destroyed my credit card, I couldn’t pay for the ticket.
For the next two days I tramped about Delhi trying to find a way to get some foreign currency. There was one particular street I walked up dozens of times in which lay a man, horribly emaciated, covered in flies. He was dying, of course; I knew that look all too well from working at Mother Teresa’s. But along with thousands of other people, I did nothing. All I cared about was my money.
Yangi and I had arranged to meet at the Wimpy hamburger restaurant in Connaught Place. This time he arrived right on time. But he was not alone. Happy was in tow, as well as a muscle-bound “friend” I’d never met. They said the payment had already gone through and there was no way to get it back. Then they began interrogating me. They wanted to know exactly what questions the police had asked, what station we’d gone to, and what kind of uniform the officers had worn. I could tell that Yangi no longer believed my story. I lied lavishly, inventing outright, blending in half-truths. I even upped the ante by claiming the cops had visited me again with more questions. As proof, I produced a forged document showing that my credit card had been canceled by the police.
The boys were baffled.
“But why would they do this?”
“How should I know?” I asked. Then I produced my passport. “But at least they gave me my passport back.”
The lies and counterlies went on for over an hour. They demanded I go with them to the police station; I refused until they found me a lawyer. They claimed to have one; I demanded to meet him.
Finally the interrogation ended. There was a pause, and Happy pulled an envelope out of his pocket.
“We want to show you something.” He pulled out the credit card slips.
“So the credit card charges haven’t gone through.” I looked at Yangi. “You didn’t believe me?”
He shrugged.
“Can I see them?” I asked.
All three tensed as Happy slowly handed them over. The slips were all there. All I had to do was rip them in half. What could they really do? Half the restaurant was staring at us, including the security guards. They wouldn’t dare touch me. But…I hesitated. The past hour of lying, and then lying about lying, only to lie once again, had left me giddy. I felt like a compulsive gambler; my goal was no longer to win my money back but to prove that I was the best bullshit artist at the table.
“Here.” I handed the slips back to Happy. “If you think it’s safe, use them. Uh, I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Happy and Yangi were hissing like two teakettles when I returned, Yangi going yes, yes, yes, Happy nodding no, no, no. Their “friend,” as befitted a thug whose sole duty was to break my legs, had no opinion.
“We have something else we want to show you,” said Yangi as I sat down. He pulled out the credit card slips and tore them in half.
Happy put his head in his hands and moaned.
The new and improved plan was as follows: They would make forgeries of the original paintings (the original forged paintings, that is) and give these to the corporation backing the scheme, along with a note from me saying I was returning their paintings. I would then sell the original forged “antiques” in Paris as best I could. The three of us would split the profits. They figured I could sell the paintings for about ten thousand dollars.
The only catch was that it would cost about eight hundred dollars to get the new forgeries made. They could raise four hundred but wanted me to put in the rest.
I pretended to go along, all the while planning to get on the next plane out of India. But I eventually gave them the cash. After all,
if they’d conned me, I’d conned them. So in that sense, we were even. Moreover, if they weren’t scamming me, I’d done a terrible thing, and four hundred dollars was a small price to pay to ensure I did not rob innocent people of what was in Indian terms a small fortune. And I still felt a connection with Yangi. I was sure it was he who had convinced Happy to destroy the credit slips. Before I left, I asked him one last favor.
“If all this was a scam, and I don’t need to hurry to Paris to pick up the paintings, mail me this postcard,” I said. I handed him a stamped postcard addressed to myself, care of the central post office in Sana’a, Yemen. “I will be out of the country and can make no problems for you by then.”
the Man in the Red Hat
Coffee should be black as Hell, strong as death and sweet as love.
Turkish Proverb
THAT WAS THE POSTCARD I received in Sana’a two months later. Yangi had written to let me know that our “business” was still on. I would have to abandon the idea of traveling to Turkey via the old spice routes and fly instead.
Still, despite all the eminently valid reasons I had for not going overland, I was besieged by feelings of guilt as I winged my way over the Arabian peninsula. My premise had been to travel using the same means coffee had taken four to ten centuries earlier. This was clearly a deviation. To compensate, I tried to imagine myself trudging through the desert far below, suffering the same heat and thirst as had the early coffee caravans. (Stewardess? Could I have some more ice in my Coke, please?) I kept an eye peeled for trilitys, the ancient stone markers that still delineate the caravan routes from Yemen to Mecca. I even tried to imagine that the wretched airline coffee was authentic Bedouin qahwa and the stewardess a Nubian coffee slave.
But it just wasn’t the same.
MY PLANE LANDED IN THE TURKISH PORT OF IZMIR DURING ONE of the worst rainstorms in decades. I immediately took the next train to the village of Konya. When I got off the train twenty-four hours later, I climbed on the first bus I encountered and headed into town. It was hard to see what was going on outside on account of the rain, but after about twenty minutes I had the sense that we might be in the center and decided to get off. Since I couldn’t communicate, I simply offered my open wallet to the driver’s assistant, who, after an odd look, helped himself to the fare. Then he jumped out of the bus, grabbed my shoulder, and gave me a gentle shove.
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