‘And twenty on the way back,’ I said.
‘Not bad,’ said Jeremy. ‘Bit more practice and you’ll be there.’
‘What are you reading?’ said Liz.
‘The Gita,’ he said, holding up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita.
‘Oh, wow,’ said Liz.
‘Is it any good?’ I said.
He gave me a patronizing look. ‘Good? This is the Gita we’re talking about, here. I mean, is the bible any “good”?’ He made the inverted commas with his fingers.
‘Dunno. I’ve never read it. I expect it’s got a few good bits.’
He turned to Liz, ostentatiously addressing his comments away from me.
‘It is the book. It explains everything you need to know about India. You can’t come here and not read it.’
‘I thought the Lonely Planet was the book. Is the Bhagavad Gita better than the Lonely Planet, then? Are the prices more up-to-date?’
They both ignored me.
‘Can I borrow it after you’ve finished?’ said Liz.
He chuckled.
‘You never finish the Bhagavad Gita. I’ve been through it more times than I can remember. Here.’ He closed the book, and threw it to her. It wasn’t a very good throw, but she managed to catch it, and looked at him, slightly bewildered. He smiled back. ‘From me,’ he said. ‘Call it an introductory gift. To India.’ He put his arms behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling. ‘Maybe, if you feel like it, at some point you’ll give me one of your books.’
In return for his sixty-page, dog-eared copy of the Bhagavad Gita, he got a fresh, unread Oscar and Lucinda.
‘We’ve decided what to do,’ said Liz.
‘Oh?’ said Jeremy.
‘We’re going to stick to our original plan. It’s just too hot down here, and the monsoon’s on the way, so we’re going to head for the mountains. We reckon Simla’s a good place for a first stop.’
‘Simla?’
‘D’you reckon that sounds like a good idea?’
‘You’ve got to do what feels right for you, Liz. I can’t tell you where to go.’
‘What – is there something wrong with Simla?’
‘Go where the feeling takes you, Liz. That’s what you’re here for. There’s no right or wrong.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I only…’
‘Just go. Chill out.’
‘D’you want to… come with us?’
NO! No – she couldn’t ask that. Not Jeremy. I couldn’t face it.
‘I’d love to,’ he said.
Noooo.
‘But I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ said Liz. ‘I thought you could go where the feeling took you.’
‘Nice one. I just can’t. I’m stuck here, waiting for some money to come through.’
‘Waiting for some money to come through?’ I said.
‘Yeah. I’ve run out.’
‘Where’s it coming from?’ I said.
‘Home.’
‘How come? From who?’
‘Parents.’
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. That’s the life, I thought. Mummy and daddy cabling you money whenever you ran out.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s funny?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘Nothing. Am I laughing? Is this a laugh?’
‘You were laughing. I want to know what you were laughing at.’
‘Just… you know.’
‘No, I don’t know.’
‘Just – it’s funny that your parents send you money.’
‘Why?’
‘It just is.’ I smirked. I’d really got under his skin now. ‘I just – you know – took you for someone a bit older, that’s all.’
He stood up, throwing Oscar and Luanda on to the ground.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing.’
The atmosphere thickened as we stared at each other, neither of us speaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. I mean – just because I earned the money to come here doesn’t make me any better than you. And it wasn’t really a surprise anyway. I shouldn’t have laughed. It was obvious from when you first opened your mouth that you were a toff. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed.’
He was really pissed off now.
‘I am not a toff.’
‘No – sorry. Wrong word.’
‘And I did earn the money to come here. My parents just happen to be sending me a top-up.’
‘Right. Exactly. I’m leaping to conclusions.’
‘And I am not a toff.’
‘Sorry. Touchy subject.’
He was twitching with rage.
‘People like you… people… it’s your kind of… of… obsession with class that… that really… it’s so juvenile, and so English. You’re just so fucking English it makes me sick. You’re narrow-minded, and pathetic – and you don’t know anything about me. So bugger off.’
‘You’re right. Let’s get to know each other better, shall we? Like – what school did you go to?’
‘I bet you went to private school, too.’
‘Maybe I did, but that doesn’t make me a toff.’
‘I am NOT a… a bloody…’ If he hadn’t been a wimp, he would have hit me. I saw it cross his mind. Instead he took a few deep breaths, picked up his book, and stormed off into the hotel. In the doorway, he turned round and shouted at me, ‘I hope you… I hope you… get malaria.’
A sadist’s zero-gravity chamber
Liz showed Jeremy our bus tickets to Simla. He kindly pointed out that seats 52 and 53 were going to be at the back, and that it’s basic knowledge to make sure that you get a seat near the front if you don’t want to have your spine shattered by the bumps in the road. He also mentioned that our tickets said ‘Luxury VT’ on them, which meant that the bus had a video and we would be deafened by Hindi musicals for the entire journey, which, he gleefully added, took at least fourteen hours.
‘How long were you queuing?’ he said.
We both scowled at him.
‘Two hours,’ said Liz.
‘You should have got the hotel to send a boy for you,’ said Jeremy.
‘Do they really do that?’ said Liz.
‘Of course – costs a few rupees, but it saves you a day. Oh well – live and learn.’
More than ever, I wanted to pull out Jeremy’s toenails.
It turned out that the stuff about shattering your spine wasn’t just a turn of phrase. The rear wheels of the bus were roughly half-way down the chassis, turning the back fifteen rows into a pivot which magnified the slightest bump in what was already a staggeringly uneven road. As a result, we travelled in a kind of sadist’s zero-gravity chamber, where you spent half the time floating in mid air and the other half having your arse spanked by the seat.
It was the first time I had got close to a local for any length of time, and it struck me that all the stuff about Indians accepting their fate was true. The guy next to me didn’t even seem to notice how uncomfortable the bus was. Occasionally, if we’d just floated to the ceiling and then been given a triple-whack which was hard enough to send all five of us on to the floor, he would give me an isn’t-this-funny grin, but other than that, he just stared out of the window, seemingly content that he was being simultaneously paralysed and castrated.
The one advantage of being at the back was that you were further away from the Hindi musicals playing at the front of the bus. In the course of the trip, the same film was played four times, and although I could only see the screen when I was in mid air, by the end of the journey I’d watched most of the film piecemeal, and could just about follow the story.
As far as I could tell it was about a guy who wants to marry a sexy girl, but his parents want him to marry an ugly girl. Just when he’s about to marry the ugly girl, he discovers that the sexy girl has been kidnapped by an ugly man who wears black leather a
nd scowls at the camera. The hero rushes out on a horse in search of the kidnapped sexy girl, and has a punch-up in the desert with the ugly man. He’s about to save the sexy girl when it emerges that the ugly girl is in cahoots with the ugly man, and she has somehow tied the father to a chair in the sand and is in the process of pouring petrol all over him. The ugly girl pulls out a box of matches, and they all pause to sing a song. Just then, fifty blokes in black jump out from behind a bush that wasn’t there until they jumped out from behind it and start shooting at the hero, who hides behind a small wooden box. Eventually, he comes out, holding a white handkerchief, but when the ugly man in black comes to gloat (which he does in song) the hero trips him up, steals his gun, and shoots all the fifty men in black who jumped out from behind the magically appearing bush.
The father, whose petrol seems to have dried off, frees himself from the chair and has a comedy fight with a fat man who appears to serve no purpose. The sexy girl points out to the hero that the ugly girl is escaping through the desert just as the father defeats the fat man by putting a bucket on his head. The hero, the father and the sexy girl then all sing a song in which the father seems to give his blessing to their marriage. Meanwhile, the ugly girl on the horizon shakes her fist, and says something which can only be a vow of revenge. A few seconds later, just as she is on the point of dying of thirst, she comes across a lonely hut on top of a sand-dune. She knocks on the door and is welcomed by a man who tries to seduce her (in song). She is unimpressed by his advances until she notices that in the corner of the room is a mini-laboratory, containing what appears to be a half-finished nuclear bomb. Together they hatch a plan.
After that, the plot became a bit too difficult to follow. As far as I could tell, in the end the sexy people married each other, the ugly people got blown up, and the fat people ended up with buckets on their head.
Now that’s what I call quality entertainment.
The journey included plenty of stops where everyone got out and drank glasses of tea which was sweeter than Coke, and only marginally less milky than milk. At first it made me gag, but as the trip progressed I gradually got into it as a drink. The secret was to avoid thinking of it as tea. As long as you persuaded yourself that it was a warmed-up soft drink, the taste was O K. And it gave you enough of a sugar rush to restore your will to live after several hours of arse-spanking.
There was only one other Westerner on the bus, and despite the fact that he had the best seat, right at the front, he seemed distinctly miserable. Every time we stopped, he was the first one out of the bus, hitting the ground at a sprint, and dashing off, clutching a loo roll.
Liz struck up a conversation with him at one of the stops, but when I noticed that his shirt was flecked with vomit I decided to steer clear. It turned out that he was Belgian and had blood in his stool, so we both avoided him after that.
We discovered that lunch was included in the price of the ticket when someone plonked a cardboard tray filled with unidentifiable blobs of curry on our laps. I waited for Liz to try each blob before I had a go, but I only really trusted the yellow blob, which I could tell was made of lentils. In one corner was a tub of unidentifiable white stuff which had set into a firmish lump with a smooth surface. The guy on my left saw me poke at it and said, ‘Crrd’.
‘What?’
‘Crrd.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Crrd.’ He took a spoonful. ‘Very good.’
‘Liz, what’s crrd?’
‘It’s that white stuff.’
‘I know, but what is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you going to try it?’
‘Don’t see why not.’
She tasted a large floppy lump.
‘It’s nice. Kind of like yoghurt.’
‘Bloody hell – I’m not touching that.’
‘Please yourself.’
She ate the whole of hers, swearing that it was delicious, but I thought she was mad. After all, yoghurt’s basically off milk, isn’t it? It’s insane to put all that effort into an against-the-odds struggle to avoid eating disease-infested food, and then deliberately shovel rancid dairy products into your mouth. No way.
The rest of the journey took twice as long as I had expected, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that random people kept on appearing out of nowhere and selling bananas and nuts through the window, I would have starved.
A few strategic apologies
By the time we got to Simla, I’d eaten so many bananas that I already had the shits, despite the fact that I’d only eaten two curries so far on the entire trip.
Liz found it hilarious that I’d given myself a bad tummy by avoiding curry, which I took as a symptom of the worsening vibe that seemed to be developing between us. Once, on the bus, I tried to clear the air by venting my anger over the fact that she had invited Jeremy to come with us, but it didn’t really work. She just got all het up, and ranted on about how we didn’t own the bus, and we didn’t own Simla, and it was always nice to travel with a bit of company. I couldn’t help feeling as if this meant that I didn’t count as company any more, which also seemed like a bad sign.
Simla was reasonably nice, and we spent a few days wandering around, looking at each of the sights mentioned in The Book. Even though there were far fewer beggars than in Delhi, and we generally got hassled far less, I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was shit-scared of everyone and everything. Even people who weren’t shouting at us to buy or sell things frightened me. Just that I’m-poor-and-you’re-rich look in their eyes made me feel depressed and guilty.
Worst of all were the kids, who swarmed around you asking what your name was, or for a pen, or sometimes for money. They jumped at you constantly, ambushing you just when you were least expecting it, screaming questions at you, and waving their grubby little fingers towards you in the hope that you’d give them a handshake. The kids were usually so dirty I hated having to touch them, but they’d never go away until you had at least patted them on the head.
Liz seemed to enjoy being mobbed by lice-infested street urchins and often squatted down to talk or play with them, while I hovered at a safe distance. As far as I could tell, she had no understanding whatsoever of the means by which disease is transmitted. Either that or she fancied herself as a Mother Teresa.
My personal space was so perpetually invaded by the children, the salesmen and the general crowds that I realized I either had to give up on the idea of having one, or embark on a nervous breakdown. For the time being, it seemed as if the latter was the easier option, and every morning I woke up feeling mildly sick at the thought that there was only breakfast between my bed and the outside world.
I found myself staring at other travellers, to try and tell whether they were genuinely having a good time or were only pretending. Some of them were quite blatantly having a shit time, but if’I spotted a group who looked happy, I found myself watching them intently and eavesdropping on them, to try and figure out how they could possibly be having fun.
I failed to see how anyone could enjoy being in India. How did they do it? What was wrong with them? Or was I simply weak-willed and over-sensitive? Maybe I’d been right in thinking that I was too much of a coward to deal with the Third World. Perhaps I should have been honest with myself, and spent the money on a month in Benidorm? I decided to try and cheer myself up by sending a couple of postcards home.
Dear Mum & Dad,
We arrived safely a few days ago and are already up in the mountains. As you can see from the front Simla is in an amazing setting, right up in the mountains, with bizarre English-looking houses and even a church! There’s incredible poverty everywhere, but I think I might be getting used to it. I’m staying in the YMCA, where there’s a full-size snooker table with a little ivory plaque on the side commemorating Major Thompson, who got a break of 109 here in 1902. Hope you’re well.
love,
Dave
Dear Grandad,
Greetin
gs from India! It’s really hot here, but I’m having an amazing time. Haven’t been here long, but I can already tell what an amazing country it is. The roads are really bad, though. Hope you’re well.
love,
Dave
I could tell that Liz was as miserable as me, but neither of us wanted to talk about it, so we soldiered on, trying to enjoy Simla. After a few days, we’d seen all the main things and felt that we had recovered enough from the previous bus journey to embark on another one, this time taking us further up into the mountains to the small town of Manali. Everyone we met told us that Manali was the place to be – apparently, it was a kind of Goa-in-the-hills. This would be a perfect place to relax and to give ourselves a little breathing space. So far, everything had just been too hectic.
The mountains on the way to Manali were spectacular, but the town itself looked grim at first sight. Still, we had Jeremy’s recommendation for a peaceful out-of-town hotel called the Rainbow Lodge and headed there on foot, following an impossible-to-follow map in The Book.
We were accompanied most of the way by touts from various hotels who tried to drag us off in different directions and refused to direct us to the one we wanted, insisting that the Rainbow Lodge was overpriced and dirty, and begging us to take a quick look at their hotel. They were so insistent that you had to hate them, while at the same time feeling guilty because they all looked piss-poor, and their hotels probably weren’t any worse than the Rainbow Lodge, and it wouldn’t have been very difficult to go five minutes out of our way to at least have a glance. Still, if you went around caving in to all the pressure you’d go mad. You have to stand firm and do what you want. If you show any weakness or sympathy, they’ll fuck you over.
By the time we found the hotel, we were both feeling stressed and knackered. Still, at least we’d seen the town, which meant we’d got all the tourism done in advance, and could settle in for some serious puffing. By all accounts, this was the best hotel in Manali for dope, and having taken a room, we installed ourselves excitedly on the veranda. Within seconds, a joint had found its way into our hands.
Are You Experienced? Page 6