Are You Experienced?

by William Sutcliffe

  I sucked the smoke deeply into my lungs and held my breath, exhaling slowly through my nose at the last possible moment. After a few drags, I felt my anxiety begin to fade.

  Now this was more like it. A peaceful place, surrounded by fields, with mountains to look at, and drugs to smoke. This made sense. At last we had found a place where you could chill out and concentrate on enjoying yourself. Passing a joint between us, for the first time since we had landed Liz and I smiled at each other.

  I didn’t want to scrounge too much dope, so I asked the guy next to me where I could buy some.

  ‘Yeah,’ he smiled, ‘that’s right.’ Then he nodded wisely. A few seconds later, he realized that he hadn’t answered me yet and nodded towards the reception desk. ‘Ronnie’s your main man,’ he said, then he slapped me on the shoulder affectionately and fell off his chair.

  At reception I asked if Ronnie was around. The receptionist reached under the desk and pulled out a large lunch-box with the name Ronnie and a happy face painted on it, in dribbly yellow paint.

  He opened the box and passed me a cling-film wrapper full of grass.

  ‘One hundred and fifty rupees,’ he said, and I paid him.

  This was fantastic! A bag of real grass, worth about fifty quid in England, had set me back less than a fiver. India, all of a sudden, seemed like the most civilized country on earth.

  I went and got some Rizlas from my backpack. (The Book says you can’t get Rizlas in India, so we’d brought an industrial-sized family mega-pack of them.) Joining Liz again on the veranda, I skinned up.

  Now we were really smiling at each other. It struck me, for the first time since leaving England, that I was in possession of a penis. I felt the beginnings of a rekindling libido, and decided to embark on a few strategic apologies.

  ‘Liz – I’m sorry, you know.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Just… everything.’

  She smiled at me.

  ‘I’ve been – you know – behaving like a bit of an arsehole. Everything’s just freaked me out,’ I said.

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Now we’re here, I think things can calm down a bit.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Let’s try and get on, yeah?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Both of us,’ I said, pointedly. I’d only really apologized in the hope that it would make her apologize. After all, she was the one really acting the arsehole, not me.

  ‘All right. We’ll both try and be a bit nicer to each other, then.’

  That didn’t really qualify as an apology in my book, but at least it came with a genuine smile, so after a brief consultation with my ever-swelling dick, I decided to accept it as a peace-offering.

  I reached out my hand and smiled back.

  ‘Bygones?’ I said.

  ‘Bygones.’

  She took my hand.

  ‘We’re stuck with each other now, so we might as well make an effort,’ I said, giving her hand a little squeeze.

  ‘I think we can get on,’ she said, squeezing back.

  The joint went backwards and forwards between us a few times, with our hands remaining interlocked. Veins in my drought-stricken groin started singing joyous blood-worshipping anthems.

  While she sucked out the last of the smoke, I reached over and stroked the back of her hand. We remained like this for a good while, staring in amicable silence at the staggeringly beautiful view of the Himalayas: lush foothills, with every curve shaped into a paddy-field, topped by enormous snowy peaks. I had never seen anything so impressive.

  Yes – at last – I was pleased to be in India. I could feel the knot of tension in my stomach beginning to loosen. Paul and James had been right about travel, after all. This was an amazing experience. And the dope really was cheap.

  ‘Shall I roll another?’ I said, eventually.

  ‘Why not?’

  She blinked at me, slowly.

  ‘Shall we have a smoke in the room?’

  ‘OK.’

  Still hand in hand, we shuffled inside.

  She sat on the bed, while I locked the door and drew the curtains. I slid on to the bed next to her, and we stared at each other, half-smirks playing on our mouths.

  ‘Can’t just sit here all day,’ I said. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  She raised an eyebrow at me, and I answered her by plucking out a few Rizlas. I licked and stuck them together, while Liz settled back against the headboard. With the joint completed, I sat next to her, placed it in her hand and extended the lighter.

  ‘Would Madame care to commence?’

  She grinned, and planted the joint droopily into the corner of her mouth. I lit it for her, enjoying the way her eyes narrowed when she inhaled. In a silence broken only by the crackling weed, we passed the joint between us. I felt the world outside gradually recede away to nothing, as I concentrated on her face, her fingers and the smoke swirling out of her lips.

  When the tiny stub burned my fingers, I tossed it on to the floor, placed my arm around Liz’s neck and kissed her deeply on the mouth. I could taste every crease in her lips, every twitch of her tongue. The difference between the hardness of her teeth and the softness of her mouth struck me as a miracle of evolution. For a while, our kiss became the entire universe.

  Then she was taking off my shirt, and I was taking off her shirt, and it occurred to us that we really weren’t getting very far like that, and we leaped off the bed, stripped ourselves and hopped back in.

  Through a haze of mounting lust, I noticed that she kept her knickers on.

  As we swamped each other in more kisses, I started trying to discreetly remove her pants without her noticing. In response, what had previously been an ‘Mmmm’ started turning itself into a ‘Nnnn’. I had to try and hurry before the ‘o’ came along. My attempt to yank the pants over her buttocks made an ominous ripping sound and broke the spell.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No sex.’

  ‘Why?’

  She kissed me, even more passionately than before.

  ‘No sex,’ she repeated, pausing to wipe saliva from her chin.

  ‘Why?’ I said, during the next pause for breath.

  She answered me by turning me over on to my back and disappearing under the sheet.

  ‘I love James,’ she said, then shut me up by wrapping her mouth around the end of my penis.

  For the rest of the week we hardly left the Rainbow Lodge, and spent our days smoking, eating, chatting, going for the occasional wander and having almost-sex.

  For the first time, I actually liked India. The vibes with Liz were on the mend, and all the hassles of travelling seemed much less intense and demoralizing now that we had found a calm little enclave where we could pass the days.

  I also lost my aversion to Indian yoghurt when I was introduced to Bhang Lassi, which is a drink made out of milk, yoghurt and hash. The superb thing was, you could order it from the hotel staff, which came in very handy when you were feeling too stoned to roll another joint. I didn’t really like the taste, but became fond of Bhang Lassi anyway, since the best way to relieve the boredom of constant dope-smoking is to drink it.

  There were loads of other travellers hanging out at the hotel, and because everyone shared joints it was an extremely sociable place. You ended up talking to a whole range of people, and most of our evenings were spent in pleasant, semi-comatose card-games which were dominated by the passing of spliffs and the exchange of ideas about travelling. I was mainly into the cards and the drugs, while Liz took to all the philosophizing with depressing enthusiasm.

  No one ever seemed to get tired of talking about Indiaahh. I didn’t see what there was to theorize about, and how you could possibly set about trying to explain a country, but everyone, it seemed, had a theory. Liz, predictably enough, lapped it all up, and I could tell that my cynicism about the whole thing was beginning to get on her nerves.

  One guy, called Jonah, had been travelling almost nonstop for seventeen years. He
claimed it had been almost a decade since he last wore shoes, and warbled on indefinitely about how inhuman it was to lose contact with the soil. He also said that whenever he encountered a beggar, instead of giving them money, he gave them a hug.

  For hours on end, he held court over the group with tales of disease, robbery, drug abuse and foot-rot. These stories were just overtures, however, to help him draw a crowd. And it was only when he had a proper audience that he would embark on his favourite topic: a Unifying Theory of India.

  ‘India,’ says Jonah, ‘is at the same time the most beautiful and the most horrific country – and Indians are both the warmest and the most brutal people on earth.’

  Although Jonah has barely warmed to his theme, Belle, an American hippie dressed in military fatigues, jumps in. ‘India,’ she says, ‘is a beautiful country, but let’s face it, guys – it’s ruined by the people. They’re all obsessed with money. They always want something off you. All they can think about is selling and buying.’

  ‘You haven’t scratched below the surface, man,’ says Ing, a Scandinavian who has the build of a famine victim, but always seems to be eating. (Intestinal worm, according to Liz.) ‘Commerce is simply a modern, kind of, thin sheet of plastic that has been wrapped over the rich carpet of India’s history. I mean, this country has been invaded so many times, but it has always survived with its own culture in place. Capitalism is just the invader of today, and when it is defeated like all the other armies, there will be left behind the same spiritual people who always have lived here.’

  ‘It’s very cheap,’ says Brian from Nottingham. ‘You can get cheap things.’

  ‘But… what’s your name again?’ stutters Belle.

  ‘Ing.’

  ‘Ing?’

  ‘Ing.’

  ‘But Ing – capitalism isn’t going to vanish like all the other invaders. This time, India’s lost the fight. Its character is disappearing. Only a fool can say that India is still a spiritual country.’

  In England,’ says Brian, ‘a banana costs up to twenty pence, but here you can get a bunch of ten to fifteen bananas for as little as thirty pee. That’s a huge saving.’

  ‘Let us not forget,’ says Burl (Belle’s boyfriend), ‘that India has never recovered from British colonization. It will be two or maybe three more generations before Indians can truly respect themselves again. By which time it might be too late.’

  ‘I love it here,’ says Jonah, ‘but I hate it here.’ He nods sagely.

  ‘I,’ says Ing, ‘hate it here. But I love it here.’ He nods even more sagely than Jonah, who gets a bit miffed and tries to up the sageness quotient in his nod. This doesn’t work because the miffiness shows through, so Jonah withdraws from the battle of nods and rolls another joint.

  At this point, Xavier embarks on his theory. ‘India, lack manee a beeg countray, souffers a crush under eetz own weight. Lack a whale own ze beach, ze size of eetz own self-population, eez ze mourder weapon of involunaree suiceede.’

  Everyone looks at him blankly.

  ‘J’aime l’Inde. Mais je la deteste,’ he says, emphatically. Everyone nods sagely, trying to show they understand French.

  ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it?’ whispers Liz in my ear, her face alight with stimulation.

  ‘It’s all bollocks if you ask me.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘Easily. It’s all bollocks.’

  ‘But… all these theories. People who’ve travelled all over the world and are willing to share their experiences with us. Do you realize how lucky we are?’

  ‘We’re lucky not to be like them, that’s for sure.’

  She touches my cheek, and looks longingly into my eyes.

  ‘Please, Dave. For me – just for me – will you please try and leave behind all this Western cynicism? Please. This is our chance to expand our minds. We have to take it.’

  I look back at her. She has that look of desperate sincerity in her eyes that people get when they need sedation. Unable to think of a way to wriggle out of it, I decide that the only courteous thing to do is to lie.

  ‘OK. I’m sorry. I’ll try.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I’ll try and be more Eastern about things.’

  Fortunately, she doesn’t notice that I’m being sarcastic.

  The real India

  After a week in Manali, disaster struck. Jeremy turned up.

  I thought I’d find you here,’ he said, as he emerged at the end of the path.

  ‘J!’ shrieked Liz, leaping from her chair and rushing to give him a kiss.

  ‘Hi, Dave,’ he said, apparently oblivious to the fact that we were supposed to hate each other’s guts.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘I see you’re partaking of the local poison.’

  ‘No. I’m smoking a joint.’

  ‘J! You were so right about this hotel. It’s amazing,’ gushed Liz.

  ‘This hotel is Manali, it’s as simple as that,’ he replied. ‘Now where’s some weed?’

  Without even asking, Liz took the joint out of my hand and passed it to Jeremy. He placed it between two fingers just under the knuckle, curled his hand into a fist and sucked the smoke out from around the base of his thumb.

  Next thing I know, he’s teaching Liz how to do the same thing.

  ‘You’ll notice a lot of the locals smoke like this,’ he’s saying.

  *

  Two days later, Jeremy tried to organize a day-trip. He told everyone in the hotel that there was a holy cave inhabited by Sadhus half-way up a nearby mountain, and that anyone who wanted to go should meet on the veranda first thing the following morning.

  I was initially against the idea, just because it came from Jeremy. However, it was such a long time since I’d done anything active that the prospect of a long walk actually felt quite inviting. Also, if I wanted to stay in favour with Liz, it was important to show a bit of enthusiasm for something vaguely Eastern. A cave’s a cave if you ask me, but since it was supposedly a holy one it satisfied Liz’s mind-expansion credentials, so taking part in the trip would score me a few Brownie points. I decided to join in.

  By ten o’clock a reasonable crowd had gathered: Burl, Belle, Ing and Jonah had all turned up, along with a guy call Ranj who was, of all things, Indian.

  Shortly after we had set off, I spotted Liz (who was at the front of the group with Jeremy) giving a hug to a beggar. The beggar looked suitably disgusted by this behaviour, so I attempted to compensate by giving him a few rupees. Even though I couldn’t see Liz’s facial expression, I got the impression that post-hug, she had a whole new walk. Her body language now said, ‘Everybody look at me – I’m just so damn serene it hurts.’

  A mile or so down the road, it emerged that Jonah knew of a short cut. This burst Jeremy’s bubble, which put me in an excellent mood, and left Liz at the back of the group, in charge of consoling him. I ended up talking to Ranj for most of the walk.

  Ranj, it turned out, was from Putney. Instead of wearing all the traveller gear (which by now even I had bought), he was dressed in Levi’s and a tight, freshly laundered T-shirt which showed off his toned muscles. He also sported the first hairstyle I’d seen since arriving in Manali.

  He told me that he’d been dragged over by his parents to meet the family, but it had all just got too much for him, so he’d run away to the hills. He said his family was really rich and had contacts everywhere who would be out looking for him, so I shouldn’t tell anyone that I’d seen him.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said.

  ‘I swear, they’ll find me. Wherever I am, they’ll find me and drag me back.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not being a bit paranoid? I mean, it’s a big country.’

  ‘You don’t know how it works here. My family’s got their fingers in everything. I just need to say my name, and a total stranger will know what family I belong to, and word will get back to them of where I am. I swear to God. And I’ll be in such deep shit when they find me.�
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  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I ran away, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘But couldn’t you tell them you just wanted to go backpacking?’

  ‘Backpacking! You think they’d let me go backpacking! Travelling around like some low-life, with dirty clothes on my back, sleeping in bug-infested hotels with stinking hippies. Never in a million years would they let me go off like this. And on my own! Jesus Christ! They’d think I’d gone mad.’

  ‘But I thought everyone did it.’

  ‘Yeah, I mean, loads of my mates back home have done it. But not me. I’m not allowed.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m Indian. And this is no way to behave for a respectable Indian.’

  ‘Travelling’s respectable.’

  ‘Pah! Travellers are the scum of the earth.’

  ‘But we’re rich. We’re Western.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we can afford to buy expensive things.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘So people act like they respect us.’

  ‘Exactly. They act like they respect you. But they don’t. They think you’re dirty and tight-fisted, but they suck up to you because they want your money. Remember that. No Indian in this country will ever become your friend. Whatever they say to you is a lie – they only want your money.’

  ‘You can’t say that. It’s racist.’

  ‘Of course it’s racist. I hate Indians, man. They’re fucking barbarians. All they’re interested in is money, money, money. I’ve been pinned down by ten thousand cousins all day every day for the last month, and all they want to talk about is stereos and cars and whisky and property prices, and it’s driven me up the fucking wall, man. That’s why I had to get out. I’m not interested in all that shit. I’m not interested in my dad’s poxy business, and I couldn’t give two shits if all his crappy clothes fall apart ten seconds after they’ve left the warehouse. It’s all crap. It’s materialist crap.’

  ‘But I thought India was supposed to be, like, a spiritual country and everything.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve come travelling. I want to find the real India. I’m searching for, kind of, my spiritual motherland.’