by Frank Kusy
I decided to trust him and we walked along together to meet Kevin. Kevin gave Ram a look of no confidence, and asked him if he was happy. Ram said he would only be happy when he had enough money. He soon dropped his pretence of being a ‘genuine tourist guide’, and began asking us if we had any American dollars to sell. To keep us sweet, he stopped at a nearby sugar-cane press on the roadside, and bought us two large glasses of frothy yellow cane juice. This was too sweet, however, and Kevin gave his to an elderly beggar, who gulped it down eagerly. We later learnt that this juice – pressed from unwashed canes grown in fields ‘fertilised’ with human excrement – was one of the biggest causes of amoebic dysentery in Poona.
The day ended well, though. I returned to the station concourse three hours later to find that my number had just been called. The milling crowd round the ticket window immediately let me through to make my purchase. It was just as Ram had predicted.
Part Three
Buddha and the Bodhi Tree
March 4th
I woke this morning to find Kevin back at the mirror, polishing his bald head with fanatic zeal. He was determined to get his hair back as soon as possible. I told him that if he rubbed it hard enough, he might get three wishes. In which case, he could make a full head of hair one of them.
As I waved farewell to Kevin from the early bus to Aurangabad, I briefly wondered how I would do without his infectious good humour and enthusiasm. But two months is a long time to travel with someone, and both of us by now needed to discover how we would cope on our own. I turned to locate my reserved seat in the packed bus, and instantly forgot all about Kevin. There was a stubborn old man in my seat. It took me ages to persuade him out of it.
Soon after that, the heat hit me. As we plunged inland, the fierce desert breeze blew in through the open windows and dried me out to a withered husk. At each (infrequent) stop the bus made, I was forced to down several glasses of the only cold beverage on sale: sugar-cane juice. As we progressed, the landscape grew ever more dry and barren. The baked desert, scorched white by the sun, shimmered with such intense brilliance that my eyes were constantly smarting and red. And all that I could see, through the thick clouds of dust blowing up from the parched dirt-track, was an endless terrain of flat plains, arid wasteland and burnt-ochre foothills. The only people I saw the whole six hour journey were two brave souls marching purposefully off into the heart of the bleached wilderness – both looking buoyantly optimistic. What about, I couldn’t hazard a guess. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, out there!
At Aurangabad, I took a clean dormitory bed in the Youth Hostel, which also provided a TV lounge, a restaurant and recreational facilities, and a mosquito net – all for just six rupees (50 pence) per night. It was a real find!
Aurangabad itself was a quiet, sleepy town, full of unemployed rickshaw drivers, diffident beggars, and lazy sugar-cane stands doing little or no business at all. The general atmosphere of the place was extremely laidback. Which was exactly what I needed as I adjusted to travelling alone in this unpredictable country, and after such a long and tiring bus journey.
March 5th
The road out from Aurangabad throws a sharp right turn towards Ellora, just as you leave town. This turning is marked by a grotesque monument in the road, constructed from what looks like bright-blue bicycle wheels. Taking a cheap bus tour to the Ellora Caves this morning, this odd signpost was the only thing with any colour in it I saw all day.
Despite a certain stark beauty, the scenery outside the bus was uniformly drab. All we saw for miles were bleak flat-top mountains gasping in the heat of a brush-strewn empty desert. The only variation to this were the few rows of banyan trees which occasionally appeared by the roadside. They were the largest and oldest ones I had yet seen, and by far the thirstiest! Their drooping branches threw out long tendrils which scraped vainly for moisture in the dry dust like bony, desiccated fingers. All of us on the bus knew how they felt – by the time we made our first stop, at Daulatabad, our mouths and throats felt dry as parchment.
Daulatabad is a deserted hilltop fortress, the only raised point in the middle of a flat, uninhabited wilderness. It is the creation of the mad Muhammed Tughlaq, who some centuries ago decided to move his capital here from Delhi. Paranoically concerned about security, he erected a remarkable seven-walled fort here atop a massive rock outcrop: even its battlements had battlements! The many mighty wooden gates had been spiked to deter elephant charges, the surrounding moat had been populated with crocodiles, and the whole fortress was full of dead-end ambush points, hidden firing hoes and boiling-oil channels to overwhelm any invading force. Despite all these inventive defences, however, Daulatabad had spent most of its active life being captured! Using typical Indian guile, the invaders hadn’t bothered fighting through all those tiresome defences – they had simply bribed the guards to let them in the front gate.
Muhammed had tired of being invaded after a while, and seventeen years after arriving had marched all his subjects back north again. Thousands of them had perished on the journey down, thousands more had died of thirst and boredom in Daulatabad itself, and most of the remainder expired on the long trek back to Delhi. In just twenty years, Muhammed Tughlaq had achieved the nearest thing to mass genocide in the India of his day.
At Grisheshwar, site of one of twelve ancient Shiva jyotolingas (stone penises), I tried to enter the inner shrine but was stopped by a frowning priest. He showed me to a sign which said: ‘Visitors wishing to achieve dharvana with the Deity must Take off Their Clothes’. I shook my head and moved on. Nobody was going to get me to strip off for a stone phallus.
By the time we drew near to Ellora, the heat had become unbearable. It was so bad that a lone banyan tree I saw in the desert had no less than thirty bullocks crowded beneath its flimsy shade. They all looked exactly how I felt – damnably hot and thirsty.
We came down from an enjoyable tour of the Ellora Caves to a small roadside restaurant. My ‘lunch’ here was five consecutive cups of tea, the sun having reached unbelievable intensity. I gasped away in the shade, and watched an itinerant cow wander in from off the street. First it gobbled down a dirty old newspaper by my feet, then it ambled off and began experimentally nibbling at a small child sitting in the dust. The child only just escaped.
The tour over, I took supper this evening at Pinky’s Restaurant in Station Road. Its advertisement of ‘beer permit’ was irresistible. ‘Do come inside, sir,’ requested the friendly manager. ‘We cannot serve alcohol outside – today is a “dry” day.’ I told him he wasn’t joking, and entered. Then I sampled his menu. I liked the sound of FRIED FISH WITH CHEEPS, and of MASH ROOM WITH BOOMBOO HOOTS. But ASSORTED OLD MEATS and CHICKEN ANTIQUE didn’t appeal in the slightest. As for the manager he was far too busy trying to buy my solar-powered pocket calculator to trouble himself with taking my order. So I stuck with the beer.
March 6th
After a good night’s sleep up on the hostel roof (the steamy dorm below was like the Black Hole of Calcutta), I determined to explore the nearby Aurangabad Caves and took a long rickshaw ride into the middle of the desert to see them.
As at Ellora, these caves had been chiselled into the side of a mountainside cleft. Looking down, the desert plains panned out in a vast, sweeping expanse, the monotony broken only by the tiny glittering city of Aurangabad below. I viewed all this with awe tinged with anxiety – this was all very pretty, but would I have enough water to get back alive? Summer had come early to Aurangabad this year. At least two months early. The plains below were stricken pale and dumb by the unrelenting blast of the noonday sun. I hurried into the caves, eager for their cool shade.
There were ten of them in all – grey inner shrines containing Buddhas, bodhissatvas and lesser deities, all superbly carved into the rock. And they charted the rise and fall of Buddhism in this region – the first two caves having nothing but a large simple Buddha inside (seated), while the next three had him ‘guarded’ by not-
so-Buddhist thugs waving clubs or ‘attended’ by large-breasted erotic dancers. How the Buddha kept his mind on his enlightened condition, I can’t imagine! By the time they constructed Cave Six, the monks had begun to favour Brahmanism again, so that statues of Shiva, Ganesh and other Hindu gods share equal billing with those of the Buddha. This theme continued into Cave Seven, which had the most beautiful carvings of all. I came to this cave to find it being cleaned and renovated by a crew of noisy, friendly workmen. I asked them how they had got up to this desolate spot today, and they pointed to Cave Eight, which they had just turned into a bicycle shed.
Unable to see a rickshaw anywhere, I decided – even though my water-bottle was now empty – to walk down off the mountain and over the sun-baked desert by foot. This turned out to be a relatively pleasant excursion. Despite a raging thirst, I took comfort from the bleak but majestic views along the descent, and found the solitude of this walk most welcome. It was the only the second time (after Colva Beach) I had been truly alone in India.
Half an hour later, I staggered into a small shanty town, populated by large numbers of dirty, noisy children. ‘Goodbye! Goodbye!’ they shouted at me as I approached. What a strange greeting, I thought. Surely they meant ‘Hello!’ But no, they knew exactly what they meant. They had seen what I had just seen – a pack of heat-maddened wild dogs bolting down the road, intent on ripping me to shreds.
It is incredible how fast one can run when one has to.
Exhausted, I took a rickshaw the rest of the way home. Then, at 7.30pm, I commenced the long trip back to New Delhi, taking the bus for Manmad.
At Manmad station I began what was to be the most harrowing night of my life. The ordeal started with a gang of local youths lobbing a succession of paper cups at my bald head on the platform. Before I could object, they had run off into the darkness, giggling like a pack of naughty schoolboys. Fuming with annoyance, I realised – for the first time since leaving Kevin – the worst drawback of travelling alone. Bad experiences, instead of being laughed off with a companion, simply fester away inside and turn sour.
My train was two hours late in arriving, which didn’t help matters. And then, the final disaster, I couldn’t find the sleeping berth I had reserved. I studied the carriage and berth numbers on my ticket, and found what I thought must be my bunk. But there was an Indian already asleep in it. He stirred himself to look at my ticket and told me I was in the wrong carriage. I’ll never know why I believed him, but I did. Several frantic enquiries on the platform got me nowhere. Then, as the train began to move out of the station, an impatient rail official bustled me into the nearest carriage and told me not to worry. But I did worry. This carriage was choc-a-bloc full of soldiers, beggars and destitutes. There was hardly room to stand, let alone sit down.
Sandwiched between sweaty bodies, I seethed with frustration as I waited to put matters straight at the next station. Coming into Jalgaon a long hour later, I struggled off the train and angrily demanded that the ticket collector confirm me in my correct sleeping berth. I told him that some shiftless scoundrel was already sleeping in it. That didn’t go down too well. He shrugged and told me to sleep anywhere I could find. So I did. I spent the whole night hunched up under a dirty wash-hand basin next to the carriage toilet.
March 7th
I was jarred out of my fitful doze by a troop of noisy Indians trampling over me on their way off the train for breakfast. Casting a bleary eye outside, I saw that we had come to Itarsi. The busy, bustling platform was alive with ringing cries of ‘Chai-ya!’ and ‘Om-e-lette!’ And of course with the familiar racket of passengers giving their teeth some spit and polish at the platform double-sinks.
I was stiff and tired. After making an imaginary award to the most enterprising animal on the platform – a holy cow who had lifted an entire thali breakfast out of a passenger’s hands (through a carriage window) with its long tongue – I finally found my correct seat. The cunning Indian who had ‘borrowed’ it last night had wisely made himself scarce. But if I thought my problems now over, I was mistaken. By the time we came to Bhopal, I had become besieged by a 28-yer old research scientist from Bihar. He was rich, unmarried and unashamedly homosexual. He was also surrounded by lots of grinning friends, which made being rude to him very inadvisable. After a long hour of being winked at and having my leg stroked, however, I decided that enough was enough and fled up to my top bunk in full retreat. He spent the next four hours trying to coax me down again, gazing up at me with warm, wet, imploring eyes. That look will haunt my dreams for years to come!
Eventually, he was overcome by the heat and fell asleep. Which was my cue to creep off the train for my first cup of tea of the day. But my luck was out again. The cha-man on the platform seemed blind to my existence. He served the seventeen Indian passengers behind me first, and then (and only then) did he give me a cup. I had just turned to drink it when I saw the train slipping noiselessly out of the station. Dropping the hard-fought-for cup of tea, I ran after it and leapt onto the last departing carriage.
I arrived in New Delhi at 9pm surly and tired, very anxious to find a bed for the night. A beaming rickshaw driver ran up to me, but I was in such a state that I just bared my teeth at him and defied him to overcharge me. ‘No, no!’ he placated me. ‘There is no problem with fare – you name your own price!’ Deflated, I let him drive me to the Hotel Chanakya in Market Street. The room I got here was so clean and quiet, that I gave him a very good price indeed. He deserved it.
I had a hot shower, ate a good meal, and sent my filthy laundry out to the dhobi. Then I felt almost human again. Sleep came the moment I hit the sheets.
March 9th
Continual travel through India requires a great deal of stamina. Waking up this morning, unable to move, I realised that I had just about run out of mine. The temptation to convalesce a further day in my hotel room was very great indeed. Nevertheless, I overcame it – I decided to visit New Delhi’s famous Rail Transport Museum.
This was a happy decision. This charming little museum is quite a job to get to – it lies right at the edge of town, near the diplomatic enclave by Satya Marg – but more than repays one’s effort. The best thing about it is not the small museum building itself, but the mock railway siding erected round it. This has one of the finest collections of old railway engines, wagons and carriages in the world. It even has a small ‘toy train’ track running round the complex, which undertakes regular trips for children. For young or old, this place is a perfect delight.
To get the best all-round view of the exhibition grounds, I climbed a small hump-back bridge at the back of the siding. From here, I could count over twenty assorted engines – old and new, steam and diesel, broad and narrow gauge – all of them immaculately maintained and set among beautiful green lawns and gardens.
Inside the actual museum, the most interesting exhibit I saw was the skull of a massive bull elephant which charged a train bound for Calcutta in 1894, and lost. It derailed the train and seven carriages, but plummeted to its death down a steep ditch. Both tusks were missing from the skull. One had been kept by the engine driver; the other had passed to the British Museum in London.
On the way home, I saw a very odd thing. Two young Indian cyclists collided with each other in the middle of a busy highway. Picking themselves up, they noticed that one of their bicycles had suffered serious damage – its front wheel was impossibly twisted. The youth with the undamaged bike thought about how to make amends. Then inspiration seized him, and he laid the bent wheel flat on the ground and began leaping up and down on it, trying to straighten it out in the middle of all the speeding traffic. A crowd gathered by the roadside to urge him on in this strange activity. Then, as both cyclists completed the ‘repair’ and wobbled off into the sunset, their audience gave a rousing cheer of applause.
Having returned to my hotel, I looked ahead to my forthcoming expedition into the ‘holy’ state of Bihar with very mixed feelings. The lure of the Buddha’s
land was strong, but the prospect of yet another marathon train journey filled me with dread. One more day of rest, I felt, would have made all the difference. But I was now racing against the clock – only five short days remained before I was due to reconnect with Kevin in Varanasi.
I mounted the evening train to Patna with serious misgivings. But then I took a deep breath and plunged into the gloomy, noisy carriages determined to make the best of things. And on this occasion, fortune did smile on me. I found myself sharing a carriage with two charming young Japanese Buddhists – Kazuhisa Tanaka and Yasushi Imamura. Both young men were eager, friendly conversationalists, and the long journey passed a good deal quicker for their warm, enjoyable company. I asked Yasushi why his clothes were splattered with green and red paint. He told that yesterday had been another ‘Holi’ festival day, and he had been showered with coloured water and powder from head to toe. Far from minding this rude treatment, he had so enjoyed himself gathering these ‘battle scars’ that he was taking these stained clothes home unwashed to show all his friends and relatives in Japan.
At one station along the route, an old beggar woman – her fingers eaten away by leprosy – thrust her stunted hands through the window begging for money. Taking a tip from Kevin, I decided to give her food instead, and passed through a small bunch of bananas.
Sleep came slow tonight. Two passengers without bunk reservations sat down on the edge of my berth and held a loud conversation until the lights went out. But I was lucky. The two Japanese had a much worse problem. They were in the top bunks, and the powerful ventilator fan over their heads couldn’t be turned off. Blasted by the gusty draught throughout the night, they both woke up in the morning with stinking colds.