by Frank Kusy
April 24th
Queuing up to see Shiva Ka Insaaf outside the cinema, all eyes were fixed on Jenny and Megan. They were the only women in the queue. But as we filed up to the entrance, attention quickly switched from them to something far more interesting – a determined assault on the entrance door by hordes of Indians trying to get in without tickets. They dashed up the steps, got clubbed down again by a flurry of flashing lathis, scraped themselves bleeding off the ground, and dived straight back in again. The cinema manager, dispensing 3-D spectacles at the door, surveyed this with growing excitement. At last, no longer able to contain himself, he vaulted over the ticket barrier, snatched one of the lathis out of a policeman’s hands, and waded into the crowd of illegal entrants, cracking as many heads as possible before reluctantly returning to his post.
The film itself was gloriously bizarre. It featured a meek, mild-mannered and incredibly obsequious Hindi youth who kept changing into a super-hero called ‘Shiva’. Shiva was very fat and wore a kinky leather outfit, complete with black mask, flowing black cape and pointy-toed black booties. He had gained his incredible Shiva-powers (overtaking villainous Chevrolets on a Shiva-bicycle, head-butting gymnasium punch-bags for hours on end without apparent brain damage, and leaping over a swimming pool full of floating logs for a big helping of Shiva-samosas) by praying at a Muslim mosque, a Catholic church and a Hindu temple. Oh, and by dedicating himself to falling off high buildings for worthy causes.
Whenever the portly hero arrived, the film soundtrack erupted in a triumphant blare of noise, and a whispered chant of ‘shiva!...Shiva!...SHIVA!’ built up to a bellowed boom in the background. This was just in case the audience hadn’t guessed who was coming. When not dressed in leather and prancing around doing good deeds, Shiva was a feeble news reporter cowering under the petulant criticism and cross intolerance of the ‘heroine’, his editor. All she had to recommend her (as far as we could see) was a pretty good singing voice. Which meant that the otherwise omniscient Shiva was completely blind to her other failings. Like all other Indian film heroes he was a hopeless sucker for a good song.
The film as a whole, despite tidal waves of charging, militant music announcing every dramatic 3-D effect, was hugely enjoyable. It put us in just the right mood to enjoy our other main event of the day – visiting a luxury swimming pool in one of Delhi’s plush hotels. This was something I had been looking forward to for months, having heard that for a reasonable charge poor tourists like ourselves could avail themselves of the very best hotel facilities that India could provide.
Our first choice, the Imperial Hotel in Janpath, was too expensive. But then we came to the nearby Hotel Kanishka, which charged only Rs25 each for use of its luxury pool and associated mod cons. We spent a marvellous afternoon there, lying on sun-beds, swimming, and having drinks brought out to us by the pool. It gave us a glimpse of how the rich tourist in India can expect to live.
Leaving the restful, enclosed haven of the hotel, however, it was back to real India again. We found ourselves stranded at the wrong end of town, every rickshaw and taxi in Delhi having decided to go on strike while we lazed obliviously by the pool. It took us a long hour trampling round the city to find just one young rickshaw ‘blackleg’ who would defy the strike to take us home.
I packed and made ready to leave India. Then, with the approach of evening, I took the girls down to Gobind’s for a farewell meal. It was a small affair of fruit salad and curd, with lemon tea, taken on the upstairs balcony. From here, I took my last look at Indian life passing by on the streets below. It was the same as usual: a busy, chaotic, yet strangely harmonious potpourri of noise, colour and smells. Beggars huddled in doorways, children cried and laughed and ran wild, rickshaws bleeped and hooted and ploughed onwards relentlessly, sacred cows lay unconcerned in the middle of the road, and tourists picked their way carefully round the excrement and the gaping open sewers on the pavements. It almost seemed ordinary now.
Two events alone remained in my memory long after this last view of Delhi had passed. The first was when an angry old Sikh nabbed two young thieves in the act of robbing the till of his restaurant next door. Both of the youths were also Sikhs, but this didn’t stop the old man whacking them round the head with a large club. It also didn’t stop the typical curious crowd of onlookers gathering from miles around to watch. But were the young reprobates repentant of their crime? None of it. They just rubbed their cracked heads and grinned and giggled like naughty children who enjoyed the attention and who would doubtless repeat the offence at the earliest possible opportunity. Even when a couple of passing policemen on a motorbike chopped them down with well-aimed lathi blows to the back of the knees, they showed no remorse, but simply got up and strolled off laughing.
And the second was the sight of a dazed young Westerner staggering down the street below us. Like many long-stay backpackers in India, he had sustained an injury, and wore a dirty bandage round his wrist. He was also doped up to his eyeballs. So much so indeed, that he had no control over his movements and simply tottered up and down the dark road bumping into Indian pedestrians.
My final trip with the girls was to the Connaught Place bus-rank, which ran a late-night service to Delhi airport. Somehow, all three of us (together with my luggage) managed to squeeze into a single cycle-rickshaw. The ride was remarkable in that it restored my faith in Indian rickshaw drivers. The young cyclist made no complaints the whole way, despite his very heavy load. He made no demands for black-market business, just smiled and got on with his job. I was so impressed with him that when he asked me for two rupees at the bus-rank, I gave him ten. Caught completely by surprise as this vast sum (actually less than £1), he gave the note a big kiss and beamed us a smile of eternal gratitude.
I paid my farewells to Megan and Jenny over a cup of coffee in the quiet Palace Restaurant, near the bus-rank. We were the last three guests of the day, and the waiters hovered around us anxiously, waiting for us to leave and let them go to bed. This last restaurant I visited in India, somewhat appropriately, turned out to have the most deliciously mis-spelt menu – including mouth-watering specialities like CHICKEN MARRY LAND, CHICKEN STRONGOFF, BRAIN CURRY, BOMBOO SHOOT and CHICKEN GOBLET. The ‘piece de resistance’, to our mind, was however a Chinese dish called FRIED WANTON. And not only could you have your ‘wanton’ fried, but any which way you wanted her – including WANTON, VEG OR NON-VEG, or WANTON, ONE PLATE, or even WANTON AND CHIPS!
Postscript
Off the plane back in Heathrow, I did not – unlike Kevin – have a plateful of cheese sandwiches waiting for me in the airport lounge. I returned straight home and ate a simple meal of rice and yoghurt – the nearest thing to an Indian thali I could find.
Then I ran a bath, my first in four months, and discovered on the scales that I was two whole stones lighter than when I had left England. Finally, I climbed into bed, faintly aware of the deafening silence in the streets outside, and slept for a whole day.
I woke up feeling like I had been rung through a mangle backwards. Then, as consciousness returned, I found myself thinking of my next journey.
Where would I be going?
Why, back to India of course!
THE END
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Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Kevin Bloice (for inspiring this book), to Ida at Amygdaladesign (for my lovely cover), to Cherry Gregory (for the final beta read), and to Jean-Luc Barbanneau (for publishing the first editions of ‘Kevin and I’ and for giving his kind permission for this one).
A special thanks goes to Roman Laskowski for his meticulous editing and formatting. Top job, mate!
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 Mail on Sunday wrote: ‘This book rings so true of India that most of us will be glad we don’t have to go there ourselves.’
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 Margreet and his little cat Sparky.
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