by Kim Dinan
The processional of rickshaws slowly began to putter out of the driveway. From the edge of the road, Brian waved good-bye and I waved back, wiping away tears. “Be careful!” I yelled toward him. “I love you!” But my words were swallowed up by the street noise. Because the Rickshaw Run had been her idea, Lesley earned the honor of driving first. She steered the rick through Jaisalmer and onto the dusty desert streets. According to Sarah’s GPS, the finish line in the state of Kerala was one thousand five hundred miles to the south. It twinkled in the distance, a massive goal we weren’t quite sure we’d reach.
In the daylight the sandy landscape of northern India lacked vibrancy, yet the street life exploded with it. Purple-turban-wearing men, their lips curled toward the sky and their beards reaching for the road, sold spicy samosas and bright, beaded textiles. Women walked down the street in saris the color of candy. The earth refused them color, but they refused the earth its dullness. India was a land of paradox, just like everything in my life.
The dirt from the desert swirled through the open sides of our rickshaw and settled on our bodies. I wrapped a red scarf emblazoned with a Hindi mantra around my face. Brian had given it to me as I’d packed up my bag that morning. He’d draped it around my neck and then leaned back to give me a sad smile. “For good luck,” he’d said. “And to keep you safe.”
As I stared out of the windowless rickshaw, I thought about my departure from Brian. When we’d pulled away he’d looked both heartbroken and brave, like a warrior headed for a battle that he did not want to fight. I’d just left him completely and utterly alone in India. It was necessary, I knew, but I also knew how fragile and raw we both felt. I had an adventure and two new friends to distract me, but Brian had nobody. When I pulled away in the rickshaw I’d effectively abandoned him during a time of deep emotional turmoil. Do not feel guilty, a voice inside of me demanded. Do not overthink it. Let things unfold as they will.
“Uh-oh,” Lesley said from the front seat, quickly jerking the rick to the side of the road where it sputtered and died.
“Not already,” I groaned.
We climbed out of the rickshaw onto an empty road that cut a straight line through the Thar Desert. Away on the horizon goats grazed at a few scrawny, tangled bushes but there were no other people around.
“Maybe we’re out of petrol?” suggested Sarah. She leaned back into the rickshaw and retrieved a funnel and a jerrican of gasoline, two of the many items we’d loaded into the rick before departure. She filled the tank, and Lesley turned the ignition, but the rickshaw didn’t respond.
“Shit,” I said, and kicked the ground. A billow of dust and dirt rose toward my head.
Raising my hand to shield my eyes, I squinted up the highway. Two rickshaws were approaching in a cloud of dust. Stepping into the road I waved my arms above my head. A blue and green rickshaw slid to a stop in front of us, and two young guys dressed in jeans and T-shirts jumped out. I recognized them as another Rickshaw Run team from the kickoff party.
The driver strolled up to us and untied a bandana from his face. “Are you guys all right?” he asked. “Having problems with your rickshaw?”
Lesley nodded. “It was driving fine, and then it just died. We’ve filled up the petrol tank, but it still won’t start.”
“It could be you’ve got a clogged fuel line. I’ll check,” he said, and popped the back hatch of the rickshaw to investigate.
Three hours later the largest sun I’d ever seen sank toward the horizon, and our rickshaw was still an immovable hunk of metal on the side of the road. Our road angel had tried everything, including disassembling and reassembling the carburetor, before finally standing up, wiping his hands on his jeans and declaring defeat. “We’re about ten miles outside of a town,” he said. “I can tow you.” So we’d been hauled into the city of Barmer.
The next morning, I pulled open the shades and let the weak morning light filter into our dingy room. Gazing out the window, I spotted our bright-orange rickshaw—optimistically named Sunny—sitting alone in a gravel lot. Last night the lot had been packed with other rickshaws and the hotel filled to capacity. But this morning we were alone.
Behind me Lesley stirred, raised her arms above her head, and yawned. “What time is it?”
I looked at the bedside clock. “It’s 7:30 a.m.” I gestured toward the window. “Everyone else is gone.”
From the bed nearest the door Sarah asked a question. “Well, ladies, what are we going to do now?”
Plopping down on the bed next to Lesley, I responded. “I don’t even know where we are. And it’s not like we can call AAA. Do you even have that in Australia?”
Sarah stretched her long dancer’s legs in front of her in a V. “We’ve got something like it in Australia. Much good it does us here, huh?”
• • •
Barmer’s mechanic was the oldest man I’d ever seen. He was bent at the waist like a broken limb but moved with remarkable speed as he walked up to me and opened his knobby hand, revealing a small metal clasp half the size of a door hinge that had cracked down the middle like a broken egg.
“That’s the problem?” I asked. The man gave a definitive nod and gestured for me to take it. Lesley and Sarah gathered around and we gaped at the miniscule culprit.
“It’s so small,” Lesley said.
Sarah poked it. “You arsehole.”
Taking a deep breath, I navigated our rickshaw onto the streets of Barmer, a city of two hundred thousand people and, as far as I could tell, not a single traffic light. As I steered the rick to the far left side of the road, I said a little prayer to the universe. Before we’d left Jaisalmer we’d propped a small statue of Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, up on our dashboard, and I squeezed it for support. The reflection of my own eyes stared back at me in the rearview mirror, and I assured myself that I could drive this rickshaw. We would survive. Probably.
During our few days of test-driving, I’d learned of the pecking order on Indian roads, a hierarchy based almost exclusively on size. At the bottom were dogs, goats and humans, and then larger animals like elephants and camels. Next came bicycles, then rickshaws, then cars, dump trucks and buses. And at the top of the order sat the holy cow.
The basic rule of the road was this: anything lower in the pecking order than you had to get out of your way. As a rickshaw driver I could motor headlong into a human, for instance, or a pack of dogs, without worry. If they didn’t get out of the way the fault was theirs, not mine. Likewise, if a car, truck, or bus came barreling at me, I had to scramble like hell to get out of its path. And cows were king of the road. They’d sprawl in the middle of the highway like Egyptian pharaohs, ears twitching away flies, while a mass of humanity honked and swerved around them.
An hour down the road the traffic thinned considerably. I stopped Sunny in a threadbare town so that we could stretch our legs and fill a thermos with chai. Along the side of the road sat a series of shacks selling snacks and samosas. Behind the shacks a dog sniffed piles of garbage in search of food. She was painfully skinny, each rib visible and protruding, and her nipples were ripe and prominent against her matted fir. Somewhere she had a litter of puppies to feed. Crouching down I clicked my tongue at her. “Hey,” I cooed. “Hey there.” She raised her head and backed away.
I approached the man at the snack shack and pointed toward a plastic cylindrical tub filled with packs of pineapple biscuits. Holding my hands two feet apart I mimed my desire to purchase the entire tub. He picked it up and raised his eyebrows at me. After nodded yes, I ran back to the rickshaw and pulled some yellow envelope money from the bottom of my backpack.
Michele and Glenn were animal lovers just like Brian and me. On the night they gave us the yellow envelope gift they told us a story of a sick and stray dog they’d encountered while on a trip to Greece. They’d fallen in love with the dog but had been traveling with a tour group and were whisked away to
their next destination before they’d been able to help.
In my short time in India I’d already crossed paths with a hundred sick and starving dogs. The sheer number of them was too much to bear. From now on, I decided, I’d give all I could to the dogs we passed, even if it was only a scratch behind the ear and a pack or two of pineapple biscuits. My mind drifted back to the waiter in Germany. A small gesture could sustain you, I knew.
Pulling the lid off the tub, I grabbed a few packs of biscuits, tore them open, and crouched down at eye level with the dog again. “Here you go,” I called to her, and threw a biscuit in her direction. She took a few hesitant steps toward it and looked up at me with weary eyes. “It’s okay,” I said. “Feed your babies.”
She sniffed the biscuit and then took it gingerly in her mouth, looked up at me again, then swallowed. “It’s good, huh?” I threw another biscuit her way. She scarfed it down and looked up at me with hungry eyes. “You can have as many as you want.” I opened five more packs of biscuits and dumped them into a pile in front of her, trying to let the energy of my heart send her a message: I’m so sorry you’re suffering. I wish I could do more. She stood and chewed at the pile of biscuits, and I turned back toward the rickshaw.
Lesley and Sarah were making their way back to the rick, our thermos filled with chai. I raised the tub of pineapple biscuits. “For the dogs. I’ll keep it filled and we can feed them as we go.” We’d collectively pooled our money to pay for things like gasoline and meals, and in our hotel room the previous night I’d told them briefly about the yellow envelope. “I’ll buy the biscuits with the yellow envelope money,” I explained. “Michele and Glenn would like that.”
Lesley smiled. “That’s a lovely idea. How’s it going, anyway? Have you given a lot of the money away?”
My eyes fell to the ground. “No, not as much as I thought we would have by now. It’s kind of hard, you know? Harder than I thought it would be.” Lesley stared at me expectantly so I started rambling. “I’ll want to give to someone but then I’ll start to second-guess myself, though we were specifically told not to second-guess. Or, I’ll feel really awkward because I can’t explain the intention behind the money. At first I thought about the yellow envelope all the time, but then it kind of faded into the background. So I’m trying to make a conscious effort to keep it in the forefront of my mind. When I can accomplish that, it’s kind of an amazing state of being because I see the world in this new way. It’s like, Here I am. How can I be of use?” I climbed into the rickshaw and shoved the pineapple biscuits into the space behind my seat. “I wish I could say that I stay present most of the time. But the truth is I’ve been pretty wrapped up in my own head lately.”
“There’s no time frame, is there?” asked Lesley. “Like, you don’t have to give the money away within the year?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. There are only three rules. Don’t overthink it, share our experiences if we want to, and don’t feel pressured to give it all away.”
“Don’t worry about it then. You’ll find ways to give when the time is right.” Lesley climbed into the rickshaw beside me. “You may not feel like you’re doing as much as you should, but those biscuits might have been the difference between life and death today to that dog and her pups.”
Sarah revved the engine to life. “We better get moving, ladies.” We had at least two hours of driving left before we reached a town on the GPS that we hoped would have a hotel. As we pulled away, I looked back at the shack where the starving dog had been scavenging. She was nowhere to be found, but the pile of biscuits was gone.
• • •
An hour later our rick broke down again. We were stopped on the side of the road half-heartedly poking under the hatch when two skinny men driving a gigantic and overloaded Goods Carrier truck approached. Without saying a word, one of the men got down on his knees, unhooked our fuel line, and sucked, relieving some blockage within. Gasoline shot into his mouth and he spat and coughed. Lesley, Sarah, and I jumped around shrieking like it had happened to us until I finally thought to offer him a bottle of water. He rinsed his mouth out twice, gave us a gigantic smile, and then climbed back in his truck again without ever saying a word. We called out “thank you” and waved as he drove away.
“It’s amazing,” I said after the truck had disappeared down the road. “Everyone in India is a rickshaw mechanic.”
“Except for us,” said Lesley.
Our rickshaw was a dud. Yet, as the Goods Carrier truck disappeared down the road, I wondered if maybe that wasn’t a blessing. The teams ahead of us were cruising along without problems, but they were missing out on something incredible: the extraordinary kindness that appeared out of nowhere each time that we broke down.
Before leaving home I’d never needed to rely on the kindness of strangers. Because I’d maintained the same routine for so long, I’d essentially wiped out almost all chance for the unexpected to occur. If my car died I could call Brian or a dozen different friends or AAA. I sent a subliminal message to the universe: I’ve got this covered. And so I never allowed the space in my life for magic to creep in.
But I was learning to enjoy the great swath of possibility that came with uncertainty. Since leaving my comfort zone to step out into the world, I’d been at the mercy of those I encountered, from the cops who picked us up in Ecuador to the Goods Carrier driver. And no one had let me down. When I left on this journey with the yellow envelope tucked into my purse, I thought I had something to share with the world. And I did. But what I didn’t realize was that the world had something to share with me too. The people I met were teaching me not just how to give the yellow envelope but how to live it. The unknown no longer seemed a threat, but a gift. Could it be that the world wanted to help me, if only I’d allow it?
Our breakdown, though brief, had cost us another forty-five minutes. We had hoped to arrive in the next town by late afternoon so that we could find a safe place to sleep before the sun set. Though we didn’t feel overtly threatened, it wasn’t hard to miss the fact that there weren’t too many women out and about, especially after dark.
Just three weeks before we arrived in India a twenty-three-year-old woman had been brutally beaten and gang raped on a bus in Delhi while traveling home from the movies with a male friend. She’d died in the hospital last week. The crime evoked an outcry in India and around the world. Her murder had exposed an undercurrent of rape and sexual violence in India.
In light of that, Lesley, Sarah, and I had set up a few ground rules to protect us. And our number one rule was that we would not stay out after dark. My hackles rose the closer we inched toward dusk.
A giant red sun sank beneath the horizon, and the sky blazed pink and orange. Our rickshaw puttered along weakly down the empty desert highway. The town on the GPS was still at least an hour away. We were three women, alone, with no place to take shelter. We were not going to make it in before dark. I felt both terrified of the encroaching darkness and awed by the stunning sunset. But despite all of the uncertainty, I felt wildly at peace. And for the first time in my life I saw that I could be at ease even while things were crumbling around me. It was possible to be afraid and happy; worried and free. I could be content just as things were.
The road began to deteriorate. Huge holes pocked the pavement. BAM! Our rick hit a pothole. BAM! BAM! BAM! Over and over we slammed into the street. We were at serious risk of a flat tire or, worse, jarring a spark plug or clip out of place and sidelining us, alone and after dark, in the middle of nowhere. Sunny coughed and began to lose power. Lesley cooed at her. “Keep going, baby, you can do it. Don’t die on us now. We need you.”
Sunny’s single headlight illuminated a thin patch of road in front of us. Suddenly, the piece of pavement we’d been driving on disappeared and our rickshaw dropped into a pit of sand. The engine sputtered and died. “Shit,” Lesley groaned, hitting her hand against the dashboard. “Shit, shit, shit.�
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We climbed out of the rickshaw to investigate. The front wheel of our rick was submerged in sand. Sarah grabbed a headlamp and walked up the road. She called out from the darkness that the road picked up again. “I can’t tell how long the pavement lasts,” she yelled, “but at least there’s some up here.”
Though the temperature in the desert had dropped considerably once the sun had gone, we were panting by the time we finally pushed Sunny back onto the road. Pulling the scarf Brian had given me up around my chin, I climbed back into the rickshaw. Lesley turned the ignition but nothing happened. “Try it again,” said Sarah, but the rickshaw did not even croak.
Before we’d left Jaisalmer, another rickshaw runner had shown us how do a jump-start. “Just put it into second gear and run it down the road, then let out the clutch and the engine should kick on,” he’d said. So Sarah and I ran down the road pushing Sunny while Lesley sat in the front seat, hand engaged with the accelerator, prepared to drive if only Sunny would cooperate.
Lesley let out the clutch, and the engine coughed weakly to life. Sarah and I jumped up and down and cheered. Lesley revved the accelerator, and Sunny took off on her own free will like a child who’d just learned to ride a bike.
We’d pulled ourselves out of this mess on our own. I knew that if I’d been traveling with Brian all of the rickshaw repairs would have fallen on him. Above me a thousand bright stars pricked the night sky. I opened my mouth and howled with pride.
It became obvious that the next town on the GPS would take us hours to reach. The road threatened to deteriorate back into sand again at any minute, and Sunny was acting up. She kept losing power and stalling. We knew it was just a matter of time before she died on us completely.
We were breaking our rule and driving after dark because we were out of options. We could park the rickshaw on the side of the empty highway and wait out the night, but that felt dangerous because if a passing motorist discovered us we’d be completely alone and exposed. Or, we could keep driving and hope for some miracle to appear out of nowhere. It seemed unlikely, but in India nothing felt out of the question. Plus, there was safety in movement. We just didn’t know how much movement Sunny had left in her.