by Frank Kusy
Oh, how we shrieked and laughed as our jeep juddered and bumped down one of the most inhospitable roads in India. Actually, for about half the 25 kilometre trip, there was no road at all – just a succession of dunes from recent sand storms. ‘I feel like Rommel in North Africa!’ I shouted over to Maria at one point. ‘This is too much fun!’
God, it was good to have some Western company again. I was starved for it. Going off the beaten track was okay – I had, for example, just obtained a hoard of valuable Victorian silver rupees in a tribal village north of Bikaner – but I wasn’t writing guidebooks anymore; I had no excuse to approach other travellers for advice and information. My new profession, I was discovering, was a very lonely one – night after night for two long weeks, I had sat by a dying log fire or a flickering candle flame in village huts or poor guest houses, going half spare in my isolation. Now, with someone to share my travels with, my angst and depression eased off, then faded away entirely.
Waiting for us in Khuri was my old friend Bhagwan Singh Sodha and his younger brother Tane. Bhagwan still wore the huge black beard for which he was instantly recognisable, and Tane, a resplendent saffron-coloured turban, which he said he had just used to bring up some water from one of the desert wells. It was five yards long!
Then we were welcomed by Mama Singh, a huge, generous presence who clasped me to her bosom as though I were a long-lost son. ‘Good! You come again! Now you must eat!’
Mama’s repasts were legendary. Ten courses of traditional breads and vegetarian dishes were laid out before us, along with endless cups of thirst-quenching cardamom tea.
‘Is this all for us?’ said Maria, her eyes popping out of her head.
‘Yes,’ I said, laughing. ‘Bhagwan just told me, the number of tourists to his village has tripled in the last few weeks. I’m putting Khuri on the map!’
And it was true, because just one year before no western guidebook featured Khuri. They in fact wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. Even I, with my love of the ‘off the beaten track’, hesitated to go there. Military curfews, reports of violence, it was all very off-putting. But then I had met Bhagwan at the first fort gate of Jaiselmer – where he sat each morning in the dwindling hope of attracting tourists – and he had pooh poohed all these rumours and encouraged me to find the truth out for myself.
What I had found out was this: all the hotels in Jaiselmer had ganged up to blockade Khuri – they wanted all the tourist business for themselves. ‘Khuri is restricted area,’ they told travellers, or ‘Khuri is in Pakistan’, or even ‘Khuri is out-of-bounds army post.’
Khuri was none of these things, I discovered. It was perfectly safe to visit. And what Khuri had was the one thing that Jaiselmer did not: mile upon mile of rolling, golden dunes for as far as the eye could see. Which made it ideal for the big camel trek into the Great Thar Desert that every traveller to this region craved.
Khuri was also the Western visitors’ best chance of an authentic desert experience. ‘If you can, spend a week or so here,’ I told my readers. ‘Learn about the people, and become part of their extended family and way of life. Here, you can really become one with the desert and its tribes!’
I had never, in the course of all my travels, stayed a week anywhere myself – I was too restless a soul for that. But now, surrounded by the friendly Sodha family and with Maria as a warm and lively companion, I began to consider taking my own advice.
After a siesta to digest our massive lunch, Bhagwan and Tane took us for a tour of the village. It was dusk, the heat was down, and the desert sky was at its most beautiful – the thin cloud tissue burning a bright rose-pink before fading suddenly into darkness. ‘Oh, it’s just as I imagined it,’ enthused Maria as we explored the small settlement of beehive dwellings painted with Aztec-like patterns. ‘Look at the tough old village elders squatting outside their huts, pounding flax for wool! And there’s some younger men and boys making bricks out of straw and mud for new dwellings!’ Everywhere we went, the people of Khuri waved and smiled. They were genuinely pleased to see us.
Later on, after another mammoth meal and an excellent folk troupe music recital, we were shown to our ‘special quarters’, which was a private compound with two double huts. I generously donated Maria the hut with the single working oil lamp. Mine, it took me half an hour to find the toilet!
The next day, we went on our big camel trek into the desert. I knew what to expect, but for Maria it was a whole new experience. She hadn’t even been on a horse before. ‘You don’t like getting up early, do you?’ she’d said the previous night, suggesting that maybe we should call the whole thing off. That’s when I realised she was scared. ‘Look,’ I’d comforted her. ‘We can just go stroke the camels, if you like. You don’t have to get on one.’ But then I woke up in the morning and was concerned to find her gone. Had she had a panic attack? Had she got the first bus out of town? No, she had not. I reached the trek meeting point and there was Maria sitting on her camel, dolled up in a headscarf like a Tuareg, with a wide, loony grin on her face. She was so happy to have overcome her fear.
We set out at around 8am, when it was still relatively cool, and rode for about four hours, stopping at the most attractive dunes, until the heat became too intense round noon. Lunch, and a long siesta, was spent at a charming, unspoilt village, and then, around 4pm, we set out again. By now, we were used to the peculiar, rocking sensation of camel riding. Our kidneys had had a jolly good shuffle, and the slow, soothing desert pace of life had induced a deep sense of calm. I had never felt so at peace in my life.
The vista was a silent, empty yellow-white wasteland of rolling sands, interspersed with bare rock and desolate scrub. From time to time we saw a chinkara or desert gazelle springing across the flatlands, and on one occasion a flock of bright-plumed peacocks out for a stroll, but otherwise there was absolutely nothing out there. A few hours of this, and my mind went into freefall. I was five years old again and on my very first ride on the merry-go-round. I never wanted it to stop.
Camping out under the stars was fun. One of our camel drivers, Luk, flung us down on the ground, covered us with blankets, and told us to ‘go sleep’. But then, all of a sudden, came the thunderstorm—a magical firework show of flashing lightning and dark rumbling clouds—and we had to hole up in a low concrete shelter in the middle of the desert. To keep us entertained, Maria sang some of the songs from her new album and everyone clapped enthusiastically. ‘You sound just like Kate Bush, I complimented her. ‘And if we could get you a wig, you’d look just like her too!
Everyone had hangovers the next morning, and had trouble waking up. But Luk had the answer to that. ‘Jttt! Jttt!’ he screamed at our camels as we boarded them and all of a sudden they broke into a galloping charge that had us whooping and screaming with exhilarated joy. ‘What a buzz!’ I called over to Maria. ‘I feel like Lawrence of Arabia!’
Back in Khuri, we had a much-needed wash, changed into clean clothing, and prepared for another of Mama’s enormous buffets. While we were waiting, we got onto the subject of music.
‘It’s impossible to avoid music in India,’ I told Maria. ‘It blares out at you from every roadside tannoy and chai-shop radio. You get on a bus, and you experience not just the songs, but the video of the film they came from. You board a train and everyone in your carriage bursts into an impromptu sing-along. You’re waiting for a plane, and the whole departure lounge is awash with shrill female singing and manic tabla music. After a while, like most sounds in India, your mind reaches saturation point and blots it all out. Unless that is you come to enjoy it.’
As it happened, I had rather come to enjoy it, which made the appearance of Luk – and of a music tape of his choosing – both timely and welcome. ‘This is desert quwallies,’ he said with a sly smirk. ‘Put in Walkman. I tell you what it mean.’
The reason for the sly smirk became evident as soon as the tape burst into song and the first chorus came up for translation. ‘Ah yes,’
giggled Luk. ‘This is the marriage couple and they are talking about what happens at midnight in the bed. It is their honeymoon and the groom is saying: “Even nature is romantic. The sky is clear, the moon is high, the flowers are sweet and the breeze is light. The world has gone to sleep and we can go crazy.” Then the bride is saying: “The light is off and my heart has become a campfire.” Then the groom say: “It is midnight, the best time of night. It is many hours before dawn, so let us do something!”’
Luk listened a bit longer and then lapsed into hysterics. When he’d finally calmed down, I got the bride’s final words on the subject:
‘Time is passing,’ he translated for her, ‘and all you can do is talk. You will do something or not? If you do every night like this, I will go home to my parents!’
Maria and I exchanged a look of concern. We would never view Indian music the same way again.
*
Little did I know it, but Maria had designs on me. Later that night, I spent an awkward couple of hours sitting on the side of her bed, chattering away about future travel plans while she regarded me strangely with those big blue eyes of hers. Then I retired to my room, somehow aware that I had missed something.
Which, of course, I had. Returning to her room fifteen minutes later, on the slim pretext of wanting to borrow her torch, I found her stark naked, except for a towel wrapped around her head.
‘Frank,’ she said quite casually. ‘Would you like to sleep with me tonight?’
My eyes travelled hungrily up and down her lithe, boyish, ebony-white body. It seemed impolite to say ‘No’.
*
Later on, as I lay in her arms, I was thinking. ‘Oh dear, I’ve only known this girl a few days, but I could easily fall in love with her. What am I going to do about Nicky?’
Earlier that year, when I’d crashed into Barbara on a magic mushroom omelette and lots of Mekong whisky in Thailand, I’d had an excuse for cheating on Nicky. Not only was I off my head on psilocybin chemicals, but I felt angry and betrayed at not having heard from her in so long. Now, as I brushed a stray hair from Maria’s beautiful, gently sleeping, face, I had to accept that I had no excuse at all. Except that since Nicky’s ‘big reveal’ about her pregnancy and abortion, she had become increasingly cold and distant. Maybe she believed that I could never forgive her, maybe she was having trouble forgiving herself, maybe it was just those long months of working on my guidebooks which had driven us apart. But every night of late, she had been ‘out’ with friends or family – I hardly saw her at all, we were like ships passing in the night.
‘We’re supposed to be getting married in four months,’ I silently panicked. ‘How is this going to pan out?’
It didn’t pan out well, actually. Maria wasn’t too thrilled when I told her about Nicky, and she was even less thrilled when I said this thing couldn’t carry on past India – that I really needed to work things out in U.K. first – but then she grinned and said, ‘I understand. You’ve got a complicated situation there. I won’t interfere.’
The next morning, as I emerged from Maria’s hut, I was greeted by an even more understanding Bhagwan Singh. ‘How is your wife?’ he said jokily. ‘Did you have a vigorous night?’
I couldn’t see Mama Singh sharing the joke, though. It was time to leave.
Chapter 25
Golf on the Dunes
The night train to Jodhpur was quiet. Having agreed to meet Maria again in Pushkar (she wanted a few more days in Khuri) I was now sitting in an empty four-bunk compartment at Jaiselmer station, ‘Ooh, this is nice,’ I thought happily. ‘A whole compartment to myself? That’s unheard of in India. I’m going to do a special chant to celebrate!’
But just as I retrieved my book and beads, and the train began to leave the station, I heard a sudden clattering of footsteps outside on the platform. And out of all the empty carriages on that train, a very smart, very sweaty Indian businessman chose mine to jump into.
He looked at me and I looked at him. And then I chose to ignore him and put my hands together and started chanting. Well, he seemed to find that fascinating. Instead of respectfully sitting to one side, he sat on the bunk bang opposite and stared at me with two burning, coal- black eyes.
It was the weirdest experience of my life. ‘Nam myoho renge kyo, Nam myoho renge kyo,’ I intoned sonorously, but I wasn’t feeling celebratory anymore. Because instead of the nice heart-shaped spot on the wall I had chosen to chant to, I now found myself concentrating on the bright red tikka dot between this guy’s eyebrows.
A mood of stubbornness overcame me. ‘How rude!’ I thought angrily. ‘Well, I’m not having it. I’m going to chant all night long if necessary.’
Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary very long. Half an hour later, at the next station, my strange companion jumped up as suddenly as he had arrived, and made to leave the train.
Just before he did so, however, he paused and looked back.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘Have you heard about Jesus?’
*
My reasons for being back in Jodhpur were twofold. Firstly, my old friend Col Fateh Singh had arranged an interview with the Maharajah there. This was an opportunity not to be missed. Secondly, I had got wind of a cache of valuable Maria Theresa Austro-Hungarian thaler coins going cheap in the night market. I wasn’t going to miss those either.
The Maharajah, when I was introduced to him, did not stand on ceremony. ‘Ah, Mr Frank Kusy. You are the English travel writer, yes?’ He was wearing a wide red and white polka-dotted kurta top and a big, moustachioed grin.
I didn’t know quite how to respond. Should I bow? Should I genuflect? Should I offer to kiss his ring? Fateh hadn’t briefed me at all.
‘Pleased to meet you...your Majesty,’ I said lamely, stooping a bit to show a degree of reverence.
‘Call me “Bubbles”,’ said the portly young royal, laughingly offering me his hand. ‘All my friends do.’
We were sitting in his small private study at the back of the stately Umaid Bhawan Palace, which now doubled up as a hotel. A very serious-looking servant had just brought in ‘real English’ tea and Bubbles and Fateh were nibbling enthusiastically on Scottish shortbread biscuits from a solid silver plate.
‘You must stay with us tonight,’ said Bubbles. ‘But first…we will play some golf.’
I nearly choked on my cup of Earl Grey. Golf? Was he having a laugh? All that was on view out of the latticed stone window were sand dunes, for as far as the eye could see.
The Maharajah giggled at my bafflement, then crossed the room to a metal filing cabinet. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out a square piece of wood, which was covered one side with what appeared to be artificial grass.
‘We will of course, very naturally, be needing this,’ he announced. ‘This will be our “turf”.’
‘We will of course also be needing this,’ added Fateh, whipping out a bottle of Johnnie Walker from his jacket pocket.
My eyes widened. Here I was with two of the most influential men in Rajasthan, and I was about to play golf in the desert on Blue Label whisky.
‘Err…how many holes will we be playing?’ I enquired nervously.
‘Do not worry, my good chap,’ said Bubbles, his eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘It is not the full round…eight holes will do!’
Well, we didn’t get to eight holes. We barely managed two. Bubbles placed his piece of ‘turf’ on the ground, teed off a perfect shot to the first hole…and the ball never hit the sand. Instead, there was a yelp of surprise and a figure popped up from behind one of the dunes, rubbing a sore head.
‘What is that fellow doing there?’ said Bubbles, rather crossly. ‘He is ruining my game completely!’
It took the distressed Maharajah six more shots to get his ball in the first hole (Fateh and I had discreetly agreed to let him have the advantage) and sixteen to down the second. The reason it took that many was that the bottle of Johnnie Walker was now quite e
mpty, and Fateh had produced another one.
‘I am thinking I am hearing the gong for supper,’ slurred Bubbles as the prospect of a third hole defeated him. ‘Shall we call it a day?’
That was not the end of my royal experience. The next morning, still half-sozzled from my massive intake of alcohol, I was woken in my luxury palace suite by a knock at the door at 8am. ‘Who the hell is this?’ I thought blearily. ‘I’m going to cripple his bell finger!’
Nothing prepared me for what came next. I wrapped a skimpy little towel around my waist, and strode to the door and opened it. And there stood two neat rows of turbaned and cummerbunded soldiers, their sabres held high and glinting in the sun, all grinning at me expectantly. Then two of them dashed out and rolled out the red carpet. ‘Now that’s what I call service!’ I thought to myself. ‘What are they going to do for an encore?’
The answer was ‘nothing’. They quickly realised their mistake, nodded in apology, and shifted the carpet six feet to the left.
Rajiv Gandhi was staying next door.
Chapter 26
Aliens in India
Having obtained my precious Maria Theresa coins in Jodhpur market (Fateh brokered the deal and got me a really good price) I bade my jovial friend farewell and travelled onto Pushkar. ‘I can’t wait to see Maria again,’ I thought as I boarded the two rupee pilgrim bus over the Snake Mountain from Ajmer. ‘Only half an hour to go!’
But the bus didn’t take half an hour. It took twice that long because of the blind cow. The cow wandered onto the bus at Ajmer and – with no-one allowed to stop it – sat down at the back. All the pilgrims shuffled dutifully to one side and made way for it. Then, somewhere near the top of the mountain, it clambered clumsily to its feet and tried to get off again. The bus ground to a halt, the cow was gently persuaded back in, and the passengers took it in turns to pat it for good luck. In Pushkar at last, the sacred animal dismounted, looked around sightlessly for a bit, and then got back on the bus.