Dharma Sutra

by David Pugh

  ‘How…urh…how…? Where you get?’ What he saw on the table was a photo of Jeffrey being hugged by Bandari, a young waiter from the Gem, who had recently returned from seeing his wife in Nepal. One of the other boys told Remus that Jeffrey had given him the money to go and that he had taken a photo of them together. Remus’ mouth was open, his eyes wide…‘You know the older man, your paths have been interwoven for some time,’ Baba’s face remained expressionless. Remus stared on in disbelief, his dreads almost on end; there was powerful magic here he couldn’t understand, he found it impossible to speak.

  ‘Point to the next photo,’ the Baba gently commanded him.

  Remus was nervous, what would this one show? His still shaking left finger wavered over the next photo and chose it

  ‘Good,’ the older man said, ‘the order you choose is important.’ The next photo showed a group of five sadhus, as he knew these holy men were called; he had wanted to meet some because they looked like Rastas and smoked charas. All five were naked except for grey ash, various coloured body paints and the smallest of yellow, he noted, loincloths. The tall one in the middle looked familiar. Remus lifted it closer to his eyes; Sylvia had long suggested he needed reading glasses but he was too vain; he wasn’t that old yet. As he squinted closer, the middle character became clear; despite the 90-degree heat a cold sweat of fear possessed his body. ‘No, this not be!’ he stammered.

  ‘Turn over this last photo and you will know,’ Baba Jan Singh was calm.

  Remus reached out to turn the last photo; every part of him was clenched in fear, his body was moving slow as in a nightmare. Stifling another cry, he turned the photo, staring back at him was a close up of the tall middle sadhu, dreadlock hair, face painted with many symbols but beneath the paint he recognised his own face, benevolently smiling back at him. ‘What this mean, how this be?’ looking squarely into the Baba’s eyes.

  ‘This man is from Tamil Nadu,’ the Baba replied, ‘or perhaps he is not?’ he continued, ‘These photographs come to me, from the past or future, who knows. I find them everywhere I collect them and use them to guide people. Take this last one, go to Tamil Nadu and find him, perhaps you will find yourself?’ He got up, thanked Remus for the tea and suggested that he would like a financial contribution to continue his work.

  ‘Whatever you think your revelation is worth?’ Remus opened his purse and gave him a thousand-rupee note. The Baba raised both palms to his chest in that almost international sign of gratitude. Remus looked at his still clenched fist; he knew what would be written on the paper. Eventually, he opened his palm; there was the single word, “Yellow”.

  Chapter 32: North or South?

  Remus returned to the room in an agitated state; he was finding it hard to believe what had just happened. The shaman inside him said to go Tamil Nadu, but he was afraid of what he might find there. Martina and Fufu were packing for the night bus.

  ‘So you coming with us?’ asked Martina.

  ‘I come!’ was his short reply. He was enjoying the company of these two young ladies, that is to say enjoying the loan of their pussies. More charas would be found and above all, Remus Jallow was going to conquer the mighty Himalayas. They boarded the 6pm Himachal Volvo service from Delhi, and Remus tried to get his long frame into a comfortable position for the twelve and a half hour journey. The three had brought a bottle of O.C.to ease the journey, but to their dismay it was finished before they cleared the suburbs. An hour before Chandigarh there was a comfort stop, frequented by lorry drivers and fully stocked with the entire gamut of Indian spirits; they bought three half bottles of O.C. along with six 650ml bottles of Thunderbolt Super Strong beer. It is not feasible for an Indian lorry driver to negotiate some of the world’s most dangerous roads while sober, you have to drive with the same mindset as everyone else on the night road, that is, drunk! Remus, Martina and Fufu slept soundly, once they had consumed their alcoholic road rations. They woke up abruptly at 6.30 am in Manali’s main street, with nothing more than finding a toilet on their minds. To their dismay they discovered that their hand luggage was missing from the luggage rack above their heads. The empty bags were found on the back seat. Remus wasn’t too concerned as his passport and credit card along with his mobile phone were zipped into the pockets in his cargo pants. Jeffrey had told him that when travelling,

  ‘You can lose everything but never your passport and cash card, keep them close.’ The girls were not happy, each had lost a laptop and camera and with the cameras all the photos of the year’s trip. Remus pointed out that Jeffrey had said, ‘Always upload photos, case camera gets lost,’ not that he knew what uploading meant.

  Fufu said, ‘Well, isn’t Jeffrey a smart guy? Next time you see him tell him to fuck off, as right now his advice is not appreciated!’ Martina suggested that as it was too early to check into a hotel, that they go to the Zing Zing bar, where they served an “All Day English Breakfast” with a Kingfisher Extra Strong.

  Remus thought this a good plan as it might relax the distraught ladies.11am saw the slightly drunken trio walking across the river and up the road to Vashisht, the hippie hangout. Remus was impressed by his first view of real mountains and even more impressed by charas plants growing on the side of the road. He had never seen such huge ganja leaves and started stuffing his now empty shoulder bag. He couldn’t quite remember what had been in there, so he wasn’t as distressed as the girls about the night’s robbery. A little further on they came across a dead cow on the road. Someone had put rocks reverently around it, as this was strictly a Hindu part of the country; no one knew quite what to do with the dead creature. Remus went over and sniffed the animal. ‘He no long dead,’ Remus had never seemed to understand the single nominative pronoun, ‘he good, we chop him!’

  Martina looked aghast, ‘I’m a vegetarian!’

  Remus remembered that a machete had been in his bag, and he now bemoaned it aloud.

  ‘You were carrying a machete in your hand luggage?’ Fufu queried.

  ‘I buy in tool shop in Delhi, very good tool, very cheap,’ Remus looked sad, ‘him gone now and I no use!’ Taking a sad backward glance at the dead creature they continued up the hill. The village of Vashisht smelled of sulphur from the hot springs, mixed with the charas everyone was smoking. Remus spotted the Dharma Guesthouse and suggested that they should stay there, as it was the name of the friend he was looking for. He was also particularly impressed that the lower floor was given over to cattle.

  ‘Your friend Jeffrey’s surname is Dharma, like the cannibal?’ Fufu look disturbed.

  ‘What cannibal?’ Remus didn’t know the term.

  ‘A person who eats other people,’ Fufu put him right.

  ‘No, no!’ Remus replied, ‘Jeffrey vegetarian like Martina.’

  Martina said to Fufu, ‘I think you’ll find the guy you’re thinking of was Jeffrey Dahmer.’

  ‘Dharma or Dahmer, who cares; I am no vegetarian but I am not happy sleeping above a cowshed.’ Fufu snorted.

  They went inside and onto the roof terrace, which had a 24-hour bar and sweeping views of the River Beas, flowing down from the snowy peaks above the Rotang Pass. It would have been hard to know which had swayed them to check in, the views or the bar.

  Remus liked Vashisht, it was just modern enough for him; he missed his pigs back in Kotu, and he liked the way the hill people shared their houses with the livestock. He also liked to see the business going down, the hotels, cafés, hiking agencies and tattoo parlours. He imagined his home village of Cassalol being like this if Jack and Edgar pulled off the Jungle Stays business. He liked the temple hot springs; every day he would soak in the extremely hot sulphurous water of the men-only bath, careful not to wet his dreads. He hadn’t seen Fufu for days; he was getting used to having two women and he was missing Fufu’s newly shaved women’s bits. She had taken up with a nineteen-year-old Russian boy and was keeping him permanently stoned, while she emptied his bank account.

  Chapter 33: The African on the Ro
of of the World

  Martina had contemplated taking the road to Ladakh, through the Spiti Valley, along the Chinese border, after getting an Inner Line Permit. Fufu was to remain behind until she had milked all of the young Russian’s money. She was still furious with Remus for shaving her ‘parties génitales’. Unfortunately, the road to Kaza was still blocked with snow and not wanting to hang around in this tourist town, Remus and Martina took a minibus to Leh. They found themselves waiting outside the Vashisht Shiva Temple at 2am and watching the rain clouds closing in. A sadhu was sleeping in the temple doorway, and a young man from the slums of Bombay was looking for some Westerners to latch onto for the night but there were few partygoers around, so he settled down in a shop front for the night.

  2.15am a small car pulled up, the driver asked, ‘Leh?’ they confirmed and he replied, ‘Big bus come soon,’ and drove off.

  Three quarters of an hour later the same car came back and a different driver told them to get in. They were very concerned that this little car was going to drive them all the way across the Himalayas but he just drove them to the Manali downtown taxi rank. A ten-seater minibus was waiting for them with only two seats left in the back. Martina had booked the more comfortable front seats, but it was too late and wet to argue, so they squeezed in next to a Tibetan family of three. Remus had trouble bending his long legs into the small space and, of course, being the back row the seats didn’t recline, due to the amount of goods and luggage stored behind them. Twenty hours later, having seen some of the most spectacular scenery in the world, including sandy high desert, they arrived in Leh. Despite the discomfort, Remus was literally on a high; they had crossed the Tanglang La, one of the world’s highest navigable roads, and for the first time he had experienced snow.

  The Moonstoned Guesthouse close to the bus stand had only just opened and had attracted a quirky bunch of varied visitors. Remus thought Yangzom, the owner, quite lovely; in her mid-forties, she was the kind of woman he could settle down with. Unfortunately for him she was married to a local policeman, who didn’t appear to be much help in running the guesthouse. She also wore too many clothes, like most Ladakhi women she dressed in layers, it helped maintain a constant body temperature year round.

  Just two nights after their arrival, he got up from bed to get a glass of water from the purifying machine. Yangzom was coming out of her bathroom, next to the kitchen, drying her long hair. She was wearing a figure-hugging gauzy nightdress and what a figure she had! Remus struggled to hide his erection; he could see the dark triangle of her pubic hair, just visible under her gown. He’d had enough shaved pussy, this was a real woman and Remus was in love. He rushed back to his bedroom, jumped on top of Martina and pretended Yangzom was beneath him.

  Remus found two good friends at the Moonstoned Guesthouse, Antoine Gruber a French man and a young black guy, David Marat, from Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean. The two French speakers had been travelling around India together. Antoine was grateful for David’s company, as unlike David he spoke very little English. Both had African connections, Antoine was sponsoring a small children’s charity in Mali, where his fluency in French afforded a good interaction with the locals. David had spent six months travelling in Africa. Remus was very envious to hear that he had visited Shashamane, his own dream goal, in Ethiopia. David had found the town disappointing and despite his long dreadlocks had been called ‘Whitey’. In fact, this name followed him across Africa; he liked India better, though he did say that The Gambia was his favourite destination. He said that he had stayed six weeks in Bouba Dibba’s house in Brikama. Remus was on the point of saying that Bouba was his Jola brother but remained silent, as David told them how unhappy Bouba had been. His brother had been in the employ of a Gambian gangster in London but ran away, when he refused to bring some children to the man. David went on to say that this bastard, Bob Jatta, had put out a contract on Bouba’s brother and wanted him dead. Remus stayed quiet, thinking the young man may have got the name wrong. Remus hadn’t given Bob much thought, he now worried that Bob might be thinking that Remus had betrayed him. Remus knew Bob was exploiting him; he had diminished his status as one of the most famous palm tappers in The Gambia, now most people just saw him as Bob’s houseboy. His new comfortable life in Bob’s house was a high price to pay for losing his standing in the community.

  The three men and Martina went down to the Tibetan colony at Choglamsar to celebrate a Tibetan holiday, most Tibetans and Ladakhis were dressed in their traditional costume for the party. It was horrifying for Remus to hear that the whole village had been engulfed by floods, with much loss of life just one year later; it was unusual for Ladakh to get that much rain. So many houses in Leh are built with mud bricks, made solid by eight months of frost and snow but hopeless against the deluge they had to face that rainy season.

  The evening of the party Remus, David and Antoine went to a local bar. Martina was in bed with a bottle of oxygen, which all guesthouses in Leh are required to hold; she had started vomiting due to the high altitude. At the bar the three spoke in a mixture of French and English. Remus had a good grasp of French but like his English it was open to misinterpretation. They were discussing Yangzom’s vegetable garden, which was irrigated by a small sluice gate from the local stream, when deluged by the storm water. Remus thought this was some sexual innuendo. Remus told them about seeing her in her nightgown; the other two thought he had been a fortunate man. Discussing the day’s festival, Remus mentioned that his friend Jeffrey Dharma had spent a long time in the Tibetan community in Dharamsala. David made the usual joke about Jeffrey Dahmer; the cannibal’s murders had shocked the world. Antoine paused the conversation, saying that Dharma was a very unusual surname and that his father, Fabien, had been in partnership with a Welsh stunt motorcyclist called Dharma, who had an estranged son called Jeffrey. Remus looked at his recently finished bottle of Godfather beer; he had been warned that alcohol at high altitude goes quicker to the head. Here he was drinking with two men at the top of the world, one having a connection with his friend Jeffrey and the other bad-mouthing his employer. His mind raced back to the café in Delhi and Baba Jan Singh’s revelation. It was more than coincidence that had brought these three together this night.

  Chapter 34: A Perfumed Ladakh Garden

  Remus was still lost inside his thoughts when the waiter brought three more Godfathers and filled their glasses.

  ‘A toast!’ Antoine said in French, ‘To Tamil Nadu!’

  ‘What? Where? When?’ Remus was panicking.

  ‘Have you not been paying attention?’ David addressed Remus, ‘We all decided to go travelling India together.’

  ‘And we agreed to start at the bottom, Tamil Nadu,’ continued Antoine.

  ‘Yes, sorry,’ Remus had not been paying attention, ‘I must tell story now.’ Remus filled his two friends in on his meeting with Baba Jan Singh and as many of the coincidences that had brought them together, as he thought appropriate. Remus felt comfort with his two new friends; it was good to be in the company of men again.

  For all the comradery and fun they had on the way back to the Moonstoned Guesthouse, Remus was keen to have the company of one particular woman, before he left Leh. Antoine and David went to their shared room, Martina was asleep. Through the partly closed door he could see Yangzom was closing up the kitchen and getting ready for her nightly shower. His room shared the communal bathroom next to Yangzom’s family shower room. He got undressed, for some reason he still had Fufu’s flimsy silk bathrobe, which he wore to get to the guest bathroom, slipping some condoms into the one small pocket. Hurrying his shower, wanting to exit the bathroom at the same moment as Yangzom appeared from hers. He knew her policeman husband was on night shift and her grown-up son away buying supplies for the Moonstoned. Her door opened, his door opened, they faced each other in the corridor. ‘I can see you are pleased to look at me,’ she smiled as his member stood erect through the too small gown. ‘May I touch it, I’ve never seen one as big as that?�
�� she said in a flat, shaky voice. He indicated permission with two open hands framing his manhood. She kneeled and took his circumcised tip into her mouth but withdrew it quickly, standing up, unsure of continuing this recklessness. She raised her tight-fitting nightgown and now it was Remus who was on his knees. Her pubic hair was long and straight, more like that on her head but at the same time, so soft and cushion-like. No part of her cunt could be seen but Remus was like the traveller in the forest, searching for the well. He found it and drank deep.

  ‘African,’ she whispered, ‘it has been very long since I have felt this fire. I am not sure I should let you put out the flame.’

  Remus had been slipping on a condom, just as his tongue was arousing her. He rose to his feet, carrying her body up with his momentum; pushing her against the wall, he entered her. ‘Not here!’ she indicated her bedroom.

  Remus carried her through, without slipping from inside her, and onto the bed. Remus didn’t have the language to express the passion that this woman arose in him, she was a voluptuous Hindu goddess, and he could smell all the flowers and spices of India in her embrace. Yangzom felt she were experiencing an antediluvian clash of continents and cultures, breaking through a wall of taboo. For her it was like the African jungle was taking her into its own and for him, for a second, an understanding of the seven thousand years that mankind had lived in the Indus valley. In the distance the Indus River itself flowed on, carrying this special moment of two people bound in the age-old ritual of lingam joining yoni down into history. Would either of these two people ever feel a union that strong again? At the age of forty-nine Remus Jallow grew up, no longer the teenager titillated by the sight of a naked woman; tonight he understood the power of the universe move between himself and this woman. He had taken the first step on his road to enlightenment.