The Travel Gods Must Be Crazy

by Sudha Mahalingam

  With Maxim doing all the talking, it transpires the babushka is happy to accommodate me for the next three days for a princely sum of $25 a day, all meals included. I pay up and hand over my passport for photocopying. Maxim gestures to indicate he would go and stay somewhere else and would come back at 10 a.m. By now, Maxim and I seem to have evolved a mutually comprehensible sign language. The babushka lifts my bag effortlessly and leads me down the corridor to a heritage elevator with collapsible grill gates. Instead of buttons, the elevator has old-fashioned round switches with numbers painted under each switch. She throws the switch (do you ever wonder what throwing a switch means?) for Floor 5, and the elevator takes off with a jolt. It makes so much noise—enough to drown out a jet engine taking off—that I fear it will shatter the glass panes.

  On Floor 5, there is a long corridor with rooms on one side, much like a hospital rather than a hotel. Everything is blinding white—the doors, walls, windows, balustrades. I later learn that it is indeed a sanatorium where Soviet big bosses used to holiday in summers. Now it is used by Kyrgyz bosses who bring their mistresses whenever they can. The babushka leads me through several corridors and finally reaches one where she opens a door and signals me in; she then turns back wordlessly and disappears down the long corridor.

  I enter the room and survey my surroundings. It seems straight out of a period film from the Soviet era. The decor was so outré it would have made Shahnaz Hussain blush. The bed is a high four-poster with a heavy mattress and brocade sheets on it; one wall is completely glass, curtained by frilly, transparent nylon with lace borders. The enormous bathroom has an enamel washbasin on a white-painted iron stand and a massive bathtub standing on curved lion feet made of metal. The mirror is ornate and so are the lamp fittings. This must be the presidential suite reserved for the commissars in Soviet times.

  The overwrought clock on the table tells me it is already 7 a.m. I go up to the windows and part the lace curtains and jump back in amazement. In the dawn glow, the view is simply spectacular. The pink-tinged snow peaks of the majestic Tien Shan range are almost at touching distance. In the foreground, just below the window, is a shimmering lake, with its waters gently lapping against the snowy bank. This is even better than the picture that has haunted me all those years, I tell myself. The snow is fresh and sparkles like diamond. The silence is so deafening I could hear my own heartbeat. I stand mesmerized for a few moments. But I am tired. I clamber on to the bed and collapse in a heap.

  After about three hours, I wake up and get ready to go down for breakfast. That’s when I realize how foolish I have been. I had not made a mental note of the way we came in and am truly lost in the labyrinthine corridors and multiple wings, all of which look alike. A sanatorium with 300 rooms and identical corridors can confound even the janitors and bellboys who work there. There is not a soul in sight and no sign of that heritage elevator. After several minutes of wandering here and there, I spot a staircase and decide to go down. But even after I have descended five floors, the lobby is nowhere in sight. I go through several heavily curtained doors and dark alleyways and suddenly find myself in an industrial-size kitchen with gleaming stainless-steel cooking machinery. Nothing seems to be cooking or sizzling anywhere. Finally, I locate a lone woman in uniform and accost her. Of course she speaks no English, but leads me out of this maze into the dining hall.

  It seems like a banqueting hall, heavily chandeliered, smothered in satin curtains with nylon ropes and tassels and packed with hundreds of round tables. The sideboard is neatly stacked with glittering vodka and wine glasses in hand-carved crystal. The Soviet bosses surely dined in style. In season, the dance floor must have rung out with the rhythmic steps of hundreds of restless feet. There is a grand piano at one end of the hall and a well for a full orchestra. Tchaikovsky must have provided a backdrop to the impassioned shouts of ‘Nzdazarovia!’ in better times. Now the hall wears a deserted look, a grander version of Miss Havisham’s, minus the cobwebs.

  I am led to a corner table on the edge of the dance floor. Today, I seem to be the lone diner in a hall that could seat several hundred. The attendant slaps some kasha (buckwheat porridge) on my plate and goes to fetch some tea from a steaming samovar. As I swallow the milkless, sugarless kasha, I hear some voices—in American English. Five persons—four men and a woman—troop past me, eyeing me with interest. They seat themselves at the table next to mine and steal a few glances at me as they bend over their kasha and omelettes.

  I am so grateful for human presence in this eerie, spooky sanatorium that I decide to address them directly. After the usual preliminaries, I gather they are from Manas, the American military base not far from here. They are very surprised to see a lone traveller, that too from India, in this godforsaken spot in Central Asia in the middle of nowhere. They can’t fathom why a loony Indian woman would choose to travel alone in winter to this isolated place even if it is paradise. They themselves can’t wait to get back home. Thankfully, today is their last day in Manas and they are off home to the US in the evening.

  After breakfast, I step out of the hotel. The blizzard from the night before has subsided, and the sun is shining in all its glory, turning the vast virgin snow fields into incandescent plains of the purest white. And looking beyond, I see the lake itself, shimmering in the morning sun, its waters the deepest imaginable shade of blue. And beyond that, an endless range of snow-capped peaks, perfectly framing the scene. And off to one corner, our bent little hotel, dwarfed by its surroundings, half covered with snow, the only man-made speck on the most primordial of landscapes. I had truly reached the end of the earth.

  Yazd: Gained in Translation

  The elderly caretaker picks up my backpack and leads me down the steps into a cavernous basement. As we are about to enter, we hear a loud shout followed by a flying missile which happens to be a rolled-up newspaper. It lands at my feet. ‘Get out!’ calls out the disembodied voice, but the caretaker takes no notice. He hands me my backpack and gestures me to go in. As I hesitantly move into the dark doorway, a shadowy form emerges from the room, another missile in hand, but stops in its track. ‘Oh, are you going to share my room? Where the hell are you from?’ she barks as she ambles back to her bed without waiting for my answer. As my eyes get used to the darkness, I discern the outline of a young woman flopped on one of the two beds in this dingy room without a door. I mumble my provenance, but she is already asleep.

  I am in Yazd, the desert town in central Iran, 690 km away from Tehran. It is supposed to be the second oldest continuously inhabited city in the world after Jerusalem. (Didn’t Damascus claim this title?) I am staying at an old caravanserai called the Silk Road Hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. Of course, this was 2003, long before the inn acquired a high-profile and a fancy website. For $8 a day (Iranians prefer the US dollar to the hassle of counting their rials in hundreds of thousands for equivalent amounts), I am to share this door-less, windowless underground cavern with its other occupant who happens to be a Lebanese banker from Chicago. Joyce had thrown away her lucrative job in Citibank to travel the world. She has been travelling overland for three years now, having started in Japan and working her way west.

  If Iran in 2003 was still veiled in multiple sanctions and posed a tantalizing mystery to curious travellers, Yazd was like a woman in an iron burqa, with nary a chink in the armour to excite your imagination. Yazd is not the easiest of destinations to access either; I had to brave an overnight train from Tehran—in an all-ladies compartment with hermetically sealed windows. The smell of the assorted meats as the women unwrapped their dinner packets still haunts me, after years.

  Yazd is a fascinating desert town stuck in a time warp. Its labyrinthine streets are lined with adobe houses whose earthy hues are relieved every now and then by exquisite turquoise tile panels and ornamental doorways. The intricately carved wooden doors have double knockers—a slender one for women visitors and a sturdy one for men. Depending on the sound from the knocker, the residents of the house
could decide whether the door would be opened by a male or female. All this, long before the Islamic revolution with its strict rules of gender segregation came to overwhelm present-day Iranians. Yet, the knockers here are just a relic. There are gender-neutral electric call bells alongside.

  Before I could proudly cackle and declare how in India we never practised this kind of gender segregation, Joyce put me in my place with the most sobering declaration: of all the countries she had travelled through, India was where she had faced the worst sexual harassment. She narrated harrowing tales of how she had been groped and pinched, probed and propositioned in most places she had travelled to.

  My journey to Yazd was prompted by the desire to find out how the descendants of Darius and Xerxes and other eminences of the formidable Persian pantheon survive in today’s Iran. The Farsi community is said to be 30,000 strong, much less than those who fled to western India where King Jaidev Rana gave them refuge on the condition that they marry only within their community. The language spoken by the Zarathusht in Yazd is different from the Farsi spoken by Muslims in Iran and the language spoken by Indian Parsis.

  Naturally, it is at the Atashkadeh or Fire Temple that the Zarathusht, as the original Farsis are called, congregate. I make my way to the temple and join the fifty-odd worshippers seated in a circle around a young priest. He is expounding on something. His speech is fiery, and his gestures expressive. I understand nothing of what he says, but am mesmerized nevertheless. This goes on and on and after what seems an eternity, they all get up and go through a Kusti ritual. Kusti is not unlike the sacred thread used by Brahmins in India, but is worn around the waist.

  After the ceremony is over, I befriend the priest, who is a banker. He speaks a smattering of English and is happy to take me in his car to other Fire Temples in Yazd. We drive around Yazd and even visit the Tower of Silence where motorcycle-borne youths race up and down the sandy mounds and kick up dust. I have the privilege of being introduced to important members of the community and take their photographs.

  The following day sees me trudging towards the ancient and exquisitely proportioned Jameh Mosque, built in the fourteenth century by the governor of Yazd in memory of his wife, Bibi Fatema Khatun. The mosque has a hoary legend. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was used by young women to ensnare eligible men. All they had to do was to go up to the top of the minaret and take their pick of the men assembled in the courtyard after Friday prayers. Each woman would then throw down her key at her chosen man and wait with bated breath for him to pick it up. He who picked up the key could claim her for a bride. But with a dense crowd of men of assorted ages congregating in the courtyard after Friday prayers, the practice was more like a Russian roulette and mishaps were common and unintended consequences rife.

  The legend has piqued my curiosity and I want to go up to the top of the minaret, if only to visualize how a swayamvara could have misfired in ancient Yazd. The real reason of course is to get a good view and snapshots of the warrens that make up the old town—there are no high-rises in Yazd. But there is a huge lock on the door of the stairwell leading up to the minaret. I go in search of the caretaker and gesture to him to open the door to the winding stairs. He promptly gestures back ‘no’ and supplements it with a vigorous nod. A passer-by comes to my rescue and explains to the caretaker my purpose and points to my camera. The caretaker then insists I give a written requisition. I have no idea what he would do with it, but I oblige him with a hastily scribbled request addressed to the imam of the mosque. I am certain the caretaker could not read English, but he seemed content enough to open the door for me.

  I bound up the winding steps of the minaret. A balustrade goes around the pencil top, offering a fantastic view of the sprawling old town. I recall another minaret, also in Iran, in the town of Isfahan, where I had to buy a ticket to go up. That’s because the Jonban minaret shook and swayed in the wind and thus became a sensation, which the clergy milked by ticketing it to the public. Mercifully, this one is still and offers a bird’s-eye view of the earth-hued roofs and dozens of badgirs—cooling towers built over a qanat (opening to an underground water channel)—which offer natural air-conditioning in the desert. These are unique views that only the minaret can offer. I lose track of time as I click different angles of Yazd from this privileged perch.

  Brown and burnt, Yazd, the quintessential desert town in Iran

  The sun begins to sink into the desert horizon and I decide to go back. But when I find my way down the spiral staircase, the heavily carved wooden door is shut and seems to be padlocked from outside. I start shouting and pounding on the door hoping someone is still outside. There is no response. Only a sinister silence. Panic begins to well up in me. The prospect of spending the night on the ledge of the minaret under a starry sky may sound romantic in retrospect, but I was terrified. Besides, it was getting chilly too.

  After a few minutes of fruitless banging and shouting, I go back up on to the minaret tower to see if I can spot anyone. It is already dark and no one seems to be about. I muster all my strength and shout, trying multiple languages—Tamil, English, Hindi. ‘Kholo! Kholo! Koi hai?’ I wail. Suddenly I get a response, also in Hindi. ‘Kya hai? Ruko, ruko!’ I can’t believe my ears. Am I hallucinating already? I spot three heads in silhouettes—seem like women in headscarves coming towards the mosque. I direct them to the door of the minaret and rush down the spiral staircase in pitch darkness. When I reach the landing, I hear the sweet sound of the latch being undone and the door being flung open.

  As I burst out of the confines of the minaret, there they are, three women, all my compatriots, chatting in Mumbaiya Hindi. I can’t believe my luck! These were Parsis from Mumbai on a pilgrimage to Yazd to worship at the Fire Temple. But for them, I might have spent the night under starry skies on top of a minaret in a desert town in the middle of nowhere. Boy, was I thrilled to find these chatty women, interested in shopping for unique Persian artefacts in the gullies of Yazd! I latch on to them the rest of the evening as well as the next day.

  Eventually, they left with the rest of the group now heading to Shiraz. As I aimlessly wander the streets, I bump into another erstwhile Mumbaikar now living in Canada. Fariborz Rahnamoon from Yazd runs a journal for the Parsi diaspora from distant Vancouver. Once a year, he visits Yazd to see his mother. I spend the afternoon visiting his mother’s home in the old part of town. Over tea, he narrates the difficulties faced by his community. Iranzamin, his journal, is his modest contribution to keeping the Zoroastrian culture alive.

  The Barbed Beauty of Israel

  Your brush with Israeli officialdom begins at Ben Gurion Airport itself. We had flown Royal Jordanian into Tel Aviv and queued up before the immigration counter along with other nationalities. All Indians on the flight—about twenty of us—are herded into a room to have our passports scrutinized with minute care. The immigration official is unwilling to buy my explanation that my son and I are in Holy Land on a tour of religious history. If we’re neither Christian nor Jewish and obviously not Muslim, why would we want to visit religious places here? The fact that we had our visas stamped on separate sheets of paper—a gracious gesture by the Israel embassy in New Delhi, one that would help us gain entry into Syria, Lebanon and fifty-eight other Arab League countries that are wary of the Israeli stamp on your passport—does not seem to help. ‘Do you have any friends in Israel?’ The official wants us to call my friend on the phone to talk to him, but my phone’s battery has run out and there’s no way of getting his number just now. Besides, I didn’t even need it since he must be waiting outside at the arrival hall to pick us up. But I can’t get to the arrival hall until we clear immigration. After about thirty minutes of frustrating wait, I have a brainwave. ‘Why don’t you Google his name?’ I write down my friend’s name for the immigration officer. I don’t know what the computer threw up, but her demeanour changes, our passports are returned and we are waved off.

  Our friend and his lovely Israeli wife drive us d
irectly to Jerusalem, about ninety minutes away, on world-class highways through typically Mediterranean landscape, hot and dry for the most part. But trust Israelis to turn even adversity to their advantage. As our flight was landing, I had noticed that all rooftops were glinting with solar panels to take advantage of a climate others would have just complained about.

  Our impression of the Israeli state’s obsession with security is strengthened further as we explore the country over the next ten days. The presence of gun-toting youngsters in army fatigues is ubiquitous and quite unnerving, initially. These are members of the elite IDF or Israeli Defence Forces, and you find them in cafes, restaurants, trains, buses, streets, parks—everywhere. In fact, one is surprised to see young girls in uniform advertising their individuality with very fashionable stiletto shoes or jewellery. These youngsters have been issued firearms on conscription to the IDF soon after school; they serve in the army for two years, and they are responsible for their guns during this period. Some of them seem to take this responsibility a tad too seriously, taking their guns even into public toilets! But perhaps it is just as well, for unlike in the US, in this country, you don’t hear of random shootings by youngsters having access to firearms.

  Jerusalem lives up to our expectations. The walled city is a warren of lanes walking through which is a journey back in time. We saunter through the cobbled lanes of the Arab quarter with its profusion of merchandise. The flagstones you step on are the very same ones on which Jesus might have walked once, or at least so proclaim the inscriptions. Haggling is as much a part of the transaction as purchase, just like in our bazaars. If you’re not smart, you could end up paying the equivalent of $20 for a plate of kebabs in a poky wayside eatery.