The Heat and Dust Project

by Saurav Jha

  Cover

  Title page

  THE HEAT AND

  DUST PROJECT

  The Broke Couple’s Guide to Bharat

  Devapriya Roy and Saurav Jha

  Dedication

  For

  Meenakshi, who was born two weeks before the journey and was the fair star monitoring its mad course; Saksham,

  who offered to write a part of the book (as long as

  we helped with the spellings); and Priyanka, who heard all our stories first and is reading our books now.

  Contents

  Authors’ Note

  Atha (Here, Now)

  One:How (Not) to Grow Roots in Three Days

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Two:How (Not) to Get Mixed Up in Other People’s Pilgrimages

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Three:How (Not) to Be Blue

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Four:How to Write in Indian

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  Five:How to Sell Reproductions of Old Masters in Europe and Other Stories

  23

  24

  Six:How to Survive Madna

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Seven:How to Find Old Friends in New Places

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  Eight:How (Not) to Get Late for Girnar

  35

  Nine:How (Not) to Tell a City What You Feel for It: Delhi

  36

  37

  38

  Ten:How to Row Your Boat Ashore

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  Eleven:How to Perfect the Paharganj Posture

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  Twelve:How (Not) to Go to Heaven Hanging on to a Carrot (or a Book)

  50

  51

  Thirteen:How to Let Go, How Not to Let Go

  52

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Authors’ Note

  In many parts of the world, there is something called a gap year. Not so in India. While young people elsewhere contemplate a gap year (amply aided by exchange rates), eighteen-year-old Indians of certain classes swot madly for entrance exams. It might not be off the mark to say that middle-class Indians truly peak in focus and ambition between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. It is great hormone management too in a way.

  One hears of parents in the Western hemisphere who are mortally afraid that their children’s jobs are going to be Bangalored, outsourced to some briskly busy Indian IT professional who thinks nothing of working fifteen hours a day, every day. If he were to go back in time though, and see his seventeen-year-old version, and the sheer amount of effort he put into cracking the exams – the ones that would morph him to the said IT professional – well, he’d have to confess he was taking it really easy at his fifteen-hour workday. Their kids, with all the cheerleading and prom and sex and protection talk, are no match whatsoever.

  But, to cut a long story short, we did not come from a tradition of gap years, and now, past our mid-twenties, we’d missed that age group by nearly a decade. We lived yuppie lives in the heart of Delhi. We had decent, soulless jobs. We even had a garret apartment in a lovely neighbourhood that would be filled, on certain mornings, so generously with the sun and the sound of children playing outside that it was easy to decide in favour of householding and consumption.

  We were the usual: nine-to-sixers, investment-makers, mall-goers, office-trippers and city-slickers. We were life-going-to-seeders.

  Then we came up with an insane idea.

  Everyone thought we were mad to put all our eggs in one basket: the idea of a transformational journey through India. On a very, very tight budget. We went ahead anyway.

  This book is the story of what happened then.

  Devapriya and Saurav

  Atha

  (Here, Now)

  The bus is late. When we reach Jaipur, the touristy blue sky has begun to deepen incorrigibly. We hail an auto. By the time we get to the fork in the road – it is the hotel district close to Mirza Ismail Road, fairly central – dusk has leapt forward to night. Or perhaps, it is just the cold.

  We know the first hotel at the mouth of the street: daintily designed and set back inside a little garden. It is quite expensive. (We’d stayed there once in the past – and we couldn’t afford the prices then either.) We walk straight past it and pop into the next reception. Prices at the second hotel, a functional-looking structure, start from a shocking Rs 1,200 plus taxes.

  Outside, the lane is streaked with dim shafts of light leaking from hotel rooms on either side. We stop religiously at every hotel; ask the rates, the facilities. True to the project, we step out and sigh, suffering a curious mix of outrage and nerves at room rents. But it is day one – it will not do to cave in already. It will not do to end up taking one of the better rooms with the promise of hot water.

  Eventually, on to the last few ‘deluxe 2-stars’ in that series. The character of the neighbourhood has changed perceptibly. We are now deep within the recesses of that rough mohalla, down a typical Indian lane – which has seen several relayerings of asphalt over the years, but never once evenly – and ugly rooms are freely available for 400 rupees. They are painted an unvarying dull off-brown, if there were such a shade. Their Indian-style bathrooms are streaked with old red stains, which, I can only hope, is paan. The straps of my backpack have begun to cut my shoulders.

  At long last, the final hotel. A narrow building, terraced, with a name so elaborate that it sits off-kilter, almost wayward, on peeling walls: Hotel Veer Rajput Palace. We pause a moment to regroup.

  ‘It’ll have to be this one, I guess,’ S says, almost relieved. ‘Shall we try to settle at 300? I don’t think they’ll go lower than that.’

  I am exhausted. I cannot think of returning to any of the hotels we’ve just left behind. In front, where the block ends, there is simply a claque of dogs guarding the entryway into a dark by-lane of small unpainted houses. No hotels.

  I nod and follow him up the three steps. The door is ajar.

  One:

  How (Not) to Grow Roots in Three Days

  Dear God, this parachute is a knapsack.

  — Chandler Bing, Friends

  1

  January 2010: It is a foggy winter day in Delhi when it begins.

  Dilliwalas will, of course, say that all winter days in Delhi are foggy. But on some days, like this one, the fog that is barely endured in the morning stretches well into afternoon – making the city irritable and chilly, edgy with remorse.

  Buses for Jaipur leave at regular intervals from Bikaner House.

  It is about one-thirty now, midday, and we find ourselves rushing that way in an auto, unaccountably though, as there is no reason to rush. Not any more. We are – or so we would like to believe – free individuals. We have no bosses to report to, no landlords to be paid
at the end of the month, not even a sad plant gathering dust at the office desk to chide us. We can, if fancy strikes, take a detour to Himachal Bhavan which is close by, take one of their buses and dash off to, say, Manali. I smile as I think this aloud, stretching my arms in an arch of delicious freedom.

  ‘We can’t,’ S replies shortly. ‘We have to stick to the plan. As it is, we are behind schedule. It takes a minimum of four-and-a-half hours to get to Jaipur, by when it’ll be evening. And then we will have to scout for a really cheap hotel. Don’t imagine for a second that that’s going to be easy. It’s winter, high season in Rajasthan. Plus,’ he adds, as if this were a clincher, ‘we don’t have enough warm clothes for Manali.’

  It’s not that I don’t have appropriate answers to each of the above claims – because I do (I always do) – but, for now, I let it go. I busy myself checking if we’ve stashed our luggage alright. In addition to my cavernous canvas handbag, there are two backpacks – one red, one black – which we’d bought in Calcutta last month for about 700 rupees apiece from a luggage store in New Market. There had, naturally, been posher brands in the shop. A remarkable rust-coloured Samsonite, for instance, with a thousand loops and discreet zips and dinky pockets. It was for 5,000 rupees. Hung in a special alcove in the shop, a thing of beauty. S didn’t even allow me to go within sniffing distance of it. Spending one-tenth of the entire (proposed) budget on gear? Not on his watch, apparently.

  While we’re on the subject, you might as well know there was a mighty row last night over the said backpacks.

  To be honest, this is my first backpacking trip across India. Across anywhere, actually. So I did not want to take any chances with equipment. Given that we were to be gone for months, I came up with a pretty comprehensive list.

  1.3 jeans (one could get wet while the other is dirty, in which case I would thank my stars that I’d packed a third).

  2.9 8 7 6 t-shirts (they are ordinary cotton t-shirts – v.v. light).

  3.A couple of salwar-kurtas (we may be travelling through rather conservative places where it might be considered too firang to prance about in jeans; for fieldwork, for people to talk to us freely, we need to be discreet and fit in).

  4.One dressy top and one dressy salwar-kameez in case something comes up. (In my head it read as dinner with a princess or such like; after all, we were going to Rajasthan.)

  5.An iron to ensure all the above were well-tended (one of the lightest irons possible; I had scoured the market).

  6.A big bottle of Eezee for all the laundry. On a budget trip, that’s the first place where one saves money – one hand-washes one’s clothes.

  7.Big box of tissues and one pack of wet wipes.

  8.Hand sanitizer.

  9.Two tiffin boxes – one each (in case we need to carry food). Preferably one red, one black, to match the bags.

  10.Biscuits and protein bars in case we find ourselves locked up somewhere without food.

  11.A medicine kit plus different kinds of vitamins.

  12.A couple of notebooks.

  13.Thermals.

  14.Light sandwich toaster (?) … bread could be bought anywhere.

  15.A pot of Nutella (?).

  I had only got this far and was wondering which books to take – you can’t go on a transformative journey without a few soul-stirring books; Vivekananda had carried a copy each of the Gita and the Imitation of Christ on his wanderings through India – when S insisted on checking out the list. Not that he offered his list to me, which was a scrunched-up napkin with the words ‘lots of underwear, one cheque book, charger’ scrawled in a corner. He then went on to throw a mighty fit. Apparently, only the hand sanitizer in my entire list could be allowed. ‘Who made you boss of the trip?’ I bellowed. ‘This project is my idea!’

  And then he told me the following: Was I aware that over-preparation could have dangerous consequences? Did I even know of the strange case of Salomon Andrée?

  I gulped. S warmed up to his theme. Salomon Andrée had, in 1897, dreamt of reaching the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon. Not just any old hydrogen balloon but one equipped so exhaustively and with such imagination that it would seem they had planned for every conceivable eventuality. They had the world’s first primus stove, enough cutlery for fine dining, a Hasselblad camera, an on-board darkroom, even a cooker that could be lit remotely. Except, all this did not make any meaningful difference. Three days later the balloon sank, barely 200 miles from the starting point. Their bear-chewed bodies were discovered thirty-three years later.

  ‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ I grumbled, sitting on the floor amid a bunch of clothes, in a sunless hotel room in Paharganj, secretly mulling over the possibility of our bear-chewed bodies coming home in gunny sacks.

  2

  There is a Silverline bus to Jaipur at half past two.

  We rush to find the ticket counter. It is tucked away in a corner of the sprawling premises, the centrepiece of which is a pale pink faux-palace. S glances at me offhand, and remarks casually how my face is looking blue from all the weight I’m lugging. Am I up to it? he asks, offering to switch. It annoys me further.

  Fact is, last night, in spite of the cautionary tale, my pride still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I might have to eat dinner with royalty in grotty jeans. So I sort of stuck to my original list.

  I concentrate on the map of Rajasthan stuck on the wall in front. The names of places are delicious, rolling syllables that remind me of geography and history lessons half heard in school: ‘Bijolia, Bundi, Kota,’ I read aloud, and then squint to spot the smaller places dotting the far corners of the craggy state, ‘Ganganagar, Nagaur, Chittor.’ It is a moment of intense possibility, of such freedom. We can go almost anywhere, visit any of these places, even live there for a while. For a second, the heart swells.

  Meanwhile, S has found the right queue. He is now standing behind a balding man in a shaggy black galabandh and corduroy trousers. The man is having a long chat with the guy at the counter. I find a chair nearby and lump the bag on it.

  ‘Actually,’ the man, elbows on the counter, says with deliberate emphasis, ‘the boy is physically handicapped. So he always travels free.’

  The guy at the counter scratches his ear. He is wearing a pair of thick black spectacles and a chocolate-brown monkey cap that covers his ears under woolly flaps. He replies excruciatingly slowly, ‘That is the rule. Correct. Even the attendant can travel free. But you need a “physically handicapped” certificate for that. From an authorized government hospital. Do you have it?’

  ‘No,’ the man replies sadly. ‘I should get this certificate made now, I think. Every time I am about to get it, something comes up.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. If you produce that, you don’t have to pay for the ticket at all. Even the attendant can go free. If you come between eleven a.m. and one p.m. on weekdays … the list of authorized government hospitals is available for five rupees at the next counter.’

  ‘Can you at least give the handicapped kid and his attendant one of the seats in front?’

  ‘Umm, no. The seats in front are always reserved for VIPs.’

  S has been bursting to say something all this while and finally intervenes. ‘Why don’t you give his child the seat? In any case, which VIP will travel by a Silverline bus?’

  The sad-looking man in the galabandh adds, ‘Exactly. They take Volvos at least, the VIPs. Most of them take AC Qualises and all.’

  ‘No, no, not true, not true.’ The counter guy is most vehement. ‘Many small VIPs take this bus. How many tickets do you want?’ It is final.

  The man replies.

  The guy begins taking down names carefully. ‘But that’s only four names?’ he asks, taking off his glasses and blinking rapidly. ‘Didn’t you want five tickets?’

  ‘Yes, yes…’ The sad-looking man has now lost interest and is busy
SMSing. ‘Plus the handicapped kid.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ For all his unhelpfulness, the ticket guy is thorough.

  ‘Mmm-hmm…’ The man scratches his head distractedly as though trying to remember. ‘Put it down as Pepsi.’

  We are next.

  In about ten minutes we are in the Silverline bus, its seats upholstered in bubble-gum-pink rexine, hungrily munching veg patties. After finishing, S vigorously dusts off crumbs and fishes out a small red notebook from his pocket. He throws me a stern look and notes neatly: Rs 240 (bus), Rs 40 (veg patties, 2). Then he tells me, ‘Don’t imagine for a second that Silverline buses and patties set the tone for this trip. We’re on a budget and we have to stick to it, come hell or high water.’ I nod with my mouth full. The soft flaky crust of the patty, dry, if flavourful, sticks slightly in my throat. I gulp down some water. ‘Rs 15 (a bottle of water),’ S notes, reminded.

  The driver jumps onto his seat and bangs his door shut. Everybody scrambles in. The conductor jabbers something to the driver who appears not to hear. And then, suddenly, without any preamble, we are off.

  3

  Through the imprint of dust on the glass, the day outside seems more miserable than it probably is.

  Having made its way out of the maze of Delhi, the bus lumbers through Gurgaon with its sandy earth, polythene litter, a few dull-grey hardy-looking trees and towering structures in steel and glass – offices and gleaming malls and gated residential communities with bombastic names. The new India. The chatter of co-passengers thins. There is only the grumble of traffic. The cold stills everyone into a stupor.

  Beyond Gurgaon, fields of mustard begin in bright yellow waves, often interrupted by ‘development’, as though it were a pompous character from an ancient play that has wandered into current Indian vocabulary, and remained. ‘The NCR is on fire these days,’ one is told again and again, here and there. ‘Development has come to stay.’

  ‘You know what fire means, right?’ S told me a week ago. ‘Finance, Insurance, Real Estate. After that flash of fire, it could all be a downward trajectory.’ He had much more to say on the subject, but at that time I’d been busy doing something else. I had shushed him. I think for a second if I should prod him on the subject now but decide against it. In any case, he’s dozing.