by Saurav Jha
‘What is that?’ you ask.
He looks at you, stunned. As though it is supremely weird you don’t know what it is. ‘It’s an M-46,’ he says, finally. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
You are confounded by the choice of word. Blocking the way is a giant olive-green mechanical device with humongous tractor wheels and barrels that stick out. It’s manned by several military men. The military men sport an air of great smugness atop their vehicle while a bunch of rustics surround it, petting its surface as though it were a large domesticated elephant.
He looks at your face and says, his voice turning fractious, ‘It’s a 130 mm Soviet-origin artillery gun. Don’t look at it like a Guardian-reading peacenik would. Learn to see it with geopolitical eyes. Tech-loving eyes.’
‘With the eyes of boys viewing toys, you mean,’ you reply darkly.
Finally, the bus enters Barmer. The conductor, pen stuck behind his ear, flops into the first row, raises his feet on the iron bars in front and begins to count the money. You observe the government buildings – pale yellow two- or three-storeyed structures, built to last, and with some sense of symmetry. You know that exact copies of these buildings appear across India; everywhere, they are cool in summer and warm in winter and the fight against dust can never be completely won. You know the square rooms with large ugly furniture still sport fridges (unplugged) where files are stacked and walls with calendars feature folk dances from different states of India. You allow yourself a smile.
The mai-baap of Barmer also live on this street, which is well laid out and free of garbage dumps, a minor version of the Civil Lines of, say, Gorakhpur or Allahabad. The bus rolls down this street slowly, in deference to its mighty residents – several haunted-looking supplicants disembark here, clutching cloth bags and old files – and the bus turns into the haphazard madness of town. It deposits the last few passengers near the railway station. With that slightly hollow, slightly acidic feeling in your stomach that precedes hotel searches, you alight and queue up to claim your bags.
Afterwards, as you walk towards the central business district, you realize you’ve been had. This is Madna. The likelihood of a fancy bakery – or any bakery for that matter – here is dim. You glower at your co-traveller. He attempts to be conciliatory, and leads the search for a hotel. You need a bathroom soon. If one were to go by the formula, he is thinking aloud, next to you, the hotels ought to be here. In every town like Madna, the station is fairly close to Civil Lines, and the hotels are near the station. So there. The mighty and the seedy are separated by a factor of one.
The shops are cramped and shabby – full of furniture and utensils and general stuff people buy – and they merge in your head into a general picture of the India of newspaper stories and growing-demand reports. On either side, the street fades into very dusty stretches. The litter does not bear any logic of distribution, it is everywhere. There are cars, autos, rickshaws, handcarts, trucks and a couple of camels jamming the street; stray dogs and thin men skip through this traffic with remarkable dexterity. Their faces are impassive. You see the dust rising in fine clouds as you stomp in their wake, the weight of your rucksacks making your tread heavy. Even now, in January, you can imagine the heat that will bake these buildings and streets in summer, when the sky is stretched white and taut. You know that this is what your big project is all about – the heat and dust that the goras have written about for decades and every mention of which these days makes your skin crimp in rage. Here you are; and all you can think about is cake.
The street with hotels on either side is indifferent to tourists. There is no attempt at prettification anywhere. Barmer, now a boom town itself, has no aspirations to Rajasthan’s usual employment bonanza: tourism. Yes, there is a fort tucked away somewhere on the outskirts. True, there are artisans who do some sculpting and furniture design. But Barmer has no truck with the sort of goras who go gaga over forts and sculptures, and want to wear hardy cotton and make their pounds or euros last for long months. The only goras you find in Barmer come to drill oil – they have money and they do not hesitate to throw that money around. The off-licences in these parts stock the priciest of whiskies for them from Islay. Barmer has no tools to classify you either – a couple who do not look married, wear distressed jeans and rucksacks – and frankly, Barmer does not particularly care for your attitude to life, all this book business.
If you came fresh out of engineering school, hired by L&T and Cairn, well, that would signify something. You would wear that newly minted look of having made it. After serving time here, you would be posted in Africa and paid in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Along with other sensible chaps, you would come to Barmer, flush with new salaries and post-college freedoms, hire the best rooms in these hotels, the suites with ACs (always pronounced soots, as in Madna) and TVs which beam two hundred channels. But bedraggled and slightly vague, you come across as non-serious people. Barmer hotels do not have a policy for you.
You walk down the street, pop into each reception, suffer some degree of slight somewhere (though the spouse thinks you are being oversensitive), feel revulsion at least in three of the five toilets you see, and finally, you double back to the first hotel you had left in a huff. It has an egregious government look. Seascapes in the lobby and a plastic slab lined with a thin sponge cushion passing off as sofa. It is very expensive. Four hundred plus taxes. You have no choice but to accept their surly room. The room service menu offers a variety of flower dishes: flower pakoras, flower parathas and chilly flower. You cave in and order flower parathas apiece.
‘There’s one strange thing,’ the spouse tells you, taking off his shoes. ‘There’s no signal on my phone at all.’
You sigh and begin to fiddle with the phone, getting it to manually search for network. The gobi parathas arrive with a very ugly cup of coffee after a quarter of an hour, but the mobile signal continues to be elusive.
Saurav
After we have walked in the pitiless town for an hour, though not as far as the low hills in the distance, I ask a passing autowallah if he will give us a tour of the dunes. He agrees promptly. ‘Rupees one hundred and fifty for everything,’ he says. I do not argue. D has been glowering for a day and a half now over the desert safari we could not have afforded at all. She hesitates, wavering between holding on to her injury and embracing this, the second-best option. Smartly, I tell her, ‘If you hop in right away, we might even make the sunset.’
27
Whatever romantic notions I might have had about gambolling in the sand vaporize once we get there. The desert here is a succession of tall sand mountains. Make no mistake, it’s phenomenal. But just the sight of it makes one’s back sing like a canary.
Our autowallah leads the way, striding up the sandy slope casually. He is Ramaram Mali, son of Motiram. This information was printed in neat letters behind the driver’s seat, along with his address and phone number. White letters on calf rexine. He had played tourist guide pretty efficiently, offering trivia on the various highlights of Barmer. Except for an elaborate ear stud, Ramaram is dressed formally, like an office-goer. White shirt and brown trousers. He has a slight paunch, so his brown belt sags though the silver-coloured buckle has been polished lovingly. He wears formal oxfords, and as he clambers up almost effortlessly, I can see the dark brown socks that cover his ankles. S follows, competently if not effortlessly, looking back from time to time, affecting concern. I flail in the sand, wavering and sinking, my bag and jacket pulling me down, first this way, then that. I struggle in my beloved desert and I swear at S under my breath, until finally, I learn the trick. You just have to be light on your feet and slice through the sand to keep walking. Don’t stop. Power on. By the time I climb the first dune, the full red sun is hovering on the horizon, ready to drop. I stop and try to catch my breath. Ramaram is talking expansively.
‘My father was basically a farmer though he worked as a chowkidaar. We are many generations from
a village close to here. By caste, we are the same as chief minister Gehlot-ji. Many people voted for him from our place. When I was young, we were poor, though we never thought of ourselves as poor, and neither were we the poorest in our village. We had a little land. In those days, my mother had to walk for two-three hours every day at dawn to get water. All the women used to go together, in a group, to fetch water. When we were children, we used to run along with them. In summer, you see, dawn is the most beautiful part of the day. It is cool, and when first light breaks through the night, you feel lucky.
‘The water situation is better now. In summer, we would remain in somebody’s house all afternoon, talking, talking, talking. We used to go to the rait after sunset, before it became dark. There was no electric lighting in those days. When it was dark in the desert – and no moon – it was, like, fully black. You heard spooky stories. I went to school for a few years. From school, we’d come and play in the sand for hours. The dunes began at the edge of the village.
‘Now Barmer has grown so quickly, like a teenage boy, always hungry and shooting upwards every night, so quickly that some land I had bought near the village many years ago for five hundred rupees is now inside proper Barmer. And its price? I can’t say for sure, because I am never going to sell it, but going rates for land in Barmer are three lakh for a bigha. This is where I live now, with my wife and three children. I have built another house on this plot, a nice two-storey house and I’ve given it on rent to L&T. Two of the L&T officers are from your Bengal only. I will put ACs in this house soon. Then the rent will go up two times at least. I get 10,000 rupees now. Ever since these oil people started coming to Barmer, we’ve struck silver, sir. Anybody who had any land has become a somebody. There is great demand for houses on rent.’
S discusses other details of the boom economy – inflation, how the land grab is taking over whatever few green fields there are, social implications thereof … I begin to walk towards the doughty thorny trees that grow here, mainly as small shrubs, but sometimes growing so tall that you can actually sit below them. There are several of these trees. Roeda, Ramaram tells me the name later. The wood is used to build doors. It is soaked under water for a year. I sit under a tree. All around me is a sea of sand marked by undulating patterns of wind. The sky is slate-coloured and the setting sun has torched an entire swathe to the west. Under that half-red, half-slate sky, it is possible to feel alive and humble in a way I have never felt before. I skip back and request Ramaram to take a photograph of the two of us.
Afterwards, Ramaram asks, ‘Sir, you must be rich, no?’
We laugh. We tell him the bare idea of the journey.
‘Okay, so you are not rich but you are educated. That’s the thing.’
We begin to walk. He tells us about his eldest, the daughter, who is very bright. The boys are younger, not yet very serious about their studies. But he has plans for his children – big plans.
And then, he suddenly turns to us and says, ‘Why don’t you come to my house for dinner? I’ll call my wife and tell her to expect guests.’
‘Oh, well,’ says S, unsurely.
What’s there to be unsure about? I think. This is India. People are always inviting people over to their houses.
‘We’ll come,’ I say brightly. ‘Thank you very much.’
Ramaram walks away a few steps to call his wife.
‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ S hisses at me in Bengali. ‘We don’t know him at all!’
‘That’s not true. We know his name, his father’s name, his phone number and his permanent address. That’s more than we know about, say…’ I cast about for an appropriate example.
S interrupts me urgently. ‘Don’t joke about this. It could be dangerous. The phone is not working either.’
I say, ‘Why are we on this journey, if not to meet people? Get to know them? Observe their homes, their family members. All writers must take risks. Plus, he seems such a nice man.’
S looks annoyed. ‘I do not want this book to descend into these neo-anthropological studies that people turn India-books into. These long, detailed conversations with people, pegging them as interesting sociological categories, recounting their stories. One way or the other, it’s anthropological. We have to be careful about this.’
‘Uff,’ I reply, ‘first of all, this is going to be a book in the tradition of travel writing in the Indian languages. Those have such anecdotes all the time. Bengali travel writers are particularly keen on free meals. And this is a straightforward invitation to dinner. That’s all.’
A couple of months after my MA finals, my friend Jiya and I were invited to present a paper at the American University in Paris. We planned feverishly for weeks and finally, one very windy summer morning, a couple of days before the conference, we found ourselves in a tiny room on Rue Denouette in the fifteenth arrondissement. The view from its small window, between two houses, was a sliver of Paris, all cobbled pathways and flower boxes. We were operating on an extremely tiny budget, chiefly on my account. Jiya is an heiress.
After we checked in, we decided to go for a short walk in the neighbourhood and procure a crepe bandage for Jiya who had sprained her foot while we were dragging our suitcases around, looking for our hotel. There was some dispute over the exact reason for the sprain. On a bench on the cobbled sidewalk were two kids who could not have been more that twelve, blue in the cold air, the girl in a short summer dress, the boy in a cotton t-shirt. They were kissing languorously. I continue to hold that it was from the shock of witnessing this that Jiya tripped.
There was a supermarket close to the hotel, the owner said. We walked there. At that hour, there were no other customers. The Algerian owner was thrilled to hear we were Inde and, though he had no crepe bandage, he babbled wildly for a couple of minutes and rushed out of the store, leaving us all alone. Now, Jiya is one of the prettiest women I know. She is also a very careful and law-abiding sort, given to quadruple-checking passports every other minute. She was most uncomfortable in these circumstances, and her fair face was getting redder and redder. I wandered around the shop, marvelling at the price of wine. A whole bottle for a euro and a half? Wow. Jiya stood stiffly at the door, praying fervently that no one would rob the store on our watch. Finally, the Algerian returned with a middle-aged Indian, his close friend. The man was tall, unshaven, and slightly heavyset. He shook our hands delightedly.
It turned out that Anil Mehra was a Dilliwallah, from Safdarjung Enclave. S and I had just moved into the first of our rented apartments, in Green Park. To Mehra, that made us practically neighbours. We chatted pleasantly and Jiya relaxed. Her face reverted to its natural colouring. Mehra had an import-export business selling bric-a-brac: bronze statues, cushion covers and other Indian exotica. His brother managed the India end of affairs from Delhi. He’d been in Paris almost fifteen years now. We asked him where we could find a pharmacy nearby. Unfortunately, Mehra told us, the crepe bandage would be difficult to secure since all pharmacies were closed on Sundays. However, what he could give us, because it’s not every day that one meets one’s Delhi neighbours in Paris, were a couple of passes to the Louvre. ‘They’re at home. Why don’t you come with me? I live exactly one minute away.’ Jiya had hobbled a few steps to stand behind Anil Mehra and was now signalling to me with her hands and eyes that I should immediately say no. Over the years, she and I had developed an elaborate telepathic code. I shot back, with my eyes, ‘Oh c’mon, Jiya. It’s the Louvre. Do you know how much tickets to the Louvre cost?’ Jiya’s hands and eyes now began to do a coordinated dance of death but I ignored her. ‘That’s a kind offer,’ I said. Anil Mehra prattled on, oblivious to all this gesturing behind his head, ‘Actually, a nephew and his wife had come from Delhi. I’d got these passes for them. But they were not too interested in the museum. I’d be very happy if you use them. Do come over. My son’s visiting at the moment. He’s thirteen. Oh, excuse me a second, I h
ave to get some juice for him.’
‘It’s fine,’ I say happily, slipping into Bengali. ‘Let’s go. Nothing will happen.’
‘How can we trust him, D?’ Jiya replied. ‘It could be exceedingly dangerous. Saurav would not have allowed it.’
‘That’s why I have come with you,’ I say, trying to seem all larky. ‘No, really, it’s fine. He’s a decent man. His son is at home, didn’t you hear?’
We followed Anil Mehra down the street, Jiya wearing an expression of pure horror. It was a nice respectable building. Mehra input the numbers of the security system and the large door swung open. There was a small lobby inside and we got into the narrowest elevator we’d ever seen. ‘My son visits me on weekends,’ Anil Mehra was saying. ‘His mother is French. But she and I separated some years ago. You know, there are many cultural differences that cannot be overcome. In one’s youth it seems easy. But later on, things change.’ Jiya held her phone in her hand like a can of pepper spray. I tried to seem comforting as Mehra fumbled for his keys. ‘Don’t worry, Jiya,’ I said in my trust-me voice. ‘It’ll be fine.’
We entered the hallway of a lovely Parisian flat, compact but elegant, overflowing with assorted junk jewellery and, in many different sizes, bronze statues of Nataraj, Ganesha and the Buddha, dancing girls and amorous conjoined couples. We sat in the drawing room, also overflowing with more of the same, where Mehra’s son, a thin, pale boy was playing video games on TV. He nodded at us perfunctorily and poured himself juice. Mehra offered us juice, and this time Jiya took no chances. ‘No, thank you,’ she said, before I could open my mouth. Mehra busied himself looking for the passes. He looked through drawer after drawer, stashed with papers, while we stared politely at the TV. Secretly, everyone in the room was getting hysterical. Finally, he found the passes and handed them over to us with a big smile. We thanked him effusively and left. It took us a while to figure out how to leave the building, particularly because Jiya, now light-headed with relief, stopped to admire every single cornice in the lobby. We went to the Louvre the following day, and the passes not only saved us forty euros or so, which we could then spend in the museum shop and cafe, but we skipped the long queue and saved time. The moral of the story is that in all such situations that could either end very badly or fairly well, the key thing is to be born with a trustworthy gut and then, once the trustworthiness of your gut has been established, simply follow its guidance.