The Final Dispatch From India, Via Malaysia:
by Jason Ditzian
Love and detainment on the Indian railway.
On January 25th we flee the madness of the Mela. Similarly, tens of
millions of Pilgrims are traveling back to their respective homelands and
millions more are latecomers, just arriving to the big party. The
transportation system, which bursts at the seams under normal conditions,
is in total disarray. Transport in and out of Allahabad is booked solid,
though ticketing is a ruse: unless you're in first class, no one's
checking. Getting on a train is a scrimmage-line battle through the door
to wrest some pittance of space for the haul. Once on the train, you might
end up in the aisle, hanging precariously outside between two trains or
prostrate on the luggage rack.
The train approaches. Before the five of us have even hoisted our packs
off the ground, Indians with suitcases balanced on their heads are
scrambling alongside the decelerating train, jumping into the open doors.
The incoming cars are packed to capacity. Hundreds await to alight at the
platform. The train stops. It's a physics experiment: the people molecules
heading in through the too-narrow doors push against the people molecules
moving out. Occasionally a soluble fellow pops through a pore in the
membrane.
Pressure mounts. We move door-to-door assessing the odds. In two minutes,
the train is pulling out again. Hardly anyone has managed to get on board
the train, let alone off of it. Families torn asunder, half on the train
half in the station. Luggage is scattered everywhere. Not a train employee
to be seen anywhere. The train is picking up speed. Hands recklessly grasp
for handholds. Indians swinging like bunches of fruit from the side. The
riot overwhelms the hapless Americans. The five of us collectively give
up, shaking our heads and half laughing at our predicament, while
castaways curse and spit vehemently at the train leaving them behind.
It is 11 pm-ish now. Exhaustion exacerbated at the thought of spending the
night lying on the floor of the train station, alongside stray dogs and
shivering families huddled under blankets. Another Varanasi train is
coming soon, or so we're told. Others tell us it's canceled. Laden with
packs, we head towards the sign that says, "station manager."
(Fact: The Indian Railway is largest employer in the world)
The railway employees are doing something inside... they are waiting. A man
sits at a large wooden desk, piles of papers before him. He is running his
eyes down dot-matrix printouts of lists, signing off here and there. The
other four men in the room watch patiently, nodding as the procedure
continues. It is a scene from "Brazil." They invite me in.
The man at the desk speaks English. He tells me to take a seat. I tell him
no thank-you, my friends are waiting outside and I need help in figuring
out the train schedule because I think the train is coming soon. They say,
take off your pack, take a seat, would you like some Chai? But I do not
want to miss the train again, I say. I show them my ticket. They look at
it, they say, sit and we will check for you because it is coming soon, but
it is delayed so you should sit with us, have some chai. The man at the
desk picks up a phone. He puts it down. He picks it up. He says something
to the phone. The phone is broken (I think). He gives my ticket to one of
the other men and sends him out the door. The man returns with a sheet of
paper, times hastily scribbled upon it. It is the official schedule for
trains running to Varanasi. Alongside it is written a revised schedule for
when the trains are actually coming, assuming that they arrive at all.
According to this list, there is a train scheduled in a few minutes coming
in a few hours. But maybe that train will be late too. I take off my pack.
The manager invites my friends to sleep in the warm room outside his
office. I tell them that I will stay up and make sure we get on the next
train. No one protests. The Chai is coming, they say.
The bureaucracy-laden desk dominates the office. In front of the desk is a
bench where two men, railway employees, are sitting, chatting. To the left
of the desk is a trunk, another man lounging upon it. I am in a chair to
the right. Periodically gophers come in and out doing gopher things. The
men are stereotypical night shift types: haggard, rumpled uniforms, in
need of a shave, bodies aching to slump into a nap at any possible moment.
There is a poster on the wall, a lush scenic vista-Scotland maybe-rolling
green fields, misty mountains, gnarled trees, a lake and a distant
sailboat. The poster reads: "Dare to dream." This touch of décor can no
doubt be accredited to the station manager.
The train station manager sits behind the desk approving and disapproving
of whatever is on those dot-matrix printouts. He does not look like the
others. His appearance is alert, hair neat and oiled, mouchstache trimmed
and tidy, a clean sweater with starched collar underneath. His demeanor
and countenance, dapper and a touch effeminate, is reminiscent of Duke
Ellington.
Soon the conversation soon turns to music. Not only does he look like an
Indian version of the Duke, but his true vocation is composer. The manager
is a singer and a composer of Guzzels: strictly metered and composed song
poems in the Indian Classical tradition. I have never heard of guzzels
before, so we spend some time discussing the art. Soon come the typical
requests for me to play, something, anything. I shy away. But the manager
is insistent. Sheepishly, I pull my bamboo flute out of the tent bag.
I let 'em have one of my famous fake-out Indian raaga scales, letting the
notes echo out in the reverberating acoustics of the train station.
I think that's when the train station manager fell in love with me.
The other guys in the office are relieved when I finally stop playing
(it's really hard to doze off with some American kid playing his damn
bansuri at 1 am). But the manager looks as if a spell had been cast. A
dazed gaze of longing. Oh, he says, you might not know the raag quite yet,
but I can tell, you have the soul of a musician. I ask if my train is
coming soon. Shake, shake, shake the head, don't worry, we will tell you
when.
The train station manager asks me if I'd ever been in love before.
He asks, what is the most important quality for you in a lover.
Do I like Indian girls, he asks.
One of the train employees laughs and off-handily comments of the train
station manager, "oh, HE doesn't like Indian GIRLS. He likes Europeans..."
I'm not sure what to make of it. The manager doesn't seem to take any
offense from the comment, continuing to pontificate on the pompatus of
love.
He croons a guzzel for me. His voice is true, singing the lilting melody
in Hindi. Afterwards, he translates it for me. It is a love song, he says.
Now it is my turn to sing. He begs for just one song. As before, I
protest, but to no avail. I sing a little ditty appropriate for the
occasion:
"Mississippi delta, shining like a national guitar
I am traveling down the highway, through the river,
to the cradle of the civil war
I'm going to Graceland, Graceland
I explain that for Americans, Graceland is like going to Kumbha Mela. It
is the holiest pilgrimage of the religion of Americana. And it is about a
river. Mississippi, Ganges: same difference.
"Funny how the world is," he says. "If I was a doctor, if we were in my
office, I could touch your lips. In fact, with nothing but indifference
I'd touch lips all day. But here we sit, just a few feet apart, and here,
in my office, if I touched your lips, the meaning would be much
different," he gazes longingly in my eyes. The others in the room pay no
mind...
Is my train coming soon? Don't worry don't worry he says. What time is it
now, I ask... 3:30! A train passes through the station. I think there was
supposed to be a train to Varanasi at 3:15. I show the manager the paper
with the train times on it. One of the employees takes the paper, shakes
his head, "that train was canceled." Next train on the schedule isn't
until dawn. The hours pass. My KC Jones cum Lord Byron professes
philosophies of the heart.
Around five AM I hear another train and plead to the men in the room:
please tell me when the train comes, because I will need time to wake my
friends, to get to the platform and get a seat. Ok ok... we will tell you
when the train comes, don't worry.
On a whim I rephrase the question: "Is the train I hear pulling into the
station right now the Varanasi train?" The head gopher wiggles his head in
that evasive, non-committal manner that means nothing but frustration to a
westerner asunder in the maddening Indian infrastructure. I hear the
whistle. "Is this my train?"
"Yes."
YES? Are you saying this is my train?
Wiggle/shake the head: "Yes."
(There are so many things I'd like to say to those train guys, like, how
many Varnasi trains have gone by already, but I'm in a rush)
Everyone wake up!
There's no stopping the Americans this time. We throw elbows, wedge and
cut in between mothers and their little children, spit, use our pack
weights as leverage and as blunt objects. And we are on board, wiggling
out of our big packs and fashioning them into seats for the long ride.
Leigh impresses everyone with her train/bus trick: curling up into tiny
ball and falling asleep in the middle of the aisle. Kind of like her dog,
Spotz might do. Joy makes my legs into a backrest. David and Laurrien look
like serious candidates for the jaws-of-life: contorting their bodies in
and out and through the metal bracings that support of the foldout
sleeper-train beds, hoping that somewhere in the tangled geometry two
people might find some semblance of comfort.
The pilgrims, heading to Kumbha Mela, want to know everything. "What is
your opinion on Indian Culture?" "You like George Booooosh?" "Is United
States hot or cold?" At every stop a peanut man or a chaiwallah (who must
have a sneaky way of circumventing the crowded doors to get on the train)
comes through the aisles, shouting his wares. One peanut man uses a tree
limb as a crutch, which he hops on, but there is no empty floor in the
train, so how does he expect to get through on a wooden crutch stick
without maiming others? A triumph for the disabled. Then comes the chai
wallah swinging a metal tank full of steaming chai. He has a special tank
fitted with a bbq contraption welded on the bottom, an open hutch with
flaming hot coals to keep the water at a constant boil. He swings the
tank as he walks, staggering with the heavy thing though the jammed,
narrow aisles. The burning coals roll this way and that, just missing
people's heads and faces, dripping boiling water everywhere. Leigh is
sleeping in the aisle and he hoists the tank right over her head. For
someone to move through the aisle (even without an oversize canister of
chai), they either swing overhead like a monkey or, if they are not
athletic enough to do that, everyone in the aisles must stand as they
trudge and squeeze through. Too bad the peanut-seller with one leg wasn't
the one with the chai canister of scalding death: then we'd actually have
something to complain about, by Indian standards. "What is your opinion of
India vs. America?" "What is your opinion of Indian Food?" "Love marriage
or arranged marriage?" I try to make them understand. Somehow, dawn has
come and gone and again I'm singing Graceland. The moment is ripe with
that epic feeling, like in a movie before the rock-n'-roll star gets big
and he's in the bedroom singing the new lyrics, slightly off key, to his
girlfriend, but we all know it's the big hit and the song bleeds
seamlessly into the next scene with electric guitars and amps and he's in
a club with thousands of raving fans trying to rip his leather pants off.
At least that's how I feel after no hours of sleep in many hours of
non-stop weird India. Eventually the train arrives in Allahabad, the
pilgrims depart. Suddenly there's suitable room for my tired body and no
one left to sing "Graceland" to.
----------------------------------------------
When he wasn't looking, I slipped the station manager's poem to me into my
pocket:
Untitled
I want to call you but a fear
---------------------------------------------
24 hours a day, the funeral pyres burn. Even as you sit in an Internet
café processions of (family and professional) mourners stream down the
labyrinthine streets, hoisting the body overhead. The body is wrapped in
pyre finery: shiny, tasseled wrapping paper, flowers. Bells are rung,
drums banged, songs sung, just like they did 5000 years ago in
Benares/Varanasi, which can claim such things because it is amongst the
top five oldest cities in the world, if not the oldest. The procession
heads to the river, the holy Ganga that figures into so much of Indian
mysticism. It is there the bodies burn, ashes cast into the water, along
with the intact carcasses of cows. Cows, too holy to be burned, are thrown
in whole with rocks tied around their necks to sink 'em good.
If you watch the entire ceremony, from start to finish, you will see that
the human body incinerates entirely except for the skull, which stays
intact and needs a final nudge with a hammer. The responsibility to crush
the skull falls to the eldest son. It is believed that crushing the skull
forces the bereaved to accept the death and begin the healing process.
The Ganga is all things to the people of Varanasi. At dawn, the
inhabitants of the old city congregate to bathe in the freeeeezing cold
waters, alongside the buffalo washers (people in Varanasi keep their
buffalo VERY clean), right besides the clothes washers who wash and fold
the clothes that I'm wearing right now (all that holiness thrown in at no
extra charge!). Also, there are sunrise boat rides, milky ways of candles
floating at night (like a Pink Floyd concert gone adrift) and dolphins.
Yes, fresh water ganga dolphins. You don't believe me? Don't worry, in a
few years, the way the river is being polluted, they'll have probably gone
the way of unicorns. At least for now, you can see them playing in the
morning, before things get really busy. On the other side of the Ganga is
a desert flood plain which gets totally immersed during monsoon. Now it is
barren and desolate. The scene, all the more striking.
Besides the cow shit everywhere, and also that bull that so rudely gored
me, I think Varanasi is the dream India I was searching for. Leigh and I
spent two weeks here. We studied yoga every morning with Pramod, coach of
the Uttar Pradesh (big state in India) yoga team. Did you know that they
have yoga championships like we have gymnastics? That is something I'd
like to see. I studied Bansuri under the tutelage of Ashok, who turned out
to be only 23, but such a good flute player that I initially took him to
be a master, twice his age.
Varanasi is also the city of silks. And extravagant silk shows. The silk
mogul man unfurls shimmering fabrics, hypnotizing us. Silks pile up all
around us. Everyone says, "all they must do in India is fold" since all
anyone is ever doing is unfolding unfolding for you. Everywhere you turn
in the shop, some new color, pattern you never saw before catches your
eye. Silk mogul man, rotund and mustachioed, is a master at following that
roaming, wanting eye and laughing saying: oh, if you like that one we have
so many more... It is impossible not to be mesmerized by the silks that
change color at every angle. He shows us pictures of Katherine Deneuve
(classy French actress) at his shop, tells us about the time Goldie Hawn
came in the shop. Leigh and Joy buy saris, scarves, suits, shirts...
Saints hang bricks from their penises. A Japanese Saint, just returned
from Kumbha Mela (the president of Sony's guru!) who levitates 10 ft off
the ground, or so they would have us believe, handing out a 4X6 glossy of
the Saint suspended in air (as seen on ltwebber.com). Some sadhus don't do
anything gimmicky at all but still manage to look cool. There are lots of
monkeys and even a special monkey temple where there are less monkeys then
anywhere else in the city.
In the middle of our two-week stint in Varanasi, we venture back to Kumbha
Mela, to see what's cooking. The greatest Bansuri player in the world gets
heckled by crowds in his own hometown. We did not find the 300 year old
baba, but did meet the 80 year old stand in for the 250 year old baba,
(who died three years ago). To make up for his disappointing age, the guru
hurls a perfect toss from his 2nd story hut, over the grasping crowds (see
picture), connecting with me 20 yards down field. I eat the blessed
orange, hoping that's what you're supposed to do with it. Inspired by the
success of the first throw, he tries to toss me a second. Gheefingers: I
dropped it. So much for ancient wisdom: knowing when to stop while one's
ahead.
-----------------
Many people have heard of Rishikesh through its association with
everyone's favorite spiritual mendicants, the Beatles, who journeyed here
in the 60's as disciples of the illustrious Maharishi. Nowadays, the
Maharishis' ashram is overgrown jungle, run down stone huts and a
crotchety old man with a stick telling/gesturing for us to scram.
Hundreds of ashrams still cater to western seekers.
Rishikesh is situated at the base of the Himalayan foothills, where the
Ganga descends from the mountains to the flatlands of India. Here the
ganga is clean. One can bathe here without fear of the filth that accrues
as the river works its southward route through towns and cities. While
there are no dolphins in this part of the Ganga, it is teeming with
schools of fish that live the good life because Rishikesh is entirely
vegetarian so no one ever tries to catch them. Furthermore, they are fed
constantly by tourists who want to get a good look at them. Kids sell fish
food (puffed rice) on the tall suspension bridges spanning the ganga.
Throw a handful of the stuff and thirty shimmering fish splash and fight
for it at the surface. A real crowd pleaser. Unfortunately, you can't look
at the fish yourself without being endlessly harassed by the fishfood
sellers, who at five years old have it in mind to commoditize fish
viewing. Go-fish, go-public...
The best restaurant in town is Chotiwalla. Outside Chotiwalla sits a fat
bald man in gratuitously flamboyant tribal/mystical costume. The man's
entire body, face, shiny bad head, is painted blue. Like Blue Man Group.
As the story goes, the owner of Chotiwalla and his son had a falling out,
which accounts for there being an identical Chotiwalla, complete with fat,
bald, blue man, immediately next door to original Chotiwalla. Both
Chotiwallas ring a loud copper bell as you come in, I suppose just to piss
off the other. There's absolutely no way to tell the difference between
the two restaurants and there's constant disinformation as to which is the
original.
One of the first things we noticed on our arrival to Rishikesh were
photocopied signs posted around the city. A fellow backpacker was
searching for people to split the cost of a five-day trek in the
Himalayas. We hadn't thought at all, up until that point, of hiking. This
is how we met Craig and Pip. Craig was looking for something to do whilst
his wife, Pip, finished her yoga class in Rishikesh. Leigh and I
eventually decided (inspired, coerced by a series of uncanny coincidences)
to take the trek with Craig. On the last night we would meet up with Pip
at rafting base camp.
The trek was arranged by a reputable trekking company and included a TATA
jeep, a guide, a cook, a driver. All our meals were cooked for us, all our
equipment carried, camp set up for us... We trekked for four days and then,
instead of driving back all the way, we triumphantly raft over the white
water of the Ganges back into Rishikesh. 5 nights, all inclusive food,
transport and lodging: $160 per person. Sure, our team of attendants
might've been a little excessive, but at these prices, how can you justify
roughing it?
---------
Mountains
Follow the path of the Ganges up through India to its icy source. As you
reach the northern states, first you will pass through Hardiwar, amongst
the holiest sites in all of India to bathe in the Ganges. Just further
north is Rishikesh, where the Ganga (flowing southward) makes its first
appearance in the lowlands, bubbling forth from the Himalayan foothills
just beyond. Spend some time in Rishikesh amongst the Sadhus and seekers.
Let mountain air (though you are not in the mountains yet, but very close)
infuse into your blood, an oxygen transfusion from the gritty city
atmosphere. A few days of R&R (revitalization and religion).
Jump in a jeep. You're only a day's drive (and what a drive!) from the
main
mountain action.
The BRO, or Border Roads Organization, is the pride of India. India does
not have bragging rights about much of anything pertaining to
transportation infrastructure, but the BRO is perhaps the sole exception
in the country and the powers that be extol it to death. The BRO is a
paved highway hewn into the rocky flanks of the Himalayas. The border road
doesn't follow any border; rather, it extends to the border, the sole
route from Rishikesh all the way to Pakistan. (A tank path. A defense
initiative.) The road winds blindly, snaking around the cliffs of one
mountain, dipping into a valley, then up the next. It is barely wide
enough for two cars to pass though most of the time the big trucks make it
past each other. The ones that don't get left smoldering on some crag
above a bottomless ravine like you'd see in a roadrunner/wiley e coyote
episode. Like the Grand Canyon, there are some places you can stare over
the edge and not see the bottom.
We rode in a sturdy jeep with our conscientious driver who generally made
a point to beep his horn in advance as he wildly careened about blind
corners. Sometimes the oncoming cars gave warning honks as well. Sometimes
they didn't. Sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we almost crashed. Such is
India.
America has rest stops, the BRO has religious shrines. We stop to stretch
our legs at a Shiva statue hundreds of feet tall.
Follow the river to its source. The Rudraprayag is a "Y" where two
rivers-one clear, the other muddy-- converge, twirl into a marble shake
that is the Ganges. Two things that are not the Ganges unite into that
which is the Ganges. Far out, man. It is near here that Jim Corbett slayed
the aptly named Man Eating leopard of Rudraprayag.
Jim Corbett was an enigmatic Brit from the earlier part of the 20th
century. First and foremost he was a lifelong resident of India who, in
his spare time, wrote pithily, colorfully about life of the common Indian
in India. Corbett was also renowned for his intimate knowledge of the
jungle and from time-to-time would be called upon to exterminate
man-eating leopards and tigers when others could not. Corbett wrote
accounts of his adventures as a hunter, the most famous being, "The Man
Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag" (some books practically title themselves)
which details months on the hunt of this beast. Though this particular
leopard only killed (officially) a paltry 200 or so humans (a pittance
compared to other infamous tigers and leopards) it had an uncanny knack
for eluding traps, surviving cyanide, evading bullets. The whole ordeal
plays out as the most compelling of dramas. Standing on the actual spot
that Corbett slayed the Leopard, it occurs to me that this is Leopard
country. One best watch their back in this neck of the woods. Or rather,
one best watch their neck in these backwoods.
A few hours from Rishikesh, rounding a corner, dramatically, the first
glimpse of the Himalayas.
Terraced villages along the route are in the midst of harvest season.
Their crop: grass, hand picked by stooped woman lugging woven grass
baskets. At the end of the day the woman walk along the path, weighed down
with their weight in grass. Everywhere there are nest-like clumps of grass
left to dry/cure in the branches. One may ask: why would anyone harvest
grass way out in the mountains? Cows cannot graze freely in this area for
they will be eaten by those pesky leopards. Unlike cows anywhere else in
India, who are free to roam the streets, cows in the Garwhal Himalayas are
kept in pens, guarded, and fed dry grass.
School lets out in the village and the kids are enthralled by their
visitors, cameras. A parade of children following us everywhere. We
retreat from the throngs to our nearby camp for dinner and sleep.
The path into the Himalayas is one of ancient Hindu pilgrimage to the
shrines of Badrinath and Kadrinath. Barefoot pilgrims plodding this path
for the last thousand years have polished the stones shiny smooth with the
soles of blistered feet.
Rhododendrons bloom. Not just pink ones like at home, but red and white as
well, on tall, unpruned trees unlike the little manicured bushes you see
in the suburbs.
We hike to a pristine mountain lake. Our lunch of stuffed parantha
attracts a hungry herding dog. Poor thing has a thick, metal collar around
its neck. Leopards go for the neck first. The collar gives the dog a
fighting chance to escape in the event of attack.
We camp for the next two nights amongst magic forests. Buffalo bones.
Gnarled. Hollow trunks. Rivers. We keep saying, "this is just like
Tolkien!" Elves, magic herbs, tree spirits. Hard to believe this is India
and not Scotland or the coastal forests of Oregon. The only sign of
civilization is the occasional crumbling stone and mud house. Dwellings
from ancient lore, a few puffing chimney smoke. It is cold. Build a fire
and men with axes and mended mittens appear. A social gathering, a
communal hand warming, pass the beedi around the fire, chat of weather and
cricket. The mountains in the distance disappear and reappear in the
roiling mists. In the evening the peaks are dark and blue. In the morning,
solid white. The snowstorm has dusted our camp as well. The broken stone
houses look even more folkloreish, Tolkienesque. What a place for a
campfire and gourmet Indian cuisine.
We hike in fog then sleet then snow. At the top our panoramas are
unobscured. As advertised, the tallest mountains of the Indian Himalayas,
running in a ridge of peaks. End-to-end they have only been traversed
once, though many have tried. Snap, snap, snap go the Cameras. Back at
base-camp a campfire to warm us, drying socks and boots drenched from
trudging through knee-deep snow.
Five days is not enough. Hiking in the Himalayas makes me want to hike in
the Himalayas. Adventure begets adventuresomeness. Schemes buzz through my
head as to how soon I will return.
We drive the BRO part of the way back, stopping at a base camp with
bungalows by the Ganges. We can sit by the sandy bank and enjoy a killer
view, staring up a cliff at a hairpin turn in the road. Cars and trucks
just barely skimming each other as they careen around the bend.
Fresh-kill, a mangled trailer-truck from only a few days ago, rests a few
hundred yards from us, across the river.
From this base camp we set out to raft on the white water of the Ganges.
While not the most intense rapids you'll ever meet, there's some hair
raising swells as well as the unique opportunity for body surfing down the
Ganges. Like dead cows in Orange lifejackets, stones freed from around our
necks, we bobblingly make our triumphant return to Rishikesh.
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