The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel

by Deborah Moggach

  “These shoes, madam, have brought me nothing but heartbreak.”

  “Call me Evelyn, please.”

  “In this country we express our devotion by bending down at a personage’s feet.” Minoo had stopped dead in the driveway. “The Rig Veda, it tells a good Hindu to prostrate himself, to say I am like the dust on your feet.” He paused, breathing heavily. “Yet the foot is the most impure part of the body! The head of primordial man gave rise to the high caste and his feet to the low caste. What confusion is that!”

  From where they stood, in the garden, the lights in the bazaar were merely a flicker. Above them, in the offices, the windows blazed.

  “I kept these shoes for sentimental reasons,” said Minoo. “My little shrine to love. But now I am at breaking point. My wife has brought me nothing but misery. Tonight she has sacked the cook.”

  “What happened?”

  “Norman-sahib was very upset. He took a bottle of whisky into the kitchen and they drank it together. Fernandez became drunk of course, he is a drunkard, you understand. He is a Christian. Then he fell asleep and there was no dinner cooking and my wife threw him out. Always she makes the servants unhappy, shouting at them and putting them against each other. That is all she does, that and sitting on her big bottom reading her magazines and never lifting a finger. You see, madam, I love this hotel, it is my family home, but Razia has no respect for it and no respect for me, and how can a marriage be happy when there is no respect?”

  Heavens, he was crying! They were at the gates now. Evelyn saw his streaming face in the light of the passing cars.

  “There there,” she said. “Surely it’s not that bad?”

  “If only I had listened to my mother!” Minoo blurted out. “I should have married the woman of my parents’ dreams!”

  Evelyn was suddenly overcome with such weariness that she longed to lie down in the dust. A few yards away a little family slumbered together, the children laid out like dolls beside their parents.

  “What are you going to do with the shoes?” she asked.

  “I shall give them away.”

  Minoo strode across the road. A man on a bicycle wobbled and swerved. Evelyn hurried after the distraught manager.

  “Who will you give them to?” she asked, catching him up. “Your beautiful expensive shoes?”

  “I shall give them to the first person I see who deserves them.” Minoo stood at the crossroads. Shaking with sobs, he looked around wildly.

  Then he spied the man on the trolley. He rushed up to him, arm outstretched, holding out the shoes.

  Evelyn hastened over to Minoo and touched him on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t give them to him, dear. He hasn’t got any legs.”

  Who everywhere is free from all ties,

  who neither rejoices nor sorrows if fortune is good or is ill, his is a serene wisdom.

  The Bhagavad Gita

  Theresa sat in her hotel room, trying to read. “He who is in the sun and the fire and in the heart of man is One. He who knows this is one with the One.” The room cost 150 rupees a night, cheap even by Indian standards, and there was only a dim bulb hanging from the ceiling. “In the center of the castle of Brahman, our own body, there is a small shrine in the form of a lotus flower, within can be found a small space. The little space within the heart is as great as this vast universe.” Theresa squinted through her spectacles. These were a recent acquisition, bought from Boots in Durham before she left. She was aware of the significance of this purchase—another shunt into middle age, along with the flabbiness of her upper arms and of course the tummy. She always wore loose clothes in India, in this case shalwar kameeze pajamas that modestly covered her body. Even in England she had favored Indian dress and now she could see the point of it.

  She was soon to be fifty. This was an alarming thought. During this trip she had noticed a change in people’s reactions. Men no longer tried to chat her up. Everywhere she went, of course, there were questions—“Where do you come from? What is your name please?”—but this was just the friendly curiosity one encountered in India. It was no longer sexually pressing. As she traveled from place to place, squashed on buses, sweltering on trains, people gave up their seats to her as if she were already her mother. Even the guru at that ashram in Benares who was notorious for the twinkle in his eye—notorious, in fact, for going farther than a twinkle in his union with his disciples—even he, during their private satsang, had treated her with impeccable gravity. This was, of course, liberating. True freedom came only through the transcendence of the flesh.

  Theresa’s bowels ached; she had had diarrhea for the past week. Outside in the street was a placard: We Have Sought Perfection in Concrete. One needed a strong stomach to face the lavatory down the corridor. She knew she should eat something, but the thought of food made her nauseous. The only thing she could imagine possibly eating, ever, at some far distant point in the future, was a boiled egg with Marmite toast.

  Exhausted, Theresa took off her flip-flop and inspected her foot. She had stood on something sharp in the temple of Hanuman, the monkey god who freed people from their troubles. The skin had been punctured. What happened if she got an infection and died, alone in a hotel room in a country where nobody cared for her? Where nobody, except her mother, knew her name? Even her mother didn’t count because the idea of Evelyn living in India was so bizarre that Theresa simply couldn’t picture it, not until she had seen it with her own eyes.

  Theresa closed her eyes. She shifted into a cross-legged position on the bed.

  “Om …” she said. “Om …”

  She tried to pull the energy up, up from her toes through her diaphragm, through the chakras. At the base of the spine lies kundalini, the coiled serpent power … She tried to concentrate.

  A vision, however, kept swimming into view: crisp white sheets on her bed at home in the Old Vicarage. The rattle of a tray approached and her mother was coming in, carrying the egg, the toast, and the latest issue of Bunty magazine.

  “Om … om …”

  The room was sweltering. She couldn’t open the window because the hotel was opposite the bus station and the noise was deafening. The exhaust fumes made her sick.

  “Om … om …”

  Crisp white sheets … a clean lavatory in a large, carpeted bathroom; a new roll of Andrex hanging within reach; more rolls of Andrex in a cupboard filled with large, soft bath towels … A bath …

  Attachment was illusion. Attachment was fear. Theresa gave up and turned back to her book. “Two birds sit on a tree. One gorges on the ripe fruit while the other sits serenely. The seasons change and the fruit disappears—”

  Thumps and giggles came from the next room.

  “The first bird flies round frantically searching for the fruit. The second sits patiently waiting for his friend to realize the delusion of attachment, of pain, sorrow and reliance.”

  It was a Dutch couple; Theresa had seen them arriving with their backpacks. Their energy seemed inexhaustible; they had kept her awake most of the previous night. She needed to get some sleep because tomorrow morning she was catching the early bus to Kerala. Since her watch had been stolen, in Mumbai, she had lost track of time. Of course this was liberating, too, but there were certain disadvantages.

  “The unchanging self is all that exists.”

  The woman cried out. Last night Theresa had counted her orgasms—muffled screams, yelps, smaller squeaky noises, waves of these that went on for ages. It had been like counting sheep but without the desired result. How did the woman have so many orgasms in her?

  A cockroach scuttled across the floor. Theresa gave up on her meditation and opened her exercise book.

  “Dec. 16” she wrote:

  The ashram in Pattipurnam was a little disappointing, as after a two-day journey I arrived to find Swamiji was not in residence, having gone to Germany. However his presence could be felt in the holy atmosphere and of course a spiritual journey need have no goals. I shared a room with a pleasant woman from
Des Moines who calls herself Prem. She has been in India for many months and described a visit to the Bench Swami in Tamil Nadu. He has been sitting on his bench for twenty-five years, in silence, his eyes closed. She sat with him for many hours. Finally he opened his eyes and she was filled with a powerful feeling of joy. Apparently he used to be a postman until he achieved enlightenment.

  There is something childlike about the Babajis I have met. They emanate a sense of wonder and sweetness. They also have a delightful sense of humour. How we laughed when, during darshan, one of our number put up three fingers and asked: “Guruji, how many?” Swamiji, his eyes twinkling, said: “Four.” Most of my time however has been spent in meditation or just sitting quietly listening to the discourse. I have travelled for many miles, from one ashram to another, but as Sri Baba says, a journey has no beginning and no end—

  The Biro ran dry. She had bought it only that afternoon in the bazaar but Indian pens, like so much else, had a short life expectancy. Theresa put away the book. There was no need to write. For whom was she writing her journal anyway? One by one, by choice or circumstance, her possessions had disappeared. She should feel lightened, of course.

  She had to admit it: this visit was turning out to be something of a disappointment. Last time she had returned from India on a high, but this time the drug didn’t seem to be working. There had been some moments of heart-stopping beauty. She remembered a dawn outside Allahabad, piles of refuse, smoking fires and the beggars rising from the ashes … an ineffable grace in the midst of squalor. Such epiphanies could be found everywhere, for those with eyes to see them. But somehow the connection she sought so keenly hadn’t been made. This time, somehow, she hadn’t managed to rise above the delays and frustrations, the general hopelessness of everything. On several occasions she had lost her temper, a humiliating experience in a country whose people, however cruelly they were treated, seemed to possess no rancor. One didn’t take things personally here; there was simply no point.

  Maybe she was becoming too old for this sort of thing. But age shouldn’t be relevant; after all, many of the swamis were no longer in their bodies but their presence was as powerfully felt as if they sat there twinkling at their devotees; death was an irrelevance. Why then did she feel so mortal, with her thickening waist and churning bowels? Shivabalayogi sat in a cave for eight years, meditating twenty-three hours a day and only returning to ordinary circumstances to bathe and drink a glass of milk. His body was gnawed by rodents, yet he emanated a spiritual bliss so intense that thousands of people came to sit in his presence.

  The longer you stay in India, the less you know.

  Actually, Theresa did know the reason. It was the fault of her upbringing. She had come to India to be made whole, but this wasn’t possible when she herself was a cracked vessel. No amount of spiritual glue could mend her until she had learned to love herself, and feel loved. She saw this all the time with her clients; that was why she had gone into counseling in the first place. So many of them, like herself, had been given no sense of validation, of self-worth. In every case she had enabled them to trace it back to their parents. This had made it possible, with a great deal of work, to move on.

  Darkness had fallen. Theresa got up and hobbled to the window; her foot had started to throb. Outside, in the bus station, was a mass of humanity—people carrying bundles and suitcases, people carrying children, people disgorging from the buses or queuing to embark. Traffic was at a standstill. Horns hooted in that passionless Indian way—nothing personal, just a reflex action. Tomorrow, Theresa herself would be moving on. There was one more place she had to go, before she traveled to Bangalore. All her hopes now resided in a remote Keralana village. Here, surely, she would find the love that had so far eluded her.

  For in that village, Vallikavu, lived the Hugging Mother.

  Real faith does not live merely in words. It lives in actions, the actions of everyday life. So that everything is done with great devotion and contemplation.

  DR. SVAMI R. ANAND GIRI PURNA, Discourses

  Madge and Evelyn stood looking at the lingam.

  “Nobody we know, darling,” said Madge.

  Evelyn laughed. Stella fiddled with her hearing aid. “What did she say, dear?”

  The lingam certainly was an impressive sight—four feet high, at least, and made of stone polished smooth by the hands of devotees. Evelyn felt a curious melting sensation.

  “Is that what I think it is?” asked Stella.

  “I used to see them when I was little,” said Eithne. “My parents used to hurry me past. Of course I had no idea why.”

  Eithne Pomeroy, the cat lover, had spent her early years in Calcutta but had left when her father was posted back to Britain. She had volunteered the occasional memory of that time but was in general somewhat vague. “Away with the fairies,” said Norman with a snort.

  The four women were visiting a temple, whose name Evelyn hadn’t caught, somewhere on the outskirts of Bangalore. Madge had organized the outing. “You must come, Evelyn, or else your daughter will think you’re a fuddy-duddy.” News of Theresa’s imminent arrival and her interest in things Indian had gone around the hotel.

  Evelyn, however, was none the wiser. The temple was a dark little room where Indian families chattered away as if it wasn’t sacred at all. For them, of course, God was everywhere, so maybe this place wasn’t holier than anywhere else. The elephant one, spattered with paste and strewn with flowers, sat in a niche. He looked like the sort of thing you won at a fairground and then wished you didn’t have to take home. It was all rather charming but their guide, as guides so often did, had reeled off a list of dates and measurements that had simply gone in one ear and out the other. Why did guides always tell you the things you didn’t want to know?

  The four women went outside. The temple was on top of a hill; it had nearly killed them, climbing the steps. The light was blinding; in the distance they could see the modern skyscrapers of the city shimmering in the heat, a mirage of commerce. Evelyn sat down, creakingly, and pulled on her sandals.

  “At least you can tell your daughter you’ve been,” said Madge. “And that’s the main thing.”

  A monkey, suckling its baby, watched them. The baby removed its mouth from a long dry nipple and glared at Evelyn with malevolence. She thought how once she had suckled the two grownups who were slowly but surely converging on her from the other sides of the world. This gave her as odd a sensation as the lingam.

  Eithne leaned toward Evelyn. She indicated Madge, who had unclicked her compact and was reapplying her lipstick. “Do you know,” she whispered, “I’ve forgotten her name.”

  “It’s Madge,” whispered Evelyn.

  “Silly me!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Evelyn. “I forget names all the time.”

  “I’ll be forgetting the name of my daughter next,” said Eithne with a small laugh. Eithne’s daughter, Lucy, was married to a test pilot and lived in Australia. Lucy had promised she would come and visit soon. They all said that, of course; it was a question of finding the time.

  They walked down the steps, between the rows of stalls. “Whose daughter are you talking about?” asked Stella.

  “Get a grip, Stella!” said Madge. “Eithne’s. She’s called Lucy and lives in Sydney.”

  “Sidney who?” asked Stella.

  “My Lucy’s going to come,” said Eithne. “She says it’ll be a surprise.”

  “Don’t let her surprise you, pet,” said Madge. “It’ll give you a heart attack.”

  They reached their hired car. The guide, a bespectacled man, very thin, gave each of them his card. It said Dr. Gulvinder Gaya, BA (Failed). Evelyn put it into her bag to join her growing collection of business cards. Everywhere one went, people thrust them into one’s hand. They tipped him—Rs 30, they had planned this in advance—and drove off. Madge had boldly volunteered to sit next to the driver.

  Evelyn sat squashed in the back, discreetly scratching her mosquito bites. They were d
iscussing dinner. Thursdays were usually a choice of biriani or cutlets. “I’d kill for a decent piece of cheddar,” said Madge.

  Fernandez, the cook, had returned to work the day after he had been sacked. Apparently this was a regular occurrence. Evelyn had told nobody, however, about Minoo’s confession. Two weeks had passed and the poor man looked even more miserable. His wife was glimpsed occasionally barking at the servants, but she hardly spoke to the residents anymore and was unavailable for pedicures. Jean Ainslie, too, seemed somewhat muted. The reason for this was not generally known, but it contributed to the odd atmosphere. It was as if they were all waiting for something to happen. Maybe it felt like this when the heat built up in the summer, before the monsoon broke.

  “Look!” Stella pointed out the window.

  They were crossing a river. On its banks stood a forest of washing, strung on poles. Rows of sheets hung shimmering in the heat. Tiny figures slapped clothes in the water.

  “That’s a dhobi-ghat, dear,” said Eithne. “Our laundry is probably there.”

  “Maybe I can spot my pink slacks,” said Madge.

  “No!” said Stella. “I mean—look. It’s Dorothy.”

  They told the driver to stop. A lorry blared its horn. It passed, belching fumes. Putting on their specs, they stared out the window.

  Next to the washing was a group of huts, roofed with plastic. A black-and-yellow taxi was parked there. Even at this distance they could make out that the woman beside it was Dorothy: blue trousers, white blouse. She was talking to one of the washermen.

  They sat there, gazing at her. “What on earth is she doing there?” asked Evelyn.

  “Maybe she’s lost her underthings,” said Madge.

  Dorothy was there at dinner. None of the four asked her what she had been doing at the dhobi-ghat; one simply didn’t, with Dorothy. She sat at a table with Graham and the Scottish sisters, a pleasant but dull pair of widows from Fife. Due to Madge’s efforts, seating arrangements had become more sociable: tables had been shoved together to make places for four, a number which Madge said made for better conversation. Two was too pressured; more than four and the deafer ones couldn’t hear. Madge was a veteran of many cruises and knew about such things. There was a musical-chairs aspect to this, however: those last to arrive found their choices dwindled to Norman Purse or Hermione Fox-Harding, another of the cat-lovers, who suffered from flatulence. The trick, of course, was to enter as a group and stick ruthlessly together.