The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love

by Per J Andersson

  ‘What if the elephants are angry with us? What if they come after us and trample us to death?’

  But luckily they never did, and Grandma, PK and Pramodini were sore but safe.

  In this northern country no wild elephants roamed. Instead, mosquitoes buzzed in the reeds that edged the wooded lakes of Borås. Willow warblers serenaded each other, while moose and deer grazed among the fir trees in the hundred-year-old forests. Rainwater glistened in the tracks left by large forest machinery. Grey smoke rose from the chimneys of the red summer cottages that dotted the glades.

  Lotta’s family were regular church-goers. Lotta’s mother grew up fearing purgatory, haunted by the priest’s descriptions of the eternal punishment that awaited sinners in the next life. Her father joined them at the weekly service even though he was not himself a believer. Lotta was never sure what he thought about religion and the Church; he rarely expressed his opinions about anything. He was a hard man to get to know. There were moments when she thought she might understand him, especially when they sat side-by-side in silence. Somehow, she felt a deep connection to him despite the lack of conversation.

  When Lotta was eight, one of her aunts fell ill while pregnant. The family prayed to God, but her aunt’s condition worsened. Both aunt and baby died, and the faith Lotta had once felt was subsumed by anger and disappointment.

  She was confirmed into the Swedish Church, but not because she had faith. No, she did it mostly because that was what everyone did. She was easily influenced by parents and friends. It was hard to be different, to do her own thing. People turned against those who broke the norm, stuck out too much. Lotta had no strong beliefs in any case; she found it difficult to attach too much weight to any one idea. There was a hint of truth in most things people said and she took little interest in politics. How could one put one’s faith in a party, or an ideology, one hundred per cent? To do so meant that everyone else had to be completely wrong. No, party politics was not for her.

  Sometimes she found herself humming a song that she had first learned at the age of three. Its message: a light shone over all of humanity, despite its vanity, its ambition and its pettiness.

  That light exists inside me too, thought Lotta. But it was not God, it was something else:

  Clouds come, clouds go

  Sometimes the heart goes cold

  But up above us, in the sky

  A wishing star behold.

  Instead, in her teens, her imagination turned eastwards. She read the Upanishads and continued with the Vedas and the Buddha’s sermons. There were similarities between the ancient Hindu texts and the Bible’s Sermon on the Mount, she observed. But there was something wrong in the way Christianity expressed its teaching. It excluded more than it embraced. Christians seemed more interested in drawing boundaries between people. Everyone, whether they were believers or not, was driven by the same vital energy. The heart beats for the same reason in all of us, no matter your beliefs, she thought. All atoms in the universe belong together. Everything is connected.

  The Asian philosophies made a strong impression on her, especially the idea that all humans and animals dissolve after their death and come alive again in other living things. Yes, that’s it, she thought. If you want to know the past, look at the present. If you want to know the future, look again at the present, as the Buddha said.

  Life is recycled and recreated again and again. We have all been soil and water and it is to soil and water we will return, thought the teenaged Lotta.

  When the Pan men shot a sambar deer, PK’s grandfather would be invited to sample the meat. Around festival time, villagers came with auspicious gifts of tiger skins and bird feathers. Grandpa’s elevated social standing rubbed off on PK, and among the untouchable children he was king. He was proud of his grandfather and liked to imitate him. With a bow and arrow Grandpa had given him as a present, he led groups of friends on expeditions into the jungle, naked as usual save for a peacock feather and a belt and bracelet shaped like snakes. They crept along paths and pretended to hunt tiger and deer. They howled with excitement at every squirrel that scampered up a nearby tree or eagle that circled above the forest canopy.

  They pretended that PK was their chief while the other children took turns acting as his spiritual adviser. This boy would pick fruit for PK and present it to him with a bow. Then they ran down to the river to fish or ventured into the woods to strike at beehives hanging high up in the branches.

  The beehives were PK’s domain. He climbed up with a bundle of dry grass, set fire to it and held it underneath to smoke out the bees. He clasped a stick in his mouth, which he used to jab at the hive to scare away any bees still brave enough to remain inside. Sometimes the bees launched their own counterattack. But no matter how badly he was stung, PK refused to retreat without having first tasted the sweet nectar inside. With one hand wrapped around the tree trunk, he greedily sucked on his stick as the honey ran down his cheeks and dribbled onto his chest. Then he let some drip down to the others, waiting below, their mouths gaping as the sweet, sticky drops fell from the sky.

  PK was also becoming the village artist. He collected big, smooth stones along the road out of the village, and drew on them in charcoal. Sunrises, sunsets and wooded mountains.

  PK’s skills advanced quickly. He took the neighbouring children to a large, flat rock near the river, told them to close their eyes, and then declared that with his magical powers he could lure a tiger and make it stand before them. They were sceptical, but obeyed. He started working. There, on the stone, he drew a tiger with its mouth wide open in a roar. ‘Look!’ he cried. The other children stared in astonishment. Were they frightened? Had he convinced them? Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Then they laughed in delight.

  At least I can make people happy with my drawing, he thought.

  He expanded his repertoire and honed his technique. He painted in every spare moment he had, before and after class, and all of Sunday. He found stones in a variety of colours, not just beige and grey. He discovered how to use leaves and flowers to produce pigments other than black. He learned to make plates out of clay from the river and then paint designs on them, which he brushed with a layer of egg yolk to make them fast. He also worked on paper and favoured jungle motifs such as leaves, flowers and trees.

  Every stone within a hundred metres of their house was transformed into a work of art. Here was his gallery. And inside, a row of decorated plates stood proud on a shelf.

  These games in the woods are among PK’s most treasured childhood memories. The forest spoke to him and his desire for adventure. It was full of secrets and surprises that he knew would only reveal themselves gradually. The rest was destined to remain mysterious and unknowable. He has held onto this feeling to the present day. It is enough to comprehend only a small part of life. He is content knowing that there is much he will never understand.

  PK’s father pedalled energetically, a whistle dancing from his lips. He was in a good mood. The road wove between cornfields, mango groves and clusters of mud houses. His white shirt beat in the wind as he swerved potholes, stones and twigs. PK was just as happy. He sat on the carrier, his father’s shirt a sail spread out before him. They were on the way to town, away from the safety of their people, but he felt brave and adventurous, and relished the feeling of uncertainty.

  Finally, he was starting school.

  The teacher of his new primary school in Athmallik had promised Shridhar that his son would be allowed to join the class even though the semester had begun a month before. Perhaps his mother and father had delayed the decision, fearful about how PK would be treated. In light of their own bitter experiences, no doubt.

  The school was made up of a row of ochre classrooms built in mud, sharing a long veranda that faced a sandy schoolyard. The outer boundary was marked by a dense wall of greenery made from bamboo sticks and vines.

  PK peered into the classroom. There sat his new teacher, his belly large and round. The teacher turned to look
at him.

  ‘Just like Ganesh,’ the old man chuckled as he patted himself on the stomach.

  Then he turned back to the other students, and pointed to the letters written on the blackboard. The children sang back the words in unison.

  So many children, so many new friends.

  The teacher stopped and gestured to his place. But his finger was not pointing in the direction of the other children, but to the veranda outside.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘You sit there, Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia!’

  PK sat cross-legged on the sandy floor outside. He felt confused and disappointed. Why am I sitting on my own out here? But his father took no notice. What was it that he knew that PK did not? He pressed PK’s hand, said goodbye, and walked over to his bike leaning against the bamboo fence.

  PK was alone with all these unfamiliar people. Did they want to be his friend? He was no longer so sure. The excitement of the ride had now dissipated. Why was the teacher angry with him? Why was he not allowed to sit on the floor inside the classroom, with all the others?

  The teacher soon came out to the veranda to help him with the writing exercise. He spread a thin layer of sand over PK’s wooden board and showed him how to draw the letters with his forefinger in the grains. PK noticed that the teacher avoided touching him. He sat close, but was careful not to make contact. Why was he acting like this?

  From the veranda, PK could see into the classroom as the teacher turned and began to write the letter ‘ma’ on the blackboard in Oriya. ‘Repeat,’ he instructed.

  ‘Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma,’ chanted PK and the rest of the class.

  The teacher rang a brass bell to announce time for play. The students rushed out into the yard, so PK stood up to follow them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ cried the teacher.

  The question rendered PK mute. Was it not obvious?

  ‘You’re not to play with them!’ continued the teacher.

  PK adapted surprisingly quickly. On the first day of school, he spent break time by himself in a corner of the playground, fighting back the tears. On the second day, he discovered a pond behind the school where he could play on his own. Within a week, he found himself longing for those solitary moments. He did not understand why it had to be like this. He gazed at his reflection in the water. He searched the rippled image for the features, the colour perhaps, that made him different from the others. Maybe his nose was too flat, his complexion too dark, his hair too curly? Sometimes he thought he looked more like the forest creatures that played on the dark surface of the water. Other times he concluded that, in fact, he looked just like all the other children.

  After a week, he finally asked his mother what he should have asked the first evening, but was too confused to formulate into words.

  ‘Why do I have to sit outside the classroom?’

  His mother was squatting by the fire in the kitchen, grilling corn on the cob and baking chapatis. She looked at him.

  ‘Why am I not allowed to play with the others?’ he continued.

  ‘We are jungle people,’ she said at last.

  He looked at her and felt even more confused. What did she mean?

  ‘Once upon a time, our people lived deep in the woods. We probably should have stayed there and led our lives among the trees and not moved to the village to live with people from the plains.’

  She picked him up and sat him on her lap.

  ‘We are not allowed in the temple, because it makes the priests angry. You already noticed that. We are not allowed to draw water from the same well as the others. That’s why I go to the river or the reservoir and not the common well. But there’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to accept it.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Because we are untouchable, because we have been born to a lower caste… or… to no caste at all.’

  She caught his eye.

  ‘It will all work out, you’ll see, only if you focus on the truth…’ She wiped her tears. ‘… And as long as you are honest with yourself and other people.’

  That evening, he lay on his straw mat and pondered what his mother had told him. The whooshing of bats and howling of dogs were the accompaniment to his thoughts. Ma gathered sticks for the fire and rattled stainless steel bowls. These were his safe sounds, the ones he fell asleep to every night. But somehow he could not quiet his mind. What did caste mean? And untouchable? He sensed that it explained his teacher’s strange behaviour, but where did it come from? Why was everyone so obsessed with it?

  PK’s class had been assigned a piece of land in the kitchen garden at one end of the playground. In it the students planted cucumbers, okra, aubergine and tomatoes. When the vegetables were ripe, they were allowed to pick them and take them home to their families. PK was given the task of watering the plants. No one minded him touching the seeds and the water.

  At harvest time, he was given his own basket, while the other students shared another. This, he realized, was because they did not want their vegetables contaminated by his impurity. But he did not care any more. Instead he focused on all the lovely tomatoes he would be able to take home to his mother. The thought of joining in the harvest excited him, and he ran towards the patch. And tripped. He stumbled over a water hose and into the class basket, spilling the topmost fruit. PK bent down, picked them up and put them back.

  ‘What have you done?’ the teacher exploded. ‘Now they are all ruined!’

  PK froze, petrified, and watched as the teacher snatched the basket from him. He sensed that something unpleasant was about to happen. Teacher raised it above PK’s head and poured the tomatoes over him. A rain of round, red fruit thudded against his skull and tumbled all around, while the rest of the class stood in a ring and watched in silence. Teacher then declared that PK might as well take them all home, seeing as no one else would be able to eat them.

  Crying, PK bent down, picked up the tomatoes and placed them in his basket.

  Ma’s face lit up when he came home with the bounty, but when he told her what had happened, she looked depressed. Maybe he would be expelled and the other villagers would harass them?

  ‘You never know with caste Hindus,’ she said. ‘Sometimes they like to humiliate us in public.’

  But the next day Teacher pretended as if nothing had happened. And neither PK nor the rest of the family observed any other repercussions.

  PK thought about it. Teacher had explained to him that whatever he touched turned dirty. So what would happen if he touched the other students? Would they be angry? Or would they pretend that nothing had happened?

  I have to try, the young PK decided.

  The students were lined up in rows in the schoolyard as they did every morning. This was his moment. He made a dash for it, reached out and ran his hand over every stomach down the line. Then he ran up to his teacher and the headmaster, and patted them on their bellies.

  Teacher was dumbstruck. He glared first at PK, then at the headmaster, and finally at the other children.

  ‘Come!’ Teacher cried, turning to his students. ‘We are going to the well to wash. PK, you stay here. I’ll deal with you later.’

  Teacher used to beat the students with his cane when they broke the school rules, but PK was never whipped because Teacher did not want to soil his cane and thus spread the infection to the others. For PK, Teacher came up with a special form of punishment; he was made to stand still on the veranda with his eyes closed. Teacher then edged back and began to throw stones, small, sharp rocks that stung as they assailed his skin, and left ugly bruises.

  PK cursed the teacher, but recalled his mother’s words with resignation; this was their destiny, what life was like outside their home. This was how he would always be treated. There was nothing he could do about it.

  Now and then it made him angry, and he fantasized about getting his revenge or having divine justice intervene on his behalf. Bittersweet thoughts came as he rode home in the afternoons, as he lay awake in the moments before dawn,
as morning’s first light filled the sky and his mind still clung to the events of the previous day.

  And one day, divine justice seemed to play its part. Teacher had fallen asleep at his desk while the students were reading morning prayers out loud. PK could smell the moonshine on his breath and the snoring filled the classroom as Teacher’s mouth gaped ever wider. Then something amazing happened, something that he would never forget. One of the pigeons that liked to sit in the beams above suddenly relieved itself. The poo fell towards Teacher’s lectern, down towards Teacher’s chair and, to the delight of all the children, plopped straight into his mouth. Teacher jumped up, screamed and began cursing his students, believing that one of the boys must have played a prank on him.

  Had the pigeon read PK’s thoughts? Whatever the case, PK took great pleasure in his teacher’s shock and disgust.

  The mood at school changed dramatically when the schools’ inspector came to visit. His main task was to check whether the school was obeying India’s anti-discrimination laws that made prejudicial treatment on the grounds of caste illegal. Dressed in a blue blazer, white shirt and white trousers with creases pressed into them, he possessed a natural authority. His smiles were polite, but they masked an iron will.

  That morning, PK was instructed to join the class inside, as if his untouchability had been nothing but a bad dream. Suddenly he was one of them and allowed to play with the other students during break time. Nobody told him to go away. He felt ecstatic, liberated. But tragically, he had no idea that this was all a sham, that as soon as the inspector left, he would be cast right back into the hell of exclusion again.

  Had he been a little less naïve, he would not have let himself feel such happiness.

  In the evening, he told his mother how he impressed the other children by correctly answering the inspector’s questions. She was visibly proud of him, and felt so moved that she cried. This made him feel better, that in her eyes he was important and valued. Years later, in his teens, he thought that perhaps his mother’s tears had been shed because of the hypocrisy, that she had known all along that such treatment was only temporary, make-believe for the benefit of someone who would leave again.