PK’s façade breaks. Tears pour down his cheeks. Weeping, he tells them the story of the fountain, his art, the prophecy, the meeting, the blessing and the bicycle trip. The officer, whose expression only moments ago had been so hard, so serious, relaxes. Then he laughs and suddenly seems quite cheerful.
‘And you’re going to Sweden?’ he asks with a new tone.
‘To my Lotta.’
‘Oh well, so it seems,’ he says to his colleague and turns to PK again.
‘And she lives in Sweden?’ he asks for the fifth time.
‘In Borås.’
Passau – Munich – Hamburg – Puttgarden – Rodby – Copenhagen – Helsingborg
It has been a month since he left Istanbul and his third bicycle behind him. His friends were worried about him, refused to let him continue his pedalling, and insisted that he should travel the last part of his journey by safer and faster means. There are many things more dangerous than riding a bicycle through Europe. People are so anxious, so pessimistic, he thinks, tucked up inside the cabin as the train rushes northward, to the cold air that blankets the northern hemisphere. How is he going to survive this far north?
But why be discouraged? The border guards let him in, he was not sent home, he had a ticket all the way to Gothenburg. Surely nothing could go wrong now?
Again and again he reminds himself of what he is, where he comes from, and the emotions that have driven him from India. The anger at the priests who threw stones at him and the teacher who refused to let him sit inside the classroom. The bittersweet feeling at the thought of getting his revenge. Frustration at being born untouchable, and therefore worthless.
Without that frustration, he would not be where he is now, sitting on a train on his way to Sweden. Frustration is his driving force. The feelings of worthlessness are the ones that are leading him to happiness. Without that sense of inferiority, he would never have become an artist. Exclusion is the engine that pushes him along the road and beyond his imagination.
As a child, he was always full of questions. When they worshipped cows and threw stones at him, he asked himself how it was possible that a boy was worth less than an ox. Did his veins not pump with the same blood as the Brahmins? When his classmates refused to play with him, he asked himself what would really happen if he touched them. Aside from their shock and anger. Would the world collapse, the sky fall in, the divine cycle of the universe be knocked out of whack?
‘The sun is blocked by many dark clouds, but one day the wind will blow them away.’ These were his grandfather’s words of comfort when he was in his blackest moods.
Grandfather said other things too, but he did not understand all of it. Words of wisdom like ‘We come from love, and it is to love we return: that is the meaning of life’ were easy enough to understand, but ‘We can’t know love if we don’t know ourselves’ was more obscure. He struggled with that one for a long time.
He sits in a German train compartment remembering Grandpa’s wise words, and now, finally, he understands. All he meant was that the precondition of love is self-knowledge.
The black clouds disappeared when he met Lotta. What is it, exactly, that happens when you fall in love? Such a powerful force. Forgiveness. She gave me the power to forgive. That was what happened.
On the platform in Copenhagen, he sees a girl and a boy locked in a tight embrace. She is about to board the train, her suitcase stands by her side. The boy is not going with her. They kiss. Long and deep. Oh my God, they are using tongues! No one is stopping them! In India, someone would have shouted at them, pulled them apart.
So this is Europe, he thinks. My future!
The train creaks through the gears at the ferry terminal in Helsingborg. The Norwegian woman sitting diagonally opposite him looks worried, and then suddenly speaks.
‘Do you have a return ticket?’
‘No,’ he replies. ‘Why?’
‘They won’t let you in if you don’t.’
The Swedish border police are on their way. He hears them open the door to the next cabin and ask for passports. The Norwegian woman opens her purse, takes out several bills and stuffs them into PK’s shirt pocket.
‘Three thousand Swedish kronor,’ she says simply.
The police enter. He shows his passport. They look at him sceptically.
‘Indian citizen?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re visiting Sweden?’
‘Is there a problem, sir?’
‘What is the purpose of your trip?’ the police continue.
‘I am married to a Swedish woman.’
Bewildered, the police look at each other as if to determine who is going to have to deal with this mess. One of them asks if he has papers to prove it. PK’s heart is cold. They have been blessed by his father, but he does not have one single official document, stamp or signature that actually says they are married.
He is at the border, so close now. And yet so far away.
The Norwegian woman gestures to him and points at his shirt pocket. Then he understands. He takes out the wad of notes she thrust upon him and shows them to the police.
Astonishment is followed by a visible relaxation in their demeanour. They smile at each other, back out of the compartment and close the door. PK returns the money to the woman. His own funds have dwindled to almost nothing since leaving Vienna. Most certainly not enough to convince the police to let him in.
‘You are an angel,’ he says to the woman sitting opposite. He would never have got this far without a whole world full of angels just like her.
As a child, he had learned to use his creativity to overcome obstacles. His mother used to tell him a story about the crow who could not reach the water in the pot. The bird gathered stones in its beak and dropped them inside, one by one. It took the crow a long time, but eventually it filled the pot with enough gravel to raise the water to a level at which it could drink.
‘Think like a crow,’ said his mother.
But sometimes obstacles are still insurmountable. If everything had depended upon his own individual means, his ability and talent, he would never have met so many benefactors, the selfless people who helped him on his way. They have been there for him since those days under Minto Bridge in New Delhi, when his stomach ached from hunger and he warmed his cold hands over bonfires of rubbish. Of this he is convinced.
Helsingborg – Gothenburg – Borås
He is cold. Confused and anxious. Expectant. What is he doing here? A bearded Indian, medium height, matted hair, filthy clothes, among all these tall, clean people. The light outside the carriage window dazzles him. A brushstroke of red has been applied across the horizon but the sky is still light, despite the fact that it is the middle of the night. How is that possible?
He falls asleep. By the time he awakes the sun is high and streaming into the compartment. The train is stationary. Sweating, he pulls down the window and leans out. White flowers – a type of anemone, he learns later – line the tracks, and the cheerful song of a black bird with a yellow beak fills his ears. The sound is as beautiful as Lata Mangeshkar’s voice, the soundtrack to his youth back home in India.
The train stops at Gothenburg Central.
He breathes in the clean, cool air through his nostrils and steps cautiously out onto the newly resurfaced platform. Everything is so different to all the other cities he has passed through. Nothing like Asia. No sweaty bodies pressing against him. No porters, no bells as the tea sellers pass, and definitely no beggars. But also different from Istanbul and Vienna. No chimneys with sooty black smoke, no minaret cries, no crumbling façades, none of the stench of petrol or coal.
Everything is so quiet, clean and empty. At home in India, he often wondered where all the people came from. How could so many squeeze into one place? Here, however, he asks himself where they have all gone. Hello? Where are you hiding?
On the square in front of the train station, he asks a passer-by for the nearest youth hostel. Then a backpacker whom
he met on his way from New Delhi appears. He lives in Gothenburg, and can take him to the Salvation Army Guesthouse. He is grateful for the continued help of the friends he made on the hippy trail.
He stands in the youth hostel’s shared bathroom shaving, having just finished his shower. Beside him a white man is also washing, his clothes as dirty as PK’s. His skin is scarred and his eyes are bloodshot. Suddenly, he removes his teeth and lifts off his hair. Fear grips hold of PK. He screams. Black magic!
The magician turns and, in broken English, asks why he is screaming.
PK does not answer, but gathers his razor, stuffs it into his toilet bag and runs to the front desk to tell them about the fakir in the bathroom.
‘Watch out, he could be dangerous,’ he tells the young man on reception. ‘Believe me, I’m from India, I know the harm black magic can do.’
‘How much have you had to drink exactly?’ the receptionist replies.
He finds a payphone and calls Lotta.
‘I can’t believe it, you’re in Gothenburg!’ she says.
Fear drowns out any pleasure he feels in finally hearing her voice. He tells her he has just met a magician, but no one believes him. And neither does she apparently. She laughs and asks if PK has ever seen false teeth or a toupee before.
She’ll be there soon, very soon, to fetch him.
He is standing by the reception desk of the Salvation Army Guesthouse for young men in Gothenburg, when he sees her. She is wearing a dark blue blazer with gold buttons. Neither of them speak. It has been sixteen months since they parted at the railway station in New Delhi.
PK has been on the verge of a breakdown, standing there in the lobby waiting for Lotta. The last few days have been exhausting. But all tiredness is gone, obliterated by the rush of anticipation pumping through his body.
He shakes himself, tries to give words to his feelings, but nothing makes sense. He looks at her. And starts to cry.
Lotta knows that he is often overcome by the power of his emotions. So she suggests they take a walk. To the Garden Society, she says.
‘A café in the midst of flowers.’
They stop for coffee. The sun is big, the air is warm. The sky a crisp light blue. The wood anemones are in flower all along the canal.
So big this year! Lotta is thinking. She has never seen such large anemones. As big as Ferris wheels! she says to herself as they walk hand in hand. PK has no idea what size wood anemones usually are, and anyway, his mind is somewhere else.
PK looks down at the canal and marvels at the clarity of the water. Not at all black and viscous.
They ride the very last bit of his journey together, in her yellow car, past places he cannot pronounce.
Landvetter, Bollebygd, Sandared, Sjömarken.
Suddenly, fear surges through him again. That she might have changed her mind, that her father might disapprove, that he might not fit in.
But they are already on their way to Borås.
He is approaching his final stop. It must have been predetermined. It must be fate. His fate.
28 May 1977. Finally, he is home.
Homecoming
The apartment with the pink plaster façade on Ulvensgatan consists of three rooms and belongs to Lotta’s family. Her mother and father live in another apartment on the floor above. It is PK’s first summer in Sweden. He spends most of it in a knitted turtleneck and a wool jacket, sitting on a wooden chair in the living room with the window open, listening to the singing of birds and the rustling of birch trees. Now and then a car drives past. Borås is a world away from the cities he had cycled through, where you had to concentrate to distinguish individual sounds in the thundering cacophony of rumbling and screeching.
He likes the silence: it gives him a sense of peace. But sometimes it is too much of a good thing, and he shudders. Everyone on the bus, for example, looks away. When he ventures a few words to his fellow passengers they answer politely, cordially even. But no one initiates contact. They sit shoulder to shoulder, and yet each is encased in his own refrigerator, always cold.
Sometimes it feels like he has passed into another world altogether, away from all the suffering. It is as if this is a reward for his devoted struggle out in the real world. Sweden is emotionally cool and physically comfortable at the same time. It makes his skin itch.
But he will get used to it.
Outside the open window, he sees two men run past in the direction of the forest. They are in a hurry. Danger, he senses. PK rushes outside and follows them into the woods. A fire, he thinks, and these men are going to extinguish it. They can use the water from the nearby lake, soon they’ll be passing buckets to each other. They need help.
But there is no smoke. He sees no flames between the trees, no panic in the two men’s faces. Dressed in blue tracksuits, they have stopped and are talking calmly to each other, their hands against two nearby tree trunks as if trying to push them over.
PK stares at them.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks in English.
‘Stretching,’ they respond.
‘Why?’
‘We are orienteering.’
PK doesn’t know what that means.
‘We orienteer.’
PK has no compass to guide him through this strange new world.
There is another man in Sweden. He has not cycled several thousand kilometres over mountains and through deserts, nor was he told as a baby that he will marry a musical woman born under the sign of Taurus. But he always has enough to eat, never sleeps under bridges, and certainly never thinks of suicide. Nor has he drawn portraits of presidents and prime ministers. But he is blond, fair-skinned and Swedish, looks neat and friendly, plays the flute, speaks perfect Swedish, and never misunderstands what is going on around him. And he knows Lotta very well. They have been singing in the same choir for years.
His name is Bengt. It is much easier to pronounce than Pradyumna Kumar.
One evening Bengt comes to visit. He talks and talks, studying PK and Lotta as they sit beside each other on the couch. His speech is rushed and his looks are strange. PK begins to wonder if he is unwell.
Hours pass, evening turns to night, but Bengt refuses to go home.
‘Why is he staying so long?’ PK asks Lotta as the clock turns three and Bengt is in the bathroom.
In the end PK is too tired to stay up any longer, trying to follow their guest’s monologue in Swedish. He goes out and takes a walk, thinking it might encourage Bengt to go home.
But when PK returns Bengt is still there, his eyes red and puffy, his cheeks stained with tears. Suddenly their guest rises to his feet, slams the door and disappears down the stairs. Finally, they are alone. PK hears the main door slam again. Then all is quiet.
‘Why was he crying?’ PK asks.
‘We’ve known each other a long time,’ Lotta begins, ‘we’re friends, nothing more. But I realize now that he’s in love with me. He can’t take it that you’re here, living with me.’ Bengt thinks PK is a nice man, but that he should not be staying with Lotta.
PK lies down in bed next to Lotta and watches the shadows from the street dance on the ceiling. But sleep is impossible. His mind is spinning, obsessing on the same thought: There should be two Lottas, one for me and one for Bengt.
The next morning he gets up and announces that he is going to the bicycle shop.
‘Why?’
‘I want to buy a bike.’
She looks at him, puzzled.
‘A good, sturdy bike that can take me all the way back to India.’
Lotta starts to cry, and PK leaves.
PK can think of nothing but Bengt for the rest of the day. It pains PK to think that he would be a perfect match for Lotta. He chooses a bicycle and tells the owner he will return the next day to pick it up. On his way back to Lotta’s apartment, he bumps into many of his new Swedish friends. ‘I’m going to ride home to India,’ he tells them. They laugh. But PK is serious, they quickly realize. They have nothing to say to
this.
‘What am I doing here if there is no love?’ PK demands.
The return journey would go faster. This time, he would take the more direct route. He will not stop and hang out on the hippy trail. No, he will ride all day, from morning to nightfall, straight for New Delhi and the India Post main office to see if the job is still available. If that fails, he will take the bus into the Himalayas, find a Buddhist monastery tucked away in some remote and beautiful location, and become a monk.
He wants a home. He does not care about the house, the furnishings or the way it looks. It is security he needs, a place to build a life.
The following night, Lotta and PK are sitting at home on the couch.
‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ he is saying. ‘I’m going to ride back to New Delhi.’
Tears continue down Lotta’s cheeks.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘Because I don’t want you to buy a bicycle and leave.’ She leans closer, hugs him. He lets her. Maybe it is a farewell.
‘Should I go now?’
‘No, I don’t want you to go,’ Lotta sniffs. ‘I don’t care about Bengt. I didn’t even know he was in love with me. I want to be with you, together in one big mess. For life.’
Sweden is a strange country. People go around thanking each other for nothing. Not to mention the constant meaningless phrases, like ‘What nice weather we’re having.’ Why bother saying it? All you have to do is look up at the sky to see for yourself if the weather is good or not.
‘If your friends and relatives went to Orissa,’ he says to Lotta, ‘and walked around the main street of my village saying things like “What nice weather we’re having, Mr Pravat,” people would shake their heads and keep walking. They’d think the foreigners had gone mad.’
But he will probably get used to it.
He is more in tune with social protocol when he meets Lotta’s mother for the first time. At least he thinks he is. All he has to do is greet her with the polite phrases in Swedish Lotta has nagged him about.
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love Page 21
