The Seeker

by Karan Bajaj

  Max stared at the paper again. “Have you been there?”

  Anand nodded. “I didn’t last even a week. I wasn’t meant to be a yogi in this life. Ramakrishna helped me realize that.”

  “Yet you are happy,” said Max, looking at the pictures of the smiling family on the wall, all with big dimples on red cheeks.

  Again, the dimples appeared. Anand thrust his shaven head closer. “A painting of the moon gives us joy but it isn’t the moon, is it?” he said. “How much more joy would there be in seeing the moon rather than its painting, in feeling the warmth of the sun and not its reflection in the water? I’m merely seeing the painting, Max; you have a chance at seeing the moon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “One day you’ll know,” said Anand. “At least, I hope you will. And maybe you’ll come back and show me the moon too.”

  Max shook Anand’s hands. “Thank you for trusting me,” he said. He got up. “I’ll make my way there immediately.”

  Anand laughed. “You can’t go there in these clothes,” he said.

  Max looked at his muddy, torn cargo pants. “I have a cleaner pair in my backpack.”

  “No, I meant that it’s very hot there,” said Anand. “You won’t last an hour in those heavy shoes and clothes.”

  Max still felt cold from his hike. “I’ll manage,” he said.

  “Trust me,” said Anand. “I’m talking safety, not comfort.”

  Max would never take another warning lightly in India. “But I’ll never get shoes and clothes my size here,” he said. “I can barely find shoes that fit me in the US.”

  The dimples returned. “Ah, my friend, but there is one place and, luckily, it’s on your way,” said Anand.

  12

  Two days later, Max was in a youth hostel on the second floor of a rundown building in Mumbai. Every bone in his body hurt from sitting cramped and sleepless for forty hours on a hard wooden seat of the Dehradun–Mumbai Express Train. He had paid for a reserved seat in the second-class compartment but barely enjoyed that privilege as two ticketless women had wanted to share his six-foot-long seat. “Kindly adjust please, kindly adjust please,” they had said, their heads bobbing. And they had been hard to refuse with infants in their arms and large smiles on their sweating faces. He had gotten along famously with them. One woman had thrust her baby into his arms while she went to the platform to refill her water bottle and almost missed her train; the other had torn a puffy Indian bread into long strips every few hours, dipped it a vegetable curry and shared it with him. He had finally stretched out on his seat when they got down at Surat station, six hours before Mumbai, but at the very next station, sixty or seventy pilgrims in black skirts and white-painted foreheads entered the train banging drums and chanting prayers en route to their patron saint’s birthplace in Mumbai. In the train corridor, they lit a small ritual fire using dirt rags. Max could still smell the gasoline and sweat from the train on his clothes over the whiff of marijuana in the hostel lobby.

  He pressed the bell on the vacant reception desk again.

  A young Indian in his early twenties with rock-star long hair, rushed out from the adjoining room.

  “Yo, sorry, friend. These Israelis are driving me mad,” he said. “You need a room?”

  Max shook his head. He showed the kid the piece of paper Anand have given him.

  “My friend said this place is close to here and you can give me directions,” said Max.

  The kid looked at the paper. He removed his glasses and stared at Max. “Who told you about it?” he said. He blew air on the lenses and wore the foggy glasses back. “Foreigners can’t go there, friend. It’s not safe. I won’t feel right pointing you there.”

  Jesus, why was everything so difficult in India?

  “I’ll be careful,” said Max, trying to keep his voice even. “Just tell me where it is.”

  The kid pointed to pictures of three bronze monkeys on the peeling yellow wall behind him, one with its hands in front of its eyes, another with hands on its ears and the third with hands on its lips.

  “Mahatma Gandhi’s three monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil,” he said. “Please don’t make me talk of bad things, friend.”

  The kid reminded him of Omkara with his intelligent eyes and cheeky grin. Max bent down and removed his hiking boots and socks. The odor from his feet overpowered the smells in the room. He lifted his right foot up and pointed to the torn white patches in his red skin.

  “See these blisters,” he said. “I have to buy new shoes. Where else will I find my size?”

  The kid pinched his nose. “You are worse than the Israelis,” he said. His smile brightened his eyes. “I’ll tell you if you promise to buy new socks also. I didn’t know anyone’s feet could smell so bad.”

  He drew directions on a piece of paper and handed it to Max.

  “If you get killed, make sure no one posts a bad review about this hostel, okay?” he said.

  Max smiled. His head began to spin. He leaned against the wall on his side. His eyes were growing heavy, his mouth stale. The skin on his face felt rough and torn.

  “I think I’ll take a room for one night after all,” he said.

  “Good idea,” said the kid. “You look like shit and smell worse.”

  He rummaged in the drawer of the table and handed Max a key.

  “One floor up. It’s my best room, friend,” he said. “I don’t know why but I have a feeling you need it more than all the Israelis and Russians put together.”

  Max came back down after a shave and cold shower. He went to the brightly lit dining room adjoining the reception to get coffee before he headed back out into the humidity and traffic. A group of Israeli backpackers with scruffy faces, and matted blonde hair wearing bead necklaces, sat around a plastic folding table. One strummed a guitar, another was reading a magazine, yet another smoked a joint. Four more loose long-limbed bodies sat on red cushions in the back corner of the room, playing cards.

  Max made himself coffee and sat down on a vacant chair at their table. He shifted in the uncomfortable plastic chair. His butt still hurt from the fall in the mountains and the endless train journey. 5 p.m. If he bought shoes in the next couple of hours, he could take the night train and reach Madurai by morning. Would he be in time to catch the morning bus to the village? If he couldn’t catch the bus, he’d have to . . .

  “Want a hit, man?”

  The blue-eyed, light-haired guy opposite him offered him a joint.

  Max hesitated. He had sworn off drugs in high school when he’d seen a friend of Muscle, Andre’s elder brother who often invited them for block parties thrown by local drug lords, burst a blood vessel in the eye while injecting heroin into his eyeball for a faster kick. The smoke hit his eyes. Max rubbed them. His fingers felt stiff, his elbow joints creaky. It would feel so good to numb the pain. And this was a joint, not a needle.

  Max took it. He inhaled deeply, pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth to hold the harsh smoke.

  His forehead exploded.

  “Good shit, eh?” the Israeli smiled, yellow, stained teeth glinting.

  Max nodded weakly. “Marijuana?”

  The Israeli shook his head. “Bhaang,” he said. “Opium.”

  Gusts of cool air rushed through Max’s body. His knee throbbed. Light pulsed through his brain in Morse code like dots and dashes. The Israeli’s face blurred. Behind him, above the hippies playing cards on the red cushions, hung a picture of Gandhi. Max’s gaze fixed on his bald head and dimpled smile. He’d liberated millions from their bondage. Give me answers too. Please. Free me. Please.

  Max took another drag. The knot in his back loosened. He moved his jaw, upper teeth touching his lower teeth. Something clicked in place. He felt hollow, silent, free of pain.

  His mother must have been at peace on morphine.

  Max’s heart pounded. Jesus, he had quit his job to smoke opium in India like a fucking hippie.

  “I have to
go,” said Max.

  His throat felt dry and cracked.

  “You are from America?” said the Israeli.

  Max nodded. A kernel popped in his temples. Everything drifted into a haze again.

  “Americans. Always in a hurry, always places to go to, dollars to make, wars to fight,” said the Israeli, lifting his arm and spinning it around in concentric circles. “Just like my country.”

  Max tried to get up. He pressed his arms against the table but his feet remained rooted to the ground.

  “Learn peace in India,” said the Israeli. “The whole world’s problems are caused by man’s inability to sit quietly by himself in a room.”

  Max’s right arm extended in auto-pilot when the Israeli offered him the joint again. Another hit. Guitars twanged. The world lifted up. Max was relaxed, floating, he had become the light he was chasing. The music stopped. People got up. A bell rang. Doors opened and closed. Voices. A train to Hampi. Stopover in Goa. Max tried to concentrate.

  “We have to go, man. Here, keep the rest,” said the Israeli. He handed the half burnt joint to Max. “You are too tight, man, loosen up.”

  Max looked up and thanked him. Hot ash dropped on his fingers. He felt nothing. Someone had switched on the radio set mounted next to Gandhi’s picture. A news anchor announced in a clinical voice the bombing of a Nigerian mall. Max pictured the shrapnel exploding, cutting the skin of a small, curly haired, black girl, drawing red, angry blood. The girl’s blue face pressed against a store’s shining glass window. Max’s throat choked. Why did it happen? Why was she born if she had to die so young, so violently? Where did life come from? Where did it go? Didn’t these questions bother anyone else? He looked around wildly. No one was in the room. He put his head down. The small girl’s image disappeared. He breathed easily again.

  “Is that weed?”

  Max looked up. A woman his age with a shining face and soft, brown eyes stood above him. Her long, flowing black hair touched his face. Was she real?

  “You look very stoned,” she said and laughed a light, musical laugh.

  She came around the table and sat opposite him. Her skin was milky white, her body so light and fluid that she looked as if she had consciously decided to reduce her weight on earth.

  Max offered her the joint. She reached for it. The sleeve of her long white shirt moved. Her wrist had a bright red tattoo of two stick-like figures locked in an embrace.

  “Have you been here long?” she asked.

  Max shook his head. The world settled again.

  “Where are you coming from?” she said.

  “The Himalayas,” he said.

  “It must be freezing there,” she said. “I was in Goa. You should head there before the crowds descend for New Year. The sun is warm, the beaches heavenly right now. I’ve never had better fish and their feni, the coconut sap alcohol, is to die for.”

  She took a drag from the joint. Max felt the same emptiness in his stomach he often felt with dates in New York when they talked passionately of restaurants and bars.

  There was an entire childhood between them.

  Once you’ve known hunger, you eat only to fill your stomach. Alcohol loses its pull when you see your whole neighborhood crippled by addiction. Unheralded in every youthful drinking story was a broke-ass motherfucker like him who had cleaned the vomit in the bar’s bathroom with a dirt rag. Not that this was a date. He had to get on with his journey. Too much time had been wasted already.

  “Wow, this is strong,” she said, pulling her abdomen in. She licked her lips. “It’s opium. Where did you get it?”

  “An Israeli,” he said.

  “This isn’t Indian,” she said. “It’s exported from Afghanistan.”

  “How do you know?” he said.

  “I was posted there in the Army,” she said.

  Max looked at her with renewed interest. “Her Majesty’s Army.”

  She nodded. “American?”

  Max nodded. “We are allies,” he said.

  She laughed. Their eyes met. Max put his feet firmly on the ground and pushed himself up.

  “I have to leave for a market,” he said.

  She put the half-burnt joint in the ashtray. “Can I come with you?”

  Max hesitated. She was so pale, so beautiful.

  “They say the place is not safe for foreigners,” he said.

  “All the more reason you need me,” she said. She made a symbol of a gun with her hand. “007. Lavin. Anna Lavin.”

  Max and Anna made their way down the crumbling hostel staircase out into the narrow Colaba causeway lined with vendors selling clothes, statues, books, jewelry, food, everything. People begged, pushed, pleaded, threatened them. Buy something, please. You are beautiful, madam, your skin is so light, you need Ayurvedic face cream. You are so tall, sir, you need a gentleman’s hat. Do you need a guru? Train tickets to Goa? Hashish? SIM Cards? Meditation? Cellphones? Enlightenment? Discounts on everything. Max floated past them, his world still wobbly, eyes stinging with sweat in the hot, humid smoky air. He touched Anna’s arm lightly, guiding her, though she seemed completely at ease in the madness. She rolled up her sleeves. The couple embracing in the red tattoo on her wrist shimmered in the brightly lit streetlights.

  The directions took them out of the busy street, past a public park where a group of young boys played cricket in white shirts and pants, through a maze of narrow streets, to a small tenement of sheds. They walked toward the huts, dodging the overflowing gutters and food waste, steering clear of the mangy stray dogs. The air was filled with the smell of burning plastic. They had entered the other Mumbai.

  Six bony men smoking outside one of the makeshift huts looked up at them with glassy, vacant eyes.

  Max repeated the name of the market.

  They walked in the direction the men pointed. Half-naked kids rummaged through heaps of garbage—waste paper, glass bottles, cardboard boxes, plastic cups—spilling out of the overflowing plastic bags that lined the street. They took a turn into an alley.

  Improbably, the alley opened into a large green field, the length of a football stadium. It was packed with people.

  “Jesus,” said Anna.

  Thousands of men and women in shirts, pants, long Indian kurtas, salwars and sarees, thronged to rows of small hut-shops, shouting, screaming, bargaining. Max’s heart beat faster. They were the only white faces in the sea of brown. He concentrated to rid himself of the shaky, out-of-focus feeling.

  “What is this place?” said Anna, sounding a little breathless.

  “A black market for stolen goods,” he said. “Apparently, you can get anything you want in the world here.”

  Touts in stained white shirts, their thin, pockmarked faces shining with sweat, descended upon them. Buy. Buy. Buy. We have everything. What do you want?

  Max touched Anna’s hands. “Do you want to head back?”

  “No, no, this is . . . strange. Amazing,” she said.

  Max and Anna walked toward the shops, the touts forming a loose circle around them, shouting bargains on antiques, electronics, drugs, aggressive but unthreatening. A six-foot Ganesha statue for three dollars. 100 Vicodins for five dollars. Kharma Enigma music system for one thousand dollars. Viagra pills for ten cents. An original Van Gogh for five hundred dollars.

  A group of urchins raced past them chasing a giant black rat with a white belly. They flattened it against the wooden beam of a hut-shop and poked it with their thin sticks, laughing when its scared eyes bulged. The rat crumpled to the ground, dead. Bored, the kids left it and ran away to search for more rats.

  A toy shop with a life-size panda covering its facade. A shop selling golden-blonde wigs, hundreds of them strung up on wooden beams inside the hut. Another filled with religious amulets of all faiths. A taxidermy shop with frog skeletons placed atop crumbling wooden tables. There seemed no method or organization in the arrangement of shops. Huts with printed umbrellas proclaiming ‘I love New York’ next to ancient Indian dr
ug and spice stores with bags of roots and leaves, each shop impossibly filled with people bargaining and buying at rapid speed.

  A short man with studious glasses emerged from a taxidermy shop with a stuffed deer on his shoulders. He was elbowed by a woman carrying boomerangs and Spiderman masks, incongruous against her starched white saree and the red mark on her forehead.

  The evening darkened. Yellow light bulbs and white flashlights came on in the shops. Spicy food smells filled the air. Max worried the market would close down.

  “Shoe shop?” he said to the men following them.

  A sudden silence and then a cacophony of shouts.

  “Giant shoes, giant shoes, giant shoes, giant shoes.”

  A ripple spread through the market. Touts shouting to shopkeepers, shopkeepers to other shopkeepers. Within minutes, a pregnant woman came running breathlessly through the crowd. She caught his hand.

  “Come, come,” she said.

  They followed her, wading through the crowd, stopping at a hut selling bangles—hundreds and thousands of them in red, green, yellow, golden, blue, every hue of color, suspended from strings on wooden beams, fixed on nails on the mud walls, strewn across a table with a white cloth. The woman pulled a wooden box from under the table and threw the lid open to reveal plus-size rubber and canvas shoes, sandals and flip flops. Nike, Adidas, Crocs, even Tom’s shoes.

  “You like?” said the woman.

  Max nodded, speechless. Some of those shoes would fit men much taller than him. Yet he hadn’t seen a single man taller than his six foot six inches in India.

  “Can I take a photo?” said Anna. “No one would believe me if I told them.”

  The woman shook her head. “Not take photo. Take shoe.”

  Max put his hands in the treasure box, sat down on the mud floor and started trying on shoes. He had the luxury of choice. Four or five pairs fit him perfectly. Max bought a pair of black Nike running shoes for one US dollar and put them on. He put his weathered Merrill boots in a plastic bag to take back with him, then hesitated. From the Grand Canyon to Kilimanjaro, the shoes had been with him for years. But they hadn’t worked in India. Nothing had. He had to let go of everything he knew to move forward. Max gave the woman his hiking boots.