by Angela Long
Amma gave some sort of secret signal and suddenly I was ushered backstage with the Amma-ites. For some reason, this made me feel euphoric. It even made me forget about what I’d wished for. From backstage I could gaze at the back of Amma’s head as she bent and hugged, bent and hugged. It was almost dark by the time she embraced the last international visitor. Her retinue whisked her off through the back door. After ten hours of non-stop hugging, she was still smiling. I walked outside and took deep breaths of dusk.
“Well?” Gabriel asked afterwards at the Western Canteen. “How was it?”
I tried to think of words Gabriel would appreciate. “The energy in the temple was amazing,” I said. Gabriel nodded. “I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
“And?”
“It was a great hug.” I remembered Amma’s strong grip and the smell of roses. I sipped my tea. Gabriel looked at me. Stared, actually.
“Sorry,” he said and looked away, then back again.
It was difficult not to return his gaze. His eyes were the same blue as the northern skies of my country.
He giggled. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop looking at you. Suddenly I want to know everything about you. Will you go for a coconut with me?”
I noted the shift in his voice, the softness in his eyes. “I can’t. Sorry.”
“Just one,” he whispered. “Later, when it’s cooler.” He tried to cross his legs and I tried not to look past the raised hem of his lunghi.
He reached for my hand, the sort of contact between the sexes discouraged on the ashram. I pulled away. He kept gazing. His irises were flecked with gold.
~
Gabriel led me down a dirt pathway through the palm forests to a wooden bench. “Two, please,” he said, signalling the coconut vendor. She swung her machete. She poked straws through the tops of two matching husks.
I wondered if I should tell Gabriel about the wish as he reached for my hand in the darkness and I didn’t pull away. Should I tell him that tomorrow morning I planned to leave the ashram, to board the boat that would take me through the backwaters of Kerala and back into the heart of India? From our bench I could see Amritapuri’s high-rises, windows ablaze, casting light upon the dark fringe of the palm forest to the shores of the Arabian Sea. Was it so wrong to wish for love? For someone to love you unconditionally?
“Is it sweet?” the coconut vendor asked.
“Yes,” I said, and took another sip.
The Elephant
We were united by our bare feet. Those with shoes had left them at the threshold of a 170-foot-high tower adorned with mythical figures, deities, saints, and scholars. A crew of Meenakshi Amman temple workers enforced a “No Shoes Please” sign, and entrepreneurial kids offered to watch footwear for the price of a few pennies. I looked down at my feet, calloused from months of walking upon India in the same pair of flip flops. Streets, alleyways, rice fields, riverbanks. Cow dung, rat poison, monsoon puddle. Now I left my sweaty imprint upon a pathway of marble that felt as soothing as a cold compress.
Inside the temple complex, an elephant stood in a courtyard, her forehead marked with vermillion, ankles adorned with bangles. A young boy positioned a bucket beneath her hindquarters. She urinated. I stood still, mesmerized by the stream, by the sound it made as it hit the bucket. Then I looked up. The elephant’s eyes were as large as coconuts, and the look in them was enough to make me want to lead her out into the cardamom forests beyond Madurai, away from those thick stone walls and dim light, from the press of fifteen centuries of worship.
A crowd had gathered by the time the elephant had finished her business. The boy carried the steaming bucket into the bowels of the temple, and the elephant hung her head. As I wandered through the rest of the complex, other elephants tethered to their masters accepted offerings of bananas and garlands of flowers. I hurried past, avoiding that look in their eyes, into the Thousand-Pillared Hall, alongside the dried-up Lake of the Lotus filled with pigeon droppings and picnicking families. As the sun set, streams of worshippers arrived bearing gifts for the deities: cartons of milk, wreaths of hibiscus, packets of potato chips.
I followed a sea of kaleidoscopic saris into the innermost courtyard. Bangles jingled, bells rang. The marble became slick with spilled offerings and sweat. My calloused soles began to vibrate. From a dark corridor, the sound of stomping grew closer and closer.
The crowd followed the procession of elephants around a gold-topped shrine. I circled and circled whatever lay in the centre, on an altar festooned with neon lights, craning my neck above the crowd to glimpse a slender hand of green stone, a lotus. The elephants turned, their footsteps echoing. All at once, the ringing and the clanging stopped, and the crowd changed course, streaming back beneath the tower and into the streets of Madurai.
The Mourner
On the day before Christmas I walked towards what my guidebook called the burning ghats – Varanasi’s main draw, or drawback, depending on how you felt about watching corpses burn. For some reason, I was drawn to the place along the river where smoke blurred the Ganges like a morning mist.
It was almost noon, not the best time to go for a walk along a treeless promenade paved with slabs of stone. Even the polluted waters of the Ganges reflected the searing light of India. Even the crumbling marble of the Maharaja’s palace shimmered with heat.
I stopped for a soda water and lime. I stopped for fortune-tellers, boat-wallahs, silk merchants, money changers, all touting their services. “No thank-you,” I said politely but firmly, careful to look them in the eye so they knew I was serious. But it didn’t work. They’d heard it was the Christmas season for us westerners.
“No Merry Christmas gift?” they complained. “No money, no honey!”
I kept walking. I fell into a silent march, determined to be invisible. Passers-by spat red betel nut juice, staining the stone. A row of men pissed along a rampart. Young girls giggled, trailing saris in their wake. Washer-wallahs pounded cloth on rock, rhythmic as a tennis match. Wet sheets, waiters’ uniforms, a tourist’s blue jeans and pink lace bra spread to dry on the sandstone. Prayer bells rang. Sadhus chanted. All of India seemed to find their place upon these banks – taking baths, playing cricket, practicing yoga, selling flowers, brushing teeth, rinsing out milk buckets, washing water buffaloes.
The further I walked, the fainter I felt. The breeze shifted, and I caught a whiff of something akin to burnt hair. I turned off the promenade, climbed steep steps, and entered the labyrinthine alleys, hoping it would be cooler.
“People go missing in Varanasi’s alleys,” the hotel manager at Vishnu Rest House had warned at check-in. He imposed a strict curfew. “The gates lock at 10 p.m. No exceptions.” Two of his guests, Japanese girls, had gone missing just last month. In the middle of the day. “I’m not joking,” he’d said.
I noted the darkened archways and shuttered windows. Ancient-looking symbols carved into stone. Hidden courtyards overrun by vines. I walked further and further into what felt like the dark heart of the universe.
My guidebook said Varanasi was one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, the “Rome of India.” Mark Twain said it was “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” A bookshop owner told me, “Varanasi is the beating heart of the universe. The secrets of life and death can be discovered here – if you know where to look.”
I was lost. The cobbled alleyways narrowed so much I was forced to pat the flank of a cow with sharply curved horns, urging her to move aside. The lane narrowed until temples closed in on both sides: Buddhist, Jain, Hindu. I smelled the chalky dampness of stone, the sharp tang of marigolds, that burning smell again.
Men bearing a home-made stretcher appeared in the alley. Something wrapped in white cloth draped with garlands of flowers bobbed atop the lashed bamboo. The men walked barefoot, chanting. I real
ized then it was a corpse, wrapped so tightly I saw the outline of its nose.
I followed the cortege until I reached worn stone steps leading to Manikarnika Ghat. Stacks of wood nearly twenty feet high blocked the view of the Ganges. Young boys transported load after load on their heads from boats heaving with logs.
When the stretcher disappeared, another appeared. Then another. And another.
I caught sight of the fires then. Plumes of brownish-black smoke filled the sky. Men wearing dirty T-shirts and lunghis managed each blaze. In each group, one man carried a long bamboo pole.
“You shouldn’t be standing here,” a bare-chested man warned. I apologized and began to walk away as he said, “Come closer for a better view.”
He led me through the throngs of workers and mourners. The smoke grew thicker. The stench stronger. He showed me where I could stand. I noticed nick marks on his freshly shaved head.
“That’s my father,” he said of the corpse atop the pyre. He asked my name. He introduced me to the group of men standing on the platform. “Canada,” they repeated when they learned of my homeland. “A good country,” they cooed, becoming more and more animated.
I smiled politely while standing atop the charred ground radiating with heat. A trio of stray dogs on the periphery of the ghat waited patiently. The Ganges flowed slowly past, strewn with flowers.
I looked away when they lit the pyre. The fire crackled, and I felt the puff of a breeze laced with heat. It took seconds for the cloth to dissolve in the flames and expose the corpse – the wrinkled skin, the bony thigh. It all burned so quickly. I kept looking away, then back again, lured by the dance of the flames. The man with the bamboo pole poked at the fire. A young boy added more kindling. Something popped in the heat.
“You must stay until his spirit is released to the heavens,” the son said, but I wanted to go now. I’d seen enough.
The bamboo pole was passed to the son. He walked to the head of his father’s corpse and stood there for a moment, straight-backed, head held high. He raised the bamboo pole above the skull. I turned away. The sound of the crack made me wince. I imagined the soul of his father rising above the smoke. I watched the sky, looking for a sign.
The son returned to my side. I couldn’t tell whether tears or sweat ran down his cheek. “Thank you,” he said.
The mood became sombre. The men watched the final flickerings of the blaze.
Finally, I walked away, returning to the tomb-like cool of the alleys. I stopped to sit on a wooden bench to drink chai, to look at tissue-paper kites rise into the sky. I passed restaurants offering festive meals and live sitar music. I remembered it was Christmas Eve. By the time I found my way back to a familiar twist in the alley, the gate at Vishnu Rest House was locked. I called and called until the owner appeared, asking me where I’d been. I looked towards the sky, to the souls up there that must have been circling Varanasi as surely as the wheeling stars.
The City of Light
It’s sunset and I’m drinking chai at Vishnu Rest House. Milky and sweet. The couple to my left is speaking Japanese, to my right Spanish. We face the Ganges. The Ganga, if you want to sound more Indian. If you want to look more Indian, I’d recommend ditching the jeans and hiking boots. I’ve opted for a silk fuchsia salwar-kameez and a pair of flip-flops. I think that’s why I got a better room rate.
It’s sunset and the eye-shaped wooden boats are carrying tourists to the cremation ghats. It’s dark enough to see the fires now. Every time the wind shifts, I can smell the burning flesh. One of the oarsmen told me he rows to the cremation ghats when he’s depressed. He said, “The sound of bones popping in the heat comforts me.”
It’s sunset and on the opposite shore the Bollywood film crew is firing up the set lights. They film until late into the night. They’ve erected bamboo huts and campfire pits. Amidst the huts wander an assortment of holy men – some smeared in ash, some in saffron-coloured sarongs, others in white loincloths. It’s difficult to know whether they’re real or actors. Except during a dance number.
It’s sunset and I’m watching for dolphins. Even though the Ganges is polluted, there are rumours of river dolphins. Yesterday, I thought I saw one, though it could have been a body part. A charred arm? Sometimes at the cremation ghats, parts find their way into the river. But this object seemed to do a little jump. I’m sure I saw a splash.
It’s sunset and the rooftops are filled with young boys and old men flying kites. Tissue paper. Wooden frames. Thin strings held close to their hearts. Brightly-coloured diamonds jerk their way upwards. Some plummet into bodhi tree branches. Others catch an airstream. And then they begin to soar. They soar to the rising moon.
It’s sunset and the swallows are flying downriver in swarms. They skim the surface, swallowing mosquitoes. They swoop through the porticos of the Maharaja’s palace. They swoop and pirouette and swoop some more. There must be some music playing that they swoop to with such grace. But I can’t hear it. On cue, they tilt their wings to the right. Fly directly above our heads. The Japanese, the Spanish and I stop drinking tea. We crane our necks to ogle thousands of ochre-coloured bellies streaming towards the setting sun like iron filings to a magnet. There’s a sensation on my skin: a soft, warm puff of air. A tingling. And then they’re gone.
The Waiter
“Your husband will be happy if you’re fat.” The waiter pointed to my fake wedding ring and extra serving of toast. I brushed a dead fly off the tablecloth.
It was seven in the morning in Kolkata and I was the first guest for breakfast. I’d been up since five and had been waiting for any excuse to escape my room. It was small and stuffy and smelled of mouldy cardboard. Everything was painted the colour of spoiled cream, even the window panes. The cream-coloured air conditioner sounded like a jet engine but I dared not turn it off. When I’d asked for a better room the night before, the front desk agent, who’d been sleeping on the floor before I’d roused him to check in, said, “Ask the breakfast waiter in the morning.”
And so I asked. “You are talking pretty, Madame,” the waiter said and laughed. He removed the tea cozy and poured me a cup of dishwater-coloured tea. “You are in a very good room, Madame. Much better than Room Fourteen.”
An ant climbed out of the marmalade. A slice of fried tomato and two fried mushrooms slid towards the pale eggs. I nibbled a slice of canned pineapple and stuck a spoon in the porridge.
The waiter pointed to a map on the wall, to a state near the Bay of Bengal. “I am from Orissa,” he said placing his finger on a well-worn spot. “There is my village. I have a wife and three children.”
I’d read of the area, famous for its tigers, mangroves, Irrawaddy dolphins. “How often do you go home?”
“Oh, that is too expensive, Madame. Maybe in another year or two.”
“But isn’t Orissa just a few hours away?”
“As I said, Madame, very far, and very expensive.”
From beyond the dining room, I saw an oasis. Banana trees and potted palms, emerald-coloured parrots flitting from frond to frond. Wicker garden furniture with glass-topped tables. There I could imagine the British Raj sipping gin and tonics with juicy wedges of lime. I was tempted to sit there all day and do the same. But the lounge was closed for renovations, and I had come to Kolkata for something else. This was the “City of Joy” after all; as a teen I’d read of this place once known as Calcutta through the eyes of Dominique Lapierre’s slum-dwelling characters. And I knew that when I left this hermetically-sealed hotel and walked onto Sudder Street, I wouldn’t have to go far to find it. The child tugging at my sleeve, a baby in her arms, “Madame,” she’d say, her curls brittle with dust. “We are so hungry, Madame.” The woman sitting on her haunches by the side of the road, rocking back and forth, shreds of clothing hung to dry with a piece of twine. The boy pulling a wooden rickshaw, straining at the waist, rubber flip flops slapping the pavement.
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sp; How to leave one world and enter the other? How to enter the largest democracy in the world, where the highest number of undernourished people on Earth live? Where hundreds of millions live on less than two dollars a day? I buy a cup of chai for twelve cents, lunch for a dollar. I ride the Metro for a dime. I cash a travellers cheque for one hundred American dollars, leaving the bank with such a large wad of bills crammed into my money belt that I look pregnant. Is this what it feels like to be rich? This secret thrill of knowing I could buy almost anything I want right now? I could stay in the best hotel in the city, eat at the best restaurant. I could buy hand-woven silks and a cartload of jasmine flowers. I could buy it all and you would still be crouched there, by the side of the road, watching the buses pass.
I had come to Kolkata to help. Instead I could barely function. The heat exhausted me. The heartbreak of millions overwhelmed me. I knew I was a liability everywhere I went, in need of clean water, uncontaminated food, a toilet. So I sought out Kolkata’s famous coffee houses and bookstores. I walked through neighbourhoods where mansions stood behind barbed wire fences and armed guards, where women with pure gold woven through their saris talked on cell phones and ate croissants in European-style bistros.
The waiter cleared away my half-eaten breakfast. “Your husband will not be happy, Madame.”
The Lonely Girl
They unfurled from a dark mass into gossamer wisps, passing through the deodar cedars like ghosts, twisting along footpaths through the tea plantations, revealing entire villages in their wake: rusty tin roofs, white-washed walls. The clouds seeped through my French windows, settling on a four-poster teak bed that had originally belonged to G.H. Batterbury, Chief Engineer of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in the early 1900s. I shivered.
