by Angela Long
We were the last jeep to arrive, passing hundreds of other jeeps parked on the side of the road. Luckily our driver had connections and continued right up to the compound where only special tour jeeps were allowed. He slid into a spot.
Everyone had already taken their places. The viewing pavilion was built like a triple layer cake made of cinder block and glass. It was easy to tell the people on the top layer in the heated lounge had been there awhile, clearly enjoying their cups of complimentary chai. The two bottom layers were warmed by body heat. Children were passed from one set of shoulders to another, and the Indian tourists, clearly accustomed to being awake at such an hour, became excited by the smallest break in the clouds. “Where are you from?” they asked. “Are you married? Any children?”
The general-viewing inner sanctum quickly became claustrophobic. We went outside where more hordes had gathered, climbing fire escapes, pressing against railings. Cameras stood poised, clicking madly at anything that moved. A woman called up from the parking lot, “Chai! Chai!”
I held the warm shooter cup and drank it in one gulp. “Another?” she asked.
A young girl from Bangalore encouraged me to climb with her to the top rungs of the fire escape while the security guard looked the other way. We hung from the ladder, feeling the chill of the high-elevation clouds – snow clouds, she told me they were called – passing through us. A dime-sized orange sphere began to burn through the clouds. Chatter subsided. Camera shutters opened. Click, click, click.
Suddenly a cheer rose up, the kind of cheer I’d only heard in India – joyous, heart-felt, loud. The girl and I looked and looked at the orange disc and wondered what all the fuss was about. Then we heard a collective intake of breath and a chorus of Oooohs and Ahhhhhs.
“Pema!!” the girl’s mother yelled. “Other side! Other side!”
Quickly we climbed down the ladder and pushed our way through to the other side. And there they were, shedding clouds like the blankets of waking giants, rising above the valley like another universe. But it wasn’t over yet. Khangchendzonga, the great five-peaked snow fortress, the third- highest peak in the world, began to glow in a rose-coloured light. One by one, other peaks began to glow. Just as the Lonely Planet had promised.
As the sun rose higher, the peaks grew brighter, filling the horizon with a blinding white light. Darjeeling lay below, a city made of toy blocks. I had one of those moments when your heart skips a beat. I’d felt it before – standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, walking beneath the pillars of the Acropolis. But this was different. Now I knew why I did this – why I packed up everything in boxes over and over and said my good-byes. It was to stand here with strangers, all facing the same direction, knowing for certain this time that we were just specks in the universe. But that we were specks together.
The Young Woman
I didn’t see her at first. I was too caught up in the chanting of Om Mani Padme Om. “Are you married?” she asked. She wore a sari the colour of lapis lazuli. Her hair shone with coconut oil and good health. She was young, barely twenty.
I decided to tell her the truth. “No,” I said, touching my fake wedding ring.
A group of Tibetan refugees walked past chanting Om Mani Padme Om.
“Even though I’m not Buddhist, I come here when I feel like I can’t go on,” she said waving towards the bodhi tree. Her hand shook a little. “I dream to be like you. Free to be independent. To see the world. To do anything I want.”
A group of beggars arrived behind the wrought-iron gate surrounding Bodh Gaya’s Mahabodhi Temple. They poked bony wrists through the openings and flipped open their palms. “Rupee, please?” they asked. “Madame! Madame!” they called. Some held tin bowls, clanging them against the bars.
More Tibetans circled. Om Mani Padme Om. Nearly every one of them dropped something into the palms and tin bowls, even those who looked like they’d just crossed the Himalayas by foot. I listened to the clink, clink, clink of coins hitting tin.
I noticed the young woman’s eyes welling up with tears. She lowered her head. “Forgive me for bothering you. It means so much to me that you were willing to talk,” she said, placing her palms between her chest. “Namaste.”
She was gone before I could give her my hotel’s address, invite her for dinner, tell her she wasn’t alone.
I circled until the colours of the sky began to shift hues, until the birds settled into the branches for one last burst of song. Om Mani Padme Om.
I walked back outside the temple gate, back into India. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by this world: the stray dogs, the cows, the heat, the man pushing himself along the pavement on stumps, the reception line of women and children in filthy clothing sitting listlessly on the pavement where they lived, the calls of the vendors, the blaring Hindi music, the rickshaw motors, the bus growls, the diesel fumes.
I sat down to drink a chai. Soon the beggars swarmed around me, but the chai-stand owner uttered one harsh-sounding syllable, and they dispersed.
The Beggars
1. Barefoot Girl
Don’t give to the beggars, they tell me, especially the children, especially the little girl who stares as I take a bite of chocolate-mocha torte, her eyes like riverbed stones. The little barefoot girl in a once-powder-blue party dress, with once-white-lace ruffles. A dress made to fit snug on the shoulders, to graze the bottom of the knee, to zip up the back and be accompanied by white tights and patent leather shoes. A dress made for a girl twice her age, for a girl who has tasted birthday cake. Don’t give to the beggars, they tell me. I chew. Swipe away a crumb.
2. Eyes Too Bright
Walk. Walk briskly. Hold head high. . Ignore the man with stumps for legs propelling himself along with stumps for hands on a board with wheels, pushing through the cow dung, betel nut spit, puddles of dirty water. Ignore that he’s the same height as the rib cages of those feral dogs fighting over mouldy chapatis. Ignore that his stumps are so worn they shine. Don’t make eye contact. His eyes are too bright. Too beautiful. Walk even more briskly. He’s catching up. Run. Run if you have to. Run.
3. Milk, Please
I order chai by the temple. They appear from behind the stands that sell prayer flags – a young boy holding a baby girl in his arms. They watch me, and I am used to this by now. I hold the glass, listening to mantras play on the loudspeakers, watching the flags droop in the heat. Four eyes follow the route of glass rim to the edge of lips. I sip, and the boy’s mantra begins: Rupee please, biscuits please. Milk. Please. I sip. The baby’s lips are so dry. I sip. Her cheeks so caked with the filth of all of this.
The Doctor
First we stopped for samosas, then chai. Then we picked up the pharmacist.
“Our medicine man,” the doctor joked. The nurse giggled. The jeep drove past the mud huts and thatched roofs of the Bihar Plains, heading to where we would set up the weekly mobile clinic in the countryside surrounding Bodh Gaya.
The villagers waited on the veranda of a building fronted by Roman columns, its once periwinkle walls stained by the soot of the highway. They waited, jiggling babies on hips, leaning on canes, sitting against the walls staring at the highway. The pharmacist swept out the building with a broom made of twigs. The doctor set his briefcase on a rusty metal desk and arranged his files. The nurse wandered among the villagers, handing out colour-coded cards: pink for urgent, yellow for less-urgent. And then she distributed the numbers. Who arrived first this morning? A woman in a turquoise sari holding the hand of a very pale boy raised her pink card in the air. She had arrived at dawn.
The villagers had the patience of the water buffalo that grazed these surrounding fields, enduring the heat, the mosquitoes, and the dust with an unnerving calm. Perhaps they had the patience of those who didn’t have much to wait for. Skin stretched taut over bone. Clothing hung loose. But smiles came easily; the doctors had come to their village.
T
he pharmacist spread a large piece of burlap on the dirt floor, opened a large wooden case, and propped it up like a medicine cabinet to face him. He arranged brown glass bottles with hand-printed labels: Artemisia absinthium, Piper longum, Carthamus tinctorius. He filled plastic vials with tiny white sugar pills. From a cardboard box, he unpacked containers of mineral salts: magnesium, potassium, calcium, iron. He settled himself cross-legged on the burlap, looked at the doctor, then the nurse, and nodded. The woman in turquoise entered and stood before the doctor, speaking with a soft voice, her eyes downcast. The little boy wrapped himself around her leg, buried his face into the folds of her sari. The doctor wrote a prescription on a white slip. The woman passed the slip to the pharmacist, her eyes still downcast, the boy still hiding from view, and the day began.
The second patient arrived – an old man leaning on a wooden cane. Every step looked painful. The doctor worked quickly. He ripped a white slip from his notepad. The old man passed it to the pharmacist with a shaky hand. Seven droplets of Annona reticulata absorbed into the sugar pills. He explained to the man what he must do. The man looked confused, and the pharmacist explained again. The man looked at him helplessly. But the next slip had arrived. “Go now my friend, go now,” the pharmacist said. The old man limped toward the wall, slumping down to rest on his haunches, turning the plastic vial round and round in his hands. Next, a young woman in a marigold-orange sari waited as the pharmacist shook a packet of mineral salts. She held her palms between her chest in prayer position, her head bowed. The pharmacist explained, “You must drink this mixture in water three times per day.”
The woman nodded her head. “Thank you sir, thank you sir.” She backed away, palms still together.
Soon the white slips began to pile up. The pharmacist shook and measured. The patients watched and bowed. Fever. Malnutrition. Infertility. The pharmacist sealed the vials. Explained what to do as more and more patients arrived. Depression. Rheumatism. Anemia. Outside, transport trucks and buses honked every few seconds, sending plumes of diesel fumes onto the veranda. The vehicles drove quickly through Bandha, quickly through the entire state of Bihar, a state known for its bandits, militants, and corrupt officials. But the young girl awaiting her prescription was oblivious to the highway. She soothed the baby in her arms, patting the sweat from its brow with the edge of a threadbare shawl. With kohl-rimmed eyes, she stared curiously at the bottle of Ocimum sanctum in the pharmacist’s hands.
Finally the doctor stopped, looked at the others. It was time for lunch. They walked outside to a spigot and took turns washing hands while the other pumped. The nurse closed the clinic doors. The room cooled instantly. Another piece of burlap was laid upon the ground. A tower of stainless steel tins was dismantled and the containers passed around to be shared. Dal. Basmati rice. Aloo gobi. The doctor sliced a cucumber. The nurse, a tomato. The pharmacist, a lemon. They distributed small green chilies. Lunch began. The doctor talked about the old man. Fifty-years old. Tuberculosis. Soon he would die. The little boy? Leukemia, undiagnosed for too long. They didn’t have any equipment beyond a stethoscope. He too would die soon. The doctor bit the tip of a chili. There was nothing they could do but offer sugar pills, and tiny droplets of hope.
Within half an hour lunch was over and the burlap folded. The pharmacist settled himself cross-legged in front of his cabinet; the doctor arranged his files. They nodded at the nurse. She opened the doors and the bright light of Bandha flooded the room. A girl with stunning long-lashed eyes had been waiting to collect the leftovers. She walked awkwardly across the veranda, legs twisted from polio. The villagers divided the chapatis into halves. They had their own system of distributing the food, their own order of urgency. The children received the largest portions. The old man was next. Most ate nothing. The nurse called the next number, and the afternoon began.
The Villagers
Luckily, Jessica spoke Hindi. “Come to the village,” the girl with legs twisted from polio said. From our piece of burlap spread on the cement floor, we looked towards the doctor. He shrugged.
“Enjoy,” he said, rifling through a sheaf of dog-eared files. “Volunteers have been there before. It’s safe.”
Jessica and I stopped filling vials with glucose pills. We pulled aside the curtain of the mobile clinic and stood on the veranda with the waiting patients. The girl positioned herself between us. She took our hands. As we entered the sunshine, a group of barefoot children fell into line behind us. We crossed a dusty field filled with a few scrawny water buffalo and tufts of grass, traversing the highway and a ditch filled with garbage. We arrived to not much more than a smattering of mud-and-wattle huts the same ochre colour as the surrounding countryside, walls patterned with pats of buffalo dung left to dry in the sun.
The children whispered. I didn’t need to understand the language to know they were talking about us. They fanned out into a semi-circle. They spotted my watch, Jessica’s blue eyes. But they were too polite to stare too long at one place. They took us in as though we were paintings, eyes darting from one blotch of colour to another.
“This way,” the girl, clearly their leader, commanded when she felt they’d looked enough. She led us to a dried-up river gulch where a Hindu temple rose from its banks. A weather-worn façade writhed with the body parts of goddesses. Banyan roots twisted into its foundations, cracking open the sandstone. I smelled incense. Damp earth. Something too ancient to name.
“Let’s go back,” I whispered to Jessica, but our leader had already entered. The other children stood at the threshold, encouraging us to step across.
Some travellers instinct kicked in. A wariness of dark unknown places where anyone could be hiding. I reminded myself this was India, and India’s poorest state. But the children smiled. Go, go, they gestured, puzzled by such hesitation.
“Let’s go,” Jessica said, and entered the gloom. The children stayed behind.
When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the bats. They hung from the upper reaches of domes, or swooped from one stone goddess to another. It was difficult not to step in their guano. Next, I saw a long white beard and bare torso.
“Sadhu,” our leader whispered. Holy man.
Somewhere from within the folds of her dress, she produced an offering. She laid a coin in a stone receptacle filled with marigold blossoms. The sadhu didn’t look up from the flames of his small fire. Our leader stared at us. We rummaged around in our money belts. Her eyes took in the crisp bills we placed beside her coin. “Go,” she said, gesturing towards the entrance. A few moments later, she followed.
The children awaited us in the sunshine. Their numbers had swelled. We walked back in the direction of the huts where women stood in dark doorways. Two plastic chairs had been set up in a small clearing.
“Sit, sit!” our leader commanded. We sat. The children giggled. Our leader addressed Jessica.
“They want to know if you’re a movie star,” Jessica translated. I smiled and shook my head. The children looked a little disappointed. “Maybe it’s the sunglasses,” Jessica said, and I realized I’d forgotten to take them off. A woman stepped forward from a dark doorway. “She wants to know if you’re married.” When I started to shake my head, Jessica advised: “Say yes.” I nodded. Everyone looked relieved. Other women stepped forward from other dark doorways. The questions continued: “How old are you?” “Where are your children?” “Where is your husband?” “Father?” “Brother?” “Why have they left you alone?”
Suddenly our leader announced it was time to move on. Two children were delegated the task of carrying our chairs. More and more villagers joined in the procession. We rounded a bend where a low wall sat in front of a roofless building made of cinder blocks.
“That’s the school,” Jessica translated as we settled into our chairs. “Now they’re asking if you like sugar-cane.”
“I love it,” I said, and nodded enthusiastically. Everyone smiled at this ne
w tidbit of information. I waited. Would they serve it with freshly squeezed lime?
But no one moved. The villagers stared. “What’s going on?” I whispered to Jessica. The leader spoke.
“Oh,” Jessica turned and looked at me. She laughed. “I made a mistake. They said singing, not sugar cane. They’re waiting for a song.”
“But I can’t sing.”
“You have to. Just sing anything. I’ll sing along if I know it.”
I looked out at the villagers’ expectant faces, took a deep breath, and sang the first thing that came to mind. Jessica shot me a puzzled look. “Jingle bells! Jingle bells!” we sang.
The villagers clapped. “Again!” they demanded. “Again!” And so we sang. At first it was a little boy who figured out the words and sang along to the chorus. Then it was the whole village. They sang, heedless of pronunciation. They sang, gustily, with perfect pitch. Frosty the Snowman. Rudolph. Jessica and I sang louder. We rose from our chairs and held out our arms to the hot afternoon sun.
“Thank you,” our leader said after the first verse of “Deck the Halls.” The villagers nodded their heads in agreement. Some clasped hands in front of their chests and bowed. The chairs were whisked away. The women returned to their doorways. It was time to go.
The leader took her place between Jessica and me. She limped along slowly, the full weight of every moment sinking in. We’d move on, far away from this village, and these children would remain here. I looked at their bare feet and tattered clothing. I felt the warmth of one of their hands in mine. They led us safely through the barren fields, past the barking dogs, across the pot-holed highway. When we arrived back at the makeshift clinic, the children dispersed. No one said good-bye.
