Kevin and I in India

by Frank Kusy

  As we watched in mixed fascination and horror, a small Indian boy appeared on a raised stone turret directly above the carrion birds and began lobbing large bricks and chunks of rubble down on them. One huge rock connected head-on with a vulture, dealing it a mighty blow. But it scarcely acknowledged this attack, for it made no attempt to fly away.

  Past the impressive old walls and temples of Ram Ghat, we came once more to the burning grounds of Manikarnika Ghat. The whole area was dotted with high towers of wood and logs, which would be used to supply the funeral pyres. Before descending down into the ghat itself, we fortified ourselves with a ‘Limca’ lemon drink at a small backstreet shop to its rear. No sooner had we sat down than an eerie wail of human voices and musical instruments came into earshot. ‘Sounds like a body,’ remarked Kevin briefly. And he was right. Minutes later, a small band of flute and drum players came into view. They were followed by a small funeral bier on which a body rested, beneath a bright orange and red silk sheet. The sheet was covered with garlands of yellow flowers and a number of tiny red flags. The contrast between this noisy, colourful spectacle and the sombre, quiet and drab burial rituals of Western-style funerals struck us both. We decided to finish our drinks quickly, and follow on in the wake of the body to see what happened to it.

  From the crest of the ghat, we observed the corpse’s passage down the steps until it reached the water’s edge. Here it was sanctified by shaven-headed priests, and its relatives and friends paid their last respects. I began to feel uncomfortable. I had the distinct feeling that I was being watched. Glancing suddenly to my right, I came eye to empty eye-socket with a charred human skull, grinning lifelessly at me from atop a nearby pyre. To my left, two new corpses had arrived, both wrapped in expensive silk shrouds. As we watched, these were covered very carefully with a number of wood logs, then sprinkled with perfumed wood chips and incense. After that, they were set alight. The intense heat generated by the roaring blaze struck us forcefully, even though we were ten yards distant from it. And both of us jumped up with alarm when, minutes later, the heads of the corpses exploded with two loud pops.

  We were just preparing to leave when another angry young man turned up. ‘You are tourists coming to see bodies burning, yes?’ he attacked. ‘But you are not understanding our religion. So why you come here?’ I replied that these scenes gave us no morbid pleasure, but that we had simply come to pay our respects to the dead. Mollified, our guest insisted we take tea with his uncle. His ‘uncle’ turned out to be the proprietor of a silk factory. What a surprise. We were seated on a plush room-size cushion and invited to take off our shoes. Kevin surveyed my socks with distaste, and politely suggested I take them down to the ghats for ritual burning. Owing to mosquito invasions, they hadn’t been off my feet for the last five days.

  The proprietor, a fat, sleek individual, introduced himself to us as an ‘honest businessman with genuine export connections’. After that, Kevin wanted to leave right away, but I persuaded him to stay. We were then shown some excellent samples of the ‘factory’s’ wares, and were told that it specialised in Japanese cocoon silk – apparently the best there is – and that if we didn’t believe this, we could test it by burning a few strands twisted between our fingers. This, the proprietor informed us, would supply an odour very much like the smell of burning flesh. However, since his shop lay downwind of the human funeral pyres and the sickly reek of burning flesh was all around us anyway, we really had no way of disputing his claims. In the end, on the slim off-chance that he was selling the genuine article, we bought a few samples and left.

  Part Four

  Basu and the Roof of the World

  March 18th

  After ten weeks in India, we left this morning for the Kingdom of Nepal. Kevin would be spending just seven days there, before returning to Bombay and thence back to England. For myself, I was allowing for at least three weeks in Nepal before getting back to grips with India once again.

  We had booked the coach trip to Kathmandu via the Garden View Hotel. Included in the Rs550 cost was a ‘free breakfast’ at the Hotel Most Welcome near the bus-stand. It was here that we came across a young Canadian girl, Poonam, who had been born in India and who still spoke perfect Hindi. As we strolled up, she was just in the process of mopping a thick layer of grease off her ‘free’ omelette with a wad of toilet paper. Following her example, we listened on as she gave us many helpful hints. One thing she particularly warned us against was the giving of money to child beggars. It only encouraged them to leave school early, she said, and left them no option later on but to take up begging as a full-time occupation.

  After eight long hours on the bus, we reached Sonauli on the India/Nepal border. We passed quickly through immigration, customs and police check-points, filling out forms all the way, and then took stock of our surroundings. Our first impressions were not good. The whole area round the border was derelict, filthy and generally unsavoury. And our ‘free’ lodgings for the night – at the Nepal Guest House – were an absolute disaster. The food in its attached restaurant was undercooked, over-spiced (even by Indian standards) and totally inedible. Several of us got stomach problems there. A banana pancake I ordered arrived with no bananas on it. Kevin ordered a ‘banana split’, and that was precisely what he got – a lone banana, with a split down the middle. Then Poonam turned up weeping: she had just found two strange men sharing her room. ‘There is no problem,’ claimed the manager, with an arrogant grin. We suggested he put his sister or mother in a room with two strange men, and wait for them to tell him what the problem was. But he was intransigent. So we gave Poonam our own room, and slept in the open dormitory instead. It was full of restless, loudly snoring tourists.

  Aggrieved by the manager’s attitude, I strode off into the dark for a quiet cup of tea. Before I knew it, I had wandered back into India. The border had been empty – no security, no police, no customs, nobody on duty at all.

  Back at the lodge, a new friend – Trevor – recounted his collection of Indian ‘signs’. While some of the best had been on buses (e.g. VIDEO IS NOT CONDITIONED and NO STANDING ALLOWED), his favourite was a Bombay street sign which had requested: PLEASE DO NOT COMMIT URINE! I retired to bed in much better spirits.

  March 19th

  As we boarded the 8.15am bus to Kathmandu, the lodge waiter came out to rant and rave at us for not paying the breakfast bill. If he called the evil slop he had served us ‘breakfast’, we informed him, he was quite insane. I regretted having eaten any of it. My stomach began to feel queasy.

  And as the beaten-up, battle-scarred bus began to pick up more and more passengers en route, my seating space became uncomfortably cramped. Nausea began to sweep over me, along with a dawning realisation of ill-health. I was aware of Nepal’s notorious reputation for sickness amongst travellers, but to be struck down on my very first day here – after such a good record throughout India – seemed so ridiculous that I determined to ignore it.

  But I couldn’t ignore it for long. Four hours into our journey, we made our only stop for food. Kevin and I opted for a sumptuous feast of dhal, plain rice and raw chipped potatoes. I stood up afterwards, and felt a strange, slimy, shifting sensation in my stomach. Moments later, the entire contents of my guts slid uncontrollably into my trousers. I just stood there, with a cup of tea in my hand, unable to believe what had just happened.

  Watched by a couple of curious Nepali children, I dived round the side of the restaurant and abandoned my splattered underpants. Then I climbed back on the bus, and tried to convince myself that six further hours on the bumpy roof with chronic diarrhoea wouldn’t be so bad.

  Practically everybody on board had got on the roof of the bus by now. It afforded much better views. The route to Kathmandu took us up a series of narrow mountain passes, adjacent to which was a long, winding river. The only way to cross this rapid, powerful river was via the few frail rope bridges that had been thrown across. Ascending the passes, the bus skirted sheer-drop prec
ipices at every turn and the grey-black foothills and mountains grew ever more formidable – until, at last, they blotted out the sun. With this, the wind blew icy and cold, and everybody on the roof stopped singing jolly songs and began to freeze to death. Prepared by the Patna-Nalanda run, I climbed into a sleeping bag and donned a thick sweater. Kevin was so desperate, he laid hold of a motorcycle helmet and strapped it round his head to keep his ears warm. The rest of him froze solid.

  At one point (thankfully) the bus stopped for a flock of vagrant sheep, and I toppled gratefully off the roof, my trousers round my ankles, and helplessly squitted in a ditch. Looking up, I saw a whole bus-load of impassive Indian faces gazing at me with polite interest. I motioned ‘Toilet paper?’ at them, but none was forthcoming so I had to use dirty leaves from the roadside instead. I was so sick, I was beyond embarrassment.

  We came into Kathmandu at 6.30pm, with grinning Nepalis clambering all over us and a sick woman liberally spraying vomit over every single passenger.

  Off the bus, I wanted only two things – a room to go away and quietly die in, and a chemist to give me something to make it painless. A friendly tout tuned up to guide us to lodgings. But at the New Diamond Cottage, it soon became plain that he was a compulsive liar. Everything he’d told us about this place to get us here was a figment of his imagination. There were no single rooms, only doubles. There was no ‘24-hour hot shower service’, only an overhead tap in the toilet with a thin, irregular dribble of cold water. And the hotel owner wasn’t a Gurkha Buddhist at all, but a Brahmin Hindu. The owner apologised for our having been brought there under false pretences, and gave us a reduced room-charge. He told us that the touts who brought him business received 50 per cent of each placement, so that it was little wonder that they resorted to such incredible fibs to attract tourists.

  I collapsed into bed at midnight. By now I was running a high fever. Only two things consoled me: it was refreshingly cool up here in the mountain valley, and there wasn’t a mosquito in sight. Being ill in Kathmandu was going to be a breeze compared to India!

  March 20th

  Having left instructions for my burial with Kevin, it was a considerable surprise to wake up this morning. My limbs still felt like water, but I would survive. Giving way to a fit of optimism, I went down to the Central Immigration Office to arrange a trekking expedition into the foothills of the Himalayas. I figured this would give me an excellent reason for getting well again.

  I obtained the standard seven-day trekking permit with ease. All they wanted was my passport, two photos, and proof that I had enough Nepalese money to survive up in the mountains should disaster strike. The whole thing took barely ten minutes. But if I thought this an improvement on Indian bureaucracy, I had yet to experience Kathmandu’s Tourist Information Centre. This gave me no information at all. The centre was manned by a bored, resentful youth who deflected every question or request I made with practised ease. I came out no wiser about Kathmandu than when I went in.

  Walking round, I began to draw my own conclusions. On the surface, the city appeared smart and clean. But the backstreets were absolutely filthy. Just off the spic-and-span main road, New Street, for instance, there was a butcher’s shop with flyblown goat heads and bleeding cow legs on display in the window. Past the front of the shop flowed a gutter full of liquid faeces and offal. Another contrast was presented by the apparent respect for the smart, efficient-looking police and military force. I say ‘apparent’, because every Nepali we met in fact loathed the heavy presence of the military. They only put up with them because they defended the King, who is something of a major deity in Nepal.

  The people of Kathmandu were a source of constant fascination. Even when they hassled for business or money, they did it with such charm and humour that you simply couldn’t take offence. The children I saw were all happy, all laughing and all mucky and snot-nosed. They seemed particularly fond of running up and down the backstreets, guiding large wooden hoops along with small metal sticks. The Nepali men generally passed by in small groups, each of them smiling brightly and wearing their fez-like topis. As for the women, they were usually walking around with a large troop of tiny slant-eyed children in tow. These women were nearly all beautiful, and nearly all pregnant. They appeared a good deal more open and friendly than the women of India, and the relationship between the two sexes here in Nepal seemed altogether more free and natural.

  Each of Nepal’s three royal cities – Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur – has its own Durbar Square, where all the main pagodas, temples and religious monuments are concentrated. The one in Kathmandu I found teeming with action and people – mainly Tibetans, Nepalis and Gurung mountain-folk in native dress trading in gems, knives, prayer-bells and others curios of tourist interest. There were also a number of tailors and clothes shops in this area, and a resident contingent of local musicians. Every one of them I listened to was performing ‘Frere Jacques’. It was the only tune they knew.

  This evening was a revelation. We came into Freak Street (so named because of its high population of hippies and spaced-out people) and found the Oasis Restaurant. Kevin went quite pop-eyed when he entered: all around him were display tables loaded with fresh apple pie, quiche Lorraine, banana cake and other culinary delights. After months of deprivation in India, it was almost more than he could bear. He gave a short grunt of disbelief, and ordered impossible helpings of everything in sight. By the end of the meal, we were both speechless. Kevin was in his seventh heaven. And I finished my repast with a ‘Double Night-Life Special’ (hot lemon laced with Khukri rum), which provided this excellent feast with the perfect complement. We retired to bed in the highest spirits for weeks.

  March 21st

  Travelling back to the Durbar Square by bicycle this morning, we met another of the friendly one-string fiddle players. This one wanted to sell us his fiddle. Kevin told him he had already bought a kerosene bicycle lamp (a most peculiar purchase) and that he had no money left. But the fiddle-player wasn’t deterred. He began playing his instrument as thought his life depended on it. And he didn’t just play ‘Frere Jacques’ either. He knew practically every Nepali folk-song going the rounds. A crowd of smiling locals gathered to listen to this charming performance with us. It was very good. But we still didn’t buy the fiddle.

  In Kathmandu, nearly every day is a festival of some sort. Today, the Godejatra (Festival of the Horse) was being celebrated. The streets were lined with laughing, mucky-faced children eating rice in leaf-plates, as between them passed a colourful performer twirling a long pole surmounted by top-knots of horse hair, as well as a small troupe of drum and flute players. We were just admiring this when Kevin spotted the Gurkha soldiers. They were passing by on parade. Kevin upped and bolted over to the sergeant, begging him for a photograph. To my great surprise, the sergeant brought the whole troupe to a halt, snapped them to attention, and let Kevin get his photo before marching them all off again.

  What really made Kevin’s day, however, was his purchase of an authentic Gurkha knife. And the manner in which he obtained it was quite extraordinary. One minute, he was sauntering indolently round the quiet Durbar Square, making casual enquiries about a souvenir pocket-knife to take back home. The next, he was surrounded by a bristling phalanx of traders, all urging him to buy the largest, most deadly blade possible. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Looking across the square, with all those knives being whipped out and flourished in the glinting sun, it seemed to me that Kevin was on the point of being murdered. Rushing over to his assistance, I found him instead in ecstatic top form.

  ‘Look what I’ve bought!’ he exclaimed jubilantly. ‘It’s a knife!’ I stared at it. It was more than just a knife. It was in fact the most scary-looking executioner’s hatchet I had ever seen. Kevin told me it had cost him just £22, and began waving it experimentally in the air. Everybody instantly stood well back.

  Back in our room, I was just having a quiet doze when I heard a strange sound in the background �
�� something like a regular thok...thok...thok. What was Kevin up to? I opened one eye to find out. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, hunched up like a garden gnome, methodically chipping bits off his wooden washing-brush with his new knife. The brush stood end-up on the ground, and the brutal blade was whistling down on it in a flashing arc of moving death...only to stop short a moment before each impact and chip a tiny sliver of wood away, in preference to hacking a huge hole in the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ I asked Kevin. He looked up, surprised. ‘I’m trying out my new knife, that’s what I’m doing!’ he retorted. And then he went back to work. By the time he was finished, the wood-block had been reduced to a neat little pile of wood shavings on the floor.

  Later on, we went down to the Ratna Park to see the military horse-riding and acrobatic display, which was to be opened by the King of Nepal. But the King forgot to turn up, so the display never started. What an unfortunate lapse of memory on his part! The huge crowds outside the stadium turned increasingly ugly, and the police were forced to wade in and start cracking many heads with the long wooden stanchions called ‘lathies’. It was a scene of total chaos.

  March 22nd

  As I popped the first ‘beedi’ (Indian cheroot) of the day into my mouth, I suggested that we celebrate my return to good health by spending the whole morning in the Oasis Restaurant. Kevin glanced briefly up from his resumed woodwork classes with the Gurkha knife, and smiled happily.