River Town Chronicles

by Leighton Hazlehurst

  That afternoon, I walked to the outskirts of town, towards the pond the sadhu had assured me was connected to the Ganges River via an underground passageway. I had heard there were some religious pilgrims there, and I wanted to meet them. As I approached this sacred spot, a group of bare chested men in loin cloths and wearing sacred threads across their chests were lounging in the shade of a tree. Next to them was a collection of brass pots arranged in a circle. As I approached the men, one of them jumped up, grabbed a large stick and advanced towards me, swinging the stick wildly above his head. Another man rushed up and urged the man to put the stick down. The man with the stick had mistaken me for a Muslim and was apparently worried that I would defile this sacred spot.

  I asked where they had come from and where they were going. They said they had been to Hardwar, a sacred place where the Ganges River flows out of the Himalayas and down onto the plains of North India. They said they had been walking for weeks, and carried Ganges water in the brass pots that were arranged in a circle on the ground. They had carried the sacred water on poles balanced across their shoulders and never put the water on the ground until they reached this pure and sacred spot on the outskirts of River Town. They said they would carry the water back to their village, in order to provide a sip of purifying Ganges water to cleanse the souls of those about to die.

  I continued my walk around the outskirts of town and then up the lane to our house. There was a large crowd across from the house, standing in front of the sweet shop. The mochi saw me coming and pointed across the lane to the sweet shop. I pushed through the crowd to get a better view. First, I saw Brian and Lori sitting up on the elevated platform of the shop. Then, I saw Tim, sitting cross legged in front of a karaii, (a shallow brass kettle). He was squeezing batter from a cloth sack into hot ghee (clarified butter,) in the kettle, making a series of concentric circles. When they were crisp, he scooped them out and dropped them into another brass utensil filled with a warm syrup of sugar water. He drained the jalebis (pretzel shaped sweets) with a perforated spoon, and served them piping hot to customers crowding in front of the sweetshop, while Brian and Lori took orders and collected the money. I made my way to the front of the crowd and asked Tim where Ram Lal, the shopkeeper, was. Without looking up, his hands still busy with the jalebis, he nodded towards the back of the shop. Ram Lal was stretched out on his charpoi, taking a nap, his snores barely audible above the noise of the crowd. Apparently, Tim had progressed from apprentice mochi to apprentice jalebi maker, while Brian and Lori practiced their addition and subtraction, skills expected of all the young merchant children in River Town.

  That evening, before dinner, I picked up the biin again, and was able to play a few notes before bhabhi rushed in with her hands over her ears. “Sahab. Sahab. Biin mat bajaoo. Ek samp nikal gaya!” (Sahab. Sahab. Don’t play the biin. A snake has come out!) Bhabhi claimed a snake had come out through the wall in her kitchen! Was there really a snake, I wondered? Or, was bhabhi simply searching for a way to end the screeching sounds of an aspiring snake charmer?

  A STRANGE ILLNESS

  PAT WAS PREPARING DINNER one evening, and asked me to come outside to the kitchen area. “Look,” she said. “Do my hands look swollen to you?” I told her I thought they looked puffy. She said her hands itched, and a few minutes later she said her arms itched too. Not long after that, bhabhi and Ram Swarup joined in the diagnosis. Bhabhi thought we should call in a traditional medicine woman who knew how to cure all sorts of illnesses. In the meantime, Ram Swarup left and then returned with a heavy wool blanket and wrapped it around Pat. He squatted down in front of her and watched for some sign of improvement. “It’s getting worse,” Pat said. “It feels like my throat is swelling up, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to breathe.” I rushed out to the rickshaw stand and hired the first one I saw. This was not the time to haggle over price, as I had become accustomed to doing. I would have paid any price. I bundled Pat into the rickshaw, still wrapped in the heavy wool blanket, and told the rickshaw walla to take us to the hospital. “Hurry,” I pleaded. The rickshaw walla looked back at Pat and dug his feet hard into the pedals. When we arrived, I was told that the doctor was on leave for the next month— in New Zealand. One of the nurses on duty asked to examine her. She observed the symptoms, asked a few questions and then said, “Open up and swallow this!” She poured some liquid down Pat’s throat, and a few moments later Pat was retching into a bucket. She remained bent over for what seemed like an eternity. I asked the nurse what was wrong with her. “Don’t know. But whatever is inside her needs to come out.” The nurse insisted that Pat stay overnight in the hospital, just to be sure there were no complications.

  The next morning, I loaded the children on my bike (Brian on the handlebars, Lori on the bar in front of me and Tim on the rack over the rear fender) and wobbled out of town in the direction of the hospital. When we arrived, Pat was sitting up in bed. “I feel fine,” she said. “I’m a little sore from throwing up all night, but otherwise I feel fine.”

  Before we left for home, the nurse took me aside and said she thought it would be a good idea if we stayed at the doctor’s house while he was away. “It would be good for all of you to get some fresh air,” she said. “And the hot season will be here soon.” I really didn’t want to leave the bazaar, but I said we would think about it and thanked her for helping Pat. Then we headed home, Pat and Lori in a rickshaw and Tim, Brian and I on the bike. On the way back, I was thinking over what the nurse had said. Maybe it was time for a change.

  SWIMMING TOWARD SHORE

  WE DECIDED TO MAKE THE MOVE to the doctor’s house on the outskirts of town. With the hot months of summer approaching, and the prospect of perhaps more illness, we reluctantly decided it was best for us to move. It was hard to tear away from our life in the bazaar and the friends we had met there. It was especially hard to leave Ram Swarup, bhabhi and their children who, by now, were like family members. Life would be less interesting without Kaga’s shrill voice, without the mochi’s quiet presence, without Lallaji’s orchestration of the cacophony of the metal trade outside our door, and without visits to the sweet shop across the lane.

  I loaded our belongings into the same gunny sack we had arrived with and heaved it up onto the back of the tonga. The trip out of town was bittersweet.

  The doctor’s house was a recently built, modern structure with a real kitchen, including a stove and refrigerator and kitchen table. A flush toilet, that didn’t argue with you or threaten you with a broom, replaced the services of Kaga. There were no monkeys on the roof top. No rats climbing the walls, no birds flying around inside the house to contend with. The surroundings were peaceful and quiet. All of this may sound good, but the result was a feeling of isolation and detachment. We could have been living anywhere, unaware we were actually in India, and certainly unaware of River Town.

  The next few weeks I spent reviewing my notes and writing. A certain malaise soon set in. The longer I spent in the doctor’s house on the outskirts of town, the more I felt the rip current of River Town recede. It was time to begin the swim to shore.

  We made the rounds of the bazaar to say our good-bys to the people we had come to love and rely on and headed once more for Delhi.

  A VISIT TO KASHMIR

  I MADE CONTACT with a travel agent in New Delhi who made arrangements for us to fly to Kashmir as part of our return ticket to the U.S. We boarded a small propeller plane at the Delhi Airport. The plane wobbled its way through turbulent air, as the pilot navigated through the valleys of the tallest mountain range in the world. At times we seemed to be swallowed up in banks of thick clouds that made me hold my breath until we emerged on the other side, into the sunlight. All the while, the pilot engaged in a lively banter with white knuckled passengers behind him.

  Finally, we approached a small runway in the Vale of Kashmir, and the pilot set the plane down smoothly in a truly magnificent landscape. I hired a taxi to take us to a houseboat on Dal Lake, where the owner gree
ted us like we were long lost friends. It is hard to describe the beauty of living on a houseboat in Dal Lake. Each morning, small boats approached selling everything imaginable; fresh fruits, flowers, vegetables, handicrafts, intricately carved wooden objects, shawls and embroidered clothing. Once we bought something, word got around and soon there was a procession of small boats clamoring to sell us all sorts of things.

  After several days on Dal Lake, we boarded a bus for Pahlgam, a small town higher up in the mountains, where I had made arrangements to stay in a tent camp. Our tent was situated on a grassy plateau, at the base of enormous snow covered peaks. Here, we felt we were absolutely alone in the immense solitude of the Himalayas. The nights were still and bitter cold. We slept on cots, nestled under a heap of blankets piled on top of us.

  On the second morning of our stay in Pahlgam, Pat hired ponies and a guide to take the children on a pony ride, while I hired a guide and some fishing gear to check out the fishing in a roaring river near our camp. Mangle was my guide, and we started at one end of our designated fishing area, called a “beat”, and worked our way down stream. I didn’t really expect to catch anything, but within minutes I hooked a huge brown trout, caught in a sheltered pool of water in the fast moving river. Then I hooked another. And then another. I was ready to quit, but Mangle insisted that I catch a couple more of the monster trout so he could take some fish home for his family. When we finally left the river, Mangle surreptitiously tucked several fish under his shirt, leaving me with a legal limit of fish. I took the fish back to the tent camp and gave them to the cook to prepare for dinner, and then went to look for Pat and the kids. After a while, I spotted Pat on the lead pony, followed by Tim and Lori. The guide took up the rear. “Where’s Brian?” I asked. Just then, another pony appeared, minus its rider. The guide laughed out loud and turned around. He pointed in the direction of Brian, who was walking toward the tent with a disgusted look on his face. “He got bucked off,” Lori said with a faint hint of victory in her voice.

  That night we shared a delicious dinner of fresh trout with the cook and some of the cook’s helpers. I guess that the river must not have been fished much since the British left, leaving time for the trout to fatten up and grow stupid in the meantime.

  We spent a leisurely two weeks in one of the most beautiful places on earth, exploring the peaks and valley around us. It was a world completely removed from the crowds and scorching heat of the plains of India. Here, the local residents wore faherens (loose fitting wool cloaks). They could pull their arms and hands inside their cloaks through the baggy sleeves. Inside their cloaks, when they were cold, they held small clay pots filled with hot coals that heated their bodies and kept them warm. Unlike what we are used to in the West, where we heat the whole house in order to keep the body warm, the Kashmiris heated their bodies instead of the empty space around them. It seemed like a good solution, providing that one didn’t fall asleep and set themselves on fire, as I was told occasionally happened.

  ONE LAST TRIP TO RIVER TOWN

  WE ARRIVED BACK IN DELHI aboard the same old wobbly propeller plane. With just a week left before our Indian visas expired, I wanted to return to River Town for a final visit in order to give away our remaining household goods that were still stored in the gunny sack at the doctor’s house. I wanted to give half of the goods to Kaga and the other half to the mochi.

  When I arrived in front of our old house in the bazaar, I caught a glimpse of Roshan walking ahead of me with a group of men. They turned into gali lathmaron ki (the stick beaters lane,), and I followed them. I caught up with Roshan and the crowd of men just as they stopped in front of a merchant’s house. From inside came a god awful wailful sound. Roshan rushed over to me with a distressed look on his face. I asked him what was wrong. “Do bachee bahut bimar hain” (two boys are very sick), he said. He said they were brothers, from the same household. I asked him if anyone had called the doctor. Roshan said it was no use. A shaman had already been called to exorcise the demons inside the two boys. But the boys were dying. They had both been bitten by a mad dog. “Rabies,” Roshan stammered. The wailing grew louder. “They will be dead soon,” a man next to us chimed in. “The boys have gone mad.” I asked again if anyone had called the doctor. “Too late, “came the answer. I heard the boys’ relatives screaming from inside the house. The crowd outside stood silently, mourning what was occurring inside.

  I felt terror and anger. How did anyone expect a shaman to cure the boys? It was only later that I reconciled the deaths of these two boys with the thought that perhaps the shaman was not there to cure the boys, but to offer an explanation to the living of something that was otherwise incomprehensible.

  Later that night I heard how the boys had taken in a stray puppy as a pet. The dog had bitten both boys, and before long they both began to exhibit the symptoms of hydrophobia (rabies). No one what knew what to make of the symptoms at first, and by the time they suspected rabies it was too late. I shuttered to think of how many stray dogs in River Town might have had rabies. And how lucky we were not to have suffered a similar fate. It seemed I had come full circle, having arrived for the very first time in River Town to the sight of a rabid dog being bludgeoned to death across from our house in the bazaar. And now, on my final visit to River Town, hearing the agonizing cries of our neighbors whose children suffered such a horrible death.

  The next morning I made the rounds of the bazaar for a final time, saying my goodbys to the shopkeepers, the metal workers and the street vendors who had allowed us to live in their midst. I said a special farewell to the mochi and to Kaga, who swished her broom at me one last time. I distributed what was left of our household goods to the two of them. Most difficult was saying goodby to bhabhi and Ram Swarup and their children, who had been part of our family in River Town. Roshan went with me to the train station, where we said our goodbys and agreed to meet again in the U.S., “God willing.”

  AT THE AIRPORT

  IT WAS EARLY IN THE MORNING when we arrived at the airport in Delhi for our trip back to the U.S. People were wrapped up in sheets and sprawled out on the floor of the reception area waiting for flights to arrive or depart. From somewhere came an unmistakable voice. “Sahab, Sahab, we have come to see you off to Amrika.” It was bhabhi, barefoot and dressed in a simple white cotton sari. Her eyes were as bright as searchlights, as she scanned the surroundings in search of some familiar landmark. Ram Swarup, Madhu, Shakti, Mohan, Bhushan, Meena and Paphu straggled in behind her, looking tired and bewildered. I asked Ram Swarup how they had traveled to Delhi, and he said, “by train.” “And then,” he added, “we all—all eight of us—piled into a taxi for the ride from the train station to the airport.”

  Bhabhi picked up Brian and hoisted him onto her hip. Then she said, as if anticipating the questions of the crowd that had gathered around her, “Yeh hamara chota sahab” (this is our little sahab), looking into Brian’s eyes. “Chota Sahab and his family live with us,” but are leaving for a visit to Amrika.” This was her way of saying, I suppose, that we weren’t leaving for good. We would be back.

  We sat down for a cup of tea. Bhabhi picked up her tea and raced to the window when she heard the roar of jet engines. She covered her ears, just as she did in River Town when Kaga showered her with insults and obscenities. When finally our flight was announced, there was much hugging, and tears streamed down bhabhi’s face. We said our final goodbys, and then, just before boarding the plane, I reached into my pockets and pulled out all of the rupees and all the coins that remained there and stuffed them into Menna’s and Paphu’s hands. I took one final look back and knew at once that a huge emptiness would forever be with us as we left behind all of the pleasures and perils of our life in River Town.

  WASHED ON SHORE

  OUR TRAVEL AGENT IN DELHI (the same agent who arranged the trip to Kashmir as part of our return ticket) scheduled stops in Kabul and Tehran. We were fortunate to roam around the bazaars of Kabul and Tehran, and to visit the beautiful build
ings, mosques and gardens of Kabul before they were reduced to rubble in the brutal conflicts that followed. Landing at the airport in Beirut, with nervous armed guards patrolling the runways, provided a preview of what was to come.

  Culture shock set in abruptly, once we arrived in Germany, and then France. Our first encounter with culture shock was in a toy store in Germany. Tim, Brian and Lori immediately set out to sample the toys with wheels, riding them around inside the store like Delhi taxi wallas. In India, this behavior by children would have been tolerated, even encouraged, by the shopkeepers. But here, in Germany, they were scolded and we slunk out of the store. In France, things were no different. The children were yelled at while running around on park lawns in Paris. The well manicured lawns were apparently for decoration only. It soon became clear to them that they were entering a different world, filled with new expectations. It was a world where everyone seemed slightly sedated, and drained of the energy and excitement of River Town.

  We finally arrived in New York, where we had made arrangements to spend a few days with friends in an apartment that overlooked Central Park. We were bedraggled from all the traveling. When we approached the doorman to the apartment, still carrying our belongings in a tattered Indian suitcase and a couple of wicker baskets secured with heavy brass locks, he glared at us suspiciously before calling up to our friends apartment and allowing us entry. We stayed in the city for a few days and then traveled to Ithaca, New York, where I had been hired as an Instructor in the Anthropology Department at Cornell University. In Ithaca, the children found new friends. For the first few days, Brian insisted on speaking Hindi, which to him seemed natural enough when speaking with children his own age. With puzzled looks on their faces, they turned to Tim, who served as his interpreter. It wasn’t long before Brian abandoned Hindi entirely and began to speak only in English.