Holy Cow! an Indian Adventure

by Sarah Macdonald

  Johnny hoons up on a trail bike to meet us at the mandir, or temple. Dressed in a filthy orange lungi, he wears a rag around his long silver hair. His face is hard, weathered and friendly, and he has a dry sardonic Australian wit and drawl.

  ‘If Mother could see this place today, she’d laugh, I reckon. She was a bit of an odd witch and very strict but she had a sense of humour.’

  The community is divided into zones and Johnny is not in the inner architecturally beautiful swirl of homes; he’s out among the trees in a camp that looks like a final scene from the film Bliss. Small cabins on termite-proof concrete piles sit in a circle below eucalypt and jarrah trees that stretch high and wide creating a dense canopy. Dark ferns and shrubs cover the ground, and small black statues ring tree-stump stools. When Johnny left his Push mates to come here, he lived with his three kids on the beach for a year while helping plant two million trees in the red dust. He now lives below the fruits of his labour which make this haven at least ten degrees cooler than Pondicherry. The camp has fat content cows, meaty chooks, a brilliant black bullock and fields of millet, corn and fruit.

  Johnny makes us tea, offers millet biscuits and shakes his head when we talk about the twin towers of the World Trade Center. As I swat mosquitoes and survey his hard but simple life, I feel like asking him if I can move into the spare hut with the Mambo sticker on the door. When I was young my favourite Dr Seuss book was about a character looking to travel to Solah Saloo ‘where there were never any problems, at least very few’. When the fuzzy bear thing finally gets to the special place, there’s a problem with the keyhole. Johnny is the Auroville gatekeeper. He lets me down gently.

  ‘You know, you can’t change human nature. There’s no money here and more freedom, but as more people come, there are more personality clashes and we even have people who want to be bureaucrats. Can you imagine, that’s your creative goal?’ he guffaws.

  Back in Pondicherry at an internet cafe above a New Age bookshop I eventually manage to log on to the ABC website. I think Jonathan is in Pakistan and I want to email him; we haven’t talked for weeks and I need to send and receive words of love and discuss the different world we now live in. Up comes the news that the US is blaming outlawed Saudi magnate and al Qaeda frontman Osama bin Laden for the suicide attacks, and Afghanistan, the country that harbours bin Laden, is steadying itself for swift retribution. As I feared, there wouldn’t be any forgiveness or compassion, there will be more death and another cycle of hate. Experts warn that military action could begin any moment. The ABC site states that Jonathan is in Kabul.

  As I sit in shock, a new report flashes up – Kabul is under attack. I download an audio file of Jonathan talking on a crackled phone line as bombs explode in the background. He reports that it’s not known who is bombing the city but he believes it’s the Northern Alliance taking retribution on the Taliban for the recent killing of its leader, General Massoud.

  The self-cherishing mind of pre-Vipassana leaps back into action. My sadness for the victims of terrorism is submerged by self-interest. My compassion is annihilated by fear. I sob and feel sick. I then disgrace myself by ringing Jonathan’s boss, hysterically weeping and demanding he be flown out of Kabul this minute. Matt, Emma and Rebecca gently lead me out of the internet cafe and we stumble to the Ganesh temple across the road. A baby elephant with his face painted pink lifts his trunk to touch our heads in blessing. Rebecca suggests we buy some of the ready-packed baskets containing a coconut, a pink lotus flower and a banana as offerings and take them into the temple. We find ourselves standing in front of a disco Ganesh made entirely of slivers of mirror ball glass and handsomely attired in a party dress of coconut palms and garlanded with lotus flowers. My friends wish for new beginnings. I pray there’s no new ending. I pray to preserve my husband’s life.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  War and Inner Peace

  ‘Be steadfast for Allah in equity and let not hatred of any people seduce you that you deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty.’

  The Koran.

  Over two long nights on the train to Delhi I rock on a rack of fear, for this terrorism attack and inevitable war against Afghanistan just got personal. I may have learnt to accept the inevitability of my own death but I’ve never thought about a life without Jonathan. I’m no longer able to see all beings as equally precious, or my psychological state as empty, or to put my trust in a higher plan. By night I cry softly into the stained pillow through dreams in which I see myself standing under the burning towers trying to catch the people jumping to their deaths. By day I stare out the train window trying to retrieve my lost belief in a greater good.

  Back in Delhi, there’s news. Jonathan got the last seat on the last UN flight out of Kabul. He is safe in Pakistan. But he wants to go back to Afghanistan as soon as he can. I cannot understand why. Padma calls from New York; her husband Surinder was at the base of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit, he survived.

  ‘I tell you, Sarah, that was divine luck. We’ve escaped all of our bad karma and my mother’s curse – it’s over. I know our life will be happy now.’

  I tell her about Jonathan’s future plans to cover the war. She gasps. ‘Sarah, get out of India, it’s the land of bad karma, it’s a hothouse where it all happens.’

  Matt and Emma do get out – they cut their trip short and head home for Sydney. At such a devastating and terrifying time they want to be with the people they cherish. I understand and envy them, for I also want to turn to relationships that prove the redeeming power of love.

  My love calls on crackling phone lines with echoes, cut outs and the occasional soft breathing of a Pakistani intelligence officer. Jonathan is exhausted, depleted and distant and we don’t communicate well. We are living in different worlds. He is pumping with adrenaline, high on the story of his career, the thrill of an important job and the companionship of people at the centre of a seismic shift in human history. I’m sent low with fear, insecurity, sadness and self-pity. I have no right to force my feelings on him and he has no time or space to deal with them.

  I begin to mourn a marriage of absence. In the nine months since our wedding day Jonathan and I have been together less than nine weeks. The upcoming war in Afghanistan may be a unique situation requiring special sacrifices but it comes as a last straw after a haystack of let downs. Our relationship has had to come second to natural disasters, cricket matches, famines, shootings, scandals and insurrections. I’ve been clinging to the knowledge that we were to be heading home in three months to be together in a country that will give us time for each other. But the ABC asks Jonathan to stay on until the story is over, and the work is too exciting for him to refuse. The light at the end of the tunnel of long-distance love is getting dimmer and is in danger of going out.

  I may have got fat like a good Indian wife but my teary self-pity is not pukka according to the good women of Delhi. Aarzoo visits, sees my red eyes and puts her hands on her hips.

  ‘Sarah, ssssstttop it. You have to support your husband, his fate is out of your hands. Besides, when the war is over he will have to give you a diamond for all this.’

  Aarzoo is being subtle. In the park I run into Mrs Dutt and admit my fears; she sets me straight.

  ‘What are you doing? This is your lot, now cope and be cheerful, a woman’s life is about surrender to a husband’s will, he is your god, look after him, not yourself.’

  But as I try to keep the home fires burning, the flames of anger rise phoenix-like from within. I become angry with the Taliban, the terrorists, bin Laden, George W. Bush and with the ABC and Jonathan. I’m angry I’ve given up a career, an identity and a safe, secure life to be here all alone with my future plans at the mercy of madmen, fundamentalists and a gung-ho American cowboy president. I’m furious that the upcoming war will kill people already tortured by the Taliban and the world’s neglect. But most of my rage is reserved for myself: how can I expect the world to change while I stay the same? After
nearly two years travelling India’s spiritual supermarket I’m still a self-occupied, selfish, pathetic, pessimistic bitch who’s dropped any faith at the first sign that things aren’t going well.

  My friends on the phone from Sydney become my rock. Jonathan is being replaced as a confidant, comforter and best friend, and that increases the distance between us. I’m becoming jealous of other relationships and cry in the ‘Friends’ episode where Monica and Chandler get married – I’m losing the plot. I try to worry less, but then I find myself travelling down a familiar road – pulling back, hardening my heart and then not caring. In the past that path has inevitably led to the dead-end of a relationship. It’s not an option when you are married and still deeply in love.

  I ring Yogesh and he prescribes a yoga lesson for conquering fear. First he suggests drinking warm salty water until I vomit up my pain. I decline. He then orders gargling of lemon water and a round of throat clearing and spitting. I remind him of my sputum deficiency. I do agree to hum like a hummingbird, buzz like a bee, pant like a dog and scream like a banshee, and I do feel better. The knot of anxiety in my stomach softens and I realise my histrionics are those of an Indian wife who believes she is nothing without her husband. I stop watching Hindi films and decide to face my fears and join Jonathan in Pakistan.

  Just before I go, I’m invited to a party. Neeraj has won a scholarship to a London university and is going to celebrate at the house of his best friend (an eccentric Irish diplomat who rides around in his own cycle-rickshaw). Neeraj insists I attend.

  ‘Sarah, I order you to come. You must keep the morale up, it’s good for the skipper to know you are happy, especially when he is confined to barracks in Pakistan.’

  But the party does little for my morale – I spend the night being called a traitor to India for wanting to head north of the border. Young, educated gangs of men spray me with bullets of bile about their Pakistani neighbours – enemies that were compatriots when their parents were young.

  ‘They are all inbred and marry their cousins.’

  ‘They are dirty.’

  ‘They have more than one wife and they breed like sheep.’

  ‘Strict purdah they keep, women are locked up.’

  ‘Disgusting fellows, you know they eat cows?’

  None of the gang have even been to Pakistan or met anyone from the country. I grow nervous about the trip – not because I believe the slander but because of the obvious animosity between my adopted country and my destination.

  I enter enemy territory on New Delhi’s Shanti Path (Peace Road) through the gates of the heavily fortified purple and white marble Pakistan High Commission. The elegant and fashionable diplomat there offers me some mutton kebabs straight from his lunchbox and hands me one of only two visas issued this week. Australia has closed its embassy in Islamabad and most foreign citizens and non-essential workers are being evacuated. He sighs as he bids me farewell.

  ‘Enjoy my country, you are an honoured guest, I only wish it was not at such hard time.’

  Pakistan is between a rock and a hard place. It has close ties to the Taliban but it would be suicide to defy the USA, especially when its arch-enemy India is getting so chummy with the American administration. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf says he will support the war on terror but hard-line Islamic groups are threatening civil strife. These groups hate one thing more than America – India.

  Thankfully I’ll be travelling with something that will pave with gold the road between the two nuclear enemies – luggage that causes citizens in both countries to go weak at the knees. Kids.

  At the airport I join Phoebe, the wife of the UK Guardian correspondent. She is a young strawberry-blonde Englishwoman, and has two children – four-year-old Tilly who has big blue eyes and blonde ringlets, and one-year-old Ruskin with green eyes and a gregarious manner. Ruskin was born in India and he knows that as a boy child he can get away with anything. He runs into security zones and X-ray machines, jumps on the pilot as he prays to Mecca under the stairwell, takes away a Mullah’s walking stick and nearly knocks over a fish tank. The Indian ground staff and Pakistani passengers watch adoringly, occasionally picking him up and giving him a hug and a kiss. On the Pakistan Airlines plane we take off with a wing and a prayer to Allah, and Ruskin is passed close to the cockpit to meet the captain. The events of September 11th have tarnished the Muslim world, but so far our greatest danger is not fanaticism but over-friendliness – Ruskin’s chubby cheeks are constantly pinched adoringly by the captain, the crew and the passengers. By the time we get to Lahore he has red marks. Tilly remains relatively unscathed, though, because she holds up her hand when anyone gets close and yells, ‘Neh. Bus.’ – No. Stop.

  En route to Islamabad we fly over a landscape of fifty types of brown that swirls up soil to the plane’s belly. On landing, Ruskin (whose cheeks are now turning purple and who is still running around like a Duracel toy) bolts straight out of the terminal and into the arms of his dad.

  Pakistan is strangely similar yet oddly different to India. We join an endless queue for forms, dodge pushy porters wanting money and ignore stony stares. The men are larger here and, compared to the small, slight average Indian males, seem like big bears with their bushy beards and broad shoulders. Most wear kurta shirts with baggy pants in dusty brown. The women wear the Indian salwar suits in polyester with baggy cuts – none swirl a sari and some are veiled. When the eyes of a veiled woman look at me I smile, but it’s an awkward transaction because it’s impossible to know if she is smiling back. Within moments, I notice a different smell, the spicy vegetarian sweat of India is replaced with a stronger, denser meaty smell of a nation that loves its flesh (bar pork, of course).

  Jonathan and I have a tearful reunion. It’s overwhelming to see him again after such a long and stressful time apart. I want to kill him for being in such danger and cherish him for surviving. We hug so hard it hurts us both. For a few minutes I can’t look at his face – I feel shy and ecstatic and furious and excited. He’s exhausted and elated but shame-faced and sad about the stress his job has put the relationship through.

  After a few more long hugs and strange incomplete conversations, we decide we need to relax with a drink. We head straight to the UN club – one of the few places that serves alcohol in this Muslim nation. The doorman demands strict security and confiscates my bag, but as he takes it, he drops it. My compact breaks and Jonathan jokes, ‘We’ll have to charge you for that, I’m afraid.’

  Quick as a flash the guy quips, ‘Just send me the invoice, sir.’

  I’m too taken aback to laugh. India’s humour is predominantly slapstick but it seems Pakistan understands cynicism and dry wit. Perhaps because, like Australia, it feels it’s an underdog – a condition that so often breeds wry humour as a way of dealing with the world.

  After the club, we attend a party in a front-yard marquee warmed with braziers of hot coal and gorgeous silk carpets. Here, elegantly clothed and stylish women wearing beautiful shawls and huge precious stone jewellery, and pale, large-nosed men are desperate to know what Indians think of them. I edit the reality and remark that my friends Aarzoo and Billie think Pakistani women are beautiful, the men are handsome, and they would love to come here to shop. They seem surprised, impressed and flattered, but pretend they don’t care. I feel like I’ve travelled between two divorced parents who are trying to out-do each other.

  Yet at the moment, the Pakistanis are more annoyed with the Americans than the Indians. This party crowd is the jetset that travels to the US frequently for business or to visit relatives. In the last month the FBI has questioned quite a lot of them.

  ‘Do they think all Muslims are terrorists? They really have no idea, my dear; it’s just outrageous. They are paranoid and scared,’ whines a woman with an American twang. Her friends all murmur in agreement.

  On the way home we encounter our own grilling. Two policemen, bent with cold, their faces hidden behind woollen shawls, stop our car, demand we pull dow
n our window and then ask to smell Jonathan’s breath. They accuse us of having sharab, or alcohol. We argue. They point at me. We say wife. Eventually they grow bored and let us go.

  Pakistanis joke that Islamabad is forty kilometres up the road from Pakistan. It’s a bubble of diplomatic suburbia with little in common with the surrounding cities, villages and tribal zones. The ABC has hired a house near bushland where the air is clean and fresh and cold; Jonathan and I sit on the verandah above a wide, black and, in comparison to Delhi, wonderful road curving beneath a green mountain range dotted with sedate mansions. We watch the trucks pass – all intricately painted with bright scenes of sunsets, mountains, grapes and festivals – and I can’t help noticing there’s not a cow, a pig or any human waste in the streets. Islamabad is deadly quiet and cool; the Indian summer has sucked me dry and I feel instantly revived. Jonathan and I try to talk about all we’ve been through, but the words are too heavy and loaded and strange. We’ve spent too much time apart to bridge the distance instantly and we both realise we must start rebuilding slowly.

  In the morning I take my first exercise in months – walking through green trees and blue air feels so wonderful that it hurts my lungs. The Marriott Hotel breakfast bar is our next port of call. The awkwardness and angst between Jonathan and I is easing and we eat together happily holding hands across the table. But I soon feel self-conscious; all around us men and boys sit separately from tables of women and girls. In most regions of Pakistan, women seen chatting to men who are not in their family are risking their husband’s or father’s reputation. A woman here is not only partly responsible for men’s sexuality (she must dress modestly but elegantly so as not to be too arousing), but she is also burdened with upholding men’s honour. The separation of space makes things easier. But what men may gain in terms of respect they lose in friendship. All around India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Jonathan has shocked men by telling them he has female friends and I have male mates. He believes most are not appalled, but rather intrigued to know that not all communication ends in sex or scandal. Some admit that they’d like to have female friends. But here, as in India, keeping up appearances is all-important. I put my head down once again, drop Jonathan’s hand and resolve not to smile at another man. There’s little chance of eye-contact anyway, as in India, when Jonathan is around, men here do not meet my gaze.