Holy Cow! an Indian Adventure

by Sarah Macdonald

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Land of the Gods

  When the relief and the sorrow settle, my heart feels at home back in Wonderland. Yet leaving brown Pakistan for India’s kaleidoscope of technicolour has made me feel less like Alice and more like Dorothy in the land of Oz. A yellow brick road of marigold petals paves the local shopping centre. My smiling guard Lakan salutes me and volunteers he’s feeling ‘one hundred percent excellent first class’. Bright golden saris flutter on mopeds, and pink bougainvillea and blooming frangipanis paint and perfume my house. India’s organised chaos has exuberance and optimism, a pride and a strong celebration of life. I truly love it. There’s no place like this home.

  Quite a few people and their many gods are taking credit for Jonathan’s survival. Aarzoo says her Hanuman prayer book created a protective aura around him, my favourite shopkeeper Mrs Sharma believes her mantra at the Ganesh temple worked, and the ABC Christians prayed to the baby Jesus, mother Mary and daddy God. Jonathan puts it down to luck. I set out for Old Delhi to thank Allah.

  The Jamma Masjid is one of the most important mosques in the world. It was built in the Golden Age of Mogul power when Shah Jehan ruled over most of India, all of Pakistan and great chunks of Afghanistan. Every Friday the Emperor would leave his palace of pleasure and his huge harem to ride a grand elephant to this mosque. Three hundred and fifty years later I scurry along the same route – now filled with bleating goats, cages of chickens, flurries of feathers, fly-encrusted animal corpses and lepers reaching for alms. The huge red sandstone floor of the mosque is red hot under my pale feet and the shady corner crunches with pigeon poop. Below the stunning red and white onion dome and between the two crumbling minarets I softly give thanks. In this temple to God of magnificent proportions my desires feel insignificant, but my relief is real. I don’t care what spared Jonathan, I just feel blessed that it did.

  And right now it’s time to celebrate. Old Delhi may look the same but New Delhi is in the midst of the most important Hindu festival of the year. Summer is over, and November ushers in Dushera and Divali – the anniversary and celebration of the battle in the Ramayana when the god-king Ram and his devoted servant, the monkey-god Hanuman, fought the demon King Ravan and rescued Ram’s wife Sita. But before the fasting, rituals and puja period, the festival focuses on gambling and giving. The ABC spends a fortune on Divali gifts for officials and bureaucrats – the telephone man tells our office manager what size suit he takes, the electric company wallah gets cash, the deliveryman prefers sweets, and staff are paid a month’s bonus.

  This is India’s Christmas. Children emerge into the autumn light, pale and blinking from too much study and tutoring. Cashed-up workers hit the crowded shops for the sales. The pavements are packed with stalls selling televisions, refrigerators, stereos and sickly sweets made from sugar and boiled milk. Aamar, our most devout Hindu guard, decorates the house with tinsel and ‘HARPY DIVALI’ banners. I display new painted plaster statues of Ganesh and Lakshmi. Local parks feature pink papier-mâché Ravans with ten heads that tower over slippery dips flanked by models of his two demon brothers painted bright green with big black moustaches. Aarzoo’s family adopts me for the holiday.

  ‘A woman should not be alone at this time,’ commands Auntie-ji as she shows me to the spare room.

  On the anniversary of the battle for Sita, Aarzoo and I hoon from house to house, sitting on friends’ beds, gossiping about boys and stuffing our faces with gooey sweets. At dusk we push our way through the crowds to enter the local park and bluff our way into the VIP area. Tiny children dressed as Ram, Hanuman and Ravan clash with paper swords and papier-mâché mallets. They duel, then stand in a huddle to chat up the next move. The boys wipe their dripping pancake makeup, touch up their fake moustaches, pull up their sequinned suits and lunge for the kill again. On the loudspeakers a distorted drone of the Ramayana reading rises in volume as Ravan’s army starts to fall. One imp spends ten minutes sinking to the dust clutching his side in a death scene he’s copied from a classic Amitabh Bachchan movie. He then sits straight back up and yells at me, ‘Good hey, Auntie? Photo please, what is your good name?’

  When the pantomime is over, the dead jump from the dust and hug the victors who punch the air with performance pride. The child playing Ram leaves the dust stadium on the shoulders of his monkey army. It’s now dark enough to really celebrate. The local pyrotechnicians (who happen to be Muslim) get the honour of lighting the fireworks that will destroy evil and celebrate the triumph of good. Catherine wheels fly from bending bamboo poles, the bangers blast with more bang than beauty and rockets shoot straight towards nearby buildings. The electricity wire straight above the fireworks glows dangerously hot. The air grows thick with smoke and the crowd begins to chant and scream their support for Ram like he’s their favourite football player. The ten-feet high demon-king Ravan and his brothers begin to burn, exposing the bamboo skeletons stuffed with fireworks. The bangers explode horizontally towards the crowd. A tree catches on fire, a firework hits a car, the electricity wire begins to spark, my eyebrows are singed and the crowd chants ‘Ram, Ram, Ram’. As the Muslim men stomp out the flames and Hindu mothers herd up their children, we drive through streets of smoke and sulfur, happy that good has triumphed once again.

  A week on, we celebrate the anniversary of Ram and Sita’s triumphant return to their kingdom. I light cotton wicks in clay lamps saturated with heavy oil, and Aamar and I wind tiny little red and yellow flashing fairy lights around the roof. Moolchand claps happily – our mixed Christian–Hindu household has one of the best displays in the suburb. I then head back to my adopted family home where Aarzoo and I dress up in silk saris and drip with her mother’s jewels. We sit cross-legged at the family altar that is covered with cards containing Sanskrit mantras for Shiva, Krishna and Ganesh and, in a typically inclusive Hindu manner, a Christian prayer. But tonight we restrict our offerings to the goddess Lakshmi. Aarzoo and her mum and dad chant while I ring the bell that supposedly brings our minds in tune with the divine. It’s confiscated when I don’t ring in the proper rhythm, but at least I impress by joining in one mantra I remember from the Amma ashram. After a few mantras, Aarzoo and her mum begin to mumble and pause and then collapse into laughter when they forget the words altogether. We give up and bow in silent prayer. I wish for peace in Afghanistan, but when I tell Auntie, she admonishes me.

  ‘No silly, you should pray to Lakshmi for money, this is the money time.’

  I pray again for cash. Sacred thread is wrapped around our wrists and red powder smudged onto our foreheads. We touch up our makeup, check our jewels and set out for more ceremonies.

  The streets are like a holy war zone. Entire crumbling apartment blocks are blacked out, the air is thick with smoke and bomb bangers explode on roofs and roads. Aarzoo’s uncle and grandparents open their door with smiles, hugs and gifts of coins and cash. After another puja we sip Coke, stuff ourselves with fatty foods and light more fireworks. The air is so thick with smoke, our eyes are soon streaming and few of the explosions of colour can be seen. We get home at midnight, our stomachs popping, our eyes scratched with sulfur, our lungs aching. Aarzoo and I chat long into the wee hours in the spare room double bed like schoolgirls.

  Mornings at Aarzoo’s house always make me homesick. Like my family, Aarzoo’s people have a habit of refusing to talk to each other while in the same room. Instead, they scream from one end of the house to the other.

  ‘Mummeee, look at my broken beeeeeeelllllie ring, it’s rubbing on my stomach – so sore it is, what kind of mother are you not getting me a new one.’

  ‘Look at you, my daughter, so pretty with kohl on your eyes from the night before – if only a husband could see you like this, I could die happy.’

  It’s all play-acting in the land of drama queens and soon we are laughing, drinking chai and snacking on sweets on mummy’s bed (all the goodies are in the bedroom locked up in cupboard away from the servant).

  With Jona
than still war-bound I move in to Aarzoo’s for the winter wedding season with its ostentatious display of wealth and beauty. Through the long nights on the dance floor (where my Bollywood lessons finally pay off), the eating around open fires and tripping over saris, I think of all the things I love about India and will miss the most. The drama, the dharma, the innocent exuberance of the festivals, the intensity of living, the piety in playfulness and the embrace of living day by day.

  It is time to prepare to go. The war may not be over but the west is getting sick of seeing the death and destruction and the rebuilding, and the ABC is nearly broke.

  Jonathan returns home to Delhi for Christmas and we begin again to try to bridge the distance imposed by the months spent apart leading very different lives. But true intimacy is impossible when his life is not his own and work always comes first. We decide to leave India as soon as the ABC can find a replacement, for we realise at this stage in our marriage we cannot continue to spend so much time apart. Aarzoo takes him for a walk to talk about the damage done.

  ‘My brother, I have to tell you, you have failed in your first year of marriage, you are way beyond a one carat diamond now, you are up to a ruby and an emerald. I will take you shopping.’

  But the smoggy winter day we plan to have a look at some jewellery, Jonathan has to file a story and Aarzoo is sent to Rajasthan to shoot a new television series. I set out alone for our favourite jeweller in Old Delhi. Dodging rickshaws, the flying sweat from the singlets of cyclists and catacombs of crap, I follow Wedding Street to Kinari bazaar. Turning left at an indescribably odorous urinal, I enter Naujhra Lane. It’s a sanctuary of calm and beauty, with small wooden homes painted white with bright yellow and blue trimmings. This is the street where about a dozen Jain families live; they have been here for centuries. Jains follow a religion that’s often described as an extreme form of Buddhism – it’s a small sect and members tend to stick together and clump in certain professions they see as low impact on the planet and their karma. In this street a young Jain jeweller, who preciously calls himself Prince, made our wedding rings (brilliantly copied from Vanity Fair but made in the wrong sizes).

  Prince now runs green, blue and black stones through his fingers and drapes silver and gold around my neck. They grow dull before my eyes. I don’t want payback from Jonathan. And precious stones don’t buy precious lives lost by the war. Prince – a proud Jain and a pacifist – sees my disinterest and seems to understand. He offers to take me to a hidden treasure.

  At the end of the alley behind ugly concrete walls is a beautiful ancient Jain temple. Prince and I step onto a huge chessboard marble floor surrounded by sixteen carved marble pillars and then climb up a steep staircase to a glass-tiled atrium. Vivid ancient murals, tapestries made with small pieces of mirror, and stunning statues serenely stare through the centuries. They depict the twenty-four gods of Jainism; they include a gleaming silver statue with a shining black stone face, a pearly white being with a gold crown, a beautiful tall man in a tranquil trance and a bizarre, shapeless, bright orange blob.

  Suddenly the silence is broken by a gasp, a crash and running footsteps. A large woman with wild red curls pants past me to stumble down the steep stairs, her face stricken in shock. I follow to find her standing in the middle of the alley, staring back at the temple and shaking. She’s about forty and her shock of hair clashes with a hideous lumpy blue parka and a fluorescent-pink Indian salwar suit. She grabs me like a woman drowning.

  ‘I’m Rita, can you get me out of here?’

  I’ve become quite used to strange tourists who freak out in the intensity of India. There’s a look on Rita’s face that reminds me of my own shock after the shaking at Rishikesh two long years ago. I feel a special kinship and responsibility for this woman and figure she needs some air, some familiarity and some calm.

  I bid farewell to a bemused Prince and drag Rita along Chandni Chowk, the main street of Old Delhi. Built by Emperor Shah Jehan’s favourite daughter, this street, with the name that translates as ‘Moon Square’, was once lined with pools of water which reflected the lunar light. It’s now a highway of hassle, a freeway of filth and fury. Above, dreadlock knots of power lines spark dangerously. Below, pick-pocketing dwarfs skip and stumble as they’re slapped away, while hawkers sell plastic spiders, horrible hats, useless miniature water pumps and Indian flags. The black smog and the blast of cars and pings of cycle-rickshaws fill the air, and every rickshaw wallah stops beside or in front of us to insist we take a ride. By the time we are at my car, Rita is almost hyperventilating with hysteria.

  Abraham drives us to Lodi Gardens where Rita flops onto the faded grass and groans. She recovers enough to tell me she is from New York and has been at the ashram of the Raj Neeshies in Poona. The Raj Neeshies are the followers of the now dead bearded dude, called Osho, whom they adore as God but whom westerners would best remember for his multitude of Rolls Royce cars and tax problems. The Indian ashram is still a popular tourist destination infamous for its sexual freedom and its ‘crazy dancing’ sessions where followers rock in their socks. Rita liked the liberation of wild dancing but when the music stopped she felt fleeced by the flock.

  ‘It was a Club Meditation, the courses cost hundreds of dollars, I had to pay for the maroon robes, an AIDS test, the use of the pool, classes, only the sex was free.’

  Rita played with many of the pilgrims but now says she feels contaminated by their vibrations. She left in late September disillusioned and guilt-ridden over bonking her brains out while her city’s tallest buildings burned.

  ‘I’m a good person, ya know, I love metaphysics, philosophy, I’m a greenie, but the Raj Neesh is too much about dancing and drinking and fucking and buying and I can’t handle it anymore.’

  ‘So what are you doing in Delhi?’

  ‘I was in the temple to check out becoming a Jain.’

  She pants and pats her heart beneath her parka.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I was overwhelmed by it, the vibrations of perfection were too strong for me. I’m not yet ready, but it spoke to me.’

  Despite her histrionics, Rita is actually onto a good thing. Prince has told me much about his Jain faith. Its founder, Mahavira, was a contemporary and a relatively close neighbour of the Buddha. He too transformed from prince to pauper by casting aside his fine clothes and his treasures and nearly starving himself to death. For twelve years Mahavira underwent castigation and endured bodily and spiritual injury to emerge a renowned preacher and founder of a new religion. The name ‘Jain’ is derived from the word jina (‘victor’ or ‘conqueror’), implying final victory over bondage to life’s misery. Jains see Mahavir as the last of twenty-four tirthankaras, or perfect souls. Over the centuries, these perfect souls have come to be worshipped as gods, but Jains don’t really believe in a controlling creator that judges and directs retribution. Like Buddhists and Hindus, they embrace karma and cosmic power. Jains aim to live an ethical life of exacting discipline, practising ahimsa, or non-violence, in thought and action towards all living creatures. Some Jains take this concept to an extreme degree – followers of one sect insist on nudity, wear a mouth mask to stop themselves breathing, eating or drinking microscopic animals, and carry a broom to sweep away insects in their path. It’s a long way from jihad.

  Rita says ahisma is the only thing that makes sense to her now.

  ‘If those men who flew the planes had felt no hatred, no anger, the world would be different today. If we appeal to barbarism, it will be unleashed. This war is starting another round of hatred. I can feel the dark forces strengthening over lifetimes to come.’

  Over the last three months Rita has attended some Jain prayer sessions and teachings about reducing violence in the mind. She sits up and preaches a sermon in the grass, urging me not to eat meat. I don’t get the chance to tell her I’ve been vegetarian for nearly a year.

  ‘Any connection to killing is violence, it’s all the same path. Think about how many things y
ou have killed in your life, we are all guilty on some level.’

  A year ago I would have told Rita to ease off but I’ve come a long way to understanding where she’s coming from. When we first arrived in our new home in Vasant Vihar we had a mouse and I stood on chairs like the woman in the ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons and screamed for its murder. I laughed when Lakan set a Hindu trap – a large box that slammed shut when the critter walked into it. But I grew infuriated watching Lakan catch the mouse every morning, and set him free across the road, only to see the rodent back by lunchtime. Then we sealed up the cracks in the house, but the mouse kept finding more – one night it even jumped down the chimney. I again called for killing as the only solution. Lakan blocked the chimney. Now I am like my Hindu guard – unable to kill anything. I’m not only vegetarian, even cockroaches and mosquitoes are safe in our home.

  Yet I’m aware that the Jain concept of abstinence can be taken to dangerous extremes. I recently read that in a Rajasthani village, Sassole, sages still give permission for the Jain ritual of santhara – starving oneself to death when all purposes in life have been served, or the body is useless. They most commonly give permission to old women seen as a burden to their families. Up to one thousand people take santhara a year in India – it’s rarely investigated as a suicide because the act is public and sanctioned by sermons. To me, self-violence seems a desperate act that should never be condoned by religion. Suicide is now even more taboo to me since I’ve been living in India. I don’t believe it’s a horrendous sin, but in a country where life is so precious it seems wrong to waste what one is given.

  Santhara aside, Rita insists India is the place to learn non-violence.