The Road East to India

by Devika A. Rosamund

  Sitting on the roof tops are large vultures, waiting – for bits of burning flesh to eat, I suppose. I have never seen vultures before. I also saw rats scuttling about. People sit around everywhere – everyone looks poor and shabby and there are many old people. This is a holy city where people come to die. Many old and sick and crippled people stay in the free pilgrim houses until they die and their bodies are burnt; their ashes are then thrown into the water.

  It is said that if you die in Varanasi you will go straight to Heaven. Dead children are apparently just thrown in the water without being burnt – their bodies just float down the river. I saw quite a few shrouded bodies being carried towards the water’s edge.

  During the whole time we were walking, an Indian boy accompanied us, giving a running commentary. Afterwards he asked us to come and see his handicrafts – of course, that was the reason for giving us the commentary! He invited us into his house for tea and we climbed a lot of steps above the water’s edge to his little house in one of the tiny, dirty streets. In the house we saw an incredible loom where silk saris and shawls are hand-made – wonderful designs in gold thread.

  The house was poor-looking but I don’t think the family were so very poor. The boy told us that they sold their shawls to the Government, and many were exported, and he said they had many looms in different houses. He said we couldn’t buy them from there, and that their designs were secret, but this was his clever way of trying to make us interested in buying the shawls, for he then said that maybe he could possibly allow us a couple of shawls at a cheaper price. However, we couldn’t afford to buy anything.

  When we came out of his house it was dark. That was when I slipped down an uneven step into a hole and wrenched my ankle. It was so painful and still is, although I’ve rested it all day. Never mind! At least no bones are broken – it could be worse. I appreciate every part of my body and all my senses now I am in India because of the dreadful sights I’ve seen. I realise more than ever that the most precious thing anyone can own on Earth is health of body and mind.

  Saturday, 24th April 1976

  Varanasi (or Banares as it is also called) is fascinating, yet somehow horrific at the same time. There are so very many poor people, bad conditions, and the streets are so dirty. I both hate Varanasi and like it because it is so interesting, so incredible, so strange and also so frightening for me. I feel that I am very close to death here. Life seems very cheap: human life – two a penny, and I feel sickened and depressed. Perhaps most of all it is the attitude of resignation and apparent lethargy of the people.

  I rested my swollen foot for the whole day yesterday, but today Genaut and I took a guided bus and boat tour around the town as I couldn’t walk. The bus left at 5.30 in the morning, the best time in the day as it is cooler. First of all, the bus took us to the market place – as near as it could get to the water’s edge. The streets are so congested and we had to walk (I limped!) to the Ghats to board the little boat which took us up and down the river. Our guide answered our questions which were many.

  At that early hour the river-side was buzzing with life as the sun was rising. Loud Indian music blared, and people crowded the Ghats (steps), bathing and talking to the priests and holy men. Some were doing yoga exercises and a thousand other things. Many were chanting or praying and other ascetics were practising austerities. I saw a man lying on a bed of nails and another man standing on one leg in the water. His leg was so swollen that it was huge, and we heard that he has been standing like this for years. He is worshipped by the masses as a saint just for this. What kind of religiousness is this?! It is so life-negative – there is nothing beautiful in it.

  The boat took us further up the river where we saw women washing their clothes and a yogi who sat meditating. In another place some Muslims bathed. To them the river is not holy. Our guide told us that the water has been analysed. It is filthy, but freshwater fish swim in it and the locals drink it safely because it has a large percentage of sulphur in it which keeps it very clean.

  When we got out of the boat, a holy man took my hand by the river-side and proceeded to read my palm. He said to me, “Soon you are going to find a treasure – soon in a few weeks, in July.” I had not wanted my palm read, but I placed a few coins in his hand reluctantly. What kind of treasure can I find in India?! It can only be a treasure of the spiritual kind surely!

  After the boat trip we were led through the maze of little cobbled streets – so narrow, only about five feet wide – to visit a couple of temples. There are hundreds of small temples as well as large ones – all different shapes – and shrines, flower sellers and sweet sellers selling offerings for the temple gods. I would not touch those sweets – they are balls of sugar swarming with flies. Much of the food being cooked in the streets is covered in flies. There are so many little stalls cooking rice or selling curd or fried cakes in dirty containers. There were pathetic-looking people lying around. The temples and shrines are the homes of idols – in some of them the god sits in the middle of the pyramid-shaped construction and there is barely enough room for the devotees to crouch inside and lay flowers and sweets. Some of the people here appear to be living in cubby-hole type buildings also – perhaps they are pilgrims. I hope they do not live in those holes permanently.

  I have never seen anybody actually starving, or any very thin people, but there are some people with stunted growth and deformed limbs, and probably many suffer from malnutrition. I saw a starving dog which was a horrible sight – the poor thing was desperately searching for food. I bought it something and threw it down for the dog, but probably that merely prolonged its suffering. Some animals including dogs, look quite well-fed and I am told some people feed stray animals as a religious duty. In Varanasi there are many dogs lying around in the heat looking lethargic, apparently sleeping, like the people who often sleep in the streets.

  We climbed back into the bus which took us to a little restaurant to have breakfast, and then the bus took us to four more temples slightly outside the town. The first, dedicated to Mother India, is an interesting temple with a large three-dimensional map of India carved in marble on the floor; and then we were taken to two modern Hindu temples. They are majestic places and remind me of pictures of ancient Greek temples I have seen with their idols at the front altar. Hindu scriptures are written on the walls and in one there is a mechanical holy man with moving lips and hands in a glass case reading from the scriptures – it is all very strange. I was told that previously a holy man used to sit and read from the book, but now there is a waxwork.

  Upstairs in one temple there was an exhibition – it reminded me of a children’s fairground show, or something out of a ghost train ride at a fair, for in glass cases were all kinds of mechanical models of demons, evil spirits and gods, moving backwards and forwards with flashing lights – telling stories from the Hindu scriptures.

  Afterwards the bus took us to the new modern University of Varanasi. Genaut stayed there to look at it and I went back with the bus to rest in the hotel. My foot was hurting.

  Sunday, 25th April 1976

  It is so hot! Why oh why didn’t I come to India earlier? There is so much I wanted to see but I can’t bear to walk around in this terrible heat, especially with this sprained ankle! I am going to the hills where it is cooler. I have booked a seat on the train. Genaut is going to Calcutta first. He suggested that we travel together but I want to go to the mountains now. We have agreed that we will meet when he comes to Darjeeling in a few days.

  Tuesday, 27th April 1976

  Sometimes I wonder why I’ve come so far to see the dirt and poverty. It seems to me that here Mother Earth never closes her eyes, she embraces all: the good, the bad, the great, the low, the beautiful and the ugly.

  I have dreamed of coming to India for half my life. I always thought I would find something here. I thought it was my destiny to come to India, but what really is there to find here? I ha
ve seen such terrible sights in India already and I have only just begun my travels around the subcontinent.

  The wheel of life goes on turning and turning. This place is beyond time.

  Chapter Seven

  The Majestic Himalayas and Tibetans

  Sunday, 2nd May 1976

  Now I have found something beautiful in India! I have just spent five days in the mountains, in what must be one of the most beautiful places on Earth, scenery-wise. It is Darjeeling, in the Himalayas, on the edge of Nepal, north-east corner of India. It is so cool here that I had to get out my jeans and jacket – what a change not to be sweating every minute, all day and all night. But I’m going back to it today – I wonder why?! – I am dreading my next stop, Calcutta, but I must see it. I am now on the train, but I will recount the story from where I left off.

  I was going to meet Genaut in Darjeeling, but he has not arrived yet and I have now left. Perhaps I should have waited longer, or perhaps he heard about the rainy weather in the mountains and decided not to come.

  How can I ever come to terms with my crazy feelings? When I was with Genaut I wanted to get away because I was afraid of the relationship I thought he might be expecting from me. I thought that like Paul, with whom I travelled in Iran, he would be shocked to find out I am a virgin, and would therefore soon tire of me. We wore no clothes in the hotel room because it was so stiflingly hot. But Genaut was different from Paul – I realise that now and he had not had an American upbringing. He was very sweet. I ran away from him and there was no need. He just seemed to like my company. I think he understood how I felt. He was lovely to travel with.

  On our last night together we went to the circus – it was quite an experience. Just watching the audience was enough entertainment! The men and boys in front of me and next to me shifted themselves nearer and nearer to me every time they thought Genaut was not looking!

  I had a really nice trip to Darjeeling and some adventures on the way. When I was buying my ticket at the station, a young Indian man came up to help me. Next day when I left Varanasi, I saw him and his friends on the train. I was in the women’s compartment but they were nearby and they came and sat with me for quite a lot of the journey and talked.

  They were very nice types and looked after me completely as they were going the same way for most of the journey as far as Siliguri, after which they were taking a bus to Schillong, another hill station further east. The guy I had first met at the station invited me to stay in Schillong with a family that one of them knew. It would be nice but there are other places I would give priority to in India, as I do not have much time and also probably I would have to go around with him all the time. He was getting a bit possessive towards me and was saying he would like to go to England – they need a sponsor to do that. I shall have to write and thank them for helping me. We had to change trains mid-way and if it hadn’t been for them I never would have had a seat – always there are so many crowds of people on Indian trains.

  That journey took three days altogether. I slept on the train one night and the next night I wanted to sleep in the ‘Retiring Room’ at Siliguri station before getting the toy train up the mountain in the early morning, but when I enquired I found that the Retiring Room had already been taken – it was a large room with two beds.

  I went out of the station into the little town – primitive as always with its tatty market stalls, and I found two quite pleasant-looking hotels up the road. I pushed past the rickshaw drivers that approached me, as they do wherever you go. It’s quite expensive to keep taking rickshaws.

  I decided to stay in the second hotel. When the manager told me it was ten rupees, I said that was more than I wanted to pay. He was a young Sikh, quite good-looking. At once he said, “All right, you can have the room for eight rupees and I’ll pay the other two out of my own pocket if you promise to stay here again on your way back.”

  I agreed at once that I would if I came back that way. Then he suggested that we have a drink together in my room but I was going to take a shower and I said I would come down to the restaurant afterwards. He at once said that was not possible as his parents were there and Sikhs are not allowed to drink! They had alcoholic drinks in this place for guests – unusual for India.

  I asked him to wake me in the morning at 6 o’clock and he suggested coming at 5 o’clock! I said that was too early! Eventually he left to go home – worried that his parents would wonder where he was although he was well over twenty-one years. He said he owned the hotel but probably his father did.

  It was so hot, but then there was a torrential rainstorm and the telegraph pole outside fell over. Sparks flew out dangerously and the lights kept going off. I had my shower and went down to drink a lassi in the restaurant. There, some guests (men) bought me a glass of wine. Afterwards they followed me to my room and I had to bolt them out! They get ideas here about Western girls from porn films and Western magazines.

  I fell asleep for a couple of hours and woke up feeling so hot. The fan wasn’t working. I went out to ask someone to fix it. There were a group of men standing around and one of them came to my room to see to it. I discovered that he was a manager from the hotel next door.

  Within minutes he offered me free accommodation in his hotel where the fans “worked very well.” I was just refusing when the manager from my hotel stepped into my small room and asked in English what “that man” was doing in my room! ‘That man’ answered him furiously, “What do you mean?” and the next second the first one punched him on the chin. They were both young Sikhs. There was a terrific scuffle as they both grappled with one another and I managed to shove them out of the room and bolt the door again. I could hear them fighting and shouting for over an hour after that in the corridor – they must have woken everyone in the hotel!

  Next morning someone else, a hotel guest, that I had asked to wake me up, knocked on my door early, and I left the hotel to get on the little train at 7 o’clock. I was comfortably seated when the station master came up and asked me through the window whether I had a permit for Darjeeling. Of course I did not as I did not know one was needed. I was most annoyed that they had not told me before and I had been at the station an hour or so last night and also this morning. I had to get off the train and get a permit from the office. They were really nice to me though, and one of the ticket inspectors ordered me breakfast free of charge. He also demanded that I stay in the Retiring Room at the station for two nights on my return from Darjeeling. I again said ‘yes’ I would if I come back here (knowing that I most likely won’t!).

  I boarded the next train at 9.30, and was in a sweet little carriage with a nice family. The father was a doctor, and all the family – three girls – spoke perfect English, except their mother. The journey up the mountain took seven hours, as the train had to go very slowly. It was a little steam train, chugging along. The scenery was spectacular and so green and woody. Altogether we climbed 7000 feet.

  Towards the end of the trip the weather changed and the sky was overcast. It started to pour with rain. I went with my Indian family to a lovely hotel – a Government approved Tourist Lodge right up high above the town. It used to be a Maharaja’s palace and the people working there were nice – so genuine. In fact, I found a vast difference between the mountain people and those from the plains below, both in looks and in character. The mountain people are simple country people always ready to help anyone without any ideas of making a lot of money or taking advantage of lone female travellers! Or so it seemed. One day a little old man took me into a cafe and bought me tea and Indian sweets just for the sake of being friendly to foreigners, he said.

  In the plains of India they are more worldly. At times their attitude towards me as a western woman has annoyed me very much – it is as though I am just an object of desire, and this is disrespectful. I feel that if they don’t respect me then why should I have respect for them? However, when they buy me tea and sna
cks and meals I accept. Mostly, I am treated very kindly. The jeweller in the Clarks Shiraj Hotel in Agra bought me a lovely lunch even though I told him clearly that I was leaving that evening. (This was not the same jeweller who locked me in his shop and offered me an emerald ring!)

  Now I want to carry on writing about my time in Darjeeling. The food at that Government Approved Lodge was fantastic and there was so much of it – delicious Indian curries. I paid 16.50 rupees a night (including two meals) which was cheap. The weather was quite cold, and every evening a boy who worked in the hotel brought a bundle of sticks up to the room and made a fire in the grate for me, as he did for all the guests. I stayed a couple of days there but then I moved to the youth hostel where there were more Europeans to talk to and it was cheaper. I ate out at the little restaurants with other travellers, especially two American girls I met who were travelling together.

  The streets of Darjeeling are fun to walk around in – winding paths up and down steep mountain slopes, and a market. The town is on top of a mountain and the view is absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately there were mists and cloud most of the time which spoilt the view somewhat, so that I only saw the snow-capped peaks of the mountains opposite on one occasion. It is possible to see Mount Everest on a clear day. I visited ‘The Mountaineering Institute’ which is very interesting. It is like a museum and tells stories of all the mountaineers who have climbed Mount Everest.

  I also visited two Buddhist monasteries in Darjeeling, containing many large Buddhas. Beneath the statues were many offerings: saucers of oil (butter lamps I think they are called), bowls of water, fruit, wheat and rice.

  One morning I walked up to the monastery and saw monks with shaven heads – some young boys among them – making pyramid-shaped cakes out of soya flour from sacks sent by the charity Oxfam from abroad. These were being made for offerings in the temple. First of all I was disgusted, thinking that the cakes being offered would not be eaten, but afterwards I learned that next day was a holy day and then they would share the cakes out with people in the little village nearby which is a community of Tibetan refugees who have escaped from occupied Tibet (occupied by the Chinese). They were going to have the cakes blessed before sharing them out, which I think is a lovely idea.