The pull factor

Note: I missed out this post, so it should have come before The Story of the Blues.


India has a way of pulling you back to her, just when you thought you'd had enough of her. Just when you thought you couldn't take any more of her ceaseless raw nose, her extreme, unoticed filth and her constant demands on your patience and your purse.

I was tired of it all, probably because I was physically tired, but I just didn't have the physical or emotional energy to give or even to take what she had to offer. This was in Jaisalmeer, one of the most beautiful and alluring cities. The old city buildings are made of a honeycomb-yellow desert stone that glows like an elaborate sandcastle of dreams, but I'd lost interest.

Even so, I found myself out wandering its hot streets and cooling alleyways, more because I felt it was a waste to have come here and not seen them, rather than because I wanted to. Lost in its pretty alleys and courtyards, I simply felt exhausted. I took a few lacklustre photos but my heart wasn't in it.

As I walked past a little guesthouse, the manager, sitting on the step outside said, 'We have a great view of the temple from the rooftop. Come!' I was too weary to protest so I followed him, but he must have sensed my thoughts.


'Don't worry, it's free,' he reassured me. 'Come and see. Stay as long as you like.' Little did either of us know how prophetic the last comment was.



The view of the temple - practically within touching distance - was superb, as he'd said. We were so close to it's roof, that looked more like a decorative beehive made from the innards of a Crunchie. I was sure I could reach out, take a chunk and eat it. The rest of the city was laid out too, stacks of Crunchie, saffron and gold-glowing houses, piled on top of one another. Every so often was a window, open onto a private world, or another rooftop vantage points or restaurant, speckled with others enjoying the view and a cooling drink.


But once I'd taken it all in, it wasn't the view that kept me there and wouldn't allow me to tear myself away for the next few hours, but the manager, Luna, himself. He offered me chai and we sat on his rooftop drinking in both the tea and the view, as the sun lowered in the sky.

Luna was slight with a clear open face; warm, soft, sad-looking eyes and a ready smile. He said he was 33, but he seemed older. After just a few minutes in his company I felt relaxed in a way I had not yet felt with an Indian man. He had a peaceful serenity about him that seemed to soothe my tired mind just with his presence.


With Luna it was like talking to a friend. We didn't dwell long on standard traveller topics and soon the conversation had slipped naturally onto subjects I'd not talked about with Indians before.


He told me about this wife and two children who lived in a desert village and whom he hardly saw. He admitted, without a trace of self-pity, that it wasn't a marriage in the way Westerners understood it. They married when both very young and to have children, but there was now nothing more between them.I felt sad for him, but I could see that my European sentimentality - lamenting the loss of emotion, love, support and a friend to share his life - was somewhat lost on him. He showed no embarrassment, just an open honesty about his situation.


'Do you have a girlfriend here in Jaisalmeer?' I asked boldly.
'Not now,' he said, 'but I had a French girlfriend until recently.' And he told me all about a woman, originally a tourist, who kept coming back to Jaisalmeer to see him, but who ended their relationship about two months ago. His frankness allowed me to be bolder still.


'Have there been other foreign women?'
'Yes,' he said, 'a few. When I kissed a Westerner, an English girl, for the first time, I didn't know what she was doing,' he laughed, and I could in his voice hear the alarm he'd felt at that moment.
'She started kissing me on the mouth and I asked myself, "Why is she doing that? Why is she touching my mouth?" I married very young and I always thought you kissed women on the cheeks. I didn't understand what she was doing.' It seems he learned quickly, as things progressed with the English girl.


'When we had sex for the first time, I was shocked to see her natural colour,' he said. I didn't understand what he meant. He explained that, as he'd never seen a white woman's body naked before, he didn't realise just how white the bits that never saw the sun would be!


I was surprised to find that I didn't feel awkward in this conversation with Luna. I was not uncomfortable or embarrassed at all. It felt more like gossiping with a close female friend about life and love and I felt no pressure from him at all. As we talked, I shared some of my own relationship stories (though not my sex life!) and he listened, genuinely interested. He just loved to talk and to listen. He asked questions, he gave opinions, he listened and he shared himself. His approach was so unexpected, so honest that he refreshed me mentally in a way I didn't even realise was happening and in doing so, brought India back to me again.

That I would not have expected this type of conversation in India, and definitely not with a single Indian man was what made it so special. I was learning so much and my stereotypes were being chipped away, to reveal an Indian and, by extension, an India that was a broad and deep and thoughtful as any other country.

Luna didn't fit any stereotypes, with his 'westernised' experiences but his solidly Indian upbringing. I couldn't box him as a simple villager who'd moved to the big city; nor as a preying lothario who tried his luck with all western women (he never once made a suggestive comment or a pass at me); he wasn't a nosy, intrusive pest; and he wasn't trying to make money out of me. If he didn't fit my mould, then my mould was the one that had to break, not him be crushed into it.



Sometimes we didn't talk at all, just sat in comfortable silence, listening to the sounds of the city and watching the lights come on and the stars come out. When I left to catch my train, I realised I'd spent more than five hours in his company and, as with any good friend, I hadn't noticed time passing, nor had I regretted it.