We all know the feverish anticipation and build-up that comes in the run-up to Christmas. There is so much to be done and every year, it seems, less time in which to do it. Being away from home and all family and friends for the first time at Christmas left me in a curious state of floating limbo. There were no presents or food to buy, no Christmas rush at work. There were no parties to attend, no cards to send, no plans or planning of any kind. I felt lost. All I could do was wait for Christmas to arrive without having done anything to prepare for or even deserve its festivities.
Although Goa is a predominantly Catholic state, due to its former Portuguese influence, Indians haven't, thankfully, embraced the long, dragging, slow-burn run-up we have to endure in the west. Cards and decorations do not appear in September, nor do adverts for all the gifts you could ever want or food you would ever need. Instead Christmas arrives in a short, sharp shock of flurried activity mere hours before the day itself. On Christmas Eve morning I left for the beach and returned in the afternoon to find the owners of my guesthouse, calmly winding tinsel round the plants outside the doors of the rooms and hanging discreet shiny baubles above the doors. That was as much and as little effort as they went to and oddly it was enough.
I mentioned this to John, the English owner of The Laughing Buddha, where I was due to have my Christmas meal. 'Oh that's nothing, ' he said airily. 'We always put ours up on Christmas morning. The Europeans don't like it much, as they celebrate on Christmas Eve, but that's the way it is here.' Although I liked that I wasn't drowned in Christmas by the time it arrived, it did leave me wondering whether the main event would live up to - or down to - its meagre, low-level preparations.
It started with Midnight Mass. There was some gentle and subtle coercion from Mum. She thought it would be nice for me to go to Midnight Mass here in India actually at midnight, as the time difference would mean that I would be attending at the same time as my family back home. It would be a connection of shared devotion across half a globe that I had actually been thinking of myself.
I'd heard, again from John who'd been there himself in the past, that Indian Catholics dress up to elaborate levels for Midnight Mass. 'You'll love it, ' he said. 'The women look like Shirley Bassey on acid with sparkles and sequins everywhere, full make-up and high heels. And the men wear shiny suits that make them look like Sicilian mafia.' With nothing suitable in my backpacker 'wardrobe', I'd been out earlier and bought a full-length, smartish dress and some cheap jewellery to wear for the occasion. It was far from Shirley Bassey, but then so was I, so that would be fine.
John had a word of warning too, though. 'It does go on, you know,' he said, with a grin. 'It lasts 3-and-a-half hours!' My resolve faltered, but I thought, 'At least I can sleep in later on Christmas morning if I want to,' and was even more determined to go.
But I nearly didn't make Mass at all. I'd decided to go out for a couple of drinks with some friends after our normal dinner together and we stumbled by chance into a bar that was playing a fabulous DJ set of Bollywood music at full volume. Fortified with a superbly inept mojito, much too heavy on the rum but just the way I liked it, I took to the dancefloor with my friends and a group of moustachioed Indian buddies probably in their forties. Together, with much laughter, we threw some equally inept 'Indian-style' shapes on the dancefloor until the sweat dripped from us. We had so much fun that I didn't want the party to end, but at the last possible moment I dragged myself away to get changed and go to Mass.
The brisk 10-minute walk in the surprisingly chill night air to the icing white church sobered me up. Outside in the open area in front of the church, large groups of women and men hung around eyeing each other up. It was just as John had said. The young girls were the most amazing. Tall and slim, they shuffled inelegantly on feet unaccustomed to the dazzlingly sequinned kitten-heeled mules that seemed to be all the rage. Their dresses were all a demure knee-length and made of shiny, shiny satin in ice-cream pastels or deep crimson, sapphire, jade or aubergine. They were surprisingly tight-fitted for body-conscious India, hugging the girls' curves and making them look like budding 1950s film stars. Shoulder straps, waists, bustlines and hems all burned with a fire of sequins and beads that sparkled as they moved shyly and awkwardly in their splendour.
And the make-up! It was rare to see an Indian lady, let alone a young girl, wearing make-up outside the big cities but tonight the contents of the beauty counter were on full display. Their glowing youthful honey skin was dulled with heavy foundation and their dark eyes were coloured in with bright frosted shadow and framed with mascara-loaded lashes. Their usually bare lips were stained with thick, heavy red lipstick and when they smiled it was cautiously, nervously, so as not to smudge their beauty.
The older ladies were not to be outdone either. Many wore sarees studded and edged with great sunbursts of sequins, which caught the light of the moon, candles and twinkling fairylights to dazzle and shimmer whenever they moved. The fabrics were heavy silks and satins, rich with pattern and heavy with jewellery. They too wore make-up, though usually a smear of red lipstick was enough.
The men did indeed have the sharp suits John had talked about. Clumps of self-conscious men and young boys milled about, trying not to adjust their neatly knotted ties, their jackets buttoned up with a crisp formality. The fabric gleamed, glossy black as a crow's wing and, had they not been looking at the girls, they would have been able to see their own reflections in their slick-polished shoes. Their hair was unusually tidy too, with that vulnerable fragility of a fresh haircut that reveals a slice of paler skin around the edge, before a week's growth softens the hard lines and the sun darkens the skin back to normal.
I got there at 11.45pm, 15 minutes before the service was due to start, so I would be able to get a seat. When I walked in though, it was just about standing room only. A kind lady practically sat in her neighbour's lap to make room for me on an already crushed pew. As I sat under the softly whirring fans, the soft clink of a thousand bangles sounded the note of nervous excitement.
Then finally the priest came out. After a long speech in Hindi or the local language, I don't know which, he switched to English for a brief welcome to the foreigners there. And we were away. It was not easy to follow. Being right at the back with no view of the altar and no missal to help me guess what might be going on, I was soon lost. Years of non-attendance had obviously taken their toll. So I just listened and tried to concentrate as best I could. I managed to pick out the two Bible readings and the Gospel, though I understood nothing of them, and I was shamefully grateful when it was time for the sermon after the Gospel and we were able to sit down.
This was my undoing. In the sultry air that the briskly moving fans did little to cool, I found the effects of the day's sun, the strong mojito and the late night catching up on me. My head began to nod and waves of sleepiness washed comfortingly over me. I shook my head and sat up straight in an attempt to force my body into wakeful, watchful alertness, but it was not working. Gradually my head would drop and I'd jerk awake as it fell.
Suddenly, I began to understand what the priest was saying! Was it a Christmas miracle that I now understood foreign tongues? No, he'd just switched to English again to deliver a shortened version of the sermon for the benefit of foreigners. But it had the effect of waking my stupified brain and I rallied valiently against the fatigue. Back in Hindi again, as the bidding prayers wore on and the subsequent elements unfolded, sleep climbed stealthily into my body again. My hands gripped the back of the pew and, as I stood, I could feel myself swaying unsteadily back and forth on my feet unless I shifted them constantly. Sitting was even worse. More comfortable, meant more tired and my head lurched from side to side as it fell in sleep. Eventually when it threatened to crack open on the back of the pew in front, I could take no more.
Stumbling outside, I looked at my watch. I'd managed two hours. I felt pretty ashamed, but what could I do? Short of crashing to the floor in a dead sleep and provoking an embarrassing panic, I just couldn't stay any longer. Walking back to my room, wisps of mist hanging low in the 2am air reminded me of home and the cool soon revived me. Should I turn back and try again? I knew I should but I was more than halfway home and anyway I was certain to become drowsy again inside the fuggy church. As I slid into my cool bed, my exhausted body told me I'd done the right thing, but my mind was not convinced...
Christmas Day itself dawned with the same warm sun and cloudless sky as the day before but there was a slight sleepiness in the air. Walking to the beach at 10am for our planned beach breakfast, there were fewer people about than usual for this time of day. We'd planned a casual breakfast of fresh fruit, cakes from one of the many bakeries that catered for the homesick pastry-lover and fizzy 'champagne'. Spreading our sarongs out on the already warm sand we stripped off to bikinis and toasted the day.
It felt like Christmas but it didn't feel like Christmas too. Between us, we'd built-up the excitement for a day that, had we not known it was Christmas Day would have been the same as any other at the beach. A few days after Christmas I even met an English couple who come here every year and one year had completely missed Christmas Day, as they hadn't realised what day it was. Somehow our nostalgia for a Christmas like the ones we used to know had conjured up this bright collage of festivities, using the elements of our traditions that we could find here: drink, food, company and doing nothing much. So it was a christmas of some sort but not the Christmas of each and every one of us.
But we were happy, our band of motley travellers. The 'family' I had come to know well here were all there and all on good form. We ate our fruit and cakes, we drank our champagne (alarmingly quickly and had to go out for more supplies), and we sat too long in the baking sun and had to hide in the shade of a nearby boat, hunched like refugees in a narrow stripe of cool. When the champagne ran out and we couldn't be bothered to find more, we drank beer from the Laughing Buddha's bar and some people smoked weed. The time passed and we did a lot of talking and nothing much else. Just like Christmas back home. There weren't even any presents to give or receive, but it didn't matter. The day passed slowly but all too quickly. Here and there people disappeared to call family at 'home suitable' times and I did too.
Dressed for dinner in the dress I'd bought for Mass, I called Mum and Dad on Skype and the jerky video image of home showed me a sight that made me well up. There was most of my family, and, in an unexpected surprise, a herd of cousins, aunts and uncles, all leaning in to get into the frame. I wanted to ask them all about what was happening at home - it seemed desperately more important than whatever I was doing - but they wanted to know about me. What was the weather like? What had I eaten? What had I done?
I wanted to know what my nieces had got for Christmas, what their faces had looked like, what the tree looked like? In all their smiling faces I saw the excitement I wished I could be part of. I wasn't homesick exactly, but I wanted to know every detail and to be part of the familiar, the warm, the comfortable reassurance that was Christmas at home. Somehow my Christmas, exotic and exciting to them, was not as exciting to me as knowing again the details that would be happening back home - what always happened back home. It was a strange, yet beautiful moment.
But Christmas dinner was about to be served and reluctantly I had to leave them. The Laughing Buddha was a sea of candlelight, catching the breeze-rippled tinsel and making motes of red, blue and green dance across the floor.
Our party of 13, 14, 15, 16 - it seemed to grow by the minute - was all seated round a long table, our chairs sinking into the soft sand. We waited with excitement for the food we'd ordered. Unusual treats, such as my lobster, or traditional options, such as Kealy's roast chicken. Sadly the quirky service prevented the possibility of us all sharing our meal together, as people's plates were brought out one by one, as they were cooked. Barely finished her starter, Michele's main meal was rushed out before Zoe even had her first course. My feta cheese and spinach momos arrived somewhere in between and were dense with tangy, salty filling. The lime, chilli, coriander dip they came with, I could have eaten by the bowlful. But we shared nonetheless, stealing bits from each others plates as the fancy took us, just like a real family.
My lobster, when it arrived, was an awe-inspiring specimen. People gasped and scrabbled for their cameras to capture his glory before I demolished him. His long antennae curled back over his lobster-pink shell and he reared up defiantly from his bed of delicately seasoned rice, daring me to eat him. I did. He was delicious: soft and sweet, with a creamy sauce. His accompanying veg was, I think, supposed to be sweet and sour, but tasted more like it had been tossed in ketchup. Nevertheless I ate it too.
The nostalgic sherry trifle I'd opted for was a demonstration of the saccharine-sweet palate of Indians. Although the custard and the creamy topping were good, the cakey bit, though soggy with a heavy-handed dose of sherry, crunched with undissolved nuggets of sugar. Most people left it, but I could not admit defeat and ate every mouthful of its over-sweetness.
We lounged around after the meal, overfed, over-tired and over-emotional, as we watched a box of patchy fireworks Josh had manged to buy from somewhere. I was happy with my odd Christmas and I wouldn't have changed it and I'd do it all again but preferably if I had my family there to share it too.
Saturday 31 December 2011
Sun worship
When travelling, sunsets and sunrises and the capture of them becomes something of a holy grail. To have taken a photo of your current location while it and you are under the influence of the setting or (much more rarely) rising sun, seems to be the peak of photographic achievement. It tells you that this is a Good Place and a Beautiful Place. Being in a position to be able to shoot a sunset seems to be a shorthand way of saying, 'Look I'm on holiday and I'm having a good time,'. So sunsets, in particular begin to attain an almost religious significance. This is especially true if the sunset takes fiery place over a beach. Beach sunsets are there to be enjoyed, adored and lingered over, like nature's version of the exotic cocktail that may well accompany them.
The one that happens every night at Arambol beach in Goa is no different, yet it is different. This one is feted and celebrated and 'worshipped' with a nightly feast of impromtu drumming, dancing and general hippyish behaviour that is a sight to be seen.
Around 6pm, drummers congregate on the beach opposite where the sun sets and form a temporary semi-circle seated on the end of a series of hastily drawn-together sun loungers. Here they play their Djembe drums to serenade the dying light of the day, while other beach-dwellers sit around looking on, or dancing frenetically to the rumbling beat.
When I arrived there were six drummers drumming (but no pipers piping, even though it was nearly Christmas). One man, probably in his early thirties, had a long thick bushy goatee and waist-length dreadlocks, thick as sausages. One arm was almost completely covered in tattoos. His djembe was clamped between his knees, nestling in the folds of his capacious green Ali Baba trousers. He didn't even look as he beat expertly on the skin, all the time looking either at the sunset, or at the other drummers as they all followed imperceptible cues from each other to quicken or slow the tempo or change the rhythm. The others were all lesser versions of this man, with or without his majestic dreads and tattoos.
I sat down near them to watch and as I did I could feel the sound beating through the cooling sand and vibrating in the air. Now another man came to join them. Although foreign, he had on nothing more than the white knee-length loin-cloth, favoured by Indians. His long, straggly blond hair and stringy muscles made him the perfect Iggy Pop tribute act. His instrument was a broad flat hand drum, the name of which I don't know. As the others played, he wandered back and forth across the semi-circle, apparently in a daze, beating his drum - mostly in time with the others - with a little stick.
As I watched, I became aware of a strange but musical low whistling sound, a bit like the sound it makes when you blow across the top of a bottle. To my left there now stood a tall tanned man with his head shaved but for a long, dreadlock pony tail at the back. With one tattooed arm he was whirling round a the end of a length of flexible bright green plastic tubing, while blowing across the other end. The faster he whirled the tube, the higher the the pitch of the whistle and the slower the movement, the lower the sound. This quiet wail-cum-whistling sound threaded through the sound of the drums like some ethereal butterfly, settling and swooping endlessly.
Looking round I now took in my fellow spectators. Hippies, travellers, groups of friends and families with small children all looked on, along with a few clutches of bemused Indians. Small tanned children wandered happily among the crowds, wearing either nothing or an ill-fitting outfit that probably belonged to an older sibling. Toddlers sat in the laps of their bearded fathers, staring enthralled at the spectacle or mothers walked round slowly, joggling babies strapped into papooses, round their bead-strung necks. An achingly pretty girl of about seven with the wispy curly blond hair of a cherub rushed past wearing a full-length frothy dress that was once white but was now beach- and dust-coloured. She had delicate scrolls and swirls painted on her temples by some romantic adult who didn't seem to be anywhere nearby to check her roaming.
Elsewhere, 'normal' people sat in groups watching and tapping to the beat, drinking cool beers and smoking. The sweet tang of weed wafted across the air, mixing with the smell of suntan lotion and sea breezes.
Looking out to sea, the sun was beginning its descent into the Indian Ocean, the same as every day, but also different every time. The few rags of cloud that appeared as the heat died, were soon stained egg-yolk yellow and strawberry lassi pink, as the orange sun slid behind the waves. Down in the bubbling white waves as they died on the shore, a lone woman in a bikini, walked and 'danced', swirling a hula hoop expertly hound her hips. Slightly removed from the action, she was still a part of it, but in a world of her own.
Now the sun had set, the dancers began to emerge. As if by unspoken courtesy, they waited until the magic show of the sunset had finished before making their move. People missing the self-consciousness gene or displaying the 'look-at-me' one, of which they had been given more than their fair share, swooped out onto the 'dancefloor' in front of the drummers. First came a tanned and toned lady who was probably of years that would normally dictate that she didn't wear the sage green suede miniskirt and low-cut top and no bra combination she was now sporting. Flicking her hips and twirling her hands she expertly avoided all eye contact to denote that she wasn't seeking the attention she obviously was.
Next came a tall skinny man, whose tan was mostly covered by the thick black hair that seems to sprout from every pore. He wore an explosion cloud of salted-matted hair and wild beard. His thin, hairy body bent, twisted and jerked into contortions and positions that I was sure would snap his frame in two. Yelping out intermittently, he shook his head with sheer abandon and writhed around, sometimes sinking to his knees, but all the time, keeping up the strange jerking motion that seemed to connect him physically to the beat of the drums. A small child wearing only a babygro undone at the crotch and trailing in the sand like a forlorn tail, stood there rooted and staring at the man, before mimicking him with small jigs and waves of his pudgy hands.
The mood was infectious and before long, I could no longer see the drummers through the mass of twitching and writhing bodies that danced in front of me. Everyone was enjoying themselves and it didn't matter what they looked like or who was watching as long as they were there.
In a place where so many different groups of people co-habited, the experience was an unspoken coming together of the community. No-one organised it, but everyone knew about it, and every night, like clockwork it just materialised. Gradually, as the twilight deepened, more and people from all corners of Arambol gathered on the sand to come together in an almost religious affirmation of life and a ritual of gratitude that they should be living in such a beautiful place at that time, however permanently or temporarily. Although I didn't dance my gratitude that day, I certainly felt it.
The one that happens every night at Arambol beach in Goa is no different, yet it is different. This one is feted and celebrated and 'worshipped' with a nightly feast of impromtu drumming, dancing and general hippyish behaviour that is a sight to be seen.
Around 6pm, drummers congregate on the beach opposite where the sun sets and form a temporary semi-circle seated on the end of a series of hastily drawn-together sun loungers. Here they play their Djembe drums to serenade the dying light of the day, while other beach-dwellers sit around looking on, or dancing frenetically to the rumbling beat.
When I arrived there were six drummers drumming (but no pipers piping, even though it was nearly Christmas). One man, probably in his early thirties, had a long thick bushy goatee and waist-length dreadlocks, thick as sausages. One arm was almost completely covered in tattoos. His djembe was clamped between his knees, nestling in the folds of his capacious green Ali Baba trousers. He didn't even look as he beat expertly on the skin, all the time looking either at the sunset, or at the other drummers as they all followed imperceptible cues from each other to quicken or slow the tempo or change the rhythm. The others were all lesser versions of this man, with or without his majestic dreads and tattoos.
I sat down near them to watch and as I did I could feel the sound beating through the cooling sand and vibrating in the air. Now another man came to join them. Although foreign, he had on nothing more than the white knee-length loin-cloth, favoured by Indians. His long, straggly blond hair and stringy muscles made him the perfect Iggy Pop tribute act. His instrument was a broad flat hand drum, the name of which I don't know. As the others played, he wandered back and forth across the semi-circle, apparently in a daze, beating his drum - mostly in time with the others - with a little stick.
As I watched, I became aware of a strange but musical low whistling sound, a bit like the sound it makes when you blow across the top of a bottle. To my left there now stood a tall tanned man with his head shaved but for a long, dreadlock pony tail at the back. With one tattooed arm he was whirling round a the end of a length of flexible bright green plastic tubing, while blowing across the other end. The faster he whirled the tube, the higher the the pitch of the whistle and the slower the movement, the lower the sound. This quiet wail-cum-whistling sound threaded through the sound of the drums like some ethereal butterfly, settling and swooping endlessly.
Looking round I now took in my fellow spectators. Hippies, travellers, groups of friends and families with small children all looked on, along with a few clutches of bemused Indians. Small tanned children wandered happily among the crowds, wearing either nothing or an ill-fitting outfit that probably belonged to an older sibling. Toddlers sat in the laps of their bearded fathers, staring enthralled at the spectacle or mothers walked round slowly, joggling babies strapped into papooses, round their bead-strung necks. An achingly pretty girl of about seven with the wispy curly blond hair of a cherub rushed past wearing a full-length frothy dress that was once white but was now beach- and dust-coloured. She had delicate scrolls and swirls painted on her temples by some romantic adult who didn't seem to be anywhere nearby to check her roaming.
Elsewhere, 'normal' people sat in groups watching and tapping to the beat, drinking cool beers and smoking. The sweet tang of weed wafted across the air, mixing with the smell of suntan lotion and sea breezes.
Looking out to sea, the sun was beginning its descent into the Indian Ocean, the same as every day, but also different every time. The few rags of cloud that appeared as the heat died, were soon stained egg-yolk yellow and strawberry lassi pink, as the orange sun slid behind the waves. Down in the bubbling white waves as they died on the shore, a lone woman in a bikini, walked and 'danced', swirling a hula hoop expertly hound her hips. Slightly removed from the action, she was still a part of it, but in a world of her own.
Now the sun had set, the dancers began to emerge. As if by unspoken courtesy, they waited until the magic show of the sunset had finished before making their move. People missing the self-consciousness gene or displaying the 'look-at-me' one, of which they had been given more than their fair share, swooped out onto the 'dancefloor' in front of the drummers. First came a tanned and toned lady who was probably of years that would normally dictate that she didn't wear the sage green suede miniskirt and low-cut top and no bra combination she was now sporting. Flicking her hips and twirling her hands she expertly avoided all eye contact to denote that she wasn't seeking the attention she obviously was.
Next came a tall skinny man, whose tan was mostly covered by the thick black hair that seems to sprout from every pore. He wore an explosion cloud of salted-matted hair and wild beard. His thin, hairy body bent, twisted and jerked into contortions and positions that I was sure would snap his frame in two. Yelping out intermittently, he shook his head with sheer abandon and writhed around, sometimes sinking to his knees, but all the time, keeping up the strange jerking motion that seemed to connect him physically to the beat of the drums. A small child wearing only a babygro undone at the crotch and trailing in the sand like a forlorn tail, stood there rooted and staring at the man, before mimicking him with small jigs and waves of his pudgy hands.
The mood was infectious and before long, I could no longer see the drummers through the mass of twitching and writhing bodies that danced in front of me. Everyone was enjoying themselves and it didn't matter what they looked like or who was watching as long as they were there.
In a place where so many different groups of people co-habited, the experience was an unspoken coming together of the community. No-one organised it, but everyone knew about it, and every night, like clockwork it just materialised. Gradually, as the twilight deepened, more and people from all corners of Arambol gathered on the sand to come together in an almost religious affirmation of life and a ritual of gratitude that they should be living in such a beautiful place at that time, however permanently or temporarily. Although I didn't dance my gratitude that day, I certainly felt it.
Monday 26 December 2011
Thinking the unthinkable
The desire not to be left out left me having foolishly agreed to join some friends for a 7:30am meditation session. It had sounded interesting when I sat satisfied and sleepy after a large meal the
night before, but the 7:30am start was markedly less enticing when my
alarm went off at 7am, after a few short hours of dog-interrupted sleep.
My friends were all students of reiki, a type of healing that's very popular in India and also in the West. Their teacher who I'd met during the meal said I was welcome to join them. So 7:30am saw me sitting on a cool concrete rooftop, as the sun rose enchantingly over the misty palm trees and a field studded with two or three cows grazing peacefully on litter.
The reiki master was an Indian lady named Rittu. Well-known and respected in Arambol for her powerful teaching, she would be leading us in the meditation, guiding us towards the goals it hoped to achieve. In my case this would definitely be helpful. On the one or two occasions I'd tried meditation before it had resulted in a great deal of nothing much. To say I was skeptical was too strong but I was certainly doubtful that, with my abilities, I would be able to get much out of it.
We started off by sitting cross-legged on the hard concrete. I hadn't thought to bring anything to sit on so I took off the shirt I was wearing over my vest-top and sat on that. It didn't pad the concrete at all but it did stop the gritty bits digging into my ankles.
I have very tight hips and hamstrings (a month's worth of yoga had left me with no doubt about that!), so sitting cross-legged was about the most uncomfortable position it is possible for me to hold. Within seconds I was fidgeting and adjusting my posture. My lower ankle bone was pressed hard against the concrete but I had nothing to put under it. Looking futilely through my bag more in hope than expectation I searched for something soft to put under it. I knew for certain that I wouldn't manage even a minute if all I could feel was my bone digging into the ground.
Then I had a flash of inspiration: my camera case. It was made of a spongy, neoprene material that would be perfect, it was flat and just the right size to do duty as a makeshift ankle cushion. I took out my camera and slid the case gratefully under my ankle. Now I could settle down and listen to what Rittu was saying.
I straightened my back, clasped my hands together and placed them on my ankles, as this was more comfortable than placing them on my knees as everyone else had done. Grimly I thought how tight hips are the would-be meditator's worst enemy .
Finally I felt comfortable so I closed my eyes and started to listen. In a low voice with a soft Indian accent, Rittu explained that we were going to do a manifestation meditation - a powerful form in which whatever you asked for would be manifested - or given - to you by the power of your own energy connecting with a universal energy that was all around us. The others were familiar with all this from their reiki classes and I was the only novice, but somewhere in life, I seemed to have picked up a bit about reiki, chakras and energies from who knows where, so I was able to follow.
But there was a problem. Sitting in this straight-backed position for a few minutes was not to my weak back's liking. All down the right side of it, I could feel my muscles tensing and going into a familiar spasm that they seem to think is helpful when I'm tired. It's not. I shifted silently, experimenting with different variations of straight, hunched and slumped to try to find the least painful position. There wasn't one. However I sat, I could still feel this mild but shooting pain. I decided to ignore it - yogis and such can sit immoble like this for hours at a time, so I thought I could manage the 20 minutes this meditation was due to take.
Rittu was telling us that we could ask for anything to be manifested and it would be given to us instantly, with no time lag. Whatever we asked for would be manifested in the real world by the power of our energy. It could be anything - health, a new job, a promotion, happiness in a relationship, financial abundance or even the ability to sit properly during meditation (ok, she didn't say that last one, that's mine). The intention I wanted to manifest is not easy to do instantly (I'm not saying what it was, in case these things are supposed to be kept secret for the meditation to work, or something) so I was prepared not to see it appear after the session.
Now she told us we had to imagine and really visualise the details of our intention to make it clear within us. The more clearly we pictured it and coloured the picture with detail, the stronger the energy of it within us would be and the easier it would be to connect it to the universal energy that would make it come true.We were to picture this intention as part of our life and what effect it would have on our life.
So I started to visualise my own intention. I tried to picture what it would look like, see it being part of my life and feel as if I already had it. It wasn't easy. Up there on the roof the niggling pain still in my back; the sounds of the birds in the trees; the warmth of the sun bringing out a sweat on my forehead; and its light on my closed eyes beginning to make them water, it was difficult to concentrate. I couldn't quite bring a picture of it to mind. Every time my eyes caught a 'glimpse' of it and started moving around the 'scene' I had created, I was brought back to reality by suddenly noticing an annoying floater in my field of vision that squiggled across my sight every time I moved my eyes and was much more visble on the white screen of my closed eyes that my intention was. Maybe visualisation took time to master but I could at least make myself 'feel' the desire for my intention, even if I had trouble picturing it.
'Now,' said Rittu, 'we have to chant audibly the word "Ah".' This is because this sound appears in the name of the Creators, Bram-ah, Shiv-ah, All-ah, and (slightly tenuously) G-ah-d (God) and is therefore the sound of creation. To manifest our intention we have to make the sound of creation within ourselves to enable it to be send out into the material world.' She went on. 'As you chant, feel the energy moving from your root chakra (a spot in your groin) up along your energy channel and leaving your body through your third eye chakra (in between your eyebrows). This will connect your energy and your consciousness with the universal energy, so the louder you chant, the stronger the connection.'
Chanting is embarrassing. There are no two ways about it. In the West we've long ago lost our familiarity with it as tribal chants, war cries, prayers, and general wailing are no longer part of everyday life. Today to 'moan' out loud in a public place, whatever the reason, whether out of happiness, sadness or madness is to attract attention, stares and a feeling of awkwardness. Even in Arambol where 'alternative' is the norm, we still have to overcome the initial fear of feeling silly and looking like an idiot. And someone also has to be brave enough to start off the chant, then the others will quickly join in, relieved that following a leader is considered less idiotic than being that leader. Luckily we had Rittu to do this and she was not embarrassed at all. Why should she be?
She began by breathing in deeply then let out on a low note a long 'Aaaaaah.' The four of us piped up timidly, our voiceboxes still slightly croaky after a night's rest. This was not enough to prod the universal energy awake, let alone connect with it.
'I can't hear you,' said Rittu, after the first chant. 'It needs to be as loud as you can to make a strong connection.' And she began again. I waited, lungs pounding with my held-in breath, not wanting to start before she did, until she began her 'Aaaah'. I breathed out mine too. This time it was a slightly more confident reedy tremor. But we soon got the hang of it, the embarrassment fell away and were soon 'ah-ing' unselfconsciously.
As we followed Rittu, I imagined my energy moving up from my root to my third eye and leaving my body into the world. I didn't feel anything physical or psychological happening as I chanted - I didn't know if I was supposed to or what it should feel like anyway - but I really thought about and believed in what I wanted to manifest.
Gradually I became aware of a wrm sensation on my forehead, just above my eyebrows. 'That must be my energy leaving my third eye!' I thought, somewhere deep in my mind, but as I thought it, my rational, conscious mind was also thinking, 'Nah, that's just the warmth of the sun on your forehead.' I couldn't feel this energy in the rest of my body and definitely not in my root chakra which was touching the cold concrete. 'Just go with it and don't try to second-guess your body,' I told myself.
With each exhalation Rittu changed the pitch of the 'ah' slightly, so the note rose gradually, imperceptibly. As I chanted with her and the others, I could feel the vibrations of the sound buzzing through my body. It was pleasant, relaxing feeling. My visualisation was still nothing more than a white canvas stretched across my field of vision, with floaters jumping up and down madly on it, trying to get my attention. I ignored them now. As the note rose higher, I felt the desire for my intention to be manifest growing stronger and stronger, without me treally thinking about it. With every 'ah' I was crying out my longing for it, sending it out and away from me into the ether. Calling out for it, over and over again, willing it to come true. I didn't really understand what I was feeling, nor could I put a name to this emotion but I definitely felt that the sound I was making was somehow the embodiment of the intention I wanted and that the physical sensation of the sound was the expression of my desire for it to happen.
After several minutes Rittu gradually brought the pitch back down again and as she did, getting lower and lower, softer and softer, I felt a peace and calmness come over me and I was no longer aware of anything, other than the sound of our voices.
We stopped chanting and Rittu's soft voice continued, 'Now feel the energy in your solar plexus chakra spreading out into your body. Feel the light of your clarity radiating out and reaching every part of you that is dark and hidden.' My solar plexus felt normal. The waistband of my elasticated trousers was digging in a bit, but I didn't think that was quite what she meant. Then my stomach growled quietly to itself, pondering the possibility of breakfast being imminent, but I was sure it wasn't that either.
Maybe I hadn't chanted loudly enough and my energy was still stuck in my root chakra. Maybe I hadn't wanted my intention to manifest itself enough. Either way my solar plexus remained cold and uncaring.
Then Rittu went on to guide us to our heart chakra, asking us to spread the light of forgiveness and love to everyone who had hurt us in the past. At the time I couldn't really think of anyone who'd wronged me significantly in my life, I supposed that was a good thing and my heart chakra was sufficiently open. So I decided to just sit and listen and do the best I could at 'feeling' what she asked and trying to imagine it happening to me.
Now though, I gradually became aware of the the pain in my back again and realised with surprise that I'd not felt it at all during the chanting.
Next it was time to 'ground' ourselves.
'Now focus on your root chakra. Imagine it opening up and the roots of a tree growing down and pushing through the concrete, through the rooms below and into the ground, into Mother Earth. Feel it's roots going all the way to the centre of the Earth, connecting you and anchoring you strongly to the world.'
My moment had passed. Now the chanting had stopped reality crowded back in, distracting my attention and my imagination. My back spasm was getting stronger and I could feel my tight right hip seizing up and joining the party.
'Now feel the branches of the tree opening and growing up from your crown chakra and spreading up and out into the sky.' My branches remained stubbornly closed. However much I tried to visualise them, all I could see were the stupid floaters ricocheting round my eyeballs like some crazy pinball machine. Strangely I didn't feel frustrated by this. I know meditation takes a while to get the hang of, so I just tried my best with my stunted lump of vegetation with its stumpy, misshapen roots.
Finally we had to focus back on our breathing and feel the breath in our body and become aware of our surroundings again.
'Now rub the palms of your hands together until they become warm, then place them in front of your eyes for a while, then, when you're ready, open your eyes.' I did this and as I covered my closed eyes, the white canvas I'd seen all along burst into a blaze of red and purple. There was no definable shapes or patterns, just a sheet of colour that seemed to undulate and slip back and forth between shades of red and purple. It was so beautiful, I couldn't take my hands away! The floaters had vanished and this wash of colour was all I could see. I felt as if I was in the middle of it and it was all around me.
After some time, probably about 20 seconds, it started to fade to black. I felt a sadness like a loss as it subsided but at the same time I was energised by its brightness and beauty. Was it my energy swirling inside and around me? Or was it simply a colourful after-image, the effect of putting my hands over my eyes and shutting off the light after looking at the bright sun through my eyelids for 20 minutes? At that moment, in that place it didn't really matter and I didn't really care either way. The meditation had made me feel something - I wasn't quite sure what - on some level and left me with a feeling of deep cleansing peace that was enough for me.
Rittu asked us all in turn how we'd felt and what we'd seen. She came to me first. 'Well,' I said, wanting to be honest, 'I didn't really manage to visualise anything much and just saw white, but when we were chanting I felt as if I was really sending what I wanted to manifest out into the world. Then, when I put my hands over my eyes, I saw all this red and purple.' Suddenly, thinking about that feeling during the chanting, reliving that moment, my lip started to tremble and I found myself struggling to hold back tears in front of these near-strangers. I don't know why I was crying. Was it the thought of the intention I wanted or the disappointment that I couldn't really 'see' it properly or that I couldn't visualise the tree during the grounding? I didn't know and it didn't seem logical but I couldn't stop myself, as tears rolled down my cheeks.
Rittu placed a caring hand on my knee. 'It's all right,' she said comfortingly. 'It's all right to let your emotions out. It's all part of it.' The others all nodded and seemed to understand. They'd probably been through it many times.
When she asked them, they had all seen various colours and patterns, but one girl had seem Bambi(!) standing next to her and had felt as though people were walking round behind her. I was envious of her Bambi and her imaginary people. Why hadn't I seen anything like this? Why was my imagination, from one who is supposed to be creative, so stubbornly closed to this opportunity of creation?
Rittu ended by saying that in order to make our intention manifest in the real world we had to perform this meditation every day, preferably between 7 and 9am when the energy was strongest, making connection easier. I wasn't sure I could manage that but I'd be willing to give it a go again, to see if my experience was a one-off or if I was capable of visualising my desires better and giving myself a better chance of making them come true. If I could conjure up my own personal 'Bambi' by myself, or even just a little Thumper, I'd be happy with that.
My friends were all students of reiki, a type of healing that's very popular in India and also in the West. Their teacher who I'd met during the meal said I was welcome to join them. So 7:30am saw me sitting on a cool concrete rooftop, as the sun rose enchantingly over the misty palm trees and a field studded with two or three cows grazing peacefully on litter.
The reiki master was an Indian lady named Rittu. Well-known and respected in Arambol for her powerful teaching, she would be leading us in the meditation, guiding us towards the goals it hoped to achieve. In my case this would definitely be helpful. On the one or two occasions I'd tried meditation before it had resulted in a great deal of nothing much. To say I was skeptical was too strong but I was certainly doubtful that, with my abilities, I would be able to get much out of it.
We started off by sitting cross-legged on the hard concrete. I hadn't thought to bring anything to sit on so I took off the shirt I was wearing over my vest-top and sat on that. It didn't pad the concrete at all but it did stop the gritty bits digging into my ankles.
I have very tight hips and hamstrings (a month's worth of yoga had left me with no doubt about that!), so sitting cross-legged was about the most uncomfortable position it is possible for me to hold. Within seconds I was fidgeting and adjusting my posture. My lower ankle bone was pressed hard against the concrete but I had nothing to put under it. Looking futilely through my bag more in hope than expectation I searched for something soft to put under it. I knew for certain that I wouldn't manage even a minute if all I could feel was my bone digging into the ground.
Then I had a flash of inspiration: my camera case. It was made of a spongy, neoprene material that would be perfect, it was flat and just the right size to do duty as a makeshift ankle cushion. I took out my camera and slid the case gratefully under my ankle. Now I could settle down and listen to what Rittu was saying.
I straightened my back, clasped my hands together and placed them on my ankles, as this was more comfortable than placing them on my knees as everyone else had done. Grimly I thought how tight hips are the would-be meditator's worst enemy .
Finally I felt comfortable so I closed my eyes and started to listen. In a low voice with a soft Indian accent, Rittu explained that we were going to do a manifestation meditation - a powerful form in which whatever you asked for would be manifested - or given - to you by the power of your own energy connecting with a universal energy that was all around us. The others were familiar with all this from their reiki classes and I was the only novice, but somewhere in life, I seemed to have picked up a bit about reiki, chakras and energies from who knows where, so I was able to follow.
But there was a problem. Sitting in this straight-backed position for a few minutes was not to my weak back's liking. All down the right side of it, I could feel my muscles tensing and going into a familiar spasm that they seem to think is helpful when I'm tired. It's not. I shifted silently, experimenting with different variations of straight, hunched and slumped to try to find the least painful position. There wasn't one. However I sat, I could still feel this mild but shooting pain. I decided to ignore it - yogis and such can sit immoble like this for hours at a time, so I thought I could manage the 20 minutes this meditation was due to take.
Rittu was telling us that we could ask for anything to be manifested and it would be given to us instantly, with no time lag. Whatever we asked for would be manifested in the real world by the power of our energy. It could be anything - health, a new job, a promotion, happiness in a relationship, financial abundance or even the ability to sit properly during meditation (ok, she didn't say that last one, that's mine). The intention I wanted to manifest is not easy to do instantly (I'm not saying what it was, in case these things are supposed to be kept secret for the meditation to work, or something) so I was prepared not to see it appear after the session.
Now she told us we had to imagine and really visualise the details of our intention to make it clear within us. The more clearly we pictured it and coloured the picture with detail, the stronger the energy of it within us would be and the easier it would be to connect it to the universal energy that would make it come true.We were to picture this intention as part of our life and what effect it would have on our life.
So I started to visualise my own intention. I tried to picture what it would look like, see it being part of my life and feel as if I already had it. It wasn't easy. Up there on the roof the niggling pain still in my back; the sounds of the birds in the trees; the warmth of the sun bringing out a sweat on my forehead; and its light on my closed eyes beginning to make them water, it was difficult to concentrate. I couldn't quite bring a picture of it to mind. Every time my eyes caught a 'glimpse' of it and started moving around the 'scene' I had created, I was brought back to reality by suddenly noticing an annoying floater in my field of vision that squiggled across my sight every time I moved my eyes and was much more visble on the white screen of my closed eyes that my intention was. Maybe visualisation took time to master but I could at least make myself 'feel' the desire for my intention, even if I had trouble picturing it.
'Now,' said Rittu, 'we have to chant audibly the word "Ah".' This is because this sound appears in the name of the Creators, Bram-ah, Shiv-ah, All-ah, and (slightly tenuously) G-ah-d (God) and is therefore the sound of creation. To manifest our intention we have to make the sound of creation within ourselves to enable it to be send out into the material world.' She went on. 'As you chant, feel the energy moving from your root chakra (a spot in your groin) up along your energy channel and leaving your body through your third eye chakra (in between your eyebrows). This will connect your energy and your consciousness with the universal energy, so the louder you chant, the stronger the connection.'
Chanting is embarrassing. There are no two ways about it. In the West we've long ago lost our familiarity with it as tribal chants, war cries, prayers, and general wailing are no longer part of everyday life. Today to 'moan' out loud in a public place, whatever the reason, whether out of happiness, sadness or madness is to attract attention, stares and a feeling of awkwardness. Even in Arambol where 'alternative' is the norm, we still have to overcome the initial fear of feeling silly and looking like an idiot. And someone also has to be brave enough to start off the chant, then the others will quickly join in, relieved that following a leader is considered less idiotic than being that leader. Luckily we had Rittu to do this and she was not embarrassed at all. Why should she be?
She began by breathing in deeply then let out on a low note a long 'Aaaaaah.' The four of us piped up timidly, our voiceboxes still slightly croaky after a night's rest. This was not enough to prod the universal energy awake, let alone connect with it.
'I can't hear you,' said Rittu, after the first chant. 'It needs to be as loud as you can to make a strong connection.' And she began again. I waited, lungs pounding with my held-in breath, not wanting to start before she did, until she began her 'Aaaah'. I breathed out mine too. This time it was a slightly more confident reedy tremor. But we soon got the hang of it, the embarrassment fell away and were soon 'ah-ing' unselfconsciously.
As we followed Rittu, I imagined my energy moving up from my root to my third eye and leaving my body into the world. I didn't feel anything physical or psychological happening as I chanted - I didn't know if I was supposed to or what it should feel like anyway - but I really thought about and believed in what I wanted to manifest.
Gradually I became aware of a wrm sensation on my forehead, just above my eyebrows. 'That must be my energy leaving my third eye!' I thought, somewhere deep in my mind, but as I thought it, my rational, conscious mind was also thinking, 'Nah, that's just the warmth of the sun on your forehead.' I couldn't feel this energy in the rest of my body and definitely not in my root chakra which was touching the cold concrete. 'Just go with it and don't try to second-guess your body,' I told myself.
With each exhalation Rittu changed the pitch of the 'ah' slightly, so the note rose gradually, imperceptibly. As I chanted with her and the others, I could feel the vibrations of the sound buzzing through my body. It was pleasant, relaxing feeling. My visualisation was still nothing more than a white canvas stretched across my field of vision, with floaters jumping up and down madly on it, trying to get my attention. I ignored them now. As the note rose higher, I felt the desire for my intention to be manifest growing stronger and stronger, without me treally thinking about it. With every 'ah' I was crying out my longing for it, sending it out and away from me into the ether. Calling out for it, over and over again, willing it to come true. I didn't really understand what I was feeling, nor could I put a name to this emotion but I definitely felt that the sound I was making was somehow the embodiment of the intention I wanted and that the physical sensation of the sound was the expression of my desire for it to happen.
After several minutes Rittu gradually brought the pitch back down again and as she did, getting lower and lower, softer and softer, I felt a peace and calmness come over me and I was no longer aware of anything, other than the sound of our voices.
We stopped chanting and Rittu's soft voice continued, 'Now feel the energy in your solar plexus chakra spreading out into your body. Feel the light of your clarity radiating out and reaching every part of you that is dark and hidden.' My solar plexus felt normal. The waistband of my elasticated trousers was digging in a bit, but I didn't think that was quite what she meant. Then my stomach growled quietly to itself, pondering the possibility of breakfast being imminent, but I was sure it wasn't that either.
Maybe I hadn't chanted loudly enough and my energy was still stuck in my root chakra. Maybe I hadn't wanted my intention to manifest itself enough. Either way my solar plexus remained cold and uncaring.
Then Rittu went on to guide us to our heart chakra, asking us to spread the light of forgiveness and love to everyone who had hurt us in the past. At the time I couldn't really think of anyone who'd wronged me significantly in my life, I supposed that was a good thing and my heart chakra was sufficiently open. So I decided to just sit and listen and do the best I could at 'feeling' what she asked and trying to imagine it happening to me.
Now though, I gradually became aware of the the pain in my back again and realised with surprise that I'd not felt it at all during the chanting.
Next it was time to 'ground' ourselves.
'Now focus on your root chakra. Imagine it opening up and the roots of a tree growing down and pushing through the concrete, through the rooms below and into the ground, into Mother Earth. Feel it's roots going all the way to the centre of the Earth, connecting you and anchoring you strongly to the world.'
My moment had passed. Now the chanting had stopped reality crowded back in, distracting my attention and my imagination. My back spasm was getting stronger and I could feel my tight right hip seizing up and joining the party.
'Now feel the branches of the tree opening and growing up from your crown chakra and spreading up and out into the sky.' My branches remained stubbornly closed. However much I tried to visualise them, all I could see were the stupid floaters ricocheting round my eyeballs like some crazy pinball machine. Strangely I didn't feel frustrated by this. I know meditation takes a while to get the hang of, so I just tried my best with my stunted lump of vegetation with its stumpy, misshapen roots.
Finally we had to focus back on our breathing and feel the breath in our body and become aware of our surroundings again.
'Now rub the palms of your hands together until they become warm, then place them in front of your eyes for a while, then, when you're ready, open your eyes.' I did this and as I covered my closed eyes, the white canvas I'd seen all along burst into a blaze of red and purple. There was no definable shapes or patterns, just a sheet of colour that seemed to undulate and slip back and forth between shades of red and purple. It was so beautiful, I couldn't take my hands away! The floaters had vanished and this wash of colour was all I could see. I felt as if I was in the middle of it and it was all around me.
After some time, probably about 20 seconds, it started to fade to black. I felt a sadness like a loss as it subsided but at the same time I was energised by its brightness and beauty. Was it my energy swirling inside and around me? Or was it simply a colourful after-image, the effect of putting my hands over my eyes and shutting off the light after looking at the bright sun through my eyelids for 20 minutes? At that moment, in that place it didn't really matter and I didn't really care either way. The meditation had made me feel something - I wasn't quite sure what - on some level and left me with a feeling of deep cleansing peace that was enough for me.
Rittu asked us all in turn how we'd felt and what we'd seen. She came to me first. 'Well,' I said, wanting to be honest, 'I didn't really manage to visualise anything much and just saw white, but when we were chanting I felt as if I was really sending what I wanted to manifest out into the world. Then, when I put my hands over my eyes, I saw all this red and purple.' Suddenly, thinking about that feeling during the chanting, reliving that moment, my lip started to tremble and I found myself struggling to hold back tears in front of these near-strangers. I don't know why I was crying. Was it the thought of the intention I wanted or the disappointment that I couldn't really 'see' it properly or that I couldn't visualise the tree during the grounding? I didn't know and it didn't seem logical but I couldn't stop myself, as tears rolled down my cheeks.
Rittu placed a caring hand on my knee. 'It's all right,' she said comfortingly. 'It's all right to let your emotions out. It's all part of it.' The others all nodded and seemed to understand. They'd probably been through it many times.
When she asked them, they had all seen various colours and patterns, but one girl had seem Bambi(!) standing next to her and had felt as though people were walking round behind her. I was envious of her Bambi and her imaginary people. Why hadn't I seen anything like this? Why was my imagination, from one who is supposed to be creative, so stubbornly closed to this opportunity of creation?
Rittu ended by saying that in order to make our intention manifest in the real world we had to perform this meditation every day, preferably between 7 and 9am when the energy was strongest, making connection easier. I wasn't sure I could manage that but I'd be willing to give it a go again, to see if my experience was a one-off or if I was capable of visualising my desires better and giving myself a better chance of making them come true. If I could conjure up my own personal 'Bambi' by myself, or even just a little Thumper, I'd be happy with that.
Monday 19 December 2011
Feeling sick
I made a big mistake yesterday by calling home - twice. Now I have opened the Pandora's Box of my homesickness and its contents, fragile as glass butterflies on a shelf, have fallen and shattered. Being away from home at Christmas is not the problem, so much as being away at all.
It started with a call to my sister Jo and her family. To hear their voices, so distance-faint but right in my ear was an ache I could barely tolerate. They sounded as if I could reach out and touch them but they were as far away as a galaxy of cold starts. My niece Isabelle's voice, unintelligable with Christmas excitement and a poor connection, was like a noose, choking me unbearably. I longed to be there to see the Christmas tree she and my sister had decorated, to see the birds they'd put on it, even 'the one that's a bit broken' she'd mentioned. They were going to a carol concert with Mum and Dad. If I'd been at home, I might not have been bothered to go, but as it was impossible to go now, except by a miracle of time travel, then it seemed like the only thing in the world I wanted to do.
Then I called Mum and Dad. This was worse. In a little internet cafe, I sat with my hair flattened by ugly headphones and we managed to get a Skype video call working. There they were, looking the same as ever. Used to the Indian sun-bronzed bodies of Goa, their pallor, once mine too, shocked me like an illness. But they were still them. Dad, his hair fuzzed up with the cold, looking concentrated on getting the computer to work just so. Mum, half-out of the picture, looked tired and had her neck wound round a million times with a home-knit scarf to get rid the last remnants of a lingering cold.
We talked over the top of each other in stutters and starts, until we got the hang of the time delay. Jokes and funny anecdotes were difficult as we had to wait for time - long, like a winding snake - before the reward of a shower of laughter after the punchline. But it was still them, still those dearly-loved faces, though at times their heads were just chunks and blocks of pixels and their voices cracked and broken like crushed ice.
We talked about people, places, friends, family, India, me, them, everyone. Between their heads I could see a patch of Home. Through the open door from the office where they were sitting bunched and squinting in front of Dad's computer, I could see the sitting room door open and through it their green sofa, soft as a bed of moss. The dove-grey English winter was spilling onto it, a vision as through water.
Even as the fan above me stirred the warm night air of India on my bare shoulders, I longed to be part of that cold patch of Home. To be sprawling on the spongy cushions, idly staring at the TV, drinking mug after mug of hot tea, a medicine for my soul. Wrapped in a cuddly cardi to keep out the cold I'd come these thousands of miles to escape, dozing under a blanket soft as winter snow. It was a doorframed image of another paradise, guarded by the faces of the two people who love me and who I love most.
And I came to realise that you always want to be where you cannot be, where you chose to leave behind. Had I been there, seeing a Goan beach on a travel programme, bright with sunset-rich promise and sweet with palm trees, I'm sure I would have wished myself there. I did wish myself there. I am there now... and now I wish to be back Home.
Homesickness is the cruellest of afflictions. It provokes a longing that courses your body through every vein and pore, leaving an ache, dull and heavy that you cannot rid yourself of. Yet, you know that you have chosen to distance yourself from this place you love. It is the ache that dare not speak its name. How can you admit, in a paradise everyone would love to inhabit, that you wish you were back Home? How is it fair to inflict on others, whose winter misery you expressly chose to run from, the knowledge that you are selfish enough not to be always happy all of the time?
The answer is that it is not fair. I made the decision to leave home and the unspoken law of new chapters; of upending your life voluntarily, of shattering your certainties; of leaving behind the people, places and routines of family and familiarity dictate that I must now be happy with my choice. But total happiness remains elusive at times, because Home is not there to share it all with me.
Everywhere I look I see things, meet people, experience new experiences that I know someone I know would enjoy. When I flush the toilet in my bathroom for the first time and the unusual plumbing produces a fountain of water that exits the bowl in a glittering arc but creates precious little in the way of evacuation activity, I think of Dad (keep with it, you'll see why). Ever-practical, always methodical and careful, he is good with any situation involving a washer, nut, bolt or spanner. So I picture him standing there shaking his head in amusement and bemusement, saying in frustration something along the lines of, 'What a cack-handed way of doing a bodge-job of a poorly-maintained thing!' And it makes me smile and wish he was there to share it with. To see his face in the mode and manner I predicted would give me a pleasure in a dimension beyond the mere amusement I feel myself.
And there's Mum too. She loves gardening and all around me I see growing wild some of the exotic flowers and foliages I've only ever seen cut and wrapped in plastic that I ordered for the flower shop. Like me, she would love to see these things in their natural state. I picture her, bent at the waist, hands behind her back (so like her own mother in the garden) peering at an insignificant flower or leaf that others would have missed. She would say slowly, 'I think that's a type of ragwort,' or something similar, taking delight in the similarities and differences between plants out here and those back home. She might ponder how she could cultivate it and have a go at growing it 'just for fun'.
It is the small details that make a difference. A shared glance and a grin without words between you and someone who knows your sense of humour, or a nod of the head that indicates something you would find amusing. And you do, because that person knows you well.
Just this morning in a restaurant I spotted a bottle of surface cleaner that made me think of my brother, Martin. Not because he is well-known for his home hygiene, but because the brand name was 'Colin'. Mart takes delight in things such as cleaning products called Colin. Silly, childish things of this nature amuse him - and me - a great deal. Had he been there with me I would have nudged him and pointed it out. He would have laughed and we may well have gone on to a lengthy conversation in which we developed a range of products including washing up liquid, polish and bleach called Steve, Graham and John. As he wasn't there I didn't do this (talking to oneself at 8am in a cafe tends to mark one as a Crazy), just smiled to myself and left it there.
When Aleks was here, he kept pointing out amused, 'Look at Matey-Boy there scratching his balls.' To Aleks, everyone and everything is 'Matey-Boy' if he doesn't know its name. It is his shorthand. So I found myself scanning the scene for a suitable man, woman, child or animal to fit the description. Thankfully this Matey-Boy was a stray dog on the beach, probably suffering from fleas. Now, whenever I see one of the hundreds of Matey-Boys that roam the beach, doing anything unusual or amusing I wish Aleks were here so I could point out my own Matey-Boy spotting.
I'm sure much of this is brought on by the festive season to which I thought I would be immune out here. Even in this haven of foreigners, there is little to suggest the imminent approach of Santa - although Jesus and the Virgin Mary are well-represented in curious little permanent shrines that seem to sprout from odd places, like in front of a shop, bang in the middle of the dirt 'pavement', or under a coconut palm, covered in dust and drooping marigold garlands.
There are few strings of tinsel and sounds of carols, but even if they were visible or audible, I would not be able to connect them with the Christmases I have always known: cold, dark by three and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve; rarely-snowy, mince pie-bloated and wine-warmed. It is hot and hot is not Christmas. Yet calls back Home and the visits to Facebook I torture myself with, tell me that it is Christmas and lock me, unwillingly, into a connection with it and all that it means to me. And that primarily is family.
I don't know how the planned video call on Christmas Day will go when all the family should be gathered round to gawp at my jerky image, but I think that any sparkles in my eyes are more likely to be tears than anything to do with festive glitter.
It started with a call to my sister Jo and her family. To hear their voices, so distance-faint but right in my ear was an ache I could barely tolerate. They sounded as if I could reach out and touch them but they were as far away as a galaxy of cold starts. My niece Isabelle's voice, unintelligable with Christmas excitement and a poor connection, was like a noose, choking me unbearably. I longed to be there to see the Christmas tree she and my sister had decorated, to see the birds they'd put on it, even 'the one that's a bit broken' she'd mentioned. They were going to a carol concert with Mum and Dad. If I'd been at home, I might not have been bothered to go, but as it was impossible to go now, except by a miracle of time travel, then it seemed like the only thing in the world I wanted to do.
Then I called Mum and Dad. This was worse. In a little internet cafe, I sat with my hair flattened by ugly headphones and we managed to get a Skype video call working. There they were, looking the same as ever. Used to the Indian sun-bronzed bodies of Goa, their pallor, once mine too, shocked me like an illness. But they were still them. Dad, his hair fuzzed up with the cold, looking concentrated on getting the computer to work just so. Mum, half-out of the picture, looked tired and had her neck wound round a million times with a home-knit scarf to get rid the last remnants of a lingering cold.
We talked over the top of each other in stutters and starts, until we got the hang of the time delay. Jokes and funny anecdotes were difficult as we had to wait for time - long, like a winding snake - before the reward of a shower of laughter after the punchline. But it was still them, still those dearly-loved faces, though at times their heads were just chunks and blocks of pixels and their voices cracked and broken like crushed ice.
We talked about people, places, friends, family, India, me, them, everyone. Between their heads I could see a patch of Home. Through the open door from the office where they were sitting bunched and squinting in front of Dad's computer, I could see the sitting room door open and through it their green sofa, soft as a bed of moss. The dove-grey English winter was spilling onto it, a vision as through water.
Even as the fan above me stirred the warm night air of India on my bare shoulders, I longed to be part of that cold patch of Home. To be sprawling on the spongy cushions, idly staring at the TV, drinking mug after mug of hot tea, a medicine for my soul. Wrapped in a cuddly cardi to keep out the cold I'd come these thousands of miles to escape, dozing under a blanket soft as winter snow. It was a doorframed image of another paradise, guarded by the faces of the two people who love me and who I love most.
And I came to realise that you always want to be where you cannot be, where you chose to leave behind. Had I been there, seeing a Goan beach on a travel programme, bright with sunset-rich promise and sweet with palm trees, I'm sure I would have wished myself there. I did wish myself there. I am there now... and now I wish to be back Home.
Homesickness is the cruellest of afflictions. It provokes a longing that courses your body through every vein and pore, leaving an ache, dull and heavy that you cannot rid yourself of. Yet, you know that you have chosen to distance yourself from this place you love. It is the ache that dare not speak its name. How can you admit, in a paradise everyone would love to inhabit, that you wish you were back Home? How is it fair to inflict on others, whose winter misery you expressly chose to run from, the knowledge that you are selfish enough not to be always happy all of the time?
The answer is that it is not fair. I made the decision to leave home and the unspoken law of new chapters; of upending your life voluntarily, of shattering your certainties; of leaving behind the people, places and routines of family and familiarity dictate that I must now be happy with my choice. But total happiness remains elusive at times, because Home is not there to share it all with me.
Everywhere I look I see things, meet people, experience new experiences that I know someone I know would enjoy. When I flush the toilet in my bathroom for the first time and the unusual plumbing produces a fountain of water that exits the bowl in a glittering arc but creates precious little in the way of evacuation activity, I think of Dad (keep with it, you'll see why). Ever-practical, always methodical and careful, he is good with any situation involving a washer, nut, bolt or spanner. So I picture him standing there shaking his head in amusement and bemusement, saying in frustration something along the lines of, 'What a cack-handed way of doing a bodge-job of a poorly-maintained thing!' And it makes me smile and wish he was there to share it with. To see his face in the mode and manner I predicted would give me a pleasure in a dimension beyond the mere amusement I feel myself.
And there's Mum too. She loves gardening and all around me I see growing wild some of the exotic flowers and foliages I've only ever seen cut and wrapped in plastic that I ordered for the flower shop. Like me, she would love to see these things in their natural state. I picture her, bent at the waist, hands behind her back (so like her own mother in the garden) peering at an insignificant flower or leaf that others would have missed. She would say slowly, 'I think that's a type of ragwort,' or something similar, taking delight in the similarities and differences between plants out here and those back home. She might ponder how she could cultivate it and have a go at growing it 'just for fun'.
It is the small details that make a difference. A shared glance and a grin without words between you and someone who knows your sense of humour, or a nod of the head that indicates something you would find amusing. And you do, because that person knows you well.
Just this morning in a restaurant I spotted a bottle of surface cleaner that made me think of my brother, Martin. Not because he is well-known for his home hygiene, but because the brand name was 'Colin'. Mart takes delight in things such as cleaning products called Colin. Silly, childish things of this nature amuse him - and me - a great deal. Had he been there with me I would have nudged him and pointed it out. He would have laughed and we may well have gone on to a lengthy conversation in which we developed a range of products including washing up liquid, polish and bleach called Steve, Graham and John. As he wasn't there I didn't do this (talking to oneself at 8am in a cafe tends to mark one as a Crazy), just smiled to myself and left it there.
When Aleks was here, he kept pointing out amused, 'Look at Matey-Boy there scratching his balls.' To Aleks, everyone and everything is 'Matey-Boy' if he doesn't know its name. It is his shorthand. So I found myself scanning the scene for a suitable man, woman, child or animal to fit the description. Thankfully this Matey-Boy was a stray dog on the beach, probably suffering from fleas. Now, whenever I see one of the hundreds of Matey-Boys that roam the beach, doing anything unusual or amusing I wish Aleks were here so I could point out my own Matey-Boy spotting.
I'm sure much of this is brought on by the festive season to which I thought I would be immune out here. Even in this haven of foreigners, there is little to suggest the imminent approach of Santa - although Jesus and the Virgin Mary are well-represented in curious little permanent shrines that seem to sprout from odd places, like in front of a shop, bang in the middle of the dirt 'pavement', or under a coconut palm, covered in dust and drooping marigold garlands.
There are few strings of tinsel and sounds of carols, but even if they were visible or audible, I would not be able to connect them with the Christmases I have always known: cold, dark by three and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve; rarely-snowy, mince pie-bloated and wine-warmed. It is hot and hot is not Christmas. Yet calls back Home and the visits to Facebook I torture myself with, tell me that it is Christmas and lock me, unwillingly, into a connection with it and all that it means to me. And that primarily is family.
I don't know how the planned video call on Christmas Day will go when all the family should be gathered round to gawp at my jerky image, but I think that any sparkles in my eyes are more likely to be tears than anything to do with festive glitter.
Friday 16 December 2011
Delhi's dark side
I realise that, up until now, I haven't written anything about Delhi. I flew in to the city, arriving about 3am, so I plead fatigue, jet-lag and general acclimatisation in my defence.
I think I was also culture-shocked beyond what I could have imagined by this city. I'd been warned by various friends who'd visited that it was a difficult city to start in. I thought I'd be fine, having been to India twice before. I knew what to expect and I knew how to handle it. In reality, I didn't have a clue.
The word I find, after consulting my internal thesaurus, that comes closest to describing it is 'brutal'. I mean this in every sense of the word. I felt the city itself was hard and uncaring, never mind the people.
The traffic had a ceaseless, rawness to it with endlessly blasting horns, aggressive manoeuvres and blind disregard for others. The grey air was dust- and exhaust-choked and breathing in that foul miasma you just couldn't avoid sometimes brought me close to panic.
The houses, most made of brutal concrete, were taking part in a relay of creation and disintegration. New structures rose, grey and harsh, with steel reinforcements poking out the top into the polluted air above, as if trying to pierce and scratch it away. Others were breathing their last breath, crumbling into decay and dust. Others were in a halfway state, paint carelessly slapped on and splashed around to conceal an inner state of terminal decay, or peeling and blotched with mould. Many had corners soaked and stained in the foul-smelling result of years of use as outside, impromptu public latrines.
Every building seemed to be a shop, all selling everything and nothing you could ever need. Huge signs obliterated all pretence at decoration. Each shop and house was hooked up to the life- and light-giving drip of electricity. The city's hapazard life-blood was administered through a networks of cables draped, looped, dangling, crawling and entwined like ancient vines across the walls and streets.
These same streets were all but swallowed up with years' accumulations of litter, stray dogs, cows and beggars. Plastic bags seeping putrid liquid from their decomposing contents, rippled with flies, these interspersed with mounds and smears of excrement from all forms of life, in all stages of freshness and decay.
Hollow, dull-eyed beggars clad in begrimed flags of ancient sun-bleached clothes, stretched out withered, black-nailed claws and mouthed for food or money, the sound of their pleas having long ago died on their cracked lips. Some had no arms, some no legs, some no eyes. All dragged and hauled themselves about using whichever limbs remained or arranged their stumps and bodies onto trolleys with wheels and propelled themselves by planting their bare hands or sticks into whatever disgusting things had been left on the street.
Weaving themselves through this grotesque tapestry, stray dogs snuffled through the dust, trotted, scratched incessantly or slept, occasionally rousing themselves to cock a leg or crouch wherever the mood took them.
Cows seemed to be the only calm beings visible. Moving slowly and unflinchingly through several lanes of traffic, like lumpen islands, bobbing in a fast-moving stream of humanity, they came to rest on rubbish heaps, pavements, in the middle of the road or on traffic islands. There they lay, their liquid eyes oblivious to the bedlam that swirled around them, chewing on abandoned husks of whatever they could find and flicking away the ceaseless ballet of flies that danced around them.
But it was also the people who were brutal. Those I encountered during my three days there were hard-nosed, cruel and pushy. Or they were simply uninterested.Or they were too interested in an unsavoury, ugly way that made my skin crawl, my heart race and my panic reflexes set in.
One such occasion was when walking through a livestock market. Right in the centre of Old Delhi, it spread its tangy, acidic, urine-soaked footprint below the city's main mosque. I thought I had to pass through the market to get to the mosque which I wanted to visit (later I found another route, too late). So I squelched through a foul, foetid soup of piss and shit-drenched straw, mud and litter, towards the mosque. It was only one long straight street, at the end of which I could see the mosque, but it was a walk of forever.
Men with crumpled, tired faces, filthy shirts and piercing eyes crouched in the filth that surrounded their clutches of ragged, patchy goats, sheep or cattle. Every step I took released a blizzard of flies that battered themselves wildly against my bare arms and face, while the mire beneath my feet sucked at my flip-flops, flicking it's acrid filth up the back of my trousers.
There was not a woman to be seen. I know, I looked for them. Nor was there a single other foreigner. Stretching up to the hazy mirage of the mosque, man after dark-eyed man stared as my beacon of cleanliness and pallor passed by them.
Then one man started to follow me. At first I thought he was just going in the same direction, but each time I stopped, he lingered on the pretext of looking at an animal here or there. He had wild, dusty hair; small, darting eyes and a mouth that moved constantly, chewing what was probably tobacco, As he opened it to chew, he revealed a red-stained ruin of crooked teeth.
I walked on. Easing through a small bunch of people gathered in the path, I felt a hand brush my behind. I thought it must have been an accident, due to the crowding and paid no attention.
The man carried on following me, getting bolder now, drawing nearer. I felt the touch again, this time with a squeeze when there was no-one else near me. Now I knew it had to be him. I turned round and glared at him, uselessly through my sunglasses. He looked at me briefly, expressionless - no guilt, no emotion in those gimlet eyes - before turning away and moving on.
Now he must have decided this was a sport. How many times, he must have thought, could he grope me without me realising until it was too late? Now he followed me to one side and slightly behind, the best position to make a quick, darting grab. His hand dangled at the ready, like a filthy, useless claw.
I walked on, keeping him in the periphery of my vision. My heart started to pump and I began to sweat, from both the heat and the anxiety. I didn't think he would do anything more serious; there were just too many people about, but all the same it got to me, to have my space invaded and violated so publicly, yet so deliberately secretively.
The next time it was a definite squeeze. I'd had enough. I turned on him and slapped at his arm, shouting loudly, 'Don't touch me, you dirty bastard!' Of course the insult was lost, but spitting it out released my tension and replaced it with a healthy fearless rage. Pointing my finger right in his face I yelled, 'Touch me again and I'll f***ing kill you!'
His face was infuriatingly impassive, as if I'd just asked him the time, and totally without expression. No remorse, no shame, nothing given away. Others raised their heads and looked in our direction, mildly interested to see what the commotion was. But they saw nothing to be alarmed about and soon turned away.
The man now realised he'd reached the end of his luck and walked on ahead. I breathed heavily, my heart returning to normal. I walked the rest of the way with either my hands or my bag behind my back, just in case.
Of course, this was just one man in a city of millions, but the general feeling that constantly ticked at the back of my mind in Delhi and tugged at my nerves, was one of menace and threat.
On another occasion, I was heading back to a Metro station around dusk. Once the sun sets, the light drops rapidly and it was dark before I knew it. I thought I'd take a short-cut to get back quicker, but it was a mistake. It took me down a dark side street, flushed with patches of intermittent, weak yellow light from the few sparsely-placed lampposts that worked.
As if they'd been hiding in the cracks of the night, staring, leering man began to seep out into the road. As I passed, some hissed and called out to get my attention. Others seemed to grab their crotch and murmur probably lewd comments at me as I passed. Yet others stared openly and turned to watch as I walked past. I ignored them all. Thankfully no-one followed me this time.
I realised that, again, women had disappeared with the light and I seemed to be a lone woman alone in this fog of malign words and whispered threats I didn't understand.
No-one approached me but I felt at would only be a matter of time. My heart began to race and I felt a knot of panic begin to tighten in my chest. Each corner I turned revealed no station. Every street was darker than the last and every face, bush or doorway was filled with a cold, whispering menace. In despair of ever seeing the Metro again, I decided to hail a rickshaw. It was better to pay, whatever the price, and go whatever the distance than suffer this fear any longer. Suddenly a sign in the shape of a large 'M' emerged out of the dark, the air around it glowing with dust motes, like a halo of safety and security. The knot inside unravelled and as I approached the light, the dark shapes and darker threats melted back into the Delhi night.
When I finally left the city it was with a heart light with relief to leave it behind and excitement to see what was to follow. Something much better, I hoped.
I think I was also culture-shocked beyond what I could have imagined by this city. I'd been warned by various friends who'd visited that it was a difficult city to start in. I thought I'd be fine, having been to India twice before. I knew what to expect and I knew how to handle it. In reality, I didn't have a clue.
The word I find, after consulting my internal thesaurus, that comes closest to describing it is 'brutal'. I mean this in every sense of the word. I felt the city itself was hard and uncaring, never mind the people.
The traffic had a ceaseless, rawness to it with endlessly blasting horns, aggressive manoeuvres and blind disregard for others. The grey air was dust- and exhaust-choked and breathing in that foul miasma you just couldn't avoid sometimes brought me close to panic.
The houses, most made of brutal concrete, were taking part in a relay of creation and disintegration. New structures rose, grey and harsh, with steel reinforcements poking out the top into the polluted air above, as if trying to pierce and scratch it away. Others were breathing their last breath, crumbling into decay and dust. Others were in a halfway state, paint carelessly slapped on and splashed around to conceal an inner state of terminal decay, or peeling and blotched with mould. Many had corners soaked and stained in the foul-smelling result of years of use as outside, impromptu public latrines.
Every building seemed to be a shop, all selling everything and nothing you could ever need. Huge signs obliterated all pretence at decoration. Each shop and house was hooked up to the life- and light-giving drip of electricity. The city's hapazard life-blood was administered through a networks of cables draped, looped, dangling, crawling and entwined like ancient vines across the walls and streets.
These same streets were all but swallowed up with years' accumulations of litter, stray dogs, cows and beggars. Plastic bags seeping putrid liquid from their decomposing contents, rippled with flies, these interspersed with mounds and smears of excrement from all forms of life, in all stages of freshness and decay.
Hollow, dull-eyed beggars clad in begrimed flags of ancient sun-bleached clothes, stretched out withered, black-nailed claws and mouthed for food or money, the sound of their pleas having long ago died on their cracked lips. Some had no arms, some no legs, some no eyes. All dragged and hauled themselves about using whichever limbs remained or arranged their stumps and bodies onto trolleys with wheels and propelled themselves by planting their bare hands or sticks into whatever disgusting things had been left on the street.
Weaving themselves through this grotesque tapestry, stray dogs snuffled through the dust, trotted, scratched incessantly or slept, occasionally rousing themselves to cock a leg or crouch wherever the mood took them.
Cows seemed to be the only calm beings visible. Moving slowly and unflinchingly through several lanes of traffic, like lumpen islands, bobbing in a fast-moving stream of humanity, they came to rest on rubbish heaps, pavements, in the middle of the road or on traffic islands. There they lay, their liquid eyes oblivious to the bedlam that swirled around them, chewing on abandoned husks of whatever they could find and flicking away the ceaseless ballet of flies that danced around them.
But it was also the people who were brutal. Those I encountered during my three days there were hard-nosed, cruel and pushy. Or they were simply uninterested.Or they were too interested in an unsavoury, ugly way that made my skin crawl, my heart race and my panic reflexes set in.
One such occasion was when walking through a livestock market. Right in the centre of Old Delhi, it spread its tangy, acidic, urine-soaked footprint below the city's main mosque. I thought I had to pass through the market to get to the mosque which I wanted to visit (later I found another route, too late). So I squelched through a foul, foetid soup of piss and shit-drenched straw, mud and litter, towards the mosque. It was only one long straight street, at the end of which I could see the mosque, but it was a walk of forever.
Men with crumpled, tired faces, filthy shirts and piercing eyes crouched in the filth that surrounded their clutches of ragged, patchy goats, sheep or cattle. Every step I took released a blizzard of flies that battered themselves wildly against my bare arms and face, while the mire beneath my feet sucked at my flip-flops, flicking it's acrid filth up the back of my trousers.
There was not a woman to be seen. I know, I looked for them. Nor was there a single other foreigner. Stretching up to the hazy mirage of the mosque, man after dark-eyed man stared as my beacon of cleanliness and pallor passed by them.
Then one man started to follow me. At first I thought he was just going in the same direction, but each time I stopped, he lingered on the pretext of looking at an animal here or there. He had wild, dusty hair; small, darting eyes and a mouth that moved constantly, chewing what was probably tobacco, As he opened it to chew, he revealed a red-stained ruin of crooked teeth.
I walked on. Easing through a small bunch of people gathered in the path, I felt a hand brush my behind. I thought it must have been an accident, due to the crowding and paid no attention.
The man carried on following me, getting bolder now, drawing nearer. I felt the touch again, this time with a squeeze when there was no-one else near me. Now I knew it had to be him. I turned round and glared at him, uselessly through my sunglasses. He looked at me briefly, expressionless - no guilt, no emotion in those gimlet eyes - before turning away and moving on.
Now he must have decided this was a sport. How many times, he must have thought, could he grope me without me realising until it was too late? Now he followed me to one side and slightly behind, the best position to make a quick, darting grab. His hand dangled at the ready, like a filthy, useless claw.
I walked on, keeping him in the periphery of my vision. My heart started to pump and I began to sweat, from both the heat and the anxiety. I didn't think he would do anything more serious; there were just too many people about, but all the same it got to me, to have my space invaded and violated so publicly, yet so deliberately secretively.
The next time it was a definite squeeze. I'd had enough. I turned on him and slapped at his arm, shouting loudly, 'Don't touch me, you dirty bastard!' Of course the insult was lost, but spitting it out released my tension and replaced it with a healthy fearless rage. Pointing my finger right in his face I yelled, 'Touch me again and I'll f***ing kill you!'
His face was infuriatingly impassive, as if I'd just asked him the time, and totally without expression. No remorse, no shame, nothing given away. Others raised their heads and looked in our direction, mildly interested to see what the commotion was. But they saw nothing to be alarmed about and soon turned away.
The man now realised he'd reached the end of his luck and walked on ahead. I breathed heavily, my heart returning to normal. I walked the rest of the way with either my hands or my bag behind my back, just in case.
Of course, this was just one man in a city of millions, but the general feeling that constantly ticked at the back of my mind in Delhi and tugged at my nerves, was one of menace and threat.
On another occasion, I was heading back to a Metro station around dusk. Once the sun sets, the light drops rapidly and it was dark before I knew it. I thought I'd take a short-cut to get back quicker, but it was a mistake. It took me down a dark side street, flushed with patches of intermittent, weak yellow light from the few sparsely-placed lampposts that worked.
As if they'd been hiding in the cracks of the night, staring, leering man began to seep out into the road. As I passed, some hissed and called out to get my attention. Others seemed to grab their crotch and murmur probably lewd comments at me as I passed. Yet others stared openly and turned to watch as I walked past. I ignored them all. Thankfully no-one followed me this time.
I realised that, again, women had disappeared with the light and I seemed to be a lone woman alone in this fog of malign words and whispered threats I didn't understand.
No-one approached me but I felt at would only be a matter of time. My heart began to race and I felt a knot of panic begin to tighten in my chest. Each corner I turned revealed no station. Every street was darker than the last and every face, bush or doorway was filled with a cold, whispering menace. In despair of ever seeing the Metro again, I decided to hail a rickshaw. It was better to pay, whatever the price, and go whatever the distance than suffer this fear any longer. Suddenly a sign in the shape of a large 'M' emerged out of the dark, the air around it glowing with dust motes, like a halo of safety and security. The knot inside unravelled and as I approached the light, the dark shapes and darker threats melted back into the Delhi night.
When I finally left the city it was with a heart light with relief to leave it behind and excitement to see what was to follow. Something much better, I hoped.
Sunday 11 December 2011
Tribes
Tribalism is a force we in the West think we have long left behind, but if a large group of disparate people from all over the world gathers together, quickly but stealthily tribalism rises to the surface to colour and stamp us each with the identifying marks of our tribe.
One short week on one of the travellers' most popular beaches in Goa, Arambol, was plenty enough time fro me to witness and study this anthropological phenomenon in fast-forward action.
Broadly-speaking my studies have identified four tribes so far, though further investigation may reveal more sub-divisions. They are Old-Timers, Long-Stayers, Travellers and Newbies. While these names are more or less self-explanatory, more precision is necessary.
The Old-Timers are those foreigners who either come back every season and stay for the whole of it - around six months. Or they live in Goa and run a business there. The Long-Stayers are a newer tribe than the OTs. This may be their first time in Arambol, but they intend to stay for a period of no less than 2 months. The LSs have a sub-division I have named the Got-Stuckers. They previously belonged to the Travellers but liked the place so much they 'got stuck' there, unable and unwilling to move on. And so they become part of the LSs.
The Travellers, with whom I most closely identify myself, are passing through on a tip round India, rather than coming to Arambol specifically. Although many stay a week or two, a significant proportion join the Got-Stuckers tribe and extend their stay a few days here, a few days there. The Newbies are, as the name suggests, new to Arambol. They arrive, turtle-like, with their life encased in a backpack, a bewildered expression on their pale face. They have read of Arambol in The Bible or heard rumours of legendary parties here (these rarely materialise, as no-one can be bothered) which have drawn them to this mythic land.
We may all pride ourselves on our individuality and that we do not follow the crowd, or if we do, it is in an ironic and knowing way. My studies have revealed this to be patently untrue. I have identified several rituals, markings and forms of tribal dress common to each tribe. They are all evident to a greater or lesser extent in every member, dispute it as they may.
The Long-Stayers, mainly men, are characterised by their leathery skin, burned chestnut brown by the sun. Their hair is often long, greying and straggly, bunched up in a grubby little ponytail. It has been a stranger to the ministrations of barber or hairdresser for long years. They sport a drum-tight paunch or a long, lean, bone-thin frame. This tribe is generally peace-loving and impervious to the goings-on of the other tribes. It lives in a world submerged in the waves and eddies of the other tribes but remains largely unaffected by them.
Its rituals include long ceremonies of alcohol and tobacco consumption, sometimes starting shortly after sunrise. Members of this tribe are often to be found on the beach early in the morning performing complicated tribal poses and movements known as 'yoga', 't'ai chi' and 'jogging'. These are believe by OTs to promote suppleness, health and - importantly - to offset the effects of the ceremonial drinking and smoking. The evidence for this last is scientifically dubious.
The Long-Stayers are more tonsorially aware that the OTs. For the LS, grooming constitutes quite a large part of their activities. They are commonly found wearing ceremonial dreadlocks, often decorated with multi-coloured beads and bits of string, which may denote status or, more likely, simple arseholery. The dreadlocks are either left loose and dangling like rats' tails or wound becomingly into a fat, lumpy bun on top of the head.
Tribal markings are significant and diverse in LSs. Acceptance into this tribe is rarely allowed without a ceremonial tattoo. Brown shoulders, backs, arms and legs are branded with heavy black or multi-coloured designs. Stylised images of tribal Gods and elders are popular, such as Native American Chief, Che Geuvara, Bob Marley, or Flower Fairy. Others display tattoos of sacred texts in markings stolen from distant tribes, such as Maori designs, Chinese or Indian scripture or Gothic font.
Male Long-Stayers generally opt for substantial, impressive tattoos that wind across large parts of the body. The pain associated with these tattoos gives these member high social status and makes them think they are what is termed 'A Real Man'.
Females are more likely to opt for delicate, simpering flower designs across a shoulder blade or wound round an ankle or across the small of the back. Unlike the males, they prefer to be able to hide their markings when the time comes for them to leave the tribal lands.
Both sexes follow a similar style of dress. Ethnic prints, flowing fabrics, and voluminous pantaloons are all common. LSs try to outdo each other in the completeness of their tribal costume, adding layer on layer of scarves, belts, beads and waistcoats in a tradition known as 'Looking a Knob'.
The wearing of tribal jewellery is widespread with LSs too. Its women in particular adorn themselves with anklets, bracelets, rings, nose-rings and belts in silver and semi-precious stones. They carry large shoulder bags made of colourful fabrics, decorated with sequins, embroidery and beads. These bags may have a strong cultural significance, as there are many merchants lining the streets and hawkers who venture onto tribal beaches to sell such bags to tribal members.
While LSs will spend some of their days in tobacco, weed and alcohol ceremonies, they will also carry out foraging, hunting and gathering chores for provisions for their tribal dwellings locally called 'apartments' which they rent from Old-Timers or Indians. This necessitates the capacious bags they are rarely seen without.
The Traveller tribe is rather like a watered-down version of the LS tribe and many of its members tend to ape the customs and traditions of that tribe in gestures to flatter the LSs and promote goodwill and harmony between the tribes.
Travellers are particularly prone to excesses of an addictive activity known as 'Shopping'. They will spend hours at markets to buy then wear all of the garb of an LS but with additional embellishments. Artificial dreadlocks, sometimes referred to as 'weekend wigs' may be attached to their hair by local craftspeople. These are easy to remove after departure from tribal lands to avoid detection as a Traveller.
Strong Travellers will undergo painful tattoo ceremonies on Arambol lands, while the lower status, weaker members will often ape this custom through henna or painted tattoos, offered by itinerant traders, who enter tribal beaches and communicate their designs via the laminated pages of design books. While these temporary forms of body decoration are of poorer quality than their permanent counterparts, they appeal to the desire for the removable, erasable and reversible that Travellers prefer. As they move through the lands of other tribes, they often prefer not to be identified as Travellers gone native, a slightly shameful trait known to them variously as 'going hippie' or 'being a twat'.
The clothes of this tribe are also worn only in Arambol and its environs and, should a member leave the tribe permanently he or she will often leave their tribal costume behind in a practice known as 'Only in India'.
Travellers, as temporary dwellers in the Arambol lands, have more leisure time and this is often filled with extended drinking, smoking and narcotic ceremonies, in which they attempt to commune with the Gods or 'Discover Themselves'. Long sessions of worship to the Sun Gods and beach deities are also performed. The faithful smear themselves in oils and unguents and lie prone and immobile in the sun's direct rays for hours at a time, until their skin achieves a brown or red hue that is pleasing to the Gods.
Endurance is prized and skin colour is a very strong indicator of status among Travellers. Those with the darkest skin are regarded with some awe and perhaps fear by lower status pink/red members.
When not performing sun-worship, Travellers are usually to be found in activities to improve mind and body. Many rise at 7am in the middle of the night to learn the techniques of yoga from gurus, or engage in meditation. On days following alcohol ceremonies this is more likely to take place around sunset.
Other more arcane practices, such as reiki, pranayana (a breathing technique designed to make the practitioner look like an idiot and sound like they have bronchitis) and crystal healing also form part of some Travellers' daily rituals but, like the clothes, these will largely be forgotten and left behind on the sands of Arambol.
Newbies share few characteristics with the other tribes on first arrival and, as such, are noticeable among them. Their travels through tribal regions where sun-woship is not practised and body coverings are necessary have left them with distinctive markings; brown face, forearms and feet and a white body, often called an 'Indian Tan'. They are the biggest adherents of the sun-worship ceremonies, often risking sunburn and dehydration in their attempts to please the Gods and assimilate with the other tribes.
Newbies and Travellers do share a common characteristic in the form of an esoteric form of communication called 'Internet'. Via glowing rectangular devices, plaques with small individually lettered and numbered sections they are able to send messages, images and verbal communications to ancestors in their version of The Other World, known as 'Back Home'. Most take the form of written communication or the ethereal transfer of 'photos'. However, some of the more adept Newbies are able to establish direct visual contact with Back Home with skillful use of spongy pads attached to their ears, called 'Headsets' and small inert eye devices called 'Webcam'. Years of teaching are needed to work these devices and lines of communication between Arambol and Back Home are often poor and subject to malign spirits which distort both sound and image quality, in order to prevent tribal members gaining knowledge of Back Home before they eventually leave this life to go there themselves.
As an anthropologist, I have felt it necessary for my studies to adopt some, though not all, of the rituals, characteristics and markings of these tribes in order to blend in and regard them more closely. I have found long periods of sun-worship have been beneficial in achieving the correct colour so as not to arouse suspicion. This has had the added benefit of allowing me to communicate with their Gods through the practice of 'Snoozing'. Participation in Yoga has also helped me to bond with the tribes and discussions of the merits of various gurus forms a large part of my interactions with them.
Adopting certain clothing and jewellery of the tribes has also proved useful and I have discovered a great empathy and acceptance with female tribal members by mimicking their form of dress with billowing trousers, ethnic fabrics and jewellery. I have not, however, adopted their tribal tattoos, permanent or temporary, nor their dreadlocks for fear of causing offence by getting it wrong, a taboo situation known as 'Looking Ridiculous'.
In recent weeks I have even managed to establish contact with Back Home via Internet, but, as yet, visual communication using the sacred Webcam remains elusive.
Further investigation will require acceptance by other tribes, such as the Long-Stayers, so I may try to infiltrate the Got-Stuckers in order to get closer to them. I think that staying until their major annual tribal festival 'Merry Christmas' should do it.
One short week on one of the travellers' most popular beaches in Goa, Arambol, was plenty enough time fro me to witness and study this anthropological phenomenon in fast-forward action.
Broadly-speaking my studies have identified four tribes so far, though further investigation may reveal more sub-divisions. They are Old-Timers, Long-Stayers, Travellers and Newbies. While these names are more or less self-explanatory, more precision is necessary.
The Old-Timers are those foreigners who either come back every season and stay for the whole of it - around six months. Or they live in Goa and run a business there. The Long-Stayers are a newer tribe than the OTs. This may be their first time in Arambol, but they intend to stay for a period of no less than 2 months. The LSs have a sub-division I have named the Got-Stuckers. They previously belonged to the Travellers but liked the place so much they 'got stuck' there, unable and unwilling to move on. And so they become part of the LSs.
The Travellers, with whom I most closely identify myself, are passing through on a tip round India, rather than coming to Arambol specifically. Although many stay a week or two, a significant proportion join the Got-Stuckers tribe and extend their stay a few days here, a few days there. The Newbies are, as the name suggests, new to Arambol. They arrive, turtle-like, with their life encased in a backpack, a bewildered expression on their pale face. They have read of Arambol in The Bible or heard rumours of legendary parties here (these rarely materialise, as no-one can be bothered) which have drawn them to this mythic land.
We may all pride ourselves on our individuality and that we do not follow the crowd, or if we do, it is in an ironic and knowing way. My studies have revealed this to be patently untrue. I have identified several rituals, markings and forms of tribal dress common to each tribe. They are all evident to a greater or lesser extent in every member, dispute it as they may.
The Long-Stayers, mainly men, are characterised by their leathery skin, burned chestnut brown by the sun. Their hair is often long, greying and straggly, bunched up in a grubby little ponytail. It has been a stranger to the ministrations of barber or hairdresser for long years. They sport a drum-tight paunch or a long, lean, bone-thin frame. This tribe is generally peace-loving and impervious to the goings-on of the other tribes. It lives in a world submerged in the waves and eddies of the other tribes but remains largely unaffected by them.
Its rituals include long ceremonies of alcohol and tobacco consumption, sometimes starting shortly after sunrise. Members of this tribe are often to be found on the beach early in the morning performing complicated tribal poses and movements known as 'yoga', 't'ai chi' and 'jogging'. These are believe by OTs to promote suppleness, health and - importantly - to offset the effects of the ceremonial drinking and smoking. The evidence for this last is scientifically dubious.
The Long-Stayers are more tonsorially aware that the OTs. For the LS, grooming constitutes quite a large part of their activities. They are commonly found wearing ceremonial dreadlocks, often decorated with multi-coloured beads and bits of string, which may denote status or, more likely, simple arseholery. The dreadlocks are either left loose and dangling like rats' tails or wound becomingly into a fat, lumpy bun on top of the head.
Tribal markings are significant and diverse in LSs. Acceptance into this tribe is rarely allowed without a ceremonial tattoo. Brown shoulders, backs, arms and legs are branded with heavy black or multi-coloured designs. Stylised images of tribal Gods and elders are popular, such as Native American Chief, Che Geuvara, Bob Marley, or Flower Fairy. Others display tattoos of sacred texts in markings stolen from distant tribes, such as Maori designs, Chinese or Indian scripture or Gothic font.
Male Long-Stayers generally opt for substantial, impressive tattoos that wind across large parts of the body. The pain associated with these tattoos gives these member high social status and makes them think they are what is termed 'A Real Man'.
Females are more likely to opt for delicate, simpering flower designs across a shoulder blade or wound round an ankle or across the small of the back. Unlike the males, they prefer to be able to hide their markings when the time comes for them to leave the tribal lands.
Both sexes follow a similar style of dress. Ethnic prints, flowing fabrics, and voluminous pantaloons are all common. LSs try to outdo each other in the completeness of their tribal costume, adding layer on layer of scarves, belts, beads and waistcoats in a tradition known as 'Looking a Knob'.
The wearing of tribal jewellery is widespread with LSs too. Its women in particular adorn themselves with anklets, bracelets, rings, nose-rings and belts in silver and semi-precious stones. They carry large shoulder bags made of colourful fabrics, decorated with sequins, embroidery and beads. These bags may have a strong cultural significance, as there are many merchants lining the streets and hawkers who venture onto tribal beaches to sell such bags to tribal members.
While LSs will spend some of their days in tobacco, weed and alcohol ceremonies, they will also carry out foraging, hunting and gathering chores for provisions for their tribal dwellings locally called 'apartments' which they rent from Old-Timers or Indians. This necessitates the capacious bags they are rarely seen without.
The Traveller tribe is rather like a watered-down version of the LS tribe and many of its members tend to ape the customs and traditions of that tribe in gestures to flatter the LSs and promote goodwill and harmony between the tribes.
Travellers are particularly prone to excesses of an addictive activity known as 'Shopping'. They will spend hours at markets to buy then wear all of the garb of an LS but with additional embellishments. Artificial dreadlocks, sometimes referred to as 'weekend wigs' may be attached to their hair by local craftspeople. These are easy to remove after departure from tribal lands to avoid detection as a Traveller.
Strong Travellers will undergo painful tattoo ceremonies on Arambol lands, while the lower status, weaker members will often ape this custom through henna or painted tattoos, offered by itinerant traders, who enter tribal beaches and communicate their designs via the laminated pages of design books. While these temporary forms of body decoration are of poorer quality than their permanent counterparts, they appeal to the desire for the removable, erasable and reversible that Travellers prefer. As they move through the lands of other tribes, they often prefer not to be identified as Travellers gone native, a slightly shameful trait known to them variously as 'going hippie' or 'being a twat'.
The clothes of this tribe are also worn only in Arambol and its environs and, should a member leave the tribe permanently he or she will often leave their tribal costume behind in a practice known as 'Only in India'.
Travellers, as temporary dwellers in the Arambol lands, have more leisure time and this is often filled with extended drinking, smoking and narcotic ceremonies, in which they attempt to commune with the Gods or 'Discover Themselves'. Long sessions of worship to the Sun Gods and beach deities are also performed. The faithful smear themselves in oils and unguents and lie prone and immobile in the sun's direct rays for hours at a time, until their skin achieves a brown or red hue that is pleasing to the Gods.
Endurance is prized and skin colour is a very strong indicator of status among Travellers. Those with the darkest skin are regarded with some awe and perhaps fear by lower status pink/red members.
When not performing sun-worship, Travellers are usually to be found in activities to improve mind and body. Many rise at 7am in the middle of the night to learn the techniques of yoga from gurus, or engage in meditation. On days following alcohol ceremonies this is more likely to take place around sunset.
Other more arcane practices, such as reiki, pranayana (a breathing technique designed to make the practitioner look like an idiot and sound like they have bronchitis) and crystal healing also form part of some Travellers' daily rituals but, like the clothes, these will largely be forgotten and left behind on the sands of Arambol.
Newbies share few characteristics with the other tribes on first arrival and, as such, are noticeable among them. Their travels through tribal regions where sun-woship is not practised and body coverings are necessary have left them with distinctive markings; brown face, forearms and feet and a white body, often called an 'Indian Tan'. They are the biggest adherents of the sun-worship ceremonies, often risking sunburn and dehydration in their attempts to please the Gods and assimilate with the other tribes.
Newbies and Travellers do share a common characteristic in the form of an esoteric form of communication called 'Internet'. Via glowing rectangular devices, plaques with small individually lettered and numbered sections they are able to send messages, images and verbal communications to ancestors in their version of The Other World, known as 'Back Home'. Most take the form of written communication or the ethereal transfer of 'photos'. However, some of the more adept Newbies are able to establish direct visual contact with Back Home with skillful use of spongy pads attached to their ears, called 'Headsets' and small inert eye devices called 'Webcam'. Years of teaching are needed to work these devices and lines of communication between Arambol and Back Home are often poor and subject to malign spirits which distort both sound and image quality, in order to prevent tribal members gaining knowledge of Back Home before they eventually leave this life to go there themselves.
As an anthropologist, I have felt it necessary for my studies to adopt some, though not all, of the rituals, characteristics and markings of these tribes in order to blend in and regard them more closely. I have found long periods of sun-worship have been beneficial in achieving the correct colour so as not to arouse suspicion. This has had the added benefit of allowing me to communicate with their Gods through the practice of 'Snoozing'. Participation in Yoga has also helped me to bond with the tribes and discussions of the merits of various gurus forms a large part of my interactions with them.
Adopting certain clothing and jewellery of the tribes has also proved useful and I have discovered a great empathy and acceptance with female tribal members by mimicking their form of dress with billowing trousers, ethnic fabrics and jewellery. I have not, however, adopted their tribal tattoos, permanent or temporary, nor their dreadlocks for fear of causing offence by getting it wrong, a taboo situation known as 'Looking Ridiculous'.
In recent weeks I have even managed to establish contact with Back Home via Internet, but, as yet, visual communication using the sacred Webcam remains elusive.
Further investigation will require acceptance by other tribes, such as the Long-Stayers, so I may try to infiltrate the Got-Stuckers in order to get closer to them. I think that staying until their major annual tribal festival 'Merry Christmas' should do it.
Bus or bust
Travelling on a bus in India is a test of willpower - and patience, and strength and personal space and the senses.
In order to save myself approximately five pounds on a straightforward taxi fare from Calangute to Arambol, I thought it would be cheaper - though not simpler - to do the journey by taking the bus with a change halfway through. This would take about 1 hour and cost 25p. No contest!
The first leg from Calangute to Mapusa passed uneventfully and the bus was fairly empty. The leg from Mapusa to Arambol was another world. It started in Mapusa bus terminal which was chaotically busy. When I found the bus and got on, all the seats were taken and much of the aisle too. Even the compartment at the front for stowing large luggage, such as my backpack, was being selfishly monopolised by an enormous sack stuffed full of hands of bananas. With a bit of vicious pushing and shoving and no doubt some damaged bananas, the driver made a space in which to wedge my bag.
Now we were ready to leave - or so I thought. But no, the ticket collector was still outside, shouting out our destination in a bid to get more customers. They came in droves. The aisle where I was standing slowly got more and more cramped until I thought, 'They must stop taking passengers soon, or there'll be no room to fit any more in at stops along the way.' But still they kept piling in. It was like pouring dry rice into a jar: you think it's full, then you give it a shake and suddenly more space is created and you can fit in a few more grains. When the ticket collector had to brace himself, by holding onto the door frame and heave himself backwards against the people inside to get himself inside the bus, he decided it was full.
We set off. The tightly packed bodies now had to adjust themselves to account for the movement of the bus, as well as the stops and starts. Suddenly, as they grabbed onto the filthy handrails above their heads, I found an elbow in my face, a head in my armpit and myself unable to prevent my backside being pushed into the stomach of the lady clinging on behind me. The bus lurched through potholes and over speed bumps, forcing us all to sway wildly in one direction, then another. My nose was filled with the smell of hair oil, stale sweat, close body contact and thick diesel fumes. Even the sack of bananas failed to sweeten the pungent mix.
Then the first stop arrived. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least those getting off would lighten the load. No-one got off. Instead yet more people heaved and dragged themselves on. A man with a large, heavy briefcase got on and failed to see or care about my foot which he trapped painfully under his case. I managed to yank it free and make room for it - by treading on the toes of the boy behind me. He, in turn, shuffled his away and a chain reaction of shuffling, shifting, settling began, to make room in this incredible 'tardis' bus.
In fact, the driver was the lucky one. He had acres of space around him and his enormous steering wheel, so much in fact, that he had space enough to create his own mini shrine on and round the windscreen. It was like a mini temple on wheels.
Above the windscreen there was a framed picture of Ganesh and two other Gods, draped with an orange marigold garland that had passed its sell-by date some days ago. It hung limp and lifeless until the bus moved, when it was flung into a frenzied swaying, whipping the Gods with its withered blooms.
In the left-hand side of the windscreen, half-blocking the driver's view, hung a large, neon-orange plastic lantern with a long wavy-cut fringe below it. When we moved the plastic tassels clattered together and waved in the breeze, like the tentacles of some demented, giant, day-glo jellyfish.
Below the framed picture was a little tray in which a tiny statue of Ganesh (God of good luck - was this a Bad Sign on such a clapped out old bus?) was dwarfed by a large, papery red hibiscus bloom. Below that tray, another with more ominous contents. It seemed to be filled with a selection of spare parts and tools. I caught the glint of a lightbulb, a spanner, a fanbelt and other nuts and bolts, washers and wires that might be needed in the event of a breakdown. In view of the load on board, this seemed quite a likely outlook, so the tray was a wise, if alarming precaution.
I was sure the electrics would be the first to go. Above the driver's head a couple of lengths of cable were carelessly looped, fraying and showing bare wires at either end. Their dubious hazard level was not helped by the bunches of now-desiccated leaves that formed a garland of older vintage than the marigolds, carelessly flung over the wires. One spark and they, the wires, the bus and the passengers would be engulfed in an immense ball of fire.
Not wanting to dwell on my own wildly-exaggerated imaginings, I thought it best to look away. Re-adjusting my grip on the handrails, I caught sight of the ceiling - and wished I hadn't. It was thickly encrusted with a greasy brown layer of many years' build-up of hair grease, hand grease, dust and dirt. Maybe, I mused, this actually had a practical application. When a tall person, such as myself, got on they could 'Velcro' their head to the sticky ceiling using this ancient grease and be stuck fast and secure, no matter how much the bus lurched. I decided that the cause of hygiene would not best be served by trying this out, so with head cocked to one side to avoid contact, I held my grip.
Sweat was beginning to trickle down my back and legs now and the Eau d'Enclosed Autobus perfume was intensifying. A short man, unable to move elsewhere, had his head thrust under my armpit. Looking the picture of misery the poor man was - I was paranoid enough to believe - desperately trying not to breathe.
I wondered whether the saving I'd made by taking the bus was worth the colourful journey. I was persuaded that it was by one simple gesture. A young girl of about 13 had been fiddling with a packet of bindhis during the journey, trying to decide which one to put on her forehead. When she looked up and saw me watching her, I smiled and pointed out a turquoise dot, which went perfectly with her outfit. We didn't exchange a word. As she left the bus, she pressed a bindhi onto my forehead and thrust a slightly grubby bright pink synthetic flower hairclip into my hand - an spontaneous gift. This was such a touching gesture, from someone with whom I'd had no more than an exchanged glance and smile.
When I got to my beach hut, looking in the mirror, I saw that she had returned the favour with a tiny shiny bindhi in the exact same shade as my coral-coloured shirt.
In order to save myself approximately five pounds on a straightforward taxi fare from Calangute to Arambol, I thought it would be cheaper - though not simpler - to do the journey by taking the bus with a change halfway through. This would take about 1 hour and cost 25p. No contest!
The first leg from Calangute to Mapusa passed uneventfully and the bus was fairly empty. The leg from Mapusa to Arambol was another world. It started in Mapusa bus terminal which was chaotically busy. When I found the bus and got on, all the seats were taken and much of the aisle too. Even the compartment at the front for stowing large luggage, such as my backpack, was being selfishly monopolised by an enormous sack stuffed full of hands of bananas. With a bit of vicious pushing and shoving and no doubt some damaged bananas, the driver made a space in which to wedge my bag.
Now we were ready to leave - or so I thought. But no, the ticket collector was still outside, shouting out our destination in a bid to get more customers. They came in droves. The aisle where I was standing slowly got more and more cramped until I thought, 'They must stop taking passengers soon, or there'll be no room to fit any more in at stops along the way.' But still they kept piling in. It was like pouring dry rice into a jar: you think it's full, then you give it a shake and suddenly more space is created and you can fit in a few more grains. When the ticket collector had to brace himself, by holding onto the door frame and heave himself backwards against the people inside to get himself inside the bus, he decided it was full.
We set off. The tightly packed bodies now had to adjust themselves to account for the movement of the bus, as well as the stops and starts. Suddenly, as they grabbed onto the filthy handrails above their heads, I found an elbow in my face, a head in my armpit and myself unable to prevent my backside being pushed into the stomach of the lady clinging on behind me. The bus lurched through potholes and over speed bumps, forcing us all to sway wildly in one direction, then another. My nose was filled with the smell of hair oil, stale sweat, close body contact and thick diesel fumes. Even the sack of bananas failed to sweeten the pungent mix.
Then the first stop arrived. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least those getting off would lighten the load. No-one got off. Instead yet more people heaved and dragged themselves on. A man with a large, heavy briefcase got on and failed to see or care about my foot which he trapped painfully under his case. I managed to yank it free and make room for it - by treading on the toes of the boy behind me. He, in turn, shuffled his away and a chain reaction of shuffling, shifting, settling began, to make room in this incredible 'tardis' bus.
In fact, the driver was the lucky one. He had acres of space around him and his enormous steering wheel, so much in fact, that he had space enough to create his own mini shrine on and round the windscreen. It was like a mini temple on wheels.
Above the windscreen there was a framed picture of Ganesh and two other Gods, draped with an orange marigold garland that had passed its sell-by date some days ago. It hung limp and lifeless until the bus moved, when it was flung into a frenzied swaying, whipping the Gods with its withered blooms.
In the left-hand side of the windscreen, half-blocking the driver's view, hung a large, neon-orange plastic lantern with a long wavy-cut fringe below it. When we moved the plastic tassels clattered together and waved in the breeze, like the tentacles of some demented, giant, day-glo jellyfish.
Below the framed picture was a little tray in which a tiny statue of Ganesh (God of good luck - was this a Bad Sign on such a clapped out old bus?) was dwarfed by a large, papery red hibiscus bloom. Below that tray, another with more ominous contents. It seemed to be filled with a selection of spare parts and tools. I caught the glint of a lightbulb, a spanner, a fanbelt and other nuts and bolts, washers and wires that might be needed in the event of a breakdown. In view of the load on board, this seemed quite a likely outlook, so the tray was a wise, if alarming precaution.
I was sure the electrics would be the first to go. Above the driver's head a couple of lengths of cable were carelessly looped, fraying and showing bare wires at either end. Their dubious hazard level was not helped by the bunches of now-desiccated leaves that formed a garland of older vintage than the marigolds, carelessly flung over the wires. One spark and they, the wires, the bus and the passengers would be engulfed in an immense ball of fire.
Not wanting to dwell on my own wildly-exaggerated imaginings, I thought it best to look away. Re-adjusting my grip on the handrails, I caught sight of the ceiling - and wished I hadn't. It was thickly encrusted with a greasy brown layer of many years' build-up of hair grease, hand grease, dust and dirt. Maybe, I mused, this actually had a practical application. When a tall person, such as myself, got on they could 'Velcro' their head to the sticky ceiling using this ancient grease and be stuck fast and secure, no matter how much the bus lurched. I decided that the cause of hygiene would not best be served by trying this out, so with head cocked to one side to avoid contact, I held my grip.
Sweat was beginning to trickle down my back and legs now and the Eau d'Enclosed Autobus perfume was intensifying. A short man, unable to move elsewhere, had his head thrust under my armpit. Looking the picture of misery the poor man was - I was paranoid enough to believe - desperately trying not to breathe.
I wondered whether the saving I'd made by taking the bus was worth the colourful journey. I was persuaded that it was by one simple gesture. A young girl of about 13 had been fiddling with a packet of bindhis during the journey, trying to decide which one to put on her forehead. When she looked up and saw me watching her, I smiled and pointed out a turquoise dot, which went perfectly with her outfit. We didn't exchange a word. As she left the bus, she pressed a bindhi onto my forehead and thrust a slightly grubby bright pink synthetic flower hairclip into my hand - an spontaneous gift. This was such a touching gesture, from someone with whom I'd had no more than an exchanged glance and smile.
When I got to my beach hut, looking in the mirror, I saw that she had returned the favour with a tiny shiny bindhi in the exact same shade as my coral-coloured shirt.
Friday 9 December 2011
Bad food fast
In Ahmedabad, the fast food business had reached its peak - by which I mean trough - in the humble jam bun.
Turfed very indignantly out of my dirty, expensive hotel at 7am (after having shouted and counter-banged to have it brought forward from 5am!!), a little roadside cafe was all I could find at that time from which to coax a breakfast.
Inside rows of tired white melamine tables and benches lined the room. The tables had been wiped clean so many times that the brown wood beneath was showing through in mottled patches, as if the tables' true identity and race was gradually being revealed.
On each table stood a small metal crate with a handle, holding four glasses containing water of dubious provenance. Although the clientele was entirely Indian, mercifully the menu I was presented with was in English. This seemed to be a juice bar of some kind, selling fruit juices, lassis, tea and coffee. A few snacks were also available - the simple sandwich being all I felt I could stomach at this time.
The waiter's English was not up to much so, with a combination of speaking slowly and sign language, I ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and a black tea with separate milk.
'No,' came the reply. This is what passes for polite customer service and manners in the Indian services sector. Sometimes the addition of 'possible' renders it more palatable; 'no possible', but on this occasion it was not to be.
With his fingers the waiter suggested 10 minutes, which I took to mean toasted cheese sandwiches wouldn't be available on the menu for 10 minutes. A brief scan of the menu offered 'jam bun' as the only alternative available, so by dint of a lack of other options I ordered one.
The tea arrived first. Indian waiter service does not appear to recognise the concept that food and drink are preferred to be consumed concurrently, so often the moment you have finished your drink - which you have sipped slowly in order to save some to go with your food - your meal arrives.
My careful explanations had only been partically successful. I always order black tea with separate milk as otherwise the brew that arrives is magnolia pale in colour and sryrupy-sweet. So I prefer to add my own milk to achieve my own personally acceptable colour range. The two items were indeed separate, but when I took my first sip, I realised I had forgotten to negotiate the sugar. It was there in abundance, undrinkable. I sent it back with the precision that there be no sugar in either the tea or milk, just to be on the safe side.
Thankfully my second attempt arrived, correctly this time, at the same time as my tardy jam bun. This confection was a delight to behold. A large fat, pappy white bun, it had been cut through horizontally into four fat fingers - jam bun soldiers if you will. It was like a grown-up verson of a child's packed lunch.
Between the halves of each finger was a layer of soft, thick white butter, almost the consistency of whipped cream. Under this a thinner layer of a neon pink jam. I have seen ladies wearing synthetic fabric sarees of this colour and I did not think it possible to re-create its radioactive hue in a foodstuff. I was wrong.
All around me, mostly men and and young lads, with a few ladies, were tucking into the same thing, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Not content to whip one up simply at home, they preferred to come to a scruffy cafe and pay someone else to dollop greasy butter and lurid jam onto bread, stick it together and cut it into convenient bited-sized pieces. I was bemused.
I took a bite. It was like eating an entirely synthetic English cream tea. Not unpleasant if you are desperately hungry (I was), but not a culinary treat by any stretch.
The jam had a sweet taste of unidentifiable fruit, such that its own mother would not have recognised it, while the deep, soft butter squished out the sides like a greasy Devonshire cream tea and had a taste and texture somewhere between raw cake mixture, whipped cream and wallpaper paste. Hungrily I ate the remaining fingers and realised by the time I'd finished, that it was actually quite pleasant!
I have to confess to a long-enduring love of horrendously over-processed foods. I blame my mother. Not becasue she fed us such things as children and so nurtured this peculiar obsession. Quite the reverse: we always had home-grown, home-baked delicious, freshly-made everything as children. Her bread was, and continues to be, divine and her home-grown, organic fruit, veg, meat, butter and even cheese was so tasty that I never had cause to taste or want the artificial things in life.
Consequently, like the acddict who discovers drugs later in life, ghastly synthetic foods, from processed cheese to artificial whipped cream, are my occasional drug of choice. The very unfamiliarity of their smell, taste and texture is a swift but short-lived high which, thankfully, never leaves me craving more or seeking out higher planes of culinary consciousness. Instead it's a food of opportunity. If it's there I will eat it, I will enjoy it and I will forget it instantly, until the next occasion.
So it was with the jam bun. I had 'experimented' with it. Its mild sugar rush was done and I doubt I will be tempted by it again - ever!
Turfed very indignantly out of my dirty, expensive hotel at 7am (after having shouted and counter-banged to have it brought forward from 5am!!), a little roadside cafe was all I could find at that time from which to coax a breakfast.
Inside rows of tired white melamine tables and benches lined the room. The tables had been wiped clean so many times that the brown wood beneath was showing through in mottled patches, as if the tables' true identity and race was gradually being revealed.
On each table stood a small metal crate with a handle, holding four glasses containing water of dubious provenance. Although the clientele was entirely Indian, mercifully the menu I was presented with was in English. This seemed to be a juice bar of some kind, selling fruit juices, lassis, tea and coffee. A few snacks were also available - the simple sandwich being all I felt I could stomach at this time.
The waiter's English was not up to much so, with a combination of speaking slowly and sign language, I ordered a toasted cheese sandwich and a black tea with separate milk.
'No,' came the reply. This is what passes for polite customer service and manners in the Indian services sector. Sometimes the addition of 'possible' renders it more palatable; 'no possible', but on this occasion it was not to be.
With his fingers the waiter suggested 10 minutes, which I took to mean toasted cheese sandwiches wouldn't be available on the menu for 10 minutes. A brief scan of the menu offered 'jam bun' as the only alternative available, so by dint of a lack of other options I ordered one.
The tea arrived first. Indian waiter service does not appear to recognise the concept that food and drink are preferred to be consumed concurrently, so often the moment you have finished your drink - which you have sipped slowly in order to save some to go with your food - your meal arrives.
My careful explanations had only been partically successful. I always order black tea with separate milk as otherwise the brew that arrives is magnolia pale in colour and sryrupy-sweet. So I prefer to add my own milk to achieve my own personally acceptable colour range. The two items were indeed separate, but when I took my first sip, I realised I had forgotten to negotiate the sugar. It was there in abundance, undrinkable. I sent it back with the precision that there be no sugar in either the tea or milk, just to be on the safe side.
Thankfully my second attempt arrived, correctly this time, at the same time as my tardy jam bun. This confection was a delight to behold. A large fat, pappy white bun, it had been cut through horizontally into four fat fingers - jam bun soldiers if you will. It was like a grown-up verson of a child's packed lunch.
Between the halves of each finger was a layer of soft, thick white butter, almost the consistency of whipped cream. Under this a thinner layer of a neon pink jam. I have seen ladies wearing synthetic fabric sarees of this colour and I did not think it possible to re-create its radioactive hue in a foodstuff. I was wrong.
All around me, mostly men and and young lads, with a few ladies, were tucking into the same thing, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Not content to whip one up simply at home, they preferred to come to a scruffy cafe and pay someone else to dollop greasy butter and lurid jam onto bread, stick it together and cut it into convenient bited-sized pieces. I was bemused.
I took a bite. It was like eating an entirely synthetic English cream tea. Not unpleasant if you are desperately hungry (I was), but not a culinary treat by any stretch.
The jam had a sweet taste of unidentifiable fruit, such that its own mother would not have recognised it, while the deep, soft butter squished out the sides like a greasy Devonshire cream tea and had a taste and texture somewhere between raw cake mixture, whipped cream and wallpaper paste. Hungrily I ate the remaining fingers and realised by the time I'd finished, that it was actually quite pleasant!
I have to confess to a long-enduring love of horrendously over-processed foods. I blame my mother. Not becasue she fed us such things as children and so nurtured this peculiar obsession. Quite the reverse: we always had home-grown, home-baked delicious, freshly-made everything as children. Her bread was, and continues to be, divine and her home-grown, organic fruit, veg, meat, butter and even cheese was so tasty that I never had cause to taste or want the artificial things in life.
Consequently, like the acddict who discovers drugs later in life, ghastly synthetic foods, from processed cheese to artificial whipped cream, are my occasional drug of choice. The very unfamiliarity of their smell, taste and texture is a swift but short-lived high which, thankfully, never leaves me craving more or seeking out higher planes of culinary consciousness. Instead it's a food of opportunity. If it's there I will eat it, I will enjoy it and I will forget it instantly, until the next occasion.
So it was with the jam bun. I had 'experimented' with it. Its mild sugar rush was done and I doubt I will be tempted by it again - ever!
Wednesday 7 December 2011
Noise and peace
The less said about Ahmedabad the better. It was the nosiest, most agressive, ugliest, most unwelcoming town I've seen so far. Its dirt and dust clotted on my skin, choked my nose and blackened every emotion I had with its heavy coating, except sadness and lonlieness. All that could struggle to the surface through the grime was my anxiety, fear and a longing to get out of the place.
I was just passing through the town on my way elsewhere, but all the trains were booked up, which meant I was stuck in the godforsaken place for two days before I could leave. During those elastic days that seemed to stretch out in an endless agony of extended seconds, minutes and hours, I came to loathe it.
I arrived there at 4:30am on a night sleeper. Never a good time to arrive anywhere, my dark luck was further blackened by the fact, unknown to me at the time, that Ahmedabad was hosting some sort of exams for Indian Railways and, as the world's largest employer, this meant people had come from all over India to sit these exams. There was not a room to be had anywhere.
The first three hotels listed in The Bible were full, as I was gruffly told by the succession of receptionists I had to wake to gain this undesired information. After this, I was forced to take the recommendations of the rickshaw driver who'd picke me up from the station, knowing he would gleefully be getting a commission from wherever I stayed, thanks to my misfortune.
At the 8th hotel we asked at, in desperation, I took the only room they had left. I paid twice what I would normally pay for a room that wasn't worth half the price. The walls were smeared with anonymous, greasy swirls and the sheets and pillowcases were patterned with the indelible presence, fluids and secretions of an untold accumulation of bodies. The shower was an icy needle and the traffic noise and dust seeped in through windows it was impossible to fully close. I was too exhausted to care. I thought maybe I'd sleep through the agony of waiting to leave again, but my earplugs blocked barely a decibel of the agitated street outside.
I sought refuge in writing in a dim, cool internet cafe. Even checking emails was too emotional. I cried quietly at a photo my brother sent of my neices smiling and laughing in the back seat of my car, which he and his family are 'fostering' while I'm away. And to cheer me up, Aleks had sent me a beautiful photo of us together, winter-pale but happy, captured on a forgotten night out in Cambridge. It was too much to bear. With all my being I wished I was back there. Home was cold but familiar, there were the faces I loved and who loved me too. Here in this pulsing, throbbing city no-one knew me or cared about my existence. The lure of the exotic in India, felt more like a plughole, drainging me of everything but despair. So I wrote and, fortified by a dose of blogging, I raised my head through the mist of my gloom and went out to wander the streets.
Ahmedabad is not on the tourist trail, with very good reason, and people stared openly. I was a figure of curiosity, like a wet fish flipping, twisting and dying in a box of dusty, hot beetles. I was out of place there and they could see it and I could feel it. Watched, hunted and haunted I returned to my room and fitfully slept away the pain of the day.
But Ahmedabad had one saving, soothing grace which I visited the next day - Gandhi's former ashram. Sabarmati Ashram was a short hot bus rude outside the town. Drenched in sweat and frank appraising stares, the bus dropped me off on a dusty road next to a freshly painted white wall. This was the ashram.
As I entered the gates, a serenity enfolded me, like a fresh sheet. The ashram is a collection of low buildings (formerly living quarters, a farm, school, dairy and weaving room) set in spacious grounds next to a river with Gandhi's house in the centre. These were his headquarters and those of his followers during the struggle for Indian independence. Large trees umbrella it all with a cool green leaf canvas and some miracle of peace somehow dims and muffles the sound of cars outside.
Dotted about the complex, workers bent over wispy brooms carefully sweeping fallen leaves, the quiet rattle of these dead curls and the whisper of the brooms like an aural balm, soothing and comforting. Immediately I loved this place. It breathed back into me a calm and peace that had deserted me the moment I arrived in the town.
Cleanliness is, for me, a sign of respect and places in India that are cared for always find a space in my heart. Sadly much of India does not seem to respect itself and its surroundings. It doesn't seem to see the sea of litter that washes and flows around it, it doesn't notice the stench of rubbish, drains and human and animal waste that chokes my nostrils. So I easily fall in love with India's rare clean places. Peoples' respect shows in a swept path, a watered tree and freshly painted house. But at Sabarmati the workers seemed to toil, not out just out of a duty to keep everything fresh, but out of love for the place and the person who it represents.
For the first time since arriving in Ahmedabad, I could hear the birds singing. In my glass-thin fragility, this alone was enough to bring a lump to my throat.
Then I saw Gandhi's house itself. It was so humble, so simple. Just a single storey building with a small enclosed garden at the front. Just to see it flooded me with emotion. I don't know why. I know shamefully little about the life and work of Gandhi but I know the power of this leader's humility to inspire people, generations after his death. To see in front of me, the clear simplicity of the place where he lived, was too much. I sat on the step outside and cried, I was so moved.
I couldn't even go inside. Behind my sunglasses I sobbed silently, as I watched shoals of schoolchildren, over-excited by being let out of school for an educational trip, ebb and flow around me. They ran excitedly shouting, 'Look, look Gandhiji's room!'
Eventually I composed myself enough to look into the single room he used in the house and I was engulfed in tears again. It was light and airy with a large window overlooking the river, but its bareness was what clutched at my heart. On the vast plain of the flagstoned floor was nothing more than a rush mat with a cushion on it, a desk - still peopled with his neatly stored writing equipment, a low table and a spinning wheel. The only other item in the room was a broom leaning in a corner. There was absolutely nothing else in those minimal quarters.
I found it impossible to comprehend how the greatness, the tenderness, the wisdom of such a man could be distilled into so few possessions. All he needed for his daily tasks were in that room and that was all he owned. His quarters were as pure and simple as the man himself was complex and intelligent.
I was staggered by the sight in a way historical places have never moved me before. Maybe it is the proximity of the man and events he set in train from here: independent India is only 64 years old, still in living memory. And so Gandhi's breath may still linger, his thoughts may still float as dust motes in the air of that space and the dent of his body may still be almost visible in that cusion.
Or maybe it is the survival, intact, of such simplicity that moved me. Over the past few weeks I've seen the legacy of kings, princes and noblemen in palaces and cities, grand and glittering, filled with ostentatious extravaganzas of display, status and riches. They could not let their lives pass unnoticed and unremarked but preserved them in an orgy of dazzling richness and accumulation of possessions.
Here, in Gandhi's room, the essence of a truly great man who achieved so much, touched so many and is known to practically all, is sealed forver, not in gold leaf, mirrors, tiles, flowers and fanfare, but in the mundane, the soulful form of a cushion, a desk and a spinning wheel. Gandhi's humility was his greatness and the tools he used to bring about his ends couldn't be more fitting.
I was just passing through the town on my way elsewhere, but all the trains were booked up, which meant I was stuck in the godforsaken place for two days before I could leave. During those elastic days that seemed to stretch out in an endless agony of extended seconds, minutes and hours, I came to loathe it.
I arrived there at 4:30am on a night sleeper. Never a good time to arrive anywhere, my dark luck was further blackened by the fact, unknown to me at the time, that Ahmedabad was hosting some sort of exams for Indian Railways and, as the world's largest employer, this meant people had come from all over India to sit these exams. There was not a room to be had anywhere.
The first three hotels listed in The Bible were full, as I was gruffly told by the succession of receptionists I had to wake to gain this undesired information. After this, I was forced to take the recommendations of the rickshaw driver who'd picke me up from the station, knowing he would gleefully be getting a commission from wherever I stayed, thanks to my misfortune.
At the 8th hotel we asked at, in desperation, I took the only room they had left. I paid twice what I would normally pay for a room that wasn't worth half the price. The walls were smeared with anonymous, greasy swirls and the sheets and pillowcases were patterned with the indelible presence, fluids and secretions of an untold accumulation of bodies. The shower was an icy needle and the traffic noise and dust seeped in through windows it was impossible to fully close. I was too exhausted to care. I thought maybe I'd sleep through the agony of waiting to leave again, but my earplugs blocked barely a decibel of the agitated street outside.
I sought refuge in writing in a dim, cool internet cafe. Even checking emails was too emotional. I cried quietly at a photo my brother sent of my neices smiling and laughing in the back seat of my car, which he and his family are 'fostering' while I'm away. And to cheer me up, Aleks had sent me a beautiful photo of us together, winter-pale but happy, captured on a forgotten night out in Cambridge. It was too much to bear. With all my being I wished I was back there. Home was cold but familiar, there were the faces I loved and who loved me too. Here in this pulsing, throbbing city no-one knew me or cared about my existence. The lure of the exotic in India, felt more like a plughole, drainging me of everything but despair. So I wrote and, fortified by a dose of blogging, I raised my head through the mist of my gloom and went out to wander the streets.
Ahmedabad is not on the tourist trail, with very good reason, and people stared openly. I was a figure of curiosity, like a wet fish flipping, twisting and dying in a box of dusty, hot beetles. I was out of place there and they could see it and I could feel it. Watched, hunted and haunted I returned to my room and fitfully slept away the pain of the day.
But Ahmedabad had one saving, soothing grace which I visited the next day - Gandhi's former ashram. Sabarmati Ashram was a short hot bus rude outside the town. Drenched in sweat and frank appraising stares, the bus dropped me off on a dusty road next to a freshly painted white wall. This was the ashram.
As I entered the gates, a serenity enfolded me, like a fresh sheet. The ashram is a collection of low buildings (formerly living quarters, a farm, school, dairy and weaving room) set in spacious grounds next to a river with Gandhi's house in the centre. These were his headquarters and those of his followers during the struggle for Indian independence. Large trees umbrella it all with a cool green leaf canvas and some miracle of peace somehow dims and muffles the sound of cars outside.
Dotted about the complex, workers bent over wispy brooms carefully sweeping fallen leaves, the quiet rattle of these dead curls and the whisper of the brooms like an aural balm, soothing and comforting. Immediately I loved this place. It breathed back into me a calm and peace that had deserted me the moment I arrived in the town.
Cleanliness is, for me, a sign of respect and places in India that are cared for always find a space in my heart. Sadly much of India does not seem to respect itself and its surroundings. It doesn't seem to see the sea of litter that washes and flows around it, it doesn't notice the stench of rubbish, drains and human and animal waste that chokes my nostrils. So I easily fall in love with India's rare clean places. Peoples' respect shows in a swept path, a watered tree and freshly painted house. But at Sabarmati the workers seemed to toil, not out just out of a duty to keep everything fresh, but out of love for the place and the person who it represents.
For the first time since arriving in Ahmedabad, I could hear the birds singing. In my glass-thin fragility, this alone was enough to bring a lump to my throat.
Then I saw Gandhi's house itself. It was so humble, so simple. Just a single storey building with a small enclosed garden at the front. Just to see it flooded me with emotion. I don't know why. I know shamefully little about the life and work of Gandhi but I know the power of this leader's humility to inspire people, generations after his death. To see in front of me, the clear simplicity of the place where he lived, was too much. I sat on the step outside and cried, I was so moved.
I couldn't even go inside. Behind my sunglasses I sobbed silently, as I watched shoals of schoolchildren, over-excited by being let out of school for an educational trip, ebb and flow around me. They ran excitedly shouting, 'Look, look Gandhiji's room!'
Eventually I composed myself enough to look into the single room he used in the house and I was engulfed in tears again. It was light and airy with a large window overlooking the river, but its bareness was what clutched at my heart. On the vast plain of the flagstoned floor was nothing more than a rush mat with a cushion on it, a desk - still peopled with his neatly stored writing equipment, a low table and a spinning wheel. The only other item in the room was a broom leaning in a corner. There was absolutely nothing else in those minimal quarters.
I found it impossible to comprehend how the greatness, the tenderness, the wisdom of such a man could be distilled into so few possessions. All he needed for his daily tasks were in that room and that was all he owned. His quarters were as pure and simple as the man himself was complex and intelligent.
I was staggered by the sight in a way historical places have never moved me before. Maybe it is the proximity of the man and events he set in train from here: independent India is only 64 years old, still in living memory. And so Gandhi's breath may still linger, his thoughts may still float as dust motes in the air of that space and the dent of his body may still be almost visible in that cusion.
Or maybe it is the survival, intact, of such simplicity that moved me. Over the past few weeks I've seen the legacy of kings, princes and noblemen in palaces and cities, grand and glittering, filled with ostentatious extravaganzas of display, status and riches. They could not let their lives pass unnoticed and unremarked but preserved them in an orgy of dazzling richness and accumulation of possessions.
Here, in Gandhi's room, the essence of a truly great man who achieved so much, touched so many and is known to practically all, is sealed forver, not in gold leaf, mirrors, tiles, flowers and fanfare, but in the mundane, the soulful form of a cushion, a desk and a spinning wheel. Gandhi's humility was his greatness and the tools he used to bring about his ends couldn't be more fitting.
Friday 2 December 2011
Volunteering
I always said that if an opportunity to do some volunteering came up while I was in India, I'd take it. Well, it did, but not in quite the way I'd imagined.
In Udaipur the streets of the city are lined with souvenir shops selling everything you could never possibly want and one or two things you might. By and large, these shops are colourful and enticing but the pressure from the owners the moment you step inside is not, so perversely you end up in the shop where the salesman makes the leat effort, as it's the least stressful.
I went into one shop attracted by a display of colourful painted papier mache baubles. Pretty but useless to a traveller and inconveniently round to pack, I wasn't going to buy any, as I told the owner the moment I walked in.
'No problem, just look around,' he said calmly. He also sold jewellery, cushions covers, rugs, a few other bits and bobs, and shelves and shelves of pashminas. Looking at the baubles I recognised the style and asked, 'These are Kashmiri, aren't they?'
'Yes, they are.'
'Are you Kashmiri?' I asked. He had the paler skin and finer features of men from the northern state, so I hazarded a guess.
'Yes I am, ' he smiled, pleased I had spotted this.
'I thought so.' Then, just by way of conversation, and because in my opinion it's true, I added, 'Kashmiri men are very good-looking.'
He looked surprised and said, 'Thank you, except me.' This was only partly true. He looked about 30 and although he had the pale skin and fine features, there was a certain heavyness to his face that stopped him being as attractive as some Kashmiris I'd seen.
Now he could see I wasn't there to buy but to chat, he relaxed more and started to talk about other subjects. His name was Latif and, with his younger brothr Javeed, he worked in Udaipur during the tourist season from November to April, before going back to Kashmir to his family.
We got onto the subject of my profession and when I told him I was a florist and had run a shop back home his face lit up.
'Can I ask you something? he asked. 'What should I do to get more people to come into my shop?'
'Well,' I said, looking round. There was a lot to take in. 'The most important thing is to make your window the most attractive one around, so it encourages people to choose your shop over the others, come in and see what you have.'
I walked to the window. It was full of a little bit of everything he sold, all crammed in together. In the centre was a narrow floor-to-ceiling glass shelving unit on which stood about 20 grubby jewellery display 'necks' with a necklace on each. To the right was a wooden plank, balanced on a plinth, draped with five or six pashminas, all clashing colours and patterns. Above it, against a length of painted plywood, a white cotton shirt was suspended. To the left of the shelving was a black metal 'tree', again draped in a rainbow of more pashminas. Below this on the floor of the window was the basket of multi-coloured baubles that had caught my eye.
The ensemble could most politely be described as 'confused' and impolitely as 'terrible'. Everything clashed, everything fought, everything tried to grab your attention so much that nothing did. There was nowhere to rest your eye, so it flitted about, confused and finally gave up looking. Latif had applied the classic Indian 'pile it high' approach.
The inside wasn't much better. A waist-level glass cabinet towards the back of the shop contained row after row of rings, pendants, bracelets and loose gemstone. There were so many there, you couldn't pick out one from another.
And there were yet more pashminas. Along the whole of the left-hand side of the shop, floor to ceiling, was a wall made entirely of small cases, each filled with pashminas, all neatly folded in plastic bags. He must have had no less than 1,000 different designs, probably more! But you couldn't see them. Entombed in their plastic shrouds, only the thinnest slice of colour of each was visible. How did he expect to sell what his customers couldn't see?
The back and right-hand side were more of the same, but with rugs and cushion covers and more ugly necks with equally ugly, dusty jewellery on them. I took a deep breath and, as kindly as I could, told Latif a few home truths.
'Your window is too confusing,' I said. 'Your eye can't pick out any one thing, as there's so much going on. The colours don't go together, there's no sense of scale or proportion, there's no rhythmn to guide the eye through what it sees and it's all been just put in there with no theme that the customer can understand and 'read'.'
I stopped. Had I blinded him with my limited science? Had I, as a foreigner and a woman, said too much?Been too blunt, too rude? I waited nervously for his response.
'Ok, ' he said slowly, taking in what I'd said. 'So what should I do? How should I do these things?' Relief washed over me. It was OK, he'd accepted my criticisms, wasn't offended and it seemed as if he was ready to hear some suggestions too.
'Ok, " I said, looking round, not sure where to start, 'you need to have a colour theme, to link everything. Look I'll show you." And I was off.
I helped myself to a bright orange pashmina already in the widow, then hunted through his many stacks to find two others in similar colours, but different designs. Then I took three graduated Kashmiri-painted elephants and three Kashmiri bangles, also orange and added them to my pile. I laid everything on top of the jewellery cabinet, as a makeshift surface.
'All these things are different lines you sell, but they're all linked by colour.' I threaded each of the three pashminas through one of the bangles, fanned them out and laid them side by side. Then I stood the elephants behind them, graduating from largest to smallest. I explained how the display I'd quickly put together showed certain principles that made it attractive and easy to understand: there was repetition in the number of elephant, scarves and bangles ('Odd numbers are better than even,' I added). The grouping of elephants gave it height and variation of scale, while the pashminas threaded through the bangles gave it an interesting informality and movement. And eveything was linked through tones of orange. Latif looked thoughtful, then as if dawn were breaking inside his brain.
'You've made a theme,' he said, with a child-like sense of wonder, 'And everything goes together.' I could
almost see the lightbulb bursting on above his head. 'Yes, my dear, it's very good what you have done.'
Relief and excitement rushed through me. He didn't think I was impertinent, he didn't think my ideas were nonsense and he even seemed willing to let me run riot in his shop, helping myself to beautiful things to make a display that should tempt his customers.
'So what about the rest of my shop? How should I change that?'
'Well, all of the inside should reflect the window, so your shelves should have displays on them too, not just piles of pashminas people can't see properly.'
'But I have no space to put displays,' He scanned his shop, taking in the multitudes of pashminas, the piles of cushion covers and the horrible necks.
'Latif,' I said gently, 'That is because you have too much stock. It takes up all your display space You need to store it somewhere else to make room.'
'But where am I going to store it?' he wailed, 'I have no space.'
We spent the next two hours in deep and furious debate. I told him he could build a stockroom at the back, by cutting off some of the shop space; he said he'd already spent a lot of money re-fitting the store. So I said he needed to condense as mcuh stock as possible into as few display spaces as possble. He countered that all the space was already full!
Again and again we came back to stock versus space. He admitted that he didn't want a single customer to leave his shop empty-handed, so he'd bought every imaginable colour and design so he had something for everyone.
'But you have so many your customers can't see what you have.'
'But I have the biggest choice of pashminas of any shop here. It would take all day to show someone all my designs.'
'Precisely!' I said, finally triumphant that I'd won the point. 'No-one is ever going to spend that long in your shop - ever!' He looked beaten. With a sigh he said, 'Yes, you're right.'
It was a hollow victory as it didn't give me pleasure to make a man realise that he'd make a mistake - an expensive one. He looked so dejected. I started to feel guilty that I'd even mentioned it and thought maybe he'd have been better off happy under the misapprehension that he was doing the right thing.
'I go to Kashmir to buy the new fashions of pashmina every year,' he said forlornly, half defensively, half sadly.
'Well stop doing it,' I said gently. 'Your customers are tourists. They don't know what the pashmina fashions are. Sell what you already have.'
As we were talking, an Indian man came in followed by two German ladies. One of the ladies asked Latif if he had any pashminas in grey/black designs. He got out a selection. 'What's the price?' she asked in English. I was surprised when it was the other man, not Latif who answered. The lady scoffed.
'We saw the same thing for nearly half the price,' she said, still looking at Latif. Again he said nothing and the other man answered, explaining it was good quality and therefore a good price. But they were not buying it - in either sense of the word - and walked out with their Indian in tow protesting and lowering the price.
'Why didn't you say anything?' I asked Latif when they'd gone. He looked angry.
'What could I say? He is another shopkeeper and he told them a high price because if I had sold it I would have had to give him commission - 40%.'
'Really? 40%!' I was shocked. 'Why is it so high and why do you pay it? Just refuse.'
His eyes were blazing with indignation. 'How can I refuse? If I do, he will come back with other people and beat me up. It happens all the time.'
Now I was really shocked. The commission racket is well-known in India and covers everything from hotels to restaurants. If someone (often a taxi or rickshaw driver) brings in a customer, they expect a hefty commission, which you, the tourist, pays for with an inflated price. I didn't realise other shopkeepers were demanding commission too, if they brought you someone they couldn't sell to.
'I absolutely hate it!' Latif spat, 'but what can I do? The Government is supposed to be stopping it but it still happens. If you call the police they do nothing.'
I was lost for words, but now it seemed even more important than ever to make sure Latif got his own customers through the door, so he could keep all the profits himself.
I changed the subject back to the displays to take his mind off such a touchy subject. Soon we on familiar territory again, arguing over how to display, where to display and what to display. I had ideas, Latif had others. It was West fighting East. It was Pakistan and India figting over his belove Kashmir. Neither of us was prepared to agree with the other's demands, neither was in budging mode.
But it was fun! I love this kind of exchange of ideas, especially with someone who cared and was passionate about his business. It excited me and I was pleased that it excited him too.
It was getting late and I had to meet two French girls for dinner, so I made Latif an offer: 'Would you like me to come back tomorrow and do your window for you? If you don't like it, you can change it back.'
'Yes please, my dear. That is very kind of you.' So we arranged to meet at 10am the next day and I left.
I turned up at 10 on the dot, only to see Latif's younger brother, Javeed, cleaning and opening up, but no Latif.
'Is Latif here?' I asked.
'He at home. Come soon.' So I waited for him, starting to worry already. Had he changed his mind or did he think I wouldn't turn up. Was he all talk and no action? As 10:00 became 10:15, then 10:30 I started to get angry. I'd offered my free time to help him and his business and he couldn't be bothered to show up. Then, just as I was about to tell Javeed I was leaving, Latif appeared.
'Where were you?' I asked.
'Sorry, sorry. I didn't see the time.' I sighed but my anger evaporated. He was here now and that was what counted. Besides this would be fun! I love doing windows, making something enticing that stops people in their tracks, then watching over the next hours and days as, bit by bit, things sell. It's exciting to see it in action. But Latif didn't seems to share my enthusiasm today. He was listless and quiet.
'So what do you want to put in the window?' I asked brightly, trying to gee him up.
'It's up to you, my dear, you decide.' This was not what I wanted. I wanted us to do it together. I wanted to see Latif get excited and have ideas of his own. I wasn't there to slave while he sat doing nothing. But at moment it seemed that was the situation. So I gritted my teeth, slightly regretting my over-enthusiastic generosity, and got on with it.
'What colour should we do?' I asked.
'Your choice.'
'OK, let's do the orange we did yesterday. It's bright and will attract attention.'
'OK.' He leaned against some cushions, picking his nails. Right, now I knew I was on my own.
I gathered together the things from the display I'd shown him yesterday. Now I did need his help emptying the window. He struggled to his feet.
'I'm sorry. I take some medication and it makes me feel very tired,' he said. So that explained his lacklustre appearance! But, not wanting to give him an excuse, I ignored this. Gradually, with Latif and Javeed's help, I stripped the window, leaving dusty but empty space. Bossing Javeed about, telling him where to put the things we'd moved, Latif seemed to regain his energy a bit.
I spread the three orange pashminas neatly over the plank so they hung down covering the plinth and placed the elephants on top, marching across their flaming fabric desert. At the bottom of the window I added a couple of orange-painted camels and a candlestick for height.
Suddenly Latif was by my side, outside the window, looking in critically. He didn't say anything, until finally, 'We need to put in a jacket, to show I sell them.'
'OK, ' I said, pleased he was finally showing an interest. 'Find one that goes with the other things.' He came back with a rather florid, rust, autumnal, brown floral embroidered one. Horrible in my opinion, but the perfect colour for the window.
'This OK?' he asked
'Perfect,' I beamed. 'You've got the idea already.' And with this little personal success Latif began to warm up.
'Put it in the top, so people can see it,' he ordered. Now he was back and raring to go.
Having done the right side of the window, I decided to do a different colour - turquoise - for the middle shelf section. Sadly some of the ugly necks had to come back into service, but this time sporting matching turquiose stone necklaces, complemented with bracelets, rings, earrings, bangles and more blue-toned pashminas.
As I built the display and Javeed busily re-packed the items we'd taken out of the window, Latif popped in and out of the door like a mad jack-in-the-box, a deep frown darkening his face. I was nervous.
'This pashmina is too high up,' he pointed to one I'd folded flat on one of the top shelves. 'People can't see from the street, it's too flat. Bring it onto a lower shelf.'
Now this was what I wanted! To see Latif not only getting a grip on the ideas I'd given him but also taking ownership of the look and if that meant bossing me around too, then that was great! I was thrilled.
'This shelf needs some earrings to go with the necklace and we need to put some cushions, I think three, along the bottom.' I could hardly keep up with him now.
Soon the middle section was done and it was onto the left-hand side, which we decided to do in more neutural colours, to show off come of the white embroidered cotton shirts he sold.
As I tied pale lemon baubles to some of the metal tree's braches, I asked Latif to find some neutral pashminas to match, that I would drape artfully over the remaining branches. He went off, tugging at various packages to jerk out the one he wanted without disturbing the pile, and came back with selection of pale cream, beige and grey scarves. They were just right!
'You really understand it,' I said, delighted. 'Are you pleased?'
'Yes, because I can see you are right. This looks great,' he said, shaking his head in wonder, looking at the window. 'You have done a good thing.'
'No, we've done it together.'
Soon we had the neutrals arranged on the tree and we manhandled it into the window. Sweating now, as the heat of the day intensified, we stood outside to appraise our morning's work.
'What do you think? Be honest,' I asked.
Latif noodded his head slowly. 'I think, my dear, it is great. I can see that you are right and it is so much better. You have given me so many ideas. Thank you so much. I am very appreciative of what you have done.'
'You're welcome. I enjoyed it.'
And I had. I really had. I suppose it must be something like the feeling a teacher has when she teaches something that she loves and can see her passion reflected back in the eyes of the pupil who has not just understood it but realised they enjoy the subject as much as she does. Latif had been looking but he'd not seen. He'd wanted to learn but didn't know where to start.
Suddenly one of the other shopkeeper's ran up to Latif and said something urgently to him in Hindi. His face dropped and looked grim.
'We have to shut the shop,' he said. 'Now!' It was only 12.30pm.
'Why? What's going on?' I asked, alarmed at this sudden change in Latif's mood.
"I can't explain now. We just have to close the shop, quickly.' He said someting to Javeed and he ran out to bring in a couple of display stand from outside. Once they were inside, Latif grabbed my bag, pulled the shutters down with a loud rattle and padlocked them shut. It had taken seconds. He must have done this before.
'Come, we'll go to my house. I'll explain there.' As I followed Latif and Javeed down the street at a run, I noticed all the other shopkeepers were closing down hurriedly too. Everybody was rushing to grab their stock as quickly as possible. What was going on? I couldn't think of any reason, so I kept asking stupidly, 'What's going on?'
Then halfway down the road, a shout caused Latif to turn back. One of the shopkeepers was beckoning him back. Latif asked him what seemed to be the same question a couple of times, then his face relaxed.
'It's ok, we can go back now. It's fine.' As quickly as the tension had mounted, it was over. Back in the shop he explaind what had happened.
Apparently a few days ago, a Muslim had written something derogatory about Hindus on a website and now Hindus were demanding that the person be arrested and put on trial. This had sparked Hindu-Muslim clashes between street gangs. One of the shopkeepers had heard that a group of Hindu lads, bent on revenge, was heading their way, so they had to close their shops, in case of looting. Although Latif assured me that it had been a false alarm, it left me - and him - shaken.
'Does this thing happen often? I asked.
'No, no,' said another of the shopkeepers,who had come into Latif's shop to discuss the situation. 'We are all brothers here. He is Muslim, I am Hindu, we are all friends. It is just some people who want to cause trouble.'
Although the warning that had been passed round seemed to show the traders did all look out for one another, I wasn't sure what he said was always true. Religious bigotry is all too prevalent in India and, while the majority of the time life seems an easy co-existence, tensions are always there bubbling under the surface and it hadn't taken much more than a silly little comment to bring them cracking and flaming through into fires of violence and hatred.
I looked at Latif in a new light now. First I had thought being a shopkeeper was hard for him, simply because of the sheer weight of competition from other shops, the desperation to pull in customers overriding everything else in its importance, but there was also the commission sharks to contend with. Their greed meant Latif sometimes had to work twice as hard as usual to see any profit from his business. Then there was the threat of direct violence against him and his shop. It couldn't be easy living with that tension always there, ticking relentlessly in the background.
I would always look at shopkeepers in differently from now on. No longer would I see them as an irritant, just out for my money. They were all people with their own lives, their own stories to tell and their own problems to overcome. I was glad I'd taken time out of my easy life to help someone whose own was far from simple. It cost me nothing to offer a little of my time, but it meant everything to Latif and that was all the thanks I needed.
Later that evening I came to say goodbye and take a photo of Latif and Javeed in front of their new window display before I moved on. As he said goodbye, Latif, first shook my hand, then before I could react, right there on the street, he swept me into a big hug. Indian men are not renowned for showing their affection to women, so this brotherly gesture was very touching.
'Thank you, my dear, for all you have done,' he said. The sincerity of his words made me well up. In that city, I couldn't have wished for a better way to spend my day.
In Udaipur the streets of the city are lined with souvenir shops selling everything you could never possibly want and one or two things you might. By and large, these shops are colourful and enticing but the pressure from the owners the moment you step inside is not, so perversely you end up in the shop where the salesman makes the leat effort, as it's the least stressful.
I went into one shop attracted by a display of colourful painted papier mache baubles. Pretty but useless to a traveller and inconveniently round to pack, I wasn't going to buy any, as I told the owner the moment I walked in.
'No problem, just look around,' he said calmly. He also sold jewellery, cushions covers, rugs, a few other bits and bobs, and shelves and shelves of pashminas. Looking at the baubles I recognised the style and asked, 'These are Kashmiri, aren't they?'
'Yes, they are.'
'Are you Kashmiri?' I asked. He had the paler skin and finer features of men from the northern state, so I hazarded a guess.
'Yes I am, ' he smiled, pleased I had spotted this.
'I thought so.' Then, just by way of conversation, and because in my opinion it's true, I added, 'Kashmiri men are very good-looking.'
He looked surprised and said, 'Thank you, except me.' This was only partly true. He looked about 30 and although he had the pale skin and fine features, there was a certain heavyness to his face that stopped him being as attractive as some Kashmiris I'd seen.
Now he could see I wasn't there to buy but to chat, he relaxed more and started to talk about other subjects. His name was Latif and, with his younger brothr Javeed, he worked in Udaipur during the tourist season from November to April, before going back to Kashmir to his family.
We got onto the subject of my profession and when I told him I was a florist and had run a shop back home his face lit up.
'Can I ask you something? he asked. 'What should I do to get more people to come into my shop?'
'Well,' I said, looking round. There was a lot to take in. 'The most important thing is to make your window the most attractive one around, so it encourages people to choose your shop over the others, come in and see what you have.'
I walked to the window. It was full of a little bit of everything he sold, all crammed in together. In the centre was a narrow floor-to-ceiling glass shelving unit on which stood about 20 grubby jewellery display 'necks' with a necklace on each. To the right was a wooden plank, balanced on a plinth, draped with five or six pashminas, all clashing colours and patterns. Above it, against a length of painted plywood, a white cotton shirt was suspended. To the left of the shelving was a black metal 'tree', again draped in a rainbow of more pashminas. Below this on the floor of the window was the basket of multi-coloured baubles that had caught my eye.
The ensemble could most politely be described as 'confused' and impolitely as 'terrible'. Everything clashed, everything fought, everything tried to grab your attention so much that nothing did. There was nowhere to rest your eye, so it flitted about, confused and finally gave up looking. Latif had applied the classic Indian 'pile it high' approach.
The inside wasn't much better. A waist-level glass cabinet towards the back of the shop contained row after row of rings, pendants, bracelets and loose gemstone. There were so many there, you couldn't pick out one from another.
And there were yet more pashminas. Along the whole of the left-hand side of the shop, floor to ceiling, was a wall made entirely of small cases, each filled with pashminas, all neatly folded in plastic bags. He must have had no less than 1,000 different designs, probably more! But you couldn't see them. Entombed in their plastic shrouds, only the thinnest slice of colour of each was visible. How did he expect to sell what his customers couldn't see?
The back and right-hand side were more of the same, but with rugs and cushion covers and more ugly necks with equally ugly, dusty jewellery on them. I took a deep breath and, as kindly as I could, told Latif a few home truths.
'Your window is too confusing,' I said. 'Your eye can't pick out any one thing, as there's so much going on. The colours don't go together, there's no sense of scale or proportion, there's no rhythmn to guide the eye through what it sees and it's all been just put in there with no theme that the customer can understand and 'read'.'
I stopped. Had I blinded him with my limited science? Had I, as a foreigner and a woman, said too much?Been too blunt, too rude? I waited nervously for his response.
'Ok, ' he said slowly, taking in what I'd said. 'So what should I do? How should I do these things?' Relief washed over me. It was OK, he'd accepted my criticisms, wasn't offended and it seemed as if he was ready to hear some suggestions too.
'Ok, " I said, looking round, not sure where to start, 'you need to have a colour theme, to link everything. Look I'll show you." And I was off.
I helped myself to a bright orange pashmina already in the widow, then hunted through his many stacks to find two others in similar colours, but different designs. Then I took three graduated Kashmiri-painted elephants and three Kashmiri bangles, also orange and added them to my pile. I laid everything on top of the jewellery cabinet, as a makeshift surface.
'All these things are different lines you sell, but they're all linked by colour.' I threaded each of the three pashminas through one of the bangles, fanned them out and laid them side by side. Then I stood the elephants behind them, graduating from largest to smallest. I explained how the display I'd quickly put together showed certain principles that made it attractive and easy to understand: there was repetition in the number of elephant, scarves and bangles ('Odd numbers are better than even,' I added). The grouping of elephants gave it height and variation of scale, while the pashminas threaded through the bangles gave it an interesting informality and movement. And eveything was linked through tones of orange. Latif looked thoughtful, then as if dawn were breaking inside his brain.
'You've made a theme,' he said, with a child-like sense of wonder, 'And everything goes together.' I could
almost see the lightbulb bursting on above his head. 'Yes, my dear, it's very good what you have done.'
Relief and excitement rushed through me. He didn't think I was impertinent, he didn't think my ideas were nonsense and he even seemed willing to let me run riot in his shop, helping myself to beautiful things to make a display that should tempt his customers.
'So what about the rest of my shop? How should I change that?'
'Well, all of the inside should reflect the window, so your shelves should have displays on them too, not just piles of pashminas people can't see properly.'
'But I have no space to put displays,' He scanned his shop, taking in the multitudes of pashminas, the piles of cushion covers and the horrible necks.
'Latif,' I said gently, 'That is because you have too much stock. It takes up all your display space You need to store it somewhere else to make room.'
'But where am I going to store it?' he wailed, 'I have no space.'
We spent the next two hours in deep and furious debate. I told him he could build a stockroom at the back, by cutting off some of the shop space; he said he'd already spent a lot of money re-fitting the store. So I said he needed to condense as mcuh stock as possible into as few display spaces as possble. He countered that all the space was already full!
Again and again we came back to stock versus space. He admitted that he didn't want a single customer to leave his shop empty-handed, so he'd bought every imaginable colour and design so he had something for everyone.
'But you have so many your customers can't see what you have.'
'But I have the biggest choice of pashminas of any shop here. It would take all day to show someone all my designs.'
'Precisely!' I said, finally triumphant that I'd won the point. 'No-one is ever going to spend that long in your shop - ever!' He looked beaten. With a sigh he said, 'Yes, you're right.'
It was a hollow victory as it didn't give me pleasure to make a man realise that he'd make a mistake - an expensive one. He looked so dejected. I started to feel guilty that I'd even mentioned it and thought maybe he'd have been better off happy under the misapprehension that he was doing the right thing.
'I go to Kashmir to buy the new fashions of pashmina every year,' he said forlornly, half defensively, half sadly.
'Well stop doing it,' I said gently. 'Your customers are tourists. They don't know what the pashmina fashions are. Sell what you already have.'
As we were talking, an Indian man came in followed by two German ladies. One of the ladies asked Latif if he had any pashminas in grey/black designs. He got out a selection. 'What's the price?' she asked in English. I was surprised when it was the other man, not Latif who answered. The lady scoffed.
'We saw the same thing for nearly half the price,' she said, still looking at Latif. Again he said nothing and the other man answered, explaining it was good quality and therefore a good price. But they were not buying it - in either sense of the word - and walked out with their Indian in tow protesting and lowering the price.
'Why didn't you say anything?' I asked Latif when they'd gone. He looked angry.
'What could I say? He is another shopkeeper and he told them a high price because if I had sold it I would have had to give him commission - 40%.'
'Really? 40%!' I was shocked. 'Why is it so high and why do you pay it? Just refuse.'
His eyes were blazing with indignation. 'How can I refuse? If I do, he will come back with other people and beat me up. It happens all the time.'
Now I was really shocked. The commission racket is well-known in India and covers everything from hotels to restaurants. If someone (often a taxi or rickshaw driver) brings in a customer, they expect a hefty commission, which you, the tourist, pays for with an inflated price. I didn't realise other shopkeepers were demanding commission too, if they brought you someone they couldn't sell to.
'I absolutely hate it!' Latif spat, 'but what can I do? The Government is supposed to be stopping it but it still happens. If you call the police they do nothing.'
I was lost for words, but now it seemed even more important than ever to make sure Latif got his own customers through the door, so he could keep all the profits himself.
I changed the subject back to the displays to take his mind off such a touchy subject. Soon we on familiar territory again, arguing over how to display, where to display and what to display. I had ideas, Latif had others. It was West fighting East. It was Pakistan and India figting over his belove Kashmir. Neither of us was prepared to agree with the other's demands, neither was in budging mode.
But it was fun! I love this kind of exchange of ideas, especially with someone who cared and was passionate about his business. It excited me and I was pleased that it excited him too.
It was getting late and I had to meet two French girls for dinner, so I made Latif an offer: 'Would you like me to come back tomorrow and do your window for you? If you don't like it, you can change it back.'
'Yes please, my dear. That is very kind of you.' So we arranged to meet at 10am the next day and I left.
I turned up at 10 on the dot, only to see Latif's younger brother, Javeed, cleaning and opening up, but no Latif.
'Is Latif here?' I asked.
'He at home. Come soon.' So I waited for him, starting to worry already. Had he changed his mind or did he think I wouldn't turn up. Was he all talk and no action? As 10:00 became 10:15, then 10:30 I started to get angry. I'd offered my free time to help him and his business and he couldn't be bothered to show up. Then, just as I was about to tell Javeed I was leaving, Latif appeared.
'Where were you?' I asked.
'Sorry, sorry. I didn't see the time.' I sighed but my anger evaporated. He was here now and that was what counted. Besides this would be fun! I love doing windows, making something enticing that stops people in their tracks, then watching over the next hours and days as, bit by bit, things sell. It's exciting to see it in action. But Latif didn't seems to share my enthusiasm today. He was listless and quiet.
'So what do you want to put in the window?' I asked brightly, trying to gee him up.
'It's up to you, my dear, you decide.' This was not what I wanted. I wanted us to do it together. I wanted to see Latif get excited and have ideas of his own. I wasn't there to slave while he sat doing nothing. But at moment it seemed that was the situation. So I gritted my teeth, slightly regretting my over-enthusiastic generosity, and got on with it.
'What colour should we do?' I asked.
'Your choice.'
'OK, let's do the orange we did yesterday. It's bright and will attract attention.'
'OK.' He leaned against some cushions, picking his nails. Right, now I knew I was on my own.
I gathered together the things from the display I'd shown him yesterday. Now I did need his help emptying the window. He struggled to his feet.
'I'm sorry. I take some medication and it makes me feel very tired,' he said. So that explained his lacklustre appearance! But, not wanting to give him an excuse, I ignored this. Gradually, with Latif and Javeed's help, I stripped the window, leaving dusty but empty space. Bossing Javeed about, telling him where to put the things we'd moved, Latif seemed to regain his energy a bit.
I spread the three orange pashminas neatly over the plank so they hung down covering the plinth and placed the elephants on top, marching across their flaming fabric desert. At the bottom of the window I added a couple of orange-painted camels and a candlestick for height.
Suddenly Latif was by my side, outside the window, looking in critically. He didn't say anything, until finally, 'We need to put in a jacket, to show I sell them.'
'OK, ' I said, pleased he was finally showing an interest. 'Find one that goes with the other things.' He came back with a rather florid, rust, autumnal, brown floral embroidered one. Horrible in my opinion, but the perfect colour for the window.
'This OK?' he asked
'Perfect,' I beamed. 'You've got the idea already.' And with this little personal success Latif began to warm up.
'Put it in the top, so people can see it,' he ordered. Now he was back and raring to go.
Having done the right side of the window, I decided to do a different colour - turquoise - for the middle shelf section. Sadly some of the ugly necks had to come back into service, but this time sporting matching turquiose stone necklaces, complemented with bracelets, rings, earrings, bangles and more blue-toned pashminas.
As I built the display and Javeed busily re-packed the items we'd taken out of the window, Latif popped in and out of the door like a mad jack-in-the-box, a deep frown darkening his face. I was nervous.
'This pashmina is too high up,' he pointed to one I'd folded flat on one of the top shelves. 'People can't see from the street, it's too flat. Bring it onto a lower shelf.'
Now this was what I wanted! To see Latif not only getting a grip on the ideas I'd given him but also taking ownership of the look and if that meant bossing me around too, then that was great! I was thrilled.
'This shelf needs some earrings to go with the necklace and we need to put some cushions, I think three, along the bottom.' I could hardly keep up with him now.
Soon the middle section was done and it was onto the left-hand side, which we decided to do in more neutural colours, to show off come of the white embroidered cotton shirts he sold.
As I tied pale lemon baubles to some of the metal tree's braches, I asked Latif to find some neutral pashminas to match, that I would drape artfully over the remaining branches. He went off, tugging at various packages to jerk out the one he wanted without disturbing the pile, and came back with selection of pale cream, beige and grey scarves. They were just right!
'You really understand it,' I said, delighted. 'Are you pleased?'
'Yes, because I can see you are right. This looks great,' he said, shaking his head in wonder, looking at the window. 'You have done a good thing.'
'No, we've done it together.'
Soon we had the neutrals arranged on the tree and we manhandled it into the window. Sweating now, as the heat of the day intensified, we stood outside to appraise our morning's work.
'What do you think? Be honest,' I asked.
Latif noodded his head slowly. 'I think, my dear, it is great. I can see that you are right and it is so much better. You have given me so many ideas. Thank you so much. I am very appreciative of what you have done.'
'You're welcome. I enjoyed it.'
And I had. I really had. I suppose it must be something like the feeling a teacher has when she teaches something that she loves and can see her passion reflected back in the eyes of the pupil who has not just understood it but realised they enjoy the subject as much as she does. Latif had been looking but he'd not seen. He'd wanted to learn but didn't know where to start.
Suddenly one of the other shopkeeper's ran up to Latif and said something urgently to him in Hindi. His face dropped and looked grim.
'We have to shut the shop,' he said. 'Now!' It was only 12.30pm.
'Why? What's going on?' I asked, alarmed at this sudden change in Latif's mood.
"I can't explain now. We just have to close the shop, quickly.' He said someting to Javeed and he ran out to bring in a couple of display stand from outside. Once they were inside, Latif grabbed my bag, pulled the shutters down with a loud rattle and padlocked them shut. It had taken seconds. He must have done this before.
'Come, we'll go to my house. I'll explain there.' As I followed Latif and Javeed down the street at a run, I noticed all the other shopkeepers were closing down hurriedly too. Everybody was rushing to grab their stock as quickly as possible. What was going on? I couldn't think of any reason, so I kept asking stupidly, 'What's going on?'
Then halfway down the road, a shout caused Latif to turn back. One of the shopkeepers was beckoning him back. Latif asked him what seemed to be the same question a couple of times, then his face relaxed.
'It's ok, we can go back now. It's fine.' As quickly as the tension had mounted, it was over. Back in the shop he explaind what had happened.
Apparently a few days ago, a Muslim had written something derogatory about Hindus on a website and now Hindus were demanding that the person be arrested and put on trial. This had sparked Hindu-Muslim clashes between street gangs. One of the shopkeepers had heard that a group of Hindu lads, bent on revenge, was heading their way, so they had to close their shops, in case of looting. Although Latif assured me that it had been a false alarm, it left me - and him - shaken.
'Does this thing happen often? I asked.
'No, no,' said another of the shopkeepers,who had come into Latif's shop to discuss the situation. 'We are all brothers here. He is Muslim, I am Hindu, we are all friends. It is just some people who want to cause trouble.'
Although the warning that had been passed round seemed to show the traders did all look out for one another, I wasn't sure what he said was always true. Religious bigotry is all too prevalent in India and, while the majority of the time life seems an easy co-existence, tensions are always there bubbling under the surface and it hadn't taken much more than a silly little comment to bring them cracking and flaming through into fires of violence and hatred.
I looked at Latif in a new light now. First I had thought being a shopkeeper was hard for him, simply because of the sheer weight of competition from other shops, the desperation to pull in customers overriding everything else in its importance, but there was also the commission sharks to contend with. Their greed meant Latif sometimes had to work twice as hard as usual to see any profit from his business. Then there was the threat of direct violence against him and his shop. It couldn't be easy living with that tension always there, ticking relentlessly in the background.
I would always look at shopkeepers in differently from now on. No longer would I see them as an irritant, just out for my money. They were all people with their own lives, their own stories to tell and their own problems to overcome. I was glad I'd taken time out of my easy life to help someone whose own was far from simple. It cost me nothing to offer a little of my time, but it meant everything to Latif and that was all the thanks I needed.
Later that evening I came to say goodbye and take a photo of Latif and Javeed in front of their new window display before I moved on. As he said goodbye, Latif, first shook my hand, then before I could react, right there on the street, he swept me into a big hug. Indian men are not renowned for showing their affection to women, so this brotherly gesture was very touching.
'Thank you, my dear, for all you have done,' he said. The sincerity of his words made me well up. In that city, I couldn't have wished for a better way to spend my day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)