Finding friends again

Arriving in a new place but knowing that you already know people there gives that place a special feeling, a sense that you are in some way coming home. Home is where friends are, where you know the lie of the land. It is where you feel instantly at ease without having to find your place, establish routines or make contacts. I 'came home' in Bangalore.

I had been there briefly before when I started out on my epic motorbike ride with 60kph, but I didn't have time to explore it. Now, I was back to see the place properly and I knew I had friends, The Bang Gang, whose presence there made me see the city in a favourable light already. There was Anu and Kaushik, Vishu, Sanju, Aalok, Shantanu, Biju and Sanjay. Knowing they were out there somewhere, as I arrived at 11pm in the sparkling bright night that hid the unfamiliar from view, was a comforting thought that dissolved the usual anxieties of arriving in a new place. I'd come straight here from The Andaman Islands and hadn't had time to contact anyone to let them know I was in town, so I planned to stay in a hotel for the first night. I had rung one in advance to reserve a room, but my careful forward planning and reality almost didn't coincide.

My flight from Port Blair arrived in Chennai (after a five-hour delay) at around 3pm, but I didn't want to spend a night the city's noisy, filthy squalor before moving on. It has the distinction of having the worst accommodation I have ever stayed in in India so far. A mosquito-infested swamp of a room, where the curtains were stiff with thick, caked dirt and the bathroom hygiene was such that I preferred not to shower in it, as I felt such ablutions would leave me dirtier than before.

So with this deterrent in mind, I set off immediately for the bus station from the airport to take the next available bus to Bangalore. I would have to be quick if I wasn't to arrive there at the dead of night when all the hotels had closed for the night. I was lucky, as a bus was leaving literally the moment I arrived on the platform. After establishing that it was going to Bangalore, I dived on, with the ticket man shouting impatiently, 'Let's go, let's go!' and slumped into my seat. I'd been doubly lucky, as this was a private Volvo bus, one of the luxury coaches that travel across India. Luxury means a modern bus with comfortable, clean(ish) seats, A/C, sometimes a complementary bottle of water and blanket and a smoother, more relaxing experience overall. This compares with the state-run buses which specialise in a particularly punishing form of hard seat - which has probably been a stranger to the ministrations of a cleaning team since its first run - permanently open windows and a driver who believes that he can make known his every intention and emotion with loud, sustained blasts of intricate hornwork.

The Volvos cost more, of course, often four or five times the price of a state bus, but sometimes when the spirits are flagging, it is a price worth paying. The only negative they have for the foreign traveller is that they often play a film during the journey. Sounds great? No so when the entertainment in question is roared out across the speakers in deafening Hindi or the local language, whether you want to watch/hear it or not. But with earplugs in, I could read my book for a while until it got dark.

A helpful man at Chennai Airport tourist information desk had told me that a bus would take around four hours to reach Bangalore from Chennai. Having left the bus station at 4pm, I rang the hotel, telling them I would check-in around 9pm, allowing an extra hour in case of delays. Unfortunately, the helpful man was as uninformed as he was helpful. I tried to clarify the arrival time of the bus with the ticket officer. His English was not good but was certainly up to the task of delivering the bad news that it would be a seven-hour journey, not four.

Indians are not generally bothered or irritated by lateness, so I didn't think there would be a problem if I arrived at the hotel 11pm, but I didn't want to turn up and find my bed given to someone else, so I rang them again to let them know my new check-in time. My phone wouldn't connect and a message told me I'd dialled an incorrect number. I hadn't, as I'd re-used the number I'd called and got through with earlier on. I tried again. Again the message. I checked in my guide book just to be sure I'd got it right. I had. I tried again. Message again. The number I'd dialled an hour before seemed not to be working now. I didn't even have phone numbers for any of the Bang Gang, just Facebook details and I couldn't access those on my basic Indian phone. There was nothing I could do, but sit there and hope for the best when I arrived.

The bus arrived on time at 11pm, then I had to get a rickshaw from there to the hotel. At nighttime the price doubles for Indians and goes up by a factor of anything at all for foreigners, depending on the driver's perception of your wealth, fatigue and desperation. If my scruffy, dishevelled clothes and dirty backpack didn't say 'wealth' to him, my bleary eyes and the lateness of the hour certainly announced the other two. I can't remember what he charged but I know it was a price that would normally have left me laughing bitterly and walking off to try someone else. I agreed it straightaway, even though I knew the hotel was not far. I didn't fancy walking at that time of night and anyway I have discovered that my ability to get lost anywhere other than an empty room with one door, is really quite remarkable.

As the driver pulled up at the hotel I'd booked, my heart sank. There was no sign of life and a heavy metal shutter had been rolled almost down to the ground across the front of it. I was too late. They'd closed up for the night and the prospect of hunting for a bed was now a reality.

But the shutter was not fully closed so, asking the driver to wait with my backpack, I crouched down under it and shouted out, 'Hello? Is anybody there?' No-one was. I tried again, just in case asking for someone would miraculously cause them to appear. Unbelievably it did! A couple of men appeared from the lift I could see at the back of the lobby carrying, oddly, a large pile of firewood. I called out, telling them I had a reservation and they nodded but didn't put down their load to come to my aid. One of them merely said, 'One moment, one moment,' and, with his colleague, disappeared round a corner. I waited. And I waited some more. When you are in a desperate situation, time becomes elastic and stretches out to unforgivable lengths. It was probably only a couple of minutes but in my panic it felt much longer. Just when I thought they weren't going to come back, they appeared. One of them came over and said, 'Yes please?'

'I have a reservation,' I said again, thinking it wasn't worth trying to explain the whole situation. He smiled sadly and sheepishly, 'Sorry, closed.'
'But I have a reservation. Bridget Davidson?' I said, as if that would immediately open the shutter for me.
'Sorry, closed,' he repeated. Apparently not.
Now desperate times called for desperate acting. I made my eyes look as big, pleading and child-like as possible (no easy task when you've been up since 5am). There may even have been the suggestion of a tear glinting in the corner of my eyes and a trembling of a lip. He looked unmoved. With a slight quavering to my begging voice I said, 'Please, please? I have nowhere else to go.' This was probably true, which did give my acting an edge that it might not otherwise have had. If this hotel was closed, the chances were that most of the others would be too and I didn't want to think about what that would mean. He still wasn't sure. 'Manager asleep,' he explained. It seemed I'd been pleading with the wrong person. But he was my link to the right one so I placed my palms together into a gesture of prayer, re-positioned the pleading face and tried again. 'Please, please?' That did it. He still looked unsure but said, 'Ask manager. One moment,' and disappeared.

I don't think the manager was asleep, as he arrived briskly and smartly dressed, but I wasn't going to argue the point now. He was my saviour and if you want a bed for the night, arguing with the man who could provide it is not recommended. I apologised and explained why I was late, and true to Indian form, he didn't seem bothered, annoyed, or even interested. I was here now and he just had to fill in the paperwork, then he could go back to 'sleep' with the additional bonus of another full room for the night.

So it was with some excitement the next day that I found an internet cafe and messaged Anu on Facebook to tell her I was there and would love to meet up with her and the others. I was pleased to be in Bangalore. I had a ready-made circle of friends there and it was like being back home, planning to see them.

My friends back home are the people with whom I've experienced life. We've been through funny, crazy, sad, happy experiences together and discovered that despite all this, we still like each other and enjoy each other's company. Coming to India is the one of the biggest, craziest experiences of my life, but I have come without them and their warm, cosy, Sunday pub lunch, coffee on my day off, long chats, short absences, familiar presence. However much I tell myself I am an independent, free-spirited soul, self-sufficient in all the ways that matter, I still miss them and the familiar that they represent. They have been and still are a major ingredient in the soup of Me. They have helped and encouraged, warned and discouraged and, in part, their presence and their counsel has made me who I am today.

The Bang Gang and 60kph as a whole have come to represent the same thing for me in India. If coming to India is a big, crazy experience, my ride with them is the biggest, craziest part of that experience. I turned up in their close-knit group, unknown, untried, untested and was with them for an annual occasion that was as important for them as it was new and exciting for me. Over the space of one short week, we got to know each other, spend time and talk together and experience good and bad times together, and at the end of it all we still like and enjoy each other's company. It is a friendship in fast-forward motion but no less strong or enduring for that. And coming to Bangalore was a chance to renew that new friendship. We had a shared experience behind us, we had memories, we had in-jokes. In short we had all you need for a friendship, with the added bonus of still having so much to find out about each other.

While I was on Facebook, I noticed that Vishu was too and within a few rapidly exchanged messages, the ever-efficient organiser of the anniversary ride had organised everything. He would pick me up later in the day, take me to Anu and Kaushik's where I would stay the night and, in the meantime, he would try to round up as many of the Bang Gang as possible to join us there for an impromptu party. I smiled to myself. It was just like being back home. You want to see some friends, so you send messages and texts and somehow it organises itself.

Outside, Bangalore somehow felt like home too. People were friendly and the modernity of the city, due to the wealth that the IT industry had bought with it, gave it a familiar feeling, even though I didn't know the place. I headed off to a big, new shopping mall, my first real shopping trip since being in India, where I thought the gleaming, polished designer stores might offer bargain Indian prices on the brands I could never afford back home. I couldn't afford them here either. It seemed Bangalore's rich had more money than I'd ever have... But I was content to wander the expensively-conditioned chill of the mall.

I realised then, as the hot, feverish blood of shopping pumped through me, that I wasn't really, and never would be, a true crusty traveller at heart. The lure - the bright lights, big city lure - of New Stuff, was too enticing, too compelling. The high brought on by the purchase of something pretty that I would soon tire of once I saw the next pretty thing, was still there and always would be. I sniffed greedily at the scented candles I'd never bother to light, stroked the patterned plates I knew I already had too many of, and fingered wistfully the breathtakingly beautiful ethnic bedspreads I knew Aleks would never allow to touch our bed if I brought them home.

And I realised that, for me, travelling isn't about Being A Traveller. I am not designed to live in a state of slight but permanent need and discomfort. I can give up all the comforts, decadences and luxuries of home - even, for months on end, a hot shower - because I know that at some point I will return to these things and they will fill me with joy again, simply because of their previous absence. I can sleep in the mosquito swamp room in Chennai, because I know my warm, soft bed is still there when I get back home. I can forgo the expensive food and the trendy clothes in favour of tuppenny street food and practical beige, and anything else that is demanded of me. And I can do it easily. It is as simple as if I have unzipped the warm coat of consumerism and left it behind in my wardrobe in Cambridge. But I haven't forgotten its comfort. And when I return I will slip it on again - baggy, slightly slack and strange from lack of use - and within days it will feel comfortable again and as if I had never taken it off.

But I don't berate myself for this realisation. I do not feel a lesser person for having this need. It is just a fact of life, of me. If others can live their life sustained by a few simple, practical and essential items, then good luck to them and well done. I am not one of those people but I make no apologies for it. After all, William Morris said, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." I believe in 'beautiful', however useless it is, and I believe in 'useful' only if it is, well, useful. And anyway, I am one of the ones who keeps the looms of commerce weaving by buying the beautiful things whose purchase keeps the economy spinning...

As promised, Vishu picked me up outside the mall and we drove towards Anu and Kaushik's house. Being back on a bike again felt good, although Vishu apologised for the hardness of the seat. I felt a little guilty, remembering that I written about how uncomfortable his bike was in one of my earlier posts. But it was part of a shared memory we had of the ride so I hoped he didn't feel too put out by it. All the bikes were uncomfortable after a while, that's just how it was, and I hadn't meant to single his bike out for specific criticism.

After stopping by at his parents' apartment where I met them briefly - hospitable and very proud of all their three sons - we carried on to Anu and Kaushik's apartment. It was lovely to see them again and such a strange and welcome feeling to be staying somewhere that wasn't a hotel where I had to fill in forms, hand over my passport, state how long I'd be staying, where I'd been and where I was going next. It was like being at a friend's house - it was being at a friend's house - and it was all the more welcoming to have such friends so far from home.

Vishu had to run a few errands and disappeared but returned later that evening with some of the other Bang Gang members: Sanju, Aalok, Shantanu and Sanjay. I was thrilled and touched that they had made the effort to come and see me (and each other), and on a week night. Much of the talk was about the ride and their reminiscences of it. I was slightly worried about what they'd thought of my interpretation of it through my blog. They did offer some corrections where I'd got things wrong but were in general complimentary. Seeing the ride through the eyes of a non-member gave them a renewed appreciation for it and for why they loved riding in the first place.

The vodka and whisky came out and we were on familiar ground again. The jokes flowed and the stories came out and gradually the evening slipped happily away, as the alcohol slipped down, the conversation slipped into more Hindi than English and Shantanu slipped into a contented sleep on the sofa, it felt like old friends. New old friends.

Anu and Kaushik were lovely hosts, organising me and the days I spent with them. After travelling alone, it was a welcome relief and I quickly abdicated responsibility to them, allowing them to suggest things to do and places to visit. We went to the theatre, on Vishu's suggestion, and saw a wonderfully clever comedy in English. I was thrilled to understand not just the language, but the characters, whose essential 'Indian-ness' I had become familiar with every day on the streets. I got many of the cultural references and those I didn't, didn't matter.

The one or two days I'd planned to stay in Bangalore, turned into three, into four. When Anu wasn't studying she came shopping with me (I abandoned the idea of sightseeing for once). We trailed round clothes shops, interiors stores, cafes and coffee shops. We talked and gossiped and shared our lives, our hopes and fears. She was honest about herself and with me in the way that only true friends can be. And I appreciated her being so. She readly admitted that she often didn't make an effort with people she didn't warm to, so I felt her friendship was of a genuine kind.

In the evenings when Kaushik came home, we talked some more. He had also written up his version of the ride, a brilliantly witty and funny piece, sharp with laugh-out-loud humour and full of finely-observed characterisations of everyone. We discussed our writing styles; he was envious of elements of mine, as I was of his. We talked about books and shared our love of words. Kaushik worked in IT, but had a passion for writing. He was also remarkably self-aware. When I told him his writing was excellent and asked why he didn't do it for a living he replied that he didn't want to lose the passion for the thing he loved by doing it every day. For him, writing was something he did for pleasure and he didn't want to destroy the pleasure by having to do it repeatedly and on demand. I admired his honesty and self-awareness and the unspoken acceptance that went with it that his job was not his passion and was simply a means to an end.

These chats with Anu and Kaushik made me realise that in my travels I'd been missing the depth of conversation and its attendant mental satisfaction that comes when you spend a considerable length of time with someone. Although I'd had many fascinating, profound and moving encounters with people, they had mostly been brief and few had allowed me to really get to know the person in the way that spending a few days with Kaushik and Anu had. We'd talked of serious and important things, as well as frivolous and light-hearted ones. I'd seen them in their real lives in a way I hadn't with anyone else and lived that life with them. Of course I don't claim to know them inside out in such a short period of time, but I certainly felt an attachment to them and an understanding of them that was strengthened by its duration.

When I left four days later, bound for Hyderabad, I felt refreshed and ready for travel again. I told them I hoped I hadn't outstayed my welcome and that I hoped I could return the favour someday, maybe in England.