Fear makes me thirsty
The short version: having a ball. india is wild, crazy, spiritual, surprising, frustrating, challenging, and bloody hard work!
After Darjeeling i got stuck in Siliguri – a busy, uninspiring, transit town – trying to get out as quickly as possible in time to meet my aunt in Varanasi. i had two similarly unappealing and downright concerning options:
a. catch an overnight local bus to Patna (the capital of india’s poorest state, often beseiged by illegal road blocks and bandits) and before sunrise make my way from the bus stop to the train station and then wait a few hours for a train to Varanasi
b. catch the only available train to MGS station (12km from Varanasi – for some reason the train doesn’t stop iN Varanasi) and arrives at midnight. now this is a city where, and i paraphrase, 2-3 tourist simply ‘go missing’ every couple of months, a city where it is not safe to be alone on the streets after dark, a city i have never been to and do not know.
i took the train option. . .
The train arrived at 1am, on a dark platform, heavy with sleeping homeless bodies, frieght, and cows – not another foreigner anywhere. i was so terrified when it actually came time to disembark, that i seriously considered just riding on all the way to Delhi (another 12 hrs!). Once on the platform, i looked for familiar, reassuring sights. A telephone. Good. A brightly lit sign ‘May i help you?’. Even better. An upper class ladies waiting room. Sheer brilliance. Of course, being india, the telephone was not in service, the man behind the sign was not willing to talk to me, and the ladies waiting room consisted of 3 plastic chairs with blokes sitting in them.
i considered sleeping at the station and delaying this whole terrifying process until sunlight. i walked slowly trying to appear deliberate and at ease. it took me about 10 minutes to stock up the nerve to walk out to where the rickshaws were waiting, when i spotted my aunt waiting for me. Thank god, the goddess, buddha, shiva, the universe. i have never been so grateful for anything in my life.
We took an autorickshaw (she has her own driver, long story) for the hour’s drive into town. it was not a direct road like i’d expected. it was through dark semi-industrialised areas, slums, backstreets, blocks of nothingness, a rubbish tip, past illegal blockades demanding ‘road tax’ etc. if i had been alone, there would have been no way of knowing where i was being taken to, or for what purpose.
Next day we took a morning stroll along the ghats (stairs) along the Ganges and visited the numerous altars and temples along the way. We got deliriously lost in the backstreets of the old city in search of salwaars, saris, bangles, and the like. The streets have a poetic feel, cobbled winding alleys, shop fronts coloured with fresh produce, spices, saris, the air blessed with incense.
That night we returned to watch the ritualistic burnings and discuss philosophies of death (it is powerfully confronting to see a body disintegrate). Then we had dinner with my aunt’s friend Chandra, once a bicycle-rickshaw driver now owns an auto-rickshaw that my aunt donated to him 3 years ago. This family of 5 lives in a room the size of most western bathrooms (or smaller) that fits one single bed (parent’s to sleep at night, couch in day) and the kids sleep in the left over space on a mat on the floor. And that’s it. No bathroom. Cooking in the hallway outside. Storage on the cement beam.
i have been rather vigorously introduced to india’s more characteristic elements: aggressive begging, constant staring, pathetic one-liners from men across the street, persistent touts, and groping (tailors are the worst!)
i am developing, and occassionally mastering, the art of ignorance. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. i can become unaware that the ‘hello sister’ ‘excuse me’ ‘hello you’ ‘you sir!’ are aimed at me. i can walk a whole kilometre with a tout in my ear and not say a word, carry on a conversation, in total oblivion (well most days). if alone, i have found that whistling to one’s self helps steady this illusion of being in a world of my own, unreachable.
But other days it just drives me mad. i can be a tough bitch, and it works in a way that smiles, no thankyou’s, mumbled explanations and gentle shakes of the head can never do. in the final instance Cha-low (Go Away!) said with the right tone usually does the trick. i got reprimanded for this (this is a very rude word to an indian madam etc etc.) after a guy followed us for blocks trying to get us into his sari shop.
its all a facade. A game. But sometimes i forget, get tied up in it, and think its real. These days are difficult in india.
Tags: India
Jyai