sgrunt

India, 2003

THE NORTH

:: 7.5.03 ::

– McLeod Ganj, Himalayas –

Five Characters (in Search of an Author)

N.1 – Mario has kind eyes, long hair and a belly. He doesn’t speak English, only Italian. He came to India to escape, and he told me this right away, as soon as we met. To tell the truth, when we met he told me everything about his life, from the first to the last fact, while we were walking toward the Buddhist temple. He had a bottle of water in his hand and was panting, but he was walking fast. He explained to me the prayers of the Tibetan monks, but he doesn’t believe in anything, and we went around clockwise, the one around the Dalai Lama’s house, the one they do here reciting the mantras with the rosary in their hand.
At the end of the journey I knew everything, the prologue, the fact, the epilogue, the detention, the cell next to the famous terrorist, the community, and now India. All its miseries, just like that, all at once, as if seeking redemption, or forgiveness.
Mario appreciates people who understand things immediately, those who remember details, those who speak English, those who eat healthily, those who are themselves and those who are not afraid of displeasing when they say what they think.
He seems to be a friend to everyone because Mario always smiles, but that is not the case.
Mario chooses well those with whom he sits at a table.

N.2 – Lisa hops through the sheep droppings to avoid them – she has bare feet – she wants to take a picture. Behind her a flock, behind them the mountains.
Lisa has been traveling for thirty-five years and has never stopped. She is wearing a green dress, one of those long dresses that I remember on the gypsy women of the cemetery in Piacenza, a white Oakley hat and a Swatch on her wrist.
She is Swiss from Brig and she is an artist, or at least she says she has understood she is, because at a certain point she started painting. She paints three hundred things a year, abstract painting: paintings, clothes, things. This gives her a living. One month a year she chases away the tenants and takes back her house in Switzerland, in the mountains, and in this month she sells, attends exhibitions, meets critics and collectors. Then she takes the money, keeps the money for the trip, the rest for the orphans.
Lisa is happy, you can see it. Her age is indefinable, she could be sixty, she could be fifty. Her face is full of wrinkles, but they are not wrinkles of old age, because she has them even where there usually aren’t any wrinkles, and they are deeper wrinkles, not smoothed out.
Today I met Lisa again, and she told me about a place to see, two days of travel and five of walking. She told me to bring some spaghetti to cook, because you never know, you might not find something to eat.
In that month that she is in Switzerland, Lisa goes down to Italy once to go to the hairdresser.

:: D 15:57 [+] ::
…

:: 8.5.03 ::

I was scared once. I was leaving my hotel in Delhi to go to dinner.
My hotel is at the end of a dead-end side street of the Main Bazaar, right next to a kind of rusty brown container with five openings and five toilets that discharge directly into the street. From the hotel door begins a street where there isn’t even a shop, only houses and small workshops where things are produced. Along the street there is a high density of cows and calves. The street is quite narrow and unpaved, full of dirty puddles. At night there are no lights.
That evening I leave the hotel and enter this street. There is silence, or rather a relative silence, and walking in the dark you can hear the breathing of those sleeping at the side of the road. Now I don’t even turn to look at them anymore, since they can’t be seen. I walk forward, looking at the end of the street and not in front of me. Suddenly I hear barking, and dogs running.

Now, I’m even afraid of a cocker spaniel in the Giardini Margherita in Piacenza during the day, if it starts barking. Here there are four dogs that are generally rabid, hungry and, above all, in the dark. Four surround me, a fifth stays in the back to watch the evolution of the scene, and they start to growl.
I look around to see if there’s anyone; but there’s no one. I hear the dogs getting closer and closer, now I can see them in the dark, they growl and stare at me. I freeze, then I move a meter towards the side of the road, as if seeking protection, then I freeze again. I start to think that I mustn’t move, otherwise I’m screwed, and that I mustn’t let them see that I’m scared. I can’t do it at all, I notice it and they notice it too. They growl more and more, with their teeth baring, and start barking again. Without wanting to, my right leg moves with a jerk, I think I’m finished, if only I were wearing long pants.
At that moment, by that law of chance in India, which says that the less likely it is that something will happen, the more likely it actually will happen, the dogs turn and go back into the darkness. I regain control of my right leg and try to regain my appetite.

:: D 20:12 [+] ::
…

:: 11.5.03 ::

– McLeod Ganj, Himalayas –

I stayed there for eight days, and yet leaving this place is really hard.
V. is staying here and will go directly to Varanasi by train (V. just can’t leave so soon).

Today Sean and I hiked up the mountain and went to the waterfalls up here, when we got there it was a bit warm, we started hopping on the rocks along the river and then we stopped to look at a little lake between the waterfalls, the water was green and blue.
We stared at it for a good half hour, this little lake, almost in silence, every now and then we put a toe in, as if hoping that after all it could also become a bit warmer, that water – melting Himalayan snow water, Himalayan snow must be colder than normal snow anyway.
Then at a certain point we talked a bit, deep down we knew it and feared it from the beginning, from when we started staring at the water and dipping our toes, we stripped and dived in. I’m beginning to understand what those who throw themselves into the Volga or the North Pole feel: nothing, absolutely nothing, suspension of judgment, thinking only about what to do next, no thought for the present.

(Thinking back, this whole thing about the cold water bath reminds me of exactly what we were talking about last night, about the Sufis and the pinnacle of their moments of meditation, that is, the total annihilation of thought. They stand on a smooth surface and start spinning on top of themselves (on an empty stomach, ed.). They spin faster and faster, at a certain point the centrifugal force lifts their arms and they become human spinning tops, as the speed increases all the cognitive abilities are concentrated on the thought of maintaining balance, so that the mind has no space to think about anything else, just slip up for a moment and you’re screwed, you crash to the ground – et voila’ meditation. A bit like a dive into the water of the Himalayas)

I discovered it late, the Sunrise Cafe, the one where they make the “best chai in Asia (*)”. I only discovered it this evening, walking, even though I had passed by it a thousand times.
The Sunrise Cafe is a shack that stands on one of the four streets that branch off from the central crossroads of the town where the buses arrive, or rather the bus, because physically there is only room for one. The Sunrise Cafe is the metaphor of this place. What you experience at the Sunrise Cafe is what you experience here. To access the Sunrise Cafe from the street you have to jump over the sewer canal, the one into which the patched-up black pipe that carries water around the places here, and therefore also to its kitchen, dives every now and then. Once inside you feel comfortable, it’s two meters by three, kitchen included, and it has something intimate, the Sunrise Cafe is a place where you sit tightly, on the three benches around the table and also tightly on the little wall outside, right in front. Sunrise Cafe’ is always full of people, inside or in front, it’s a place where people meet. Just like this country.

McLeod Ganj is a beautiful town in India, but its real attraction for me is the people who pass through it. Its real beauty, for me, is the beauty of those who walk through it, its richness is their richness.

The town unfolds along three little streets that go up and down, starting from the crossroads where the four lepers are. Usually a beige cow also stands in front of the tobacconist. One street goes up, two go down, one of these goes to the Tibetan Buddhist temple.
Next to the temple is the Tibetan government in exile. The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist monks have been living as political refugees since the 1950s, that is, since the Chinese invaded Tibet and began destroying everything that remained of the country and its tradition: number one places – finished – two thousand two hundred Buddhist monasteries destroyed or converted into factories of kitsch gadgets; number two people – finished (almost) – one million murdered and persecuted against the religion and its practitioners, and indeed the Dalai Lama fleeing to India in exile just in time after the Chinese invasion.

The road that goes up leads to a town, Bakshu, where there are trance parties practically every night, even though last night the great “The Silk Road and the Hijackers” were playing. The other two streets are a continuous succession of shacks with little shops, cafes, camp beds for those who sleep there at night, places where you can make phone calls, barbers, Buddhist temples, etc. The streets are dirt, and dark at night. During the day, however, you can see the mountains up above, in the background, between the shacks.

In short, this is the place where Richard Gere sleeps when he comes to talk to the Dalai Lama as a convert to Buddhist philosophy, but even Kate Winslet and Pierce Brosnan have taken pictures with local shop owners, pictures then proudly hung on the wall behind the counter. But apart from that and apart from the Himalayas, this place would have been nothing to me if I had not met the people I have met.
India is two things: India and those who come here, two things somehow linked to each other, but not necessarily, yet equally intense, equally strong, equally a punch in the stomach every time – you never get used to it – neither to the people nor to India.

People who run away, people who take refuge, people who don’t know where else to go, people who are looking for something but usually don’t know what, people who know everything and people who know nothing, people who have traveled, usually a lot, people who have broken up and people who will be broken up now. And people are like India, when you’re immersed in it, there’s no way out.
Leaving Sean and all of them, tonight, was very difficult.

(*) Chai is a drink of tea, milk and spices that Indians and tourists like me often overdose on.

:: D 19:24 [+] ::
…

:: 13.5.03 ::

– Kut-Chadiara, Himalayas –

Is travel a metaphor for life, or is life a metaphor for travel?

I asked four different people what time the bus to Chamba would leave. And I got four different answers. The bus (the only one of the day) leaves at 9, 7, 6 and 8:30 (the last one even gives me an option of 6 in the afternoon). And how long does it take? Let’s say six hours, or ten, or nine, or seven.
So I take these numbers, average them and decide that I have to be at Dharamshala station by eight. Mathematics is an exact science, the bus will leave at nine-fifteen, just in time for a mouse to rush at me from the roof above the freshly printed Times of India I was reading. Heart attack and nervous breakdown on my part, suppressed giggles all around, directed at the Westerner who is afraid of mice.

The bus is more uncomfortable and I am more impatient than usual, today, and it is slow, too slow. Every now and then the driver stops, in the middle of the road and in the middle of nowhere, stops the engine, gets out, goes toward a shack and comes back after half an hour. Once, twice, three times, then I start to get angry. I have a headache. I’m hungry. It’s hot.
Once we stop in a town, it’s midday, there’s a large, half-empty white sand lot, there are two other buses, stopped, at the end. I go out for a walk under the scorching sun. There’s a completely dark hut on the right, with beautiful, colorful women inside. At the end there are three fruit stands. I’m alone, looking toward the sun and a guy appears in front of me, about fifty, a beige shirt, light-colored pants, and the glasses that Tom Cruise wore in Top Gun. Without saying anything else he introduces me to his personal details: I am so and so, an officer in the Indian army, on holiday for two months, travelling north. And I tell him mine, then we start talking, the weather, Kashmir, etc. While he talks I look at the ground and in the middle of the white sand the colours of a dead parrot stand out. How strange, I have never seen a parrot in India, maybe because they don’t attract attention, there is already so much colour.
I go with the officer to buy some bananas, and when he turns around he steps on the dead parrot’s head with his right foot – but I don’t think he noticed.

The journey is getting worse and worse, the bus is getting slower and slower, the driver is getting more and more unbearable, now he even stops to talk at the intersection with the other buses, the drivers are out the window, and they talk, and they greet each other, and they shake hands, and may they be damned. I’ve been in that seat for eight hours, one hundred and fifty kilometers to Chamba, and only because an English guy – the first person I spoke to in India, after the doctor at the airport who asked me if I had a fever or a dry cough – told me that there’s a family up there in a beautiful valley in the Himalayas who have rooms. Advice from a traveler is worth a trip, but now I was having second thoughts.
It’s starting to get dark, the sky is clouding over and the mountains in the background are lit up by lightning. We close the windows, there’s a gale of wind and there’s dust everywhere. I’m tired. I want a pizza. At one point we arrive in a town, Chamba is written all over the shops, could it be Chamba? It’s pouring outside and there’s dust everywhere, in the dust dozens of Indians waiting for their buses. I go out with my orange backpack, everyone looks at me like I’m from Mars, it’s raining and I’m cold, this place is ugly, I have dust in my eyes, I want to go back where I came from. But now I can’t anymore. I have to call my family, ask if they have room, I go into a place to call.

But travel is a metaphor for life, and as usually happens, salvation comes from the sky.
I look out of the shop and the clouds are parting. I call and the line comes through right away, the family has room, I have to run to catch the last bus there is and get off at a certain point, then I’ll have to walk. I go out and it’s stopped raining, there’s no more wind and the sun is red now in the sunset. I run towards the bus at the station. While I wait I ask for a mango juice at a shack, the guy is a contortionist, he’s standing but has one bare foot on the counter and he’s cleaning his nails.
I get on the bus, while getting on I glance at a tire, I laugh and think that just thinking about putting them on, so ruined, they’d fine us. I get on. The driver has the Indian music on at absurd volumes. People smile at me.
After five bends we get a flat tire, the spare is in even worse shape than the flat one. I smile too.

The bus goes up, on the right the cliff, below a river. I get off at the place where I was told to get off. I turn left, there is no one, I turn right and a child runs towards me and gives me a ticket without saying anything. On the ticket it is written in cursive “Follow the bearer of this ticket”.

And I follow him. It’s completely dark now. It’s quiet, there’s nothing around. We leave the road and enter the fields. We follow a narrow path, on the right a wheat field, the only white thing illuminated by the moonlight. Then the field ends, we walk along a river, then over a bridge, then into another field with some rocks. We start to climb on a mountain path, it’s a stream, the water comes down, it’s night and I can’t see anything, the boy is in slippers and he climbs fast, I can’t keep up with him with my technical shoes. We climb higher and higher, I slip, the backpack weighs, then I look down and understand that I mustn’t slide anymore.
We pass by a hut completely enveloped in smoke, next to it two animals – it’s dark, cows or mules? – red flames come out of a door, and smoke. We climb further, the path is increasingly steep, we come across a hut, everything is silent but a man shouts and sings, he is praying, we climb further. The path runs alongside a house, at the door an old woman with gray hair stands looking at us, she has a bucket in her hand, the bucket is shiny. We have been walking for forty minutes now.

And we arrive at a house, there is a porch overlooking the valley, a room and the family. It is wonderful. They feed me, and I eat. Then they give me a red bucket with cold water and a blue bucket with boiling water, and I wash myself. Then they give me a blanket and open the room for me.
It is raining outside, there is lightning and thunder. The thunder stops and the rain stops, only the sound of the river water remains, I wait for me to fall asleep. Too bad V. is not here.

:: D 16:07 [+] ::
…