Is this the way to the lake? The traffic cop nods affirmatively. He’s got a big daddy moustache and a beret. We ride on and on and on we ride into the Rajasthani Desert on bikes that are older than we. Road Kings, wide seats, black rubber grips and steel breaks. Peter’s bike keeps breaking down and so we stop frequently to re-chain it. He rechains it. I watch indifferently. Looking around at the scrub, huddled masses and painted cows. I care not, fatalistically enjoying India, have a smoke and recheck the map, striding through another day. The road is dusty and well-used by light traffic: pedestrians - thin, half-naked Hindus, bikes, ox carts, the odd car or painted truck. I’m going with the flow, as instructed by that little Taiwanese dog. I kind of like it. But since I’ve traveled back in time I wonder what’s happening in the present. Does time continue and I’ve vanished? Or can I return to the time and place exactly when I left. Can I return a day before I left. Is the whole talking dog thing a trick? Back to the present, the new present. “So what exactly did you ask that traffic cop? That moustachioed big daddy?” “I asked Is this the way to the lake?” “Ahhh. I rub the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.” “What's ahhh?” “Peter, my shabby looking friend, you are the worst traveller that I have ever had the pleasure to travel with. You cannot, in India, give any indication as to what you think the answer might be.” “Why not?” “Because that becomes the answer.” “Ahhh.” “You cannot ask yes/no questions”, I continue pontificating, “because the answer will always be yes, unless of course the obvious answer is no.” “Ahhh.” “You should have asked, “Which way to the lake?” or “Is the way to the lake this way or that?” I continue, just because I’ve been so easy going and I feel like I have to teach.” “Ahhh,” And so we turn back and head toward the roundabout a few miles back. We get there soon enough and take the other road, the one that goes down the hill. As we pass by our beret wearing big daddy moustachioed traffic cop friend I notice that he has a passive look in his eye. Go with the flow. Life is random. Be agreeable. I remind myself. Be passive. And I smile. Ride on. We find the lake, a dry cracked lake bed, stretching off into the dusty horizon. Without a hint of water, not a minnow. But I wasn’t disappointed. It was suppose to happen that way.
I spend my time wandering around small and dusty Indian towns looking at dogs. Peter joins up with a girl from New Zealand, Wendy. She’s alright. Moonfaced but nice. She told me that she used to live in a cottage behind a tree. That’s a weird thing to tell me. Moonface Wendy and Green as Grass Peter thought it would be a real gas to give the rickshaw drivers rides in their own pedicabs. I went along, I have to go along. Then the next day at five in the morning the whole guesthouse is awake, getting ready to go see the Taj Mahal (pronounced Tajmal - two syllables not three). You just have to see it as the sun comes up, it changes colour). I open my eyes, and see Wendy replacing the bandage on her head from crashing into the wall and I smile despite the hour, get up, take my turn at the communal sink, trudge out into the street, drink two chas from the near-naked hindu and smoke a four square, getting a light from a burning rope. I wait for the traveling idiots. None of this would have happened, I think, but I’m the chosen one. I chuckle. An old Indian lady walks by with a stack of flatbread, giving one to each painted cow she passes. She's barefoot. Her ragged clothing are the colour of rags. It is what it is, I think. The idiots finally stumble out of the guesthouse and the epic journey to “tajmal" continues, begins. We trudge through the near deserted streets. India will be completely different in a couple of hours. Naturally, we're early, so we stand around at the ticket booth for a long time. I drink more cha and smoke another cigarette. I like buying them one at a time, out of an open pack on the vendor's tiny table and lighting them with the hanging rope, burning slow. Eventually the sun comes up, the “tajmal" turns white and we go back to the guesthouse for more sleep. On the way back I continue my mantra. Be agreeable. Go along. Go with the flow. It is what it is…
Bombay I’m about to find the key, the book that will change me into a dice man. Still travelling with Moonface Wendy. She vanished from an Israeli kibbutz on New Years Eve day, slept in Ben Gurion, on the floor, she told me. The soldiers pretend not to see her but they are not fooling anyone. They notice things. I notice things. When a Jew (Israeli) enters a room, he scans every face and body, every bag and package, every hand, every door, window and piece of furniture. Scanning, missing nothing. Wendy told me that her new years resolution was to gain some life experiences. She told me that she wanted to become a writer and then she described the scene at the airport on New Years Eve.
The airport was real quiet, she said. Floor cleaners started at the far end of the concourse, one with a bucket full of bubbles, he swishes them around with his hand then spreads bubbles thinly on the floor. The other with the mop, a couple steps behind, never has to rinse, mopping floors in the desert, sans eau. She described the scene and I could picture it. I told her that I thought she’d become a good writer someday. I asked her why she had hooked up with Peter. She said, “for life experiences.” I thought I’d leave it at that but then she said, but you are much more interesting. You seem like you’re questing something, but not the same thing that most travellers are. She was very perceptive.
“I’m feeling much better today”, Peter says. He’s losing weight rapidly through the Ring of Fire. Delhi belly. India is a wacky place, Moonface Wendy and Green as an Irish Meadow Pete, cook up a scheme that we must, in turn, comply with the wishes of others. I find this highly suspicious given my ongoing instructions, but I comply, gladly, grudgingly gladly. No good can come of this, I think. The rules of the game. When a beggar holds out her hand, a coin must find its way into my hand, out of my pocket and into the outstretched and dirty hand of an untouchable. Fun. We end up taking rickety rickshaw rides we don’t really want, tours to nowhere, feeding roaming sacred cows. They drool. We end up giving a lot of coins to a lot of beggars, one Had had her tongue cut out, she had a sign that says I have no tongue. She snaps open her mouth. I didn’t need to see that. We are resting, lounging in the January sun, in a park, which is actually a kind of a bowl built behind rolling hills in the center of a Delhi roundabout. Lounging carelessly is actually the best thing about travelling. It’s my turn to comply when two Hindus appear and suggest that we get our ears cleaned. Wendy, more and more mooned faced, is still in a stupor from what the palm reader said. “You will die an early and violent death”. Peter, Irish green as a meadow, looks on horrified as the Hindu pulls from shirt pocket ear-cleaning tools, he lays them on a piece of dark blue cloth. The tools are long and aluminum, something like dentist’s tools. He digs professionally, skillfully coaxing little and big pieces of orange and yellow wax out of my ears, displaying them on the blue cloth. At the end, quite a collection on display, I pay him and he snaps the wax into the wind. Feels good to take advantage in this kind of service. I was feeling kind of hopeless but now I decide again that all suggestions should be considered for their merits. Maybe the whole point is to be. India with its billion of people, I’m completely insignificant. Maybe I have to let go of self. Is this a test? Am I suppose to be learning something?
We are walking back to our guesthouse. We walk down bookseller alley and I pick up a book called The Diceman by Luke Rhinehart. It’s a first person narration, like my story. I start reading I am a large man, with big butcher’s hands, great oak thighs, rock-jaw head, and massive, thick lens glasses. The cover says “This book will change your life”. I buy it. It does.
Loading comments...