Читать книгу The Bandit of Kabul - Jerry Beisler - Страница 10

Chapter Three

“If you smile at me you, know I will understand ‘Cause that is something everybody everywhere does In the same language.”

“WOODEN SHIPS,” STILLS, CROSBY & KANTNER

Tight, white, starched collared shirts, turbans, dhotis and Levis pushed and paid to get on the Delhi Mail and hopefully get out of artillery range and death from above. An expired ticket and a bag full of rupees got us on the train.

Any seasoned traveler during that era will tell you that the best part of discovering India was the rail system. Created by the British during their Raj Empire, railroads still employed mostly Sikhs as engineers and station managers. They ran the train system to perfection and to the minute. It was always unbelievable to newcomers that one could schedule a train trip across thousands of miles of India, a country where nothing – I repeat nothing – worked and find, surprisingly, that the trains showed up nearly to the minute. Then you found your little name card placed neatly on the door to your cabin and discovered savory food and pleasant service awaited you from employees who truly appreciated their jobs as did the most elite in the country.

Our first train trip was not nearly so posh. We were two of twelve, emitting excessive body odor from nervous fear and the speculative scramble to board, in a four-person cabin. Rebecca and I were forced off the train when it was commandeered by soldiers for the war effort at Allahabad. We were very fortunate to find accommodation in a hotel owned by a local family revered for generations as classical musicians. The war ended and with it the constant tension everyone was experiencing.

We left the confines of the hotel grounds and ventured into the central market. This led to a bizarre experience of human interaction in a Muslim jewelry shop in the Allahabad souk. Rebecca and I drew a crowd of hundreds, pressing and milling outside the jewelry shop. Every minute or two one of the young nephews of the store’s owner grabbed a cat-o-nine-tails and ran yelling and screaming and slashing into the pulsing throng and beat them away from the door. Within moments the crowd began to form again to watch the blonde Western woman. The shop owner’s volatile young toughs would again grab the cat-o-nine-tails and race out of the building flailing madly. “Taxi please” and thanks to all for pounding on the fenders and windows, too!

The international media reported a million dead and the creation of the new nation of Bangladesh. Mercifully and fortunately the war was brief. The truce allowed us to get a first-class train cabin to Agra. One of the propaganda tools that the Indians effectively used to rile up the population in the war effort was to broadcast that the Pakistanis were trying, daily, to bomb the Taj Mahal. The propaganda would turn out to be beneficial to us since there were virtually no tourists in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Not only did we get our choice of the finest room in the finest hotel but, for a small fee, we were allowed into the Taj Mahal, alone, at night. On two consecutive evenings, under the dome of the Taj with our Tibetan bells and bowls, we made the musical swirls for which these instruments are so famous. On the second evening we caught up on our interrupted honeymoon in the temple built as a monument to love; we were alone, newly married and under the influence of a wonder of the world. The experience elevated hearts and souls to a sweet, recurring memory.

From the Taj Mahal, our next stop was another romantic spot – Udaipur in Rajasthan, home of the Floating Palace and considered one of the most beautiful places in India. We checked into a pleasant hotel with a view of the lake. A short walk revealed the cloud-shrouded floating palace set in the middle of an island. We were, again, among the first post-war tourists moving around town and buying a few treasures. It was, nevertheless, surprising when we had a knock on our door and a representative of the Maharaja of Udaipur invited us to the Floating Palace for drinks and dinner.

Our host made it very clear that though he was politically deposed, he was still a wealthy Maharaja. The food was plentiful and excellent, and to accompany the lavish meal we were served, with a flourish, Fanta! The ubiquitous soft drink of Asia.

After dinner the real fun began. A gigantic photograph book was brought out by the Maharaja himself and he began serious attempts to impress Rebecca by showing her photo after photo of the tigers he had killed. Rebecca, always wearing her emotions on her sleeve, was not the most receptive of audiences. After about the fifteenth tiger the Maharaja finally noticed Rebecca’s pained, horrified expression and switched to photos of the former First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy, who had been a visitor to the Floating Palace. Mrs. Kennedy toured India during her husband’s administration. She was photographed standing for a formal, panoramic portrait with the Maharaja, his brother, the Prince, their wives and the entire palace entourage. What made it so interesting was that Mrs. Kennedy was wearing a traditional Indian sari. As the Maharaja gleefully turned the page, a new view of the beautiful sari into which Mrs. Kennedy had been so tightly wound was revealed. The fabric had actually split in the middle down the back just, according to our host, before the photo was to be taken. The snapshot revealed the Prince grasping the back of The American First Lady’s sari and holding it in place so they could get through the photo opportunity.

Our evening as guests of the Maharaja ended quickly when he began to regale us with stories and photos of the record number of crocodiles he had shot on a trip to Africa.

We took our own trip to an Indian wildlife preserve and that turned out to be fantastic. While not a tiger reserve, it was home to many unusual species, but particularly the Giant Siberian Red Cranes that wintered in India. It is thrilling to stroll around a bend in the jungle and spot two of these red, six-foot birds, cavorting in a mud-stomping mating dance.

Next we were off to Varanasi, the old Benares and city of Lord Shiva, located on the Ganges River. Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India. It has been a place of pilgrimage since before recorded history and is the place where all Hindus would like to breathe their last on this plane of existence. This desire was fully demonstrated as our train approached the city. At each stop, more and more corpses of those souls who had not quite made it to the Ganges were being loaded onto the train. As we approached the outskirts of Varanasi, we could see two or three corpses strapped onto the roofs of taxicabs heading towards the city center and the burning ghats on the river.

On our second morning in Varanasi we were awakened by the incredible stench of death wafting into our room from the street. As I craned my neck to peer out the window I discovered what the horrible smell was — a corpse lying below our window. I notified the hotel manager who said he would bring in the “corpse brigade” as quickly as possible to remedy the situation. And in fact, it wasn’t too long until a cart with other corpses arrived below our window. We watched the scene, unable to pull ourselves away. The men tried to throw the corpse on top of the pile on an overloaded cart. There were already so many corpses piled on the cart that ours rolled off – twice. Ah, here now we witness the unique style of Indian problem solving. Ingeniously, a fresh corpse was removed from the cart and left under our window making room for the decaying one that was taken away. A clever solution, it was explained, since the one that was left behind was fresh and wouldn’t smell so bad. “Our” corpse found its place on the top of the stack and the cart rumbled off, over the cobblestones, on its way to the burning ghats. Our gawking presence at the window looking down on the drama was acknowledged by the brigade leader with a wave of his hand and a promise for their quick return to collect the new corpse and deliver it to the burning ghats, “this very night” … and so they did.

Aside from the strange attraction of the death trade in Varanasi, another attraction was that cannabis shops were legal in the city. Plenty of hippies were hanging around, smoking chillums and wandering down to the burning ghats to listen to the skulls pop.

Hindu Varanasi embraces a highly spiritual Buddhist corner. We visited Sarnath, home of Deer Park where the Dharma was first preached by Buddha to five monks. We visited the Sadhu parks and watched the chillums constantly passed among the mendicants. Rickshaw was the only form of transportation available. A quarter of a million drivers had official operator’s licenses. Our driver guided us to shops offering masala chai, tasty curries and cool, refreshing lassis, the traditional yogurt drink made more interesting by the addition of an edible form of cannabis and known as bhang – one sip was much too foreign to our western taste buds.

I began hiring a boat, daily, and we were rowed across the mile-wide Ganges. We’d stop and I’d take a brief swim in the middle of the river where the water was clear and green. After crossing we would have a picnic on the remarkably barren shore considering the overpopulated crowded city on the opposite side. As we ate and relaxed it was with great pleasure that we listened to the resonant gongs, lilting bells and hypnotic chants drifting across the holy waters from a multitude of spiritual temples. Our simple, inexpensive pleasure came to an abrupt halt when I swam into a corpse.