With the deadline for submissions for the Travel issue of Stingray at midnight tonight, we take a sneak at what to expect.
I’ve never been able to write about India. Perhaps it’s because I feel like I should have had a life changing experience. Or perhaps I did have on, and it’s the feeling of responsibility to express something great and profound. ‘India… you must go. It will change you forever.’ I’d never particularly wanted to go. I just happened to be in love with someone from that country. But then, love is the most neutralising of experiences. A place is just a place; differences are erased in the desire to be with one person.
I could start with what you might imagine, and what was true. The permanent screech of horns, cows with five legs lazily crossing the road, the sickly-sweet smoke of burning street waste. And a layer deeper than you might expect, into the onion of the place – nights spent in earthen walled huts of my brother-in-law, lying hidden from sight in the shade of chilli fields, tug-of-wars with my nieces over who would wash my husband’s clothes.
But it was never enough. The layers of thick skin never peeled away completely. From train windows I watched three men operating a plough by hand, tugging back and forth at the rope in a rhythm practised for thousands of years. Caught glimpses of women in their homes, eyes which remained hidden, and tried to imagine what their thoughts were.
Specifics: and here I don’t have much time for a land of epic tales such as the Mahabarata, stories which span several life times. Mine is a short story, without the preamble which Indians love, the generosity of words that tied me to the place and made me feel poor in comparison. Yes, the challenge I find is to be concise about India.
We were travelling to Lumbini, and we had run out of food. Alice and I were hungry. Our Jeep sped past restaurants, roadside dabbas that promised delicious meals. But we couldn’t stop, not in Bihar. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Jyoti, who had once been taken hostage on a bus in this most underprivileged state in the country. Then the dabbas ran out anyway. All we passed were tiny villages. Through tinted window glass I watched a man standing stock-still, a tall stick in his hand. I felt like we were in a metal time-machine, looking back into the past. He could have been standing there like that for millennia. If we met, would we be able to understand each other at all? Women were scarcely seen here.
Alice was almost silent, ruminating on her stomach. I wanted to tell her to be patient, embarrassed as I was by what I thought of as our Western appetites. Wait. We are in India. Women do not make demands. Look at me – I can be like that, too. The Jeep suddenly came to a halt by a lake so still that it reflected the giant tree by its shore in perfect symmetry. Ideas about duality flickered through my food-starved brain. My mind is split, I can’t tell the difference between reality and reflection.
Jyoti prepared jam sandwiches in the boot of the Jeep. White bread and strawberry jam – where had he gotten hold of that? ‘You see, it is like an English picnic,’ and he laughed in his extraordinary way. We wolfed the down. The first seemed to stick in my throat. I was resentful of this reminder of my nationality. I needed to show that I could survive here. But suddenly I realised the only way to do that was sticking by Alice.
Alot of things happened after we arrived in Lumbini. I convinced myself I was a bodhisattva for a day. I experienced the most intense bliss in a restaurant, of all places. I thought I could read minds. I cried for hours and persuaded Srinivas we should get married so that people wouldn’t look at me like I was a whore. I got sunstroke. Buddha talked to me. I ignored American tourists.
It’s all over now. Alice and Jyoti got married and had a baby girl, then went to live in Nagpur. Srinivas got deported to India some time after we separated. And I’m here in London Fields, smoking and eating poppyseed cake. I feel like there should be something important learnt, but all I can say is that I’m happy to be back in London. The reflection is real, but it comes from the mirror inside us.
