Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (10 page)

‘Take your seat,’ he ordered, pointing his cooking knife at me.

As I ate, a crowd of adolescent boys giggled and stared at me while holding each other’s legs, hands and waists like couples on a date. Later, I chased kids up and down the dunes and gave piggyback rides and pretended to be an albatross, much to their heady delight.

Rikesh told me that no foreigner had ever stayed in Shergarh. ‘And so everyone here thinks that you are like a movie star!’

He was a medical student and all of 18 but had the maturity of someone much older.

‘Come. I will take you to my brother’s shop.’

His brother’s shop was a stall, which sold chewing tobacco and a locally made mouth freshener. He told his brother to prepare a mouth freshener for me, getting bits of what looked like crystal, yellow powder, and different types of herbs, and placing these onto a banana leaf. Rikesh told me to empty it onto my mouth. I did. It was sweet, fragrant and slightly bitter and left my head buzzing.

‘Spit.’ I did, watching the brown red goo hit the dust.

As the moon turned the desert into rude round shapes, music blared out from a small shack: ‘WHOAH! WE’RE GOING TO IBIZA! WHOAH! BACK TO THE ISLAND!’

I couldn’t believe my ears. I regarded the Rajasthani Bullet Beer I was now drinking with some mistrust. But there it was. British pop music in one of India’s most backwater towns, where asking for a bottle of Coke got you a confused enema grimace from shopkeepers.

I was dragged up by Rikesh and the boys and urged to dance. Thankfully, the track soon finished but not until it rapped into some hardcore techno tunes that sounded like IKEA furniture fucking. Eventually, I tried to ‘rave it’ which to me meant shaking your hand around as if you had snot on the back of it. The lads cheered me on.

I bought a tape – not because I liked it – but as a way of blocking out the din of dogs fighting so I could sleep.

In the early hours of the morning, I awoke with a start at the sight of a face trying to push itself through my mosquito net like the stalker from the film
Halloween
. The face pulled back. It belonged to a young man. He jumped on the end of my bed, swinging his legs back and forth like a child and speaking
Marwari
(I presumed), the local dialect. When I didn’t respond he leapt up and started playing with my bike up against the wall in the room, ringing the bell.

‘BRRINGG-BRRINGG! BRRINGG-BRRINGG!’

Duli, the town’s vet who lived in the next room, called out to him. He jumped up and left. Duli came in.

‘I told him to go,’ Duli said.

‘Thank you. It’s an Indian thing isn’t it? No idea of privacy.’

‘Indian thing! Hah! I don’t like it either!’ he erupted. ‘I do not like it when they walk into my room without announcement. These are very illiterate people. You must tell them to go!’

And, as if on cue, the old Rajput with yellow turban barged in, sat on my bed and stared at me.

‘Go!’ I pointed to the door. He frowned at me quizzically then babbled at Duli.

‘He says you owe the owner two hundred rupees,’ Duli said.

‘Two hundred?’ It seemed a trifle much, especially I paid that much for a nice, big room at the Haveli Guest House in Jodhpur.

‘Fifty per night, fifty per day, twenty-five for each meal. So, now you give him two hundred.’

Not wanting to cause offence, I handed it over.

At breakfast I was invited to meet with Mr Prakash, the principal of the local school. He was a squat, rolling man in his early 50s and was in the habit of leaning against the back of his chair. He immediately unburdened himself of his worries to me: the four-year drought, bores having to be dug deeper and deeper every year and the bleak future of the town without water. But then, when I told him of my journey and my malarial fevers he uttered the most curious of suggestions.

‘Drinking your urine is very beneficial for your health.’

I blinked. ‘You’re drinking your own urine?’ I dipped my stale biscuit in my tea, hoping he
had
given me tea.

‘Yes,’ he smiled. I tried to get a glimpse of signs of uric contamination on his teeth.

‘You’re taking the piss!’ I teased, but he didn’t get me.

‘Yes. I am taking the piss since 1996 and I feel much better for it. I am stronger, much vigour, and I have not been sick once since the treatment.’

‘What does yours taste like?’

‘Depends on what I eat. Sometimes if I have too much tea it is a little bitter and –’

‘Okay, okay, okay!’ I waved him to stop. He ruffled through his drawer and flapped out a rough copy of a book called
The Golden Fountain
by Coen Van Der Kroon. My first thought was, ‘Those
fucking
Dutch!’

‘It is all in here. Go on. Read it.’

Urine, Van Der Kroon claimed, could cure anything: herpes, athlete’s foot, skin problems, sunburn, indigestion, diarrhoea, even cancer and AIDS. But what really got my attention was that urine could cure baldness.

‘Yes, yes,’ Dr Prakash smiled. ‘You put urine on the scalp and the hair should grow.’

‘That would require spectacular aim, Mr Prakash.’

‘No, no. You have to use old urine.’

‘Old urine?’ I had images of trying to milk geriatric men. Or worse, bowing before them in public urinals. ‘All I’m asking is for you to …’

‘The urine has to be four days old and left out in the sun, then applied to the affected area,’ he said, making a rubbing motion on his scalp.

‘Yeah … but the smell.’

‘Sure, but if you want the benefit, then this is a small price.’

When I gave a look that suggested that the author had been drinking too much of the stuff, Mr Prakash lit up.

‘Anyway, you should use it to treat your malaria. There is this woman who was close to death. She has the leukaemia. She tries everything but nothing works. But then she is given the urine treatment – no food, just urine – and she is cured.’

‘What is she doing now?’

‘Oh …’ he sighed. ‘She is dead. Hit by a bus.’

Mr Prakash took me outside to watch the school assembly. The students marched ankle-deep in the sand of their quadrangle, then sat in rows and prayed to Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge, who was depicted above them in a picture in which she played a
long-necked
string instrument called a
veena
. I watched a male lyrebird fly down from a wall behind the students and peck at morsels of food left in the sand.

What struck me the most about the assembly was not the pressed blue shirts that were so remarkably neat and clean in such a dusty landscape, but that there were only 25 girls among the hundred or so boys and they sat in segregated lots. When I asked the principal about the disparity he said, ‘Families do not think that girls need education. They will only get married or work on the farms.’

I spent two nights in Shergarh and on the morning that I was leaving I had tea with Rikesh at his house. His parents, in their 60s, sat in the shadows like old furniture.

‘When will you come back?’ asked Rikesh.

‘I’m not sure. Thank you for everything,’ I said. We hugged and I wheeled the bike through sand until the bitumen resurfaced like a buried elephant’s back.

I turned over my shoulder to see Rikesh still there, shrinking in the distance. He had been a good friend for the past two days, showing me around the town and introducing me to his friends. He had a gentle kindness, a quiet humility I immediately felt when I first met him. I hoped to see him one day again.

The quietness of the desert reminded me that I was now alone again. My only company was the knocking gait of my chain, the slow sound of my breath drawing in and the odd shift of tools in my luggage.

Faced with no one to talk to, I talked to myself and sang. For some reason, old television commercials crept up from my childhood vault.

Up, up and away with TAA, the friendly way to FLLLYYYY!

Not long after this, I found another part of my body singing, as I squatted, pants hoisted down, stomach grumbling its own sonata over a small cactus. The sudden eruption seemed to settle things down … for a while, until again I found myself stirring up an aria over a culvert. I felt decidedly ill.

In my haste, I had punctured the front tyre on a thorny branch. I searched around in my front pannier for my tools when
The Golden Fountain
flopped out.

Now, I hadn’t been overly impressed by the principal’s suggestion of drinking my own piss, but something in
The Golden Fountain
made sense. It said that urine, being a natural antiseptic, would kill germs in the digestive tract. Hmm. And I needed to pee.

I took my drink bottle from its cage on the bike, drank the rest of the water and looked around. No one. Furtively, I whizzed away and felt the warm urine crawl up the bottle. I looked inside; it was the colour of a beer including bubbles floating around the top. No wonder they call beer ‘piss’ where I come from.

I held it to my mouth.

I can’t be serious!

But I was. I closed my eyes and, with a sigh and a gulp, took in the hot ‘Golden Nectar’ … then spat it straight out!

‘Corr!’

But I was determined to give it a go. I knocked it back once more and grimaced again. I washed my mouth out with a fresh bottle of water.

Within minutes my stomach settled. I stretched out on my tarp and relaxed. I heard a Jeep approaching in the distance. And in my stomach I felt something else approaching.

My insides lurched and I puked a jet of yellow vomit across the bike just as the Jeep sailed by. I looked up. A ‘Friends of Gujarat Earthquake’ banner waved across the Jeep, which had now stopped.

‘Are you okay, my friend?’ A thick German voice reached out.

Why do people ask you if you’re okay when clearly you’re not? You could have your head hanging off by a scraggily vein and they’d still go, ‘You alright?’

‘I’m fine.
WHHHARRRPPP!
’

‘You sure?’

‘Absolutely.
WHHAARR-RRGGAHH!
’

‘You eat somezing bad?’

‘Well, “eat” isn’t exactly the verb here … I’ll …’ I really couldn’t tell him what I had done. ‘Really.’

He tapped his driver on the shoulder and they were gone. I watched the scarf of dust head towards Shergarh, and imagined the principal smiling and laughing to himself. Who indeed had been taking the piss?

After fixing the puncture, I got back on the bike, the bitter taste of vomit grinding on my molars. I felt awful. I was sneezing and felt like I was getting a cold. I hoped it wasn’t malaria again.

I passed scabby bush, sand and towns with the usual foray of men hanging off each other in
dhaba
shacks, watching the day vanish in dust swirls.

I could see adversity spreading itself over the bitumen up ahead – sheets of sand drifts. I sped up, thinking I could skim over them on to the next island of black tar, but I quickly found myself bogged in a sand trap. I got off and pushed.

A bus passed then stopped. The driver motioned me to get on and through hand movements indicated that the road was like this for some time. But I was made of stronger stuff, I told myself. I smiled back and waved him on, shaking his head at this mad bloody foreigner.

What have I done?

I went back to pushing the bike through the sand. Four hours later, the sun blistering down, I was still at it – riding for a while then dismounting to push the bike. I was exhausted. And I was running out of water.

Eventually, the road cleared up and I made it to Phalsund, the only major town between Shergarh and Shiv. But I was worse for wear. I had a blinding headache that felt like it was cracking my skull in two.

In a restaurant I lay on a bench. Someone turned on a fan and felt the caresses and licks from the slight whooshing of its rotations. Outside, I could hear a crowd of young men around my bike, prodding and poking it, the bell rung continuously.

CRUNCH!

I sat up to see to a tall plump young man knocking about a young boy by the ears who was stuck under my bike having tried to ride it. I laid back down, forearm resting over my eyes. Moments later I felt my arm being tugged off my face. Upside down in my vision was the tall plump man.

‘You have a beautiful bicycle,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘I want this bicycle. How much you give to me?’

‘It’s not for sale.’

‘I am much wanting your gear-cycle.’

‘I said it isn’t for sale.’

‘But it is so beautiful. What price can you give me?’

‘No.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No!’

‘But I am wanting your bike.’

‘I told you. IT’S … NOT … FOR … SALE!’

He blinked. ‘Yes, yes. But how much you want to give it to me?

‘PLEASE! GO AWAY!’

He slinked out and went back to staring at my bike.

I swung my arm back over my eyes, trying to wrestle the headache. I began to shake uncontrollably.

The malarial fevers had returned.

In the late afternoon of the next day, I wobbled into Jaisalmer a shaking, sweaty mess and half delirious. I’d spent the night in the desert burning up in my tiny one-man tent and right now all I wanted was a bed with clean sheets. All I wanted was to be cool. All I wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, to be left alone. All I wanted was to just
cry
! That’s all!

But, oh no.

First, I had to get past a large American tourist in a loud Hawaiian shirt (let’s not live the stereotype shall we) in the foyer of our hotel, standing there like some kind of Lara Croft
Tomb Raider
goon. As I wheeled my bike in he belted me about the head with questions.

‘OH, MY GOD! ARE YOU LIKE, CYCLING INDIA!?’

I blinked. ‘No.’

‘NO? OH, HAHA! I SO WANNA DO THAT! WHAT KINDA BIKE YA GOT?’

‘Can we do this later?

‘SO IS IT SAFE? HOW MANY KILOMETRES CAN YOU DO A DAY? HAVE YOU LIKE, BEEN ROBBED OR ANYTHING?’

‘No, look – I’m not feeling well. I’ve got malaria.’

‘MALARIA? I HEAR THAT’S PRETTY BAD. I DIDN’T GET IT WHEN I WAS IN KOREA. YOU BEEN TO KOREA?’

I went upstairs, his questions biting at my heels, the last of which was ‘HEY, SINCE YOU’RE NOT USING YOUR BIKE, COULD I HAVE A RIDE?’

I snapped around.

‘
WOULD
…
YOU
…
FUUUUUUCK
…
OFFFFFF
!’

He stood there, his face like a big child. ‘No need to be rude, buddy. I was just askin’.’

But things got even worse. As I lay there burning up in my penthouse (okay, it was a bungalow on the roof of the hotel), an Australian woman, sitting near my window, barked racist views about aboriginal entitlement to other travellers for what seemed hours. In the morning, she dropped down at my table like a dirty bomb.

‘I hear you’re from Australia.’

I looked around and saw the American fumbling through his Lonely Planet. I felt betrayed. In a low voice I said ‘
Who told you
?’

‘Ya don’t sound Australian. Ya must be from the toff end of town.’ And then, for some reason, went on in great detail about her constipation. Which was ironic because just listening to her gave me the screaming shits!

It was only after feigning death that I managed to be free of her, and escaped to get another blood test. It came back negative, the doctors at a loss to explain my strange fevers.

When I felt well enough, I explored Jaisalmer. I weaved in and out of its narrow streets and ornate
havelis
, dodging cows slouched at street corners like bored teenagers on holiday, strolling through market stalls dripping with silver trinkets, leather bags before finding myself surrounded by a sea of embroidered wall hangings lapping at my feet.

I was in a textile shop and the owner, Madan, sported hair cropped short while a long plait hung down from the top of his skull. It was the Brahmin custom when a father died.

For some reason we got talking about the 1998 underground nuclear tests, detonated 200 metres underground and 100 kilometres from here in the Thar Desert.

‘They used onions,’ said Madan, making a patting action with his hand, ‘to control the … how do you say? The boom? Metric tonnes from all over India. Normally onions are six rupees a kilo, then the price go up,’ he whisked his hand up like a salute, ‘to sixty rupees per kilo! Very bad. The poor use the onion to take the heat out during the summer, but they cannot get.’

Onions
. It was the strangest thing I had ever heard. I imagined hapless farmers being buried alive by piles of burnt onion rings falling from the sky.

I decided on two blood-red-and-ochre embroidered hangings that, according to Madan, were made up of pieces from the traditional wedding dresses of Rajasthani tribal women. Some designs were garish – mirror beads and elaborate stitching – while others showed images of elephants, peacocks and flowers.

We began a battle of wills, wits and wallets as we bartered the price, passing the calculator back and forth, tapping out figures.

When it was all over he shook my hand but then became sullen.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘You cut my head off.’

‘What?’ I didn’t believe him. Textile sellers were notorious for their shark-like behaviour in Jaisalmer. He carried on with the act.

‘Maybe you should go into the textile business. You want parcel?’

I agreed. He turned to a worker who had only one good eye and told him to make a parcel for the hangings, a sewn cloth sealed with wax, and stitched me for the service four times the going price!

Madan put his hand on my knee.

‘You want camel safari?’

‘No, thanks,’ I said automatically. Every five minutes I was pestered for a camel safari. I couldn’t go anywhere without a tout hanging off a doorway or an auto-rickshaw driver whistling at me.

On the way home I stopped off at a government authorised
bhang
(or marijuana as we know it) shop.
Bhang
was sold openly at stalls around the town and it was government authorised, because apparently the Hindu god Lord Shiva used to take the male plant for its slow effects (unlike the more hallucinogenic female variety). The
bhang
was mixed in lassi (watered-down yoghurt).

I downed three of them, and with great effort stumbled back to my room only to dream all night of camel touts coming out of the sandstone walls demanding I take a camel tour.

As the sun rose the next morning I looked out across the golden brown desert while in the distance, eight wind turbines clocked slowly over.

‘They do not work,’ said Suresh, the owner of the hotel, Laxmi Niwas, waving his hand at them. Suresh had a cheery, cherub face, grey hair and a round belly. He reminded me of a happy baby hippopotamus.

‘Sometimes moving, sometimes not. These are unreliable.’ He shifted his feet and the conversation. Wind power may have been unreliable (according to Suresh) but so was India’s fossil fuel power. Blackouts were caused frequently by poorly maintained grid structures and, as Suresh told me, the ‘power thieves’ who illegally re-routed power for anyone with some flappable cash.

I had ridden out to the wind farm the day before and met Kamal, the engineer. I sipped
chai
with him in a cramped space in one of the supporting poles while the sound of the whirring blades cut through our conversation.

‘We are waiting for the – WHOOSH! – hot season,’ said Kamal. ‘Strong winds – WHOOSH! – and we expect – WHOOSH! WHOOSH! – maximum output. Oh, but then. It is so – WHOOSH! – hot! Oh, much – WHOOSH! WHOOSH! – wind!’

Even now, in late February, a cloud of brown sand rose a metre high above the desert, scourging the city, blasting sari’d women who huddled in groups by the side of the road and hid their faces in their veils, and whipping the legs of shorts-wearing tourists as they ran to the nearest curio in the vain hope that it all might end.

Though I was feeling better I was struggling to decide whether or not I should cycle to Pushkar, a small town by a lake and surrounded by sweeping hills. Though the fevers had gone, strenuous cycling seemed to bring them back. And there was another thing: to get to Pushkar I would have to pass through Pokaran, a town near the atomic test sites. I asked Suresh to help put my mind at ease.

‘Ah! Very safe!’ he implored, chewing on a betel nut. ‘This is just newspaperman make this for story to sell paper. Yes, very safe. No problem. They do the test 20 kilometres from the road. Remember, we are only 65 kilometres from the blast and we are fine.’

‘Aren’t you worried about the contamination?’

‘My friend, we don’t worry about such things.’ He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder to reassure me. ‘This is India.’