Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle (16 page)

‘It is because these are illiterate people,’ a hotel manager explained to me. He had made the mistake of asking me how I was enjoying India – ‘Pfff!’

‘Yes,’ I countered sourly, ‘but how does squeezing my girlfriend’s breasts help them read?!’

And while I could only reason that this was a product of a sexually repressed society where women were seen as chattels, it did not make it right.

‘If I went around groping Indian women you guys would set me on fire!’

‘Yes, of course,’ smiled the manager. ‘Or worse!’

Thus, I became increasing agitated when any man dared to come near us and I would often scream, ‘NO! THE SEX IS NOT FREE!’

So it was ironic, after all that we had experienced over the past few days, that we found ourselves, of all places, in an ashram of the self-proclaimed sex guru Osho, better known as the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or ‘Master of the Vagina’ as one ex-cult member called him.

He had once led The Orange People cult and preached ‘free love, anywhere, anytime’. In the 1980s the group caught quite a deal of attention, not for the fact that Rajneesh arrived every day in a Rolls Royce (he had nearly a hundred of them) at his Oregon ashram to give a ‘silent discourse’ (had he forgotten his notes or was it just a long pause?), but also for claims that the Rajneeshies tried to poison the Oregon water supply. His personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, got worldwide coverage when she uttered the words, ‘Tough Titties’ when quizzed on
60 Minutes
about the opposition to more ashrams in Australia.

However, this ashram was largely deserted and what was left was a kindly and withered old man, Swami Prati. He stood behind a walking frame, having broken his leg in an energetic meditation some weeks before. He invited us in and gave us a room for the night.

Photographs of Rajneesh adorned the walls but also some nonsensical aphorisms:

I AM ME. YOU ARE YOU. WHY THINK OF FUTURE?

THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT CAN ONLY BE ATTAINED THROUGH HAPPINESS, PEACE, LOVE, SINGING.

I asked Swami Prati about Rajneesh. Was he really just about free love?

‘Free love? No,’ said Prati. ‘Love is love. You are love. I am love. God is in everything – nature, you, her. He did not believe in marriage. You enjoy the love, and when the love finish, you say “Namaste” and you go.’

‘That’s just the sort of thing you’d go in for, wouldn’t you, Russ?’ Bec said later in our room with an air of accusation. ‘No commitments, no marriage … that’s your kind of religion.’

Oh, that commitment thing again! I had made the mistake of revealing to her that I didn’t want to get married. Paradoxically, this didn’t stop me from introducing her as my wife to locals in an attempt to avoid any further questions about our sex life.

‘Ah, well,’ I said changing the subject, ‘I’m more curious what the meditation is like. He said it was too energetic for us to join in.’

‘Probably an orgy, which you’d also like,’ she said, flinging her bags on the floor. What was with her today?

In our room the overhead fan kept the mosquitoes at bay, but it was still too hot in the ashram to sleep. I lay listening to the tapestry of noise outside: boys noisily walking home, bullocks’ hooves walking unsteadily on broken bitumen while the hay they were carrying grazed and twisted along the wall outside our room, their owners whistling sharp commands, dogs barking in a rowdy din of dog-bark time (always at 11, just as I was nodding off), and drunk men stumbling, struggling to hold their footing. When the generator sputtered its last gasp for the night, the fan stopped. The stillness of the air became thick and immovable, and we edged our bodies away from each other on the small bed, desperate to find a patch of coolness. Bec soon drifted off, mumbling to the night world.

In the morning I was awoken at five a.m. by the SINGING, DANCING, LOVING music for meditation. Singing – yes. Dancing – sounded like it. Loving – hmm, who knows? I got up to check that bit out.

Swami Prati was sitting down under the expansive veranda, hand on his walking frame, large belly hanging out under his white singlet and over his sarong.

‘No one came,’ he said, pointing to the clouds. ‘Too much rain.’

The cool change had blasted into our room, banging the shutters and cooling our bodies.

‘You can go and look in the temple. My servant will show you the meditation. Take a torch with you. Read what it says on the walls. It is all in English,’ he chortled. ‘Go.’

In the temple, a large room with parquetry floors, numerous photographs of Rajneesh taken when he was much younger lined the wall, each showing a different expression. Back then, his beard was black and his face was much fuller; hell, apart from the hair colour, he was a dead-ringer for Grover from
Sesame Street
.

The squat servant stood in the middle of the room.

‘Meditation. First! Breathing!’ He flicked his head back, took a deep breath and snorted in big sweeping gasps, hands flicking passed his head, eyes closed. He did this for five minutes until his sarong fell off, revealing red under-shorts. Bec and I dared not look at each other for fear of laughing.

‘Second! Dancing!’ He looked around the room sheepishly. ‘No music.’

He put his hand up. ‘Third! Meditation … peace.’ He closed his eyes for a moment then shot them open.

‘Fourth! Jumping!’ He bounced up and down around the room, arms reaching for the sky.

‘HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO!’ He whooped until his sarong fell off again. He picked it up, embarrassed.

‘Five! Stillness.’ He stood there staring at us until we felt uncomfortable.

‘Okay?’ he said.

Bec was a little suspicious of the whole ashram, especially after I told her that Rajneesh had gone to jail for tax avoidance and conspiracy to murder the mayor of Oregon. I mentioned this to Prati.

‘The Pope and Christians in America,’ Prati said as we prepared to leave the ashram, ‘did not like him because he criticised them. This is why he went to jail. And there, he was poisoned – slowly – until he died in India. Talented people, scientists, tell us this. Ah, yes. He was a master. Yes. He could do many miracles. I have seen it with my own eyes. He could make the rain stop. Yes. Just like that!’

Couldn’t keep himself out of jail though, could he? I thought ruefully.

Prati embraced me. ‘Be happy. Love yourself as God loves you. See with truth.’

We pedalled off through the increasing heat and the evaporating pothole puddles.

My comments about Rajneesh’s jail term turned out to be prophetic; later that day we ended up in jail ourselves.

The light was fading and we had borne the brunt of another hot day. We were exhausted, and at our current rate we would never make it to the next town, Padrauna, some 15 kilometres away.

At the police headquarters, police officers sat around a table outside, some getting changed and ready for their shift – putting on uniforms, attaching belts and loading guns – while others washed under water pumps or lay around on outdoor beds.

A tall, strapping, moustached policeman walked over. I asked if we could sleep the night. He spoke with the other policemen, who were now sitting up staring at us, and they agreed.

His name was Arun, and he organised a room for us, an empty bungalow out the back behind the offices. Though he tried to make us feel welcome, I soon developed an uncomfortable feeling about the place. None of the villagers came near here. I started recalling things I had read about India’s corrupt cops – the kidnappings, murders and extortion rackets. They sounded just like the Australian Police!

Just to lighten the atmosphere, my mouth started asking Arun stupid questions I did not really want to know the answers to.

‘Have you ever killed a man?’

‘Yes,’ he said blankly. ‘Here. Robbers. Murder. Hold up. It is my job to kill if I see robber.’ His face avalanched into coldness.

A boy of about 16 was led out of a cell while a young girl was escorted to a table by a visiting female police officer.

‘He is here for rape,’ the policeman said coldly.

The rapist walked right past the victim, whose eyes were downcast; no concern for her plight was shown by anyone.

It was a bizarre place. During dinner, which we ate in a room while sitting on mattress-less beds, the chef – a dwarf with two thumbs on one hand – frisbeed
chapattis
onto our plates, then did a little dance on request from one of the portly policeman. I half-expected David Lynch to morph out of the candlelit shadows and announce in a droll tone, ‘We’ll just do that take one more time until I can’t explain it.’

We sat in the hot room munching on curried vegetables and rice.

He offered me wine but didn’t offer Bec any. When I asked why, he said, ‘It is not allowed for women to drink.’

Rebecca stormed off to the room. I joined her shortly thereafter.

‘I’m sick of this sexist bullshit!’ Bec said, the fan blasting us as we lay in bed. ‘I don’t exist. I hate it.’

‘Yes. I hate it too,’ I said and tried to console her in the wake of yet another day surrounded by men.

If India was to test the depths of how low I could go, then she would need a very long stick.

There we were on the hot Deccan plains of Uttar Pradesh, trucks, buses and car whooshing past us on the Grand Trunk Road when the memory of Butwal wore its way back like a bicycle seat made of sandpaper.

My haemorrhoids had been playing up (‘Would you guys get down from that tree!’) and it felt as if they were eating me from the inside out, causing me horrendous pain. I needed a secluded spot to administer the Preparation H cream, so Bec and I stopped for a rest next to a small track.

But as I fumbled for the tube in my bag, I heard the squeak of a bicycle, the quiet farts of a stopping motorcycle and the nearing flip-flop of thongs. Before too long I turned around and saw a silent crowd of 40 men within two feet of us, not saying a word or giving a smile but staring like seagulls waiting for a single fried chip.

‘Chelo! (Go!)’ They moved closer. ‘CHELO!’ They moved closer again. ‘For fucksake!’

‘Just do it, Russ. Don’t worry about it!’ said Bec, fed up. ‘You see them shitting all the time.’ She had a point; I had seen all manner of ablutions on this trip.

‘Hurry up so we can get out of here. I’m getting nervous.’

‘Alright, alright.’ Hiding the tube inside my shorts, I tried to quickly squirt the cream in, but it went all over my shorts. ‘Jesus!

The crowd ventured closer.

‘Would you just …’

Now, I am not giving excuses for what I did next – just reasons. I am still embarrassed and ashamed about it. But after a month of being whistled at, sucked at, yelled at, laughed at and grabbed at, my temper burning up like the 45-degree days that melted the roads before us, what I was about to do just made perfect sense.

‘Right. That’s it! You guys want to see something? I’ll
show
you something!’

À la Demtel commercial, I demonstrated the smooth head of the nozzle (which was long for obvious reasons) and made plunging actions towards my rear.

‘
HEEEEEEERE WEEEE GOOOOO
!’

Without much ado, I hoisted down my shorts and rammed the tube between the cheeks of my arse. It stuck out like a crashed rocket ship.

‘HAHAH!’ I laughed, bent over and seeing Bec upside down in my vision. ‘Have they gone yet, Bec?’

‘Actually, Russ, they’ve moved in for a closer look.’

And so there they were and looking on with thoughtful rectitude.

‘Oh, God. Is there no escape! Someone, please. Just shoot me!’

Later, we tried to take refuge from the crowds under the coolness of a fan at the back of a teahouse. Within seconds, another crowd swamped us again. A smiling fat man came bounding up like a Labrador. By now, I was ropeable.

‘Hello, sir,’ he said. ‘Which country?’

‘Israel!’ I grinned menacingly, hoping that the somewhat maligned reputation of Israeli backpackers would scare him off.

‘Oh. What is your purpose in India?’

‘Pakistani spy.’

‘Tourist,’ Bec said, sharply.

‘How are you finding India?’ he asked Bec.

‘HAHA!’ I huffed. ‘Don’t get me started!’

‘People are very friendly,’ Bec said, ‘helpful –’

‘In your fucking face all the fucking time,’ I mumbled into my sleeve.

Children crowded around, choking the last of any cool air in the fleapit teahouse. I scowled at them. They scowled back, then laughed.

‘Can you teach us some Hindi?’ Bec asked.

‘You want to learn Hindi!’ His eyes nearly popped with a child’s excitement. In a flash, he had a pen and paper out.

‘Sure,’ I winced, fearing he would start teaching the alphabet until the sun set, then I wondered if he could teach us a Hindu phrase for, ‘No, I really do mean
fuck off
!’

But Bec had a politer request, God love her, and within minutes he had a list of phrases compiled.

‘This one here means, “Please don’t look”; this one means, “Please move back”, and this one means, “Don’t touch me”.’

Ah, the key! Yes, why didn’t we think of this before? Learn a few words of Hindi and, presto! They’ll vanish!

‘Thank you very much!’ I said, suddenly interested in the guy, and shook his hand. He smiled, waved goodbye to us and got on his motorbike.

But later, when we were swamped outside a bank, our attempts at Hindi seemed to have the opposite effect, and once again we found ourselves escaping on our bikes, me hurling more and more abuse.

‘You know, isn’t it funny,’ Rebecca clamped her arms on her hip like a gunslinger, face twisting up, getting ready to say something about my shabby behaviour. ‘How “arse
hole
” rhymes with “
Russ
hole
”!

I hated to admit it but she was right. I had become the love child of George Costanza, Russell Crowe and Eric Cartman from
South Park
: ‘GODDAMMIT! WHERE’S MY CHEESY POOFS?’

I loathed myself.

Now, as a travel writer you’re not supposed say that you don’t like the country you’re in, but right at this moment I wasn’t liking India one bit, and when I told Rebecca that night she said, ‘Then why stay here and complain? Let’s take a bus!’

‘Because I’m writing a book! I can’t call it “Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle” if I took buses, trains or planes all the time. It’d be called “Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle … sort of”.’

‘But it’s not even called Bombay!’

‘
I’m working on that
!’

‘But it’s just distance for distance’s sake. It’s not even fun.’

‘Look. Let’s try one more day. Things could get better.’

‘Get better! Hah! I’m hot, I can’t sleep, every day some dickhead grabbing me on the tits … how could anything get better?’

But things did get better and what happened next reminded of how wonderful India and Indian people can be.

Rudauli was a small splot on my map in the middle of Uttar Pradesh. When streams of people surrounded us, a plump man in a tracksuit stepped forward and urged them to go.

‘I am Dr Pushkar,’ he announced and shook my hand. ‘Please, come and have dinner with me tonight. But first I will arrange for you to sleep.’

He showed us to a government bungalow, used by officials ever so rarely that nothing at all worked. But it was clean, large and kept in a reasonable state of repair by two caretakers who appeared to be continually stoned on
charas
.

That night we sat outside Dr Pushkar’s house with his wife, a gynaecologist, and their family, sitting in the boiling, soupy heat, going through the pleasantries. Suddenly, there was a large flash of light that split across the sky and released an almighty explosion.

‘Ah, the power has arrived!’ Dr Pushkar smiled cheerfully, wobbling his head while servants, nonplussed by the crackling light, flapped square fans to cool us. ‘It is the transformer. He is melting.’

Within minutes, the power came on. Wooden fans were dropped in our favour for electric ones and everyone at last relaxed and sat down. The family seated us at the table and only ate once we were well and truly stuffed.

‘This is the Indian custom,’ Dr Pushkar smiled. ‘It is our duty to look after our guests like a god. We must accept you like a storm – we do not expect it but we welcome it.’

He had a wonderful relationship with his children – two daughters and a son. Often I would find him laughing and playing with them in the morning while he tried to shave, chasing and tickling them around the house, or up at four a.m. to take his son and his friends for a jog, even though it was already quite hot at that hour.

Bec and I felt happy just being near him, and our annoyances of the past few days melted away.

Some days later, Dr Pushkar took us to a local wedding. Under a huge tent, relatives and friends gathered to see the bridal couple, who were perched on a stage several feet away from each other. The groom was accepting red envelopes, relatives touching him on the feet as a sign of respect while his bride, in a bright red dress and adorned with gold nose-rings, sat quietly, eyes downcast.

‘She doesn’t look very happy,’ I said to Dr Pushkar, who looked dashing in his camel safari suit.

‘No! She is very happy!’ he asserted.

‘How can you tell?’

‘Ah, you see, if she is smiling, then everyone will be thinking that they have already made the marriage!’ He flashed me a big smile and a wink.

Perhaps the bride was unhappy with something else; perhaps a dowry that was sending her parents bankrupt. It is still the tradition in India (even though it was prohibited in 1961) for the bride’s parents to provide a dowry of money or gifts, or education for the bridegroom. Not just on the wedding night but for the duration of the marriage.

I saw something big, shiny and metallic under Dr Pushkar’s jacket.

‘What’s that?’ I pointed. He lifted his jacket back.

‘It is my gun,’ he said innocently.

‘But … you’re a doctor! You’re supposed to protect life!’

‘Yes, I know. But, if someone wants to take my life, then I will take his!’ he said, laughing. Banditry was apparently rife around these parts, and Dr Pushkar was a target when driving around in his Jeep with his family.

Right about the time we had planned to leave, Bec became ill with what Dr Pushkar called ‘heat diarrhoea’.

‘Ah, you should have come to me sooner,’ Dr Pushkar scolded me. I suddenly felt the weight of being a man in this country; by their standards, it seemed, I was responsible for Bec in every way. ‘And you should have boiled the water then put in the electrolyte.’

‘But it’s bottled.’

‘Still. Maybe problems. Some bad people are changing the water.’

All night, Bec was filled with antibiotics and electrolytes through an IV drip. We huddled under the overhead fan, trying to find relief in the moving hot air until it sadly stopped moving when the power cut out.

The next day I too got diarrhoea and because of this we took the ‘slow train’ (was there any other kind in India?) to Lucknow, the next town, just over 130 kilometres away. Halfway there, rattling in the heat with our bikes, a thought struck me.

‘Bec, have you seen my money belt?’

Four hours later, I was back on the train to Rudauli. I was sure I had left my money belt under the mattress of the bed in the government bungalow.

I sat panicking, wondering if all my money, my passport, my credit cards, everything, was gone. Three-and–a-half hours and 120 kilometres later, I was back at Rudauli. I leapt off the train and ran, making a beeline for the bungalow.

I motioned to the caretakers to get the key. When they cracked open the padlock, I burst in and made straight for the bed. I looked under the mattress. Nothing.

‘Aagghhh!’

‘Sir.’ I heard a child’s voice and turned around; Dr Pushkar’s son was standing in the doorway. ‘Your money belt. My father has it.’

I yelped with joy, hugged the little guy and repeated over and over, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

‘I’m sorry. I could not run fast enough to catch you from the train.’

‘Ah, you are having much happiness to you,’ said Dr Pushkar, smiling a broad grin as he sat cross-legged on a table. He was wearing a singlet and shorts and was shaving by a mirror. ‘We are very good friends, isn’t it? I get a call from your wife about your money belt and I run to the guesthouse with no shoes because I am worried that a thief might take it.’

He slapped me gently on the knee.

‘We were surely brothers in our past lives. God has blessed us. Sit. Have some tea and food.’

Tears welled up in my eyes ’til I could no longer see India at all.