Chapter Eleven

Dawn had not yet broken when Bindra, Jyothi and Jiwan walked quietly out of the Good Shepherd Ashram.

“Where are we going, Ama?” Jyothi asked. “Kashi!” insisted Jiwan.

“My good, brave boys,” Bindra smiled, “I don’t know where we’re going . . .”

“We’re going to Kashi!” Jiwan announced again with untiring confidence.

“But, son, I don’t know where Kashi is,” she protested. “We speak of it in our tradition - but I don’t know where to find it. Do we walk towards the rising sun, or towards its setting? Is it one day’s travel, or one year’s? You see? I don’t even know where to begin.”

Bindra knew the name of Kashi, the City of the Light of Liberation. She knew it from the tales of Skanda, the Spurt of Semen, divine patron of learning and hidden wisdom. She knew it as the place where Syambhuva and Shatarupa, the first named humans of this cycle of mankind, were said to have paid homage to the forces of their creation. She had described it to her children as the place at which an immeasurable laser beam, a lingam of light, once broke through the Earth’s crust and illuminated the cosmos to reveal the underlying consciousness of which the entire universe is an expression. However, whilst Bindra knew of its mythical beginnings, just where the city of Kashi stood she could not say.

She paused at a junction in the dusty street. She looked from left to right, as though determining her bearings might help her decide what to do. She reached out her bandaged hands and drew her sons close.

Bindra felt utterly lost.

A distant glow to the east had begun to seep along the horizon as Bindra and her boys huddled together beside the empty road. In silence, they watched the darkness wane through a dust-sullied pallet of dirty mauves, pinks and oranges. They watched a solitary rickshaw appear from the gloom and pedal past lethargically, when Bindra’s attention was caught by movement above the bamboo tops. “Kali Ma,” she whispered towards the raucous spirals of crows that were summoning the dawn. “I know!” she announced to her sons with sudden, new determination. “We’ll go back to the Kali mandir! Someone there is sure to know where Kashi lies.”

***

Upon arrival at Kalka, I disembarked the Shimla toy train and boarded the overnighter to Delhi. I pushed through jostling, goodnatured crowds, grumpy porters and noisy vendors, only to discover that my pre-paid berth had not been reserved. According to the gariwan coachman, all sleeping compartments were fully booked and my name was absent from the list.

Until two o’clock in the morning, I was unceremoniously shoved from second-class bench, to filthy floor, to bustling corridor, until I could bear it no longer. I determined to search out the most senior conductor and implore him, on my knees if necessary, for a seat.

The portly, perspiring man became impatient and dismissive on my request, bellowing with unnecessary volume that the train was completely full, with “not one place for not one person!” However, it was hard to take his abrasive manner seriously when he had evidently spared no effort in his grooming to ensure his merkinlike ear tufts achieved their own perfection.

Indeed, the conductor may have noted my expression of genuine admiration for the coiffure of his hirsute auricles, as he promptly softened, conceding that he could possibly make one last check if I donated two hundred rupees to his outstretched fingers. I doubtfully, and somewhat begrudgingly, handed over the money, whereupon he swiftly turned and unlocked an empty compartment.

I did not wake until choking heat had parched my airways. I peered through tired eyes and grime-caked glass at the defecating throngs that lined the tracks. I forced open the window, inadvertently welcoming into the compartment the stench and dust that heralded my return to Delhi.

Upon arrival, I stepped from the train and plunged into the tumultuous tide. Before I had a chance to find my bearings, I was swept from the train door along the platform, up staircases, across footbridges, along corridors, through ticket halls and out into the street.

I stood in the road, trying to avoid being hurried into eternity by pollution-crazed drivers in their demon taxis and three-wheeled tempos. I turned to face the storming hordes pouring from the station entrance.

I was confused. At Shimla, I had been assured that I would arrive at New Delhi Station, from which I had originally departed, where my train to the east would be waiting for immediate connection. But, the station through which I had been so brusquely hurried was unrecognisable.

Rather than jeopardise my life by attempting to force passage back into the ticket hall against the single-minded, lemming sea of commuters, I pushed my way around to the side of the building. I blundered into an airless office, where a group of soldiers, sipping tea and holding hands, pointed me through an open door. Behind a paper-piled desk sat a fearsome little Fat Controller.

“Excuse me, sir,” I began, with as much respectability as I could muster in my bedraggled state.

“No! No!” he shouted, waving me away.

I was not to be so easily dismissed. “Sir, could you please tell me...”

His eyes bulged to amphibian convexity. “Public complaints should be taken to the Grievances Cell for dealing with between 11pm and 6am!”

I attempted to explain the simplicity of my enquiry and that, until this moment, I had had no complaints whatsoever. However, the swollen veins on his temples were pounding and his short, plump fingers had become quite stiff, so I departed his presence before my polite request for assistance triggered an irreversible catalepsy.

***

The lamp-lit temple was bustling into life as Bindra and her boys approached along the tree-lined path. A small number of devotees were already circumambulating the shrine. The low hum of their repeated mantras gave Bindra comfort and restored her hope.

She led Jiwan and Jyothi to the steps, where they paused to brush the dust from their feet. “Once again, we bring nothing to Kali Ma,” Bindra muttered to herself.

“Ama,” Jyothi beamed, “I have uncooked rice and bananas!” He unrolled the little blanket he had tied across his shoulders and revealed its contents. Bindra was astonished.

“Where does this come from?” she asked, with concern.

“From the Fathers’ kitchen!” Jyothi chuckled.

“However difficult things may be,” his mother frowned, “we do not steal from others, neither in deed, word nor thought. There is wisdom in being able to accept that what we have is always enough. And lasting freedom when we surrender the desire to possess that which belongs to another - even when we think we are destitute.”

Jyothi hung his head in theatrical shame.

She drew him close. “If we learn from our mistakes, then we are wise. If we choose not to, we are foolish. Choose the path of wisdom, my good, kind boy.”

“But now we have parsat for Kali Ma!” he triumphantly announced, lifting his face to hers with a cheeky grin. And, proudly waving a banana, Jyothi scurried up the temple steps towards the sanctuary of the Dark Goddess.

***

Across the cavernous hall of the railway terminus, I caught sight of a faded sign that promised “Information”. I clambered over tors of trunks and parcels, tiptoed between undulating hills of sleeping bodies, slipped in generous splatterings of scarlet saliva - only to discover the desk was closed.

I asked various people for help, but no one was interested. Three times I was escorted by surly men to different platforms, only to endure importunate demands for money as a reward for their assistance. My patience had begun to wear very thin indeed.

A firm hand grasped my elbow and I turned to find an elegantly uniformed soldier beside me. He grinned and asked to see my ticket. He explained that I was at Old Delhi Station, not New Delhi as I had been told at Kalka. He walked with me to a platform, to my embarrassment moved people from a bench, and sat me down. Before I could thank him, he was gone.

It took a moment for me to realise that he still had my ticket.

I stood up in panic, but he had vanished back into the impenetrable crowds.

In my misery and anger, I could not think what action to brave next. The heat was rising fast and I was foolishly still dressed in my weather-wary hill station clothes. I wiped the spate of perspiration from my face and my handkerchief turned black. I took a gulp of warm bottled water and looked on enviously at the men and boys stripping at the standpipes with their communal bar of bright green soap.

A solitary woman approached me. Her tattered sari blouse exposed flaccid, nail-torn breasts, her face distorted by unimaginable terrors. She was evidently mentally ill. I smiled awkwardly at her, but she did not seem to see and wandered on. I watched her go, consumed with frustration at my incapacity ever to do anything more than spectate.

My eyes immediately caught those of an old man dressed in filthy rags. His nose had fallen into his face. His tongue lolled over toothless gums and distended lips. The remains of what had once been his hands rested heavily on the handle of a makeshift wooden trolley, on which he steered a crumpled woman. She had no fingers. No feet. No eyes.

I had never before seen human bodies reduced to such a pitiful condition. My father had told me of deformed beggars, of purposeful debilitations, of enforced amputations. But none of this was deliberate. This was disease. This was horrific.

The extraordinary vision cut a broad swathe through the crowds on the platform as it approached. People pushed and tumbled to get out of their path, snatching away luggage, plucking up parcels, clutching at children.

In a moment, they were before me. Two living, breathing corpses.

I bent to pick up my rucksack, to let them pass, then stopped. I stood up and looked back at the old man. In those deep, dark eyes was a dignity I did not recognise in myself. There was a peace. A stillness.

He smiled softly and I found myself transfixed by a depth of wisdom that starkly exposed the paucity of my own. In that moment, I felt that for my education, all my opportunities and indulgences, I knew nothing compared to this man who now struggled to stand before me.

I bent to place money into a tin the old woman held between her encrusted ankles. She suddenly came to life and offered pranam in my direction, as did he.

I returned a respectful bow to both of them.

“No, sir!” a voice cried out from amongst the crowd. “Stay back! They are lepers, sir! Lepers!”

***

The sun had illuminated the treetops when Bindra caught sight of a face she recognised. The woman slowly hobbled down the path, then slumped onto her usual spot at the base of the temple steps. She was panting.

“Namaskar, didi!” Bindra called out in greeting.

“Namaskar, bahini!” came the breathless reply.

Bindra shuffled along the step to sit closer, and offered one of Jyothi’s purloined bananas. The woman touched her heart in thanks.

“Didi,” Bindra asked, “do you know of Kashi?”

The woman smiled and tipped her head to one side in affirmation.

“Then, didi,” Bindra continued, “how many days’ walk is it?”

The woman shook her head and laughed. “Bahini, Kashi is very far away! And it’s not days, it’s many weeks! Kashi is thousands of kos from here, far across the Plains!” She looked to Bindra’s bound feet. “I’m sorry, bahini, but if you try to get there on those, you may never reach Kashi at all!”

Bindra nodded her head from side to side in resignation.

“Tirthajatra?” the woman asked. “You want to take a pilgrimage?”

Bindra shrugged. “It’s my Jiwan, my little one . . .”

She turned to look up to the inner sanctum, where her youngest son now sat motionless before the image of Kali. Jyothi was rummaging through the palm thicket, in the hope of finding iskus and yet more bananas.

“Then you must go!” the old woman declared with conviction. “That child of yours has a path to follow. If it’s to Kashi he says he must travel, then it’s to Kashi that you must take him!”

Bindra’s thoughts were suddenly very distant. “I have two daughters. Pretty girls, good girls,” she said quietly. “I have left one up in the Hills. The other . . . I have lost.” She looked up towards the circling crows. “How far is the city called Calcutta?”

“Also very far from here,” the woman replied. “Far to the south, where the land meets the sea. It’s a huge place, I’m told. Full of many great buildings, with cheap food, but too many people.”

Again, Bindra nodded with resignation.

“Go to Kashi,” the woman advised. “Trust Kali Ma and take your sons!”

“But, didi!” Bindra protested. “Look at me! Look at my boys! How can we walk so far?”

“Walk?” the woman laughed out loud. “Of course, you can’t walk! You take the Pilgrim Bus! It leaves often in this season.”

“But, didi!” Bindra repeated in protest, “I have no rupees to pay for a bus! And they would not take me!”

The woman laughed again. “Bahini, you think pilgrims, the dying and the widowed making their way to Kashi to welcome their end will care who or what you are? The Pilgrim Bus is very cheap. And as for money, sit here with me. It’s a puja day. Many devotees of the Dark Mother will come, eager to give an offering to Kali Ma.”

Bindra shook her head. “Forgive me, but I cannot beg, didi!” she gasped in dismay at the thought.

“Why? Are you better than our Lord of the Mountains, Shiva himself?” the old woman playfully retorted. “You know, one of His sacred names is Bhiksu, the beggar! Don’t you know our mountain tradition teaches that one of the ashramas, one of the stages of life most suited to those of us living in these tumultuous days, is that of the maagne beggar? Even the ranas and ranis took time to wander in their lives, in search of truth. Yes, even our kings and queens found wisdom in living for a time from alms!”

Bindra chuckled. So often she had to learn the very lessons that she tried to teach her sons. It was time to put away her pride and learn new wisdom.

***

I had lost all hope of ever making my escape from Delhi before the heat boiled dry any residual moisture from my veins, when out of the milling crowd the grinning soldier unexpectedly reappeared.

He was clutching my ticket. He had only gone to confirm my departure time and platform.

I expressed my gratitude and relief with such immoderate emotion that he took my arm and ordered a eunuch to make room for me to sit down. I offered a distorted face of apology to the hijra, who pulled herself tall and, with a swish of henna-reddened locks and a flutter of kohl-caked lashes, went to join her “sisters”. I had spotted a group of them earlier, working the platforms together. They had been vigorously slapping their palms in the faces of unsuspecting commuters. Unless handsomely paid, they had been noisily threatening to expose their unsightly, though undeniably unique, scars, while raining fearsome curses of misfortune upon the parsimonious.

The soldier hooked his little finger around mine for a moment and smiled broadly at the people surrounding us. I was evidently considered something of a catch.

A grinding, roaring hiss and the train pulled in. This was not one of the Reverend Awdry’s bright and brassy “chuffas”. Rather it was a monstrous tank, which seemed to have only recently returned from the infliction of some apocalyptic destruction. The crowds grabbed their cases, boxes, churns, water-pots and children, and ran to mount the carriage steps.

The soldier remained firmly by my side, insisting upon carrying the rucksack, until I had settled in my seat. He asked me to make a note of his address, with the plea that I visit his village one day to admire his ancestral fields, then wished a warm farewell and waited outside the window to wave me off.

I turned to smile and nod at the solemn young Sikh, the diseasescarred Hindu and the two expressionless businessmen with whom I shared the carriage.

Only the solemn young Sikh returned my genial gesture.

***

Bindra looked into the cloth she had laid before her. It was scattered with coins and handfuls of rice. She tutted to herself.

“Ama-apa!” she thought with unease. “If Mother and Father could see me reduced to this!”

“May you know freedom by never learning to scorn the dust,” she recalled once being taught in blessing. “May you know freedom by never learning to yearn for gold.”

Bindra bit her protruded tongue and shook her head.

Jiwan was still in the temple. He had been seated before the murti image of Kali for hours. This too troubled Bindra. Every day she wondered what had happened in the cave of the ban jhankri. Every day she wondered what would become of her serious little boy.

Jyothi had taken another banana from his cloth, when a scruffy monkey with a near-bald baby clinging to its back sidled towards him. He picked up a small stone and raised it above his head in threat, at which the monkey bared its teeth in resentment and scampered away.

“Son,” Bindra said in a soft voice, “monkeys, bananas, stones and you are all expressions of the Mother. All forms of life are equal in their divinity. All are worthy of respect and compassion, whether man, monkey or mosquito. Would you throw a stone at me, if I were hungry?” she asked.

Jyothi was shocked. “Never, Ama!” he cried.

“Then in your life learn to call all men Mother before you hit them, curse them, steal from them,” she advised. “Call all creatures Mother before you hurt them, hunt them, kill them.” She drew him to her side. “My good, strong boy, choose now to gain nothing in your life by any thought, word or deed to the detriment of yourself or others. There is no more effective path to lasting peace. No greater gift of wisdom that, as your mother, I can give.”

Jyothi wrinkled his nose and touched his head to hers.

“I’ll try, Ama,” he promised.

***

To escape the commotion of the city was a relief, although the heat of the vast Gangetic plains of Uttar Pradesh proved unrelenting and unbearable. Despite the movement of the train, there was no breeze, no air at all. And my water supply was fast diminishing.

Across India’s most densely populated state with a predominantly peasant population of over 166 million, sun-singed families threshed and winnowed sun-shrivelled crops in the sunsodden fields. As the train slowed to change points and I fought off my urge to scratch the numerous swollen bites I had acquired in Shimla, I watched an old buffalo topple over in a field. I counted twenty-eight vultures shifting excitedly, stretching their wings and talons in eager preparation.

Eventually, from the awesome flatness of the Plains rose the tall spire of a roofless Anglican church, extensive time-tattered public buildings and dilapidated mansions. Nine and a half hours after leaving Delhi, we had arrived at Lucknow, once capital of the kingdom of Oude where, in the previous century, my Uncle Oscar and his Uncle Warwick had advanced their familial bond by shooting dead grylag geese and wild cattle.

By the time the train had heaved itself into the impressive, Mughal-style station, I was coated in a fine red dust, as was everything else in this Urdu-speaking city. I watched the cheerful mayhem of the crowded platforms from the safety of my open window, head flush with classroom memories of nawabs, sepoys and Enfield rifles. Beef fat, Residency and the haunting gore of a Cawnpore Dinner.

As the train pulled away from Lucknow, my compartment prepared itself for sleep. Upper bunks were unclipped and shoes removed, faces were washed and teeth rinsed. I watched entranced as the young Sikh removed his elegant dastaar turban, redressed his kesh uncut hair with his kangha comb, then rebound his head with clean, pressed cloth.

Three of my travelling companions had now retired to their beds. No such joy for me. The sombre businessman, who seemed bent upon hacking up his mucous membranes, had not yet arrived at his station and defiantly stayed seated on my bench seat, preventing me from lying down. My head was again splitting with the heat and my patience fast waning. When he left to use the toilet, the young Sikh indicated in energetic sign language that I should pull out my bed and quickly claim my stake before the miserable codger came back. This I did, only to have the said codger return to sit hard on my legs. To make his point, he then cleared goodness-knows-what from his throat, and spat copious quantities of it across my backpack.

Grumpily, I sat up again to stare out of the window, attempting to appease the tantrum threatening in my gut. Hazy through the film of dust clinging to the air like a mirage sea-mist, I watched a sultry dusk descend. The skies turned a livid opalescence as, across the paddy fields, sapphire kingfishers winged their way home. Sacred cows wandered nonchalantly towards bamboo thickets and coconut trees. Scrawny children ran behind belligerent buffalo, rallying them on with sticks and bleating cries. I watched as a family of ebon goats skipped across a well-worn path into their wicker work pound, whilst their young keeper leant against a lonely tamarind and breathed songs into his wooden flute.

Grandmother would have loved this, I consoled myself. She would have said it was a Tagore poem come to life before us, the sunset “hiding its last gold like a miser”.

The train had now slowed to such a lethargic pace that I could see, seated in a clearing, an attentive village gathered around a whitehaired elder who seemed to be unfolding the deeds of demon-defying deities. I was certain that he was still recounting the doings of longdead heroes, even as the bruised sky darkened into night. As ibis, heron and egret left their muddy ponds. As peacocks hid themselves amongst the sugar cane and a crested serpent-eagle silently winged towards the gaping moon.

***

Bindra had slept for many hours, despite the clamour in the bus.

She leant forwards to relieve the pressure on her back and peered through heavy lids beyond the dust-encrusted window. Still too hot. Still too flat.

As every withered tree, bullock cart and low mud hut passed by, she repeated, “I have never been so far from home . . . I have never been so far from home . . .”

Bindra placed a gentle arm around her sleeping boys and let her eyes drift close, in search of glittering streams, dark forest and distant snows.

***

It was early morning when the Sikh unwrapped a parcel of chat snacks. He automatically handed me two small oranges, a savoury pastry of whole black peppers, and a condensed milk sweetmeat. I was touched by his spontaneous generosity and, although he could not understand a word, thanked him heartily. I recalled my father telling me that Sikhs were admired in his day for their practice of tolerance and respect for all. They were still known for welcoming any visitor to their gurdwara temples with the offer of shelter, food and a place to rest or stay.

My other travelling companions were not to be outdone. The remaining businessman gave me a fermented-lentil cake to be eaten with a spicy achar and a fresh, green chilli. The sullen, pox-marked Hindu handed me a banana, even though, as I indicated to him, I already had my own.

As I swallowed my last mouthful, the Sikh indicated to his bare wrist. I shook my head. I did not own a watch. He in turn shook his head, smiled and, for my benefit alone, announced, “Varanasi!”

Eighteen hours after leaving Delhi, I had reached my destination.

***

Bindra woke with a start. She sat up.

The bus had exploded into frantic life. Luggage was being lifted from racks, boxes from floors, babies into arms.

Jyothi was beginning to stir, but Jiwan was already wide awake. “Look, Ama!” he announced with a look of triumph on his face.

“We are in Kashi!”