After six years of traveling in India with no real problems, a little bit of our luck has finally run out. Last night our computer was stolen. We’ve been leaving the door open because of the heat, and a sense of security – with a mosquito net and chair over the door.  Inspite of both of us being light sleepers the culprit managed to stealthily remove the chair and net and enter the room without waking us.  The background noise of the ocean was in his favor.  So from this point forward it will be more tedious for us to always write in a cyber cafe.  But we will stay in touch  The sun still shines and the water sparkles. 

On this our sixth visit, Agonda has changed more than any other year – more beach huts, trinket shops and restaurants. So much for the “fine balance”…crass commercialism wins out again. Along the road beside the beach, the last empty space has been developed. A long blur of oversized blue and white cottages have been squeezed in. Cows stand beside the new development in bewilderment wondering where the scrub land, their last patch of grazing ground, has gone. But the beach and sea remain the same, as lovely and empty as ever! The town does not seem any more crowded with tourists; the increase in facilities not matched by a larger influx in visitors. Once again, more people competing for the same tourist dollar! There’s talk that the Mumbai Mafia has arrived and the locals finally succumbing to the allure of developing Agonda into a more sophisticated resort like the rest of the coastal towns of Goa. As everywhere in India an increase in food and gas costs has caused a spike in restaurant prices – but even more so here.

At first I’m put off by the changes. Agonda’s lost its quaintness and tranquility – and I say, “This is the last time we come here!” But after a couple of days the therapeutic power of the environment works its magic and I feel so healthy – a tonic of sea water, sun and fresh air combined! And I’m not the only one to benefit; we’re personally aware of many who’ve come to Agonda with a variety of physical ailments, emotional wounds, and mental worries – they relax and feel better.

But against the backdrop of such physical beauty…this is the world after all, and tragedies happen…two fishermen were drowned this year, entangled in their fishing nets. In nearby market town, Chaudi, a construction site collapsed, killing over 30 workers. One morning, I saw a cow wandering on the beach with a huge bloody gash on his side…the next day it’s worse. Perhaps the crows have been pecking at the wound. At first it appears he got entangled in a barbed wire fence. But then someone says he was probably nosing to close to a restaurant and the cook threw boiling oil at him. This would never happen in Hindu India, and if it did, the culprit would suffer the same or worse fate as the cow. For Christian Goans the cow is not sacred, although most Goans would never inflict such an extreme act of cruelty. Animals in general are not treated with the same respect as in other parts of India. Stray dogs are kept at bay with sticks. The monkeys have been frightened out-of-town. They still return to steal the guava fruit from a tree in the garden of our guest house. But if Rita catches sight, she brandishes her stick and they hide muttering in the nearby trees. (The Animal Rescue League has stepped in to address the very disturbing acts of cruelty on the cows.)

With a little negotiation we manage to get our usual room overlooking the far end of the beach, at only a nominal increase in rent. Where everything is more expensive, we probably have the best value in town! We settle into our routine, framed by our meditation schedule and two swims a day. A cacophony of noise greets us at dawn – pigs grunting, crows squawking, a mocking-bird playing call and response with Gerard. Wandering down the beach before most of the town wakes up, I buy our breakfast and lunch. Over our morning chai we watch dolphins leaping high in the waves. Gerard disgraced himself by forgetting his swimsuit. How could he ignore such a vital item! But the swimming must go on – and after an intensive morning search, he manages to find a magnificent floral substitute in the tourist shop.

As we’ve mentioned many times before, one of our main interests in traveling are the people we meet along the way. And this year has been no exception. Especially interesting is meeting those who also experienced the ‘60s first hand and live to tell about it. We were introduced to another couple from the west coast who were immediately so likeable that within a day or so we were exchanging stories from back in the day. Gerard was particularly interested in her radical activism, divulging that she was a Weatherman for a couple of years. Leaving US just before the Weathermen and SDS became radicalized, Gerard did not know that much about the movement. From political activism she moved into academia and then became connected, and still is, with Maharaji, also known back in those days as the Boy Guru. We laughed when we realized her best friend back home happens to be an old acquaintance of ours we have not seen for many years!

And then last night I sat next to a woman in a café who lives in Totnes – my native place, as the Indians would say! She came there via Zimbabwe twenty-five years ago, lured by the opportunity for farming that she no longer had in Zimbabwe. But now sadly, the farms are even disappearing from Devon. Six degrees of separation?

Then there are the regulars: our English friends who rent a house above the beach each year, in our guest house, the older German couple, Andre and Isabelle from the south of France, the Russian family studying Ayurvedic medicine and Vedanta. And then there’s Christina who lives in Prague and her mother from Poland, who has Alzheimer’s but after three consecutive years in Agonda is acting and looking younger than ever. A tall lanky Swiss, who makes Gerard look positively robust, sits on his patio playing classical music on guitar and violin. An Italian octogenarian, Boom-Boom as he likes to be called, still rides by on his motor scooter, beginning each day with a shot of rum even though his dark tanned body is supposedly riddled with cancer. We all get pulled back for one more season!

Among the three Goan women we profiled last year, Geeta is back in her store with a new husband and three-month old baby. Although it appears that business is not great, she’s still a lot happier than last year, clutching her new born son. Lakshmi is still trying to figure out how to make a living from selling cheap tourist clothing that few want to buy. Her three youngest children help in the store when they’re not in school. One night, her teenage son is attacked by a drunken Indian right in the store, and the next day his eye is half closed and swollen. A CT scan reveals it’s not permanently damaged. Meanwhile Lakshmi’s brother-in-law is dying in hospital from cirrhosis of the liver caused by a daily diet of vodka. Alcoholism has not escaped Agonda. Lakshmi is a sympathetic figure – a hardworking woman trying to make a living in a highly competitive environment who still has to deal with the unexpected costly traumas of family life. With a husband who does seasonal work at best, her only financial stability is from her eldest daughter who now has a job year-round at a high end resort.

A fixer-upper for Gerard!

On all our visits to Agonda, we’ve never felt the need to visit any other of the resorts along the coast. But this time, we take a day trip to nearby Pallolum – a series of naturally beautiful coves but cluttered with restaurants and shops, making it feel claustrophobic.  It was a relief to return to Agonda.

We left Orchha early in the morning. Suresh, the cook, had promised he would get up and make us breakfast. But he was still fast asleep on the foyer floor when we were ready to go. An Indian family had arrived at 2 am with a baby but no milk for it, and the baby cried the rest of the night. But nineteen year old Suresh staggered out for us and made parathas and chai. When Gerard gave him a small tip he suddenly embraced him, exclaiming “I love you!” Then he said the same thing to me, and in the saddest, thickly-accented English, “I’m not going to like it when you’re gone.” It was such a poignant loving farewell, that for a minute I didn’t want to go either – despite the relief of escaping the bone chilling cold and damp.

We’d bought our train tickets over a month ago and one of the tickets was waitlisted. At the time that didn’t make us nervous – so many people make multiple reservations these days and only keep one if any of them. Wait list #3 seemed certain to materialize into a confirmation. Or so I thought! Gerard who never assumes anything was more apprehensive but could do nothing about it because these wait list confirmations are not posted until 4 hours before departure. In my usual complacency that everything would work out I had chided Gerard for continually checking for the list on the computer that morning, impatient for it to be posted. But it wasn’t until we were just about to board the train that we realized we still only had one confirmed seat – and an upper berth at that! For nineteen hours we would have to share the narrow space – even narrower than the lower berth below. We tried to grease the palm of the ticket collector to get us a spare seat, but he shrugged indifferently. “The train is full” – and indeed it was. There wasn’t a single empty berth in 2AC. Our berth was in a compartment with a middle aged couple and a single woman. Quite unusually, no one spoke a word to us the whole trip, in fact they barely acknowledged our presence – they did not make room for us to sit on the lower berth as is customary during the day or acknowledge our difficulty in squeezing into our skinny berth at night. Not that there was anything they could do, it would just have been nice to have a little sympathy. Gerard wanted to tell them when we all embarked at 4 am in Mumbai that they were the least friendly people we had ever traveled with on a train in India! They were such a contrast to the usual camaraderie we experience.

But we survived, and at Mumbai our host had arranged for us to be met by his driver. After a long night of squirming around trying to get comfortable, the spacious back seats of the car seemed positively luxurious. We’d come to Mumbai to attend a five-day meditation retreat that is held annually, though it was our first time. It is organized by people who follow the same meditation practice as us and was in remembrance of the spiritual teacher we visited frequently in Rajasthan before he passed away in 1997. We arrived one day before the retreat began and were given accommodation in an empty flat below our friends, the organizers. Held at a nearby public hall, the numbers at the retreat swelled from two hundred on the first day to over a thousand by the weekend. Some came from close by, some from afar. A wide spectrum of people, from a Mumbai businessman who was brought by his driver in a new Mercedes to a farmer from a remote village in Rajasthan. Families traveling a long distance stayed in dormitories above the hall where we followed a schedule of mediation and talks during the day. Delicious, simple food were prepared three times a day in the large kitchen area behind the hall and served by an army of volunteers to us as we sat in long lines on the floor.

Everything ran amazingly smoothly, due to careful organization and the endless efforts of a large team of volunteers. The family we stayed with took especially good care of us even though their flat was full to over flowing with visitors also attending the retreat. As more kept coming, furniture was moved out into the hallway outside the flat to make more space for sleeping! Despite the inconveniences everyone was very jolly. Before we went to the meditation hall in the early morning, we were requested to join them upstairs tea and biscuits. Everyone was trying to get ready gracefully coordinating with each other around two small bathrooms. But the mood was lighthearted. Our host’s elderly mother, positioned at the dining table, observed the activities with humour and a contagious deep belly laugh as she threw out a comical remark from time to time. The fact we couldn’t understand what she said didn’t matter!

We were the only westerners attending the retreat, very few people spoke English and there was no translation of the talks. And according to custom, men and women sat separately. This meant that it was not a social event. But the Indians often demonstrated how happy they were for us to join them and by the end of the retreat women in saris of every color of the rainbow would crowd around me jabbering in Hindi that I could not understand. “Nain Hindi!” was all I could say, chiding myself for leaving off my feeble attempts to learn the language last year. I hadn’t then anticipated that I would be spending five days with such sweet people who could not speak English. Gerard, meanwhile, sat in companionable semi-silence sharing a few words with the Sikh gentlemen from the Punjab, dignified in their white kurtas, and pink or blue turbans.

The five days passed surprisingly quickly. Once again, we cut the strings of attachment to the lovely people we had met and continued on our way.

Our first visit to Orchha in Madhya Pradesh was five years ago. This otherwise sleepy town sitting beside the BetwaRiver is unlike any other historical site in the country.

At a small crossroads you can see to the left over a bridge the giant palaces of the Orchha Rajput rulers sitting on a small island, on the right rises the Chaturbhuj temple, the pearl white complex of Raj Rama temple, Jhujjar Singh’s palace and Laxhminarayn temple. Straight ahead on the road leads you to the cenotaphs (memorials) on the banks of the river. From 1500 to the late 1700 Orchha was the capital of the entire region.

Jahangir Mahal, one of the two imposing palaces was built around Akbar the Great’s time at the beginning of the 1600s. Considering its age it is in remarkable condition. The other large palace, Raj Mahal, built around 50 years earlier boasts exquisite paintings on the walls and ceilings depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. The architecture is a blend of Rajput and Mogul.

Orchha’s history town lives on its remarkable preserved monuments which are clustered around within a two km radius. One of the things that attracts us to Orchha is the opportunity to roam freely from one monument to another, through pastures and open scrub land.

In the past five years not a lot has changed, with the exception of widening the main road through town, officially for the buses to come in and out more conveniently. The fronts of buildings were literally torn down to enable this, the rubble left beside the edge of the road. It’s ridiculous because the entrance to town is through the Royal Gate which is only wide enough for an elephant – or a tourist bus. The whole project is a disaster because it means once through the Elephant Gate traffic speeds too fast with horns screeching. Tragically, I also noticed an excessive number of limping stray dogs – evidence of being run over by racing traffic and living to tell the tale, but with only three working legs.

New Years Eve was remarkably quiet, largely because of heavy rain. Parties were hosted in the major hotels and at midnight a few firecrackers managed to stay dry enough to explode.

 But we weren’t aware that New Years Day was a bigger celebration than New Years Eve. This small town hosted between 30 – 40,000 visitors who paraded up the street to the temple, ate from all the food stalls that sprang up overnight along the way, stuck their feet in the cold river water …and then left. Some came from far away, more from neighboring villages. The noise and confusion drove us back into our hotel room. But the next morning miraculously almost everyone had left, and the streets had already been cleaned and the trash collected.

The countryside is full of lovely walks. We found a spot next to a babbling brook that was so universally pastoral with its soft mat of green grass reaching down to the water it took both of us back to our childhood. We sat in silence, a rarity in India, and appreciated the moment.

Another day we went looking for the fabled Baobab tree – the locals here believe they have the only one in existence. It’s true they’re extremely rare but there’s a number to be found throughout India. They have survived since prehistoric times, originating in West Africa and exactly how they appeared in India is unclear. Some say they spread across the subcontinent before India split away from Africa.

We found the tree quite easily sitting on the top of a granite knoll quite by itself.  It’s the strangest looking tree you can imagine, nicknamed the upside-down tree because its sparse branches look like roots. If you believe in reincarnation and that even trees have some level of consciousness, you can’t help thinking of the poor soul trapped inside this tree – they can live between three and five thousand years. There was something very haunting and melancholy about the way this ancient specie sat by itself.

mopping up after heavy rain

After one day of heavy rain the fog and damp sets in and it remains bone chilling for several more. Anyone who’s traveled in the third world knows how cold concrete buildings are! We drink a lot of chai to fight it off. There are a number of look-alike restaurants in town and we try them all before settling on one. They are all hungry for business and every time we walk down the street desperate pleas echo from the empty restaurants: “Good morning, madam, good morning sir!” But we stay loyal to Raju at the Milan. If the town, weather or schedule is not to our liking, we still manage to find a restaurant that serves up good food, and here is no different. At Raju’s, the more we go the warmer the greeting and the stronger the chai.

We’ve met a couple of interesting characters in their 70s who are English.  Of course, they have stories of old like making trips to India overland in the 60s… Oliver is half Belgian, and now lives in Buckfastleigh (near my hometown). An artist influenced by Flemish Masters and Victorian fairy painters, he spends his days drawing the forms of Indian pilgrims and beggars he sees sitting around the temple – fascinated by a fold of cloth, the position of a limb. Dressed in a self-designed outfit of faded beige-colored velour he looks like a Russian aristocrat from the turn of the last century. In fact we both immediately thought of Nicholai Roerich when we met him!  Traveling alone for several months he has an aura of both self containment and loneliness.  Because the town is so small and tourists few we frequently meet up with Oliver sitting under a tree out in the pasture his drawing pad in hand, on the street surrounded by stray dogs feeding Marie biscuits, or in the hotel in the evening over hot lemon ginger honey.

The day we arrived in Orchha looking for a hotel, Oliver appeared on the street, took us to his and thanks to him we found a gem! A large clean room, friendly staff, and an excellent cook who we later learn has no previous cooking experience and is a mere 19 years old. He began as the night watchman, sleeping on the floor of the foyer, but when the previous cook left, the owner persuaded him to take over. Since he probably doesn’t make much more, if any, in salary he’s not happy about the arrangement. But he still puts his utmost into the cooking.

Despite its relative cleanliness, Gerard still pulls out his bottle of Dettol and cleaning cloth and makes the room even cleaner. My good fortune!  The man who cleans in the hotel is equally impressed. He’s not used to guests like this. “I don’t need to clean your room!” After eight days, Gerard tells the hotel owner who lives with his family just beyond our room on the upper floor, “If we stay any longer we’ll become part of the family! “You are family”, he replies, “You are special guests.” Ironically, just two minutes earlier, I had commented that I didn’t like him or trust him! I guess I needed an attitude adjustment.

In the most sacred Hindu city in India, we did not expect to celebrate Christmas. But we were surprised – over two days we had no less than four festive invitations! First we met a Hungarian family with two small children who invited us to eat Hungarian Goulash with them on Christmas Eve. They are staying in Varanasi to have their two-year old son treated for a brain disorder which doctors in Hungary were unable to treat. So they’re now trying the Aurevedic route.

A few days earlier, Sanju the manager of our guest house announced that there would be a dinner on Christmas Eve prepared for those guests who wanted to participate. Veg and non veg options to be followed by home-made apple pie and ice cream. But unfortunately no one thought to order the pies in advance and they were all sold out! I was already salivating for a slice…A long table decorated with Indian flower garlands was set up in any empty guest room (next to ours) – the bed moved into the corridor.  Like a postwar British boarding house, we sat around the table – an unlikely cast of characters, including some “long term” guests staying several weeks or even months; a Spaniard with a passion for chess, playing his way across India, two Portuguese and Spanish girls learning yoga from the “best” teacher in Varanasi, our British friend David and a handful of French and German others. After the meal, the loud techno rave music began and that was the end of polite conversation at the dinner table! We retired because we had to get up early the next morning and fortunately for us they moved the dancing and loud music up on the roof.

On Christmas morning, the Hungarians, Uschi and ourselves gathered at a restaurant for breakfast. We first met Uschi, a Californian, a number of years earlier in Varanasi. She’d mentioned creating a work project for women but we knew little of what she really did.  But today she took us to out to a village east of the city so we could see what she was doing with the village women. First we stopped at the Krishnamurti Foundation which she has been involved in for many years and where she first had the idea for this project.  The Foundation is a peaceful estate sitting on an embankment overlooking the Ganges where followers can come to retreat. At the village nearby, the women were waiting for us sitting in a large work room where they sew and embroider clothes of beautiful fabrics for export.  Uschi finds the fabric, designs the patterns, and does the marketing in the US. She also encourages the women to express their own creativity in design and it’s obvious they take great pride in their work.  And rightly so; the clothes are a higher quality than the other ready-made we’ve seen anywhere in India. It’s taken years for the women to let their guard down and be themselves with her. Now there is a wonderful camaraderie between them all.

Uschi loves what she’s doing and it shows on the faces of the women. She gave a brief talk about the meaning of Christmas and then we sang carols in German, Hungarian and English. Chai, samosas and sweets were served afterwards. Uschi is so dedicated to what she’s doing and is an example of service before self. It’s not an easy life shuttling back and forth between California and Varanasi, as well as being an efficient business woman in a patriarchic society. A perfect end to the day was a very long boat ride back to our ghat.  In the late afternoon light, I took endless photos of life along the river’s edge.

Our fourth and final celebration was with Rajest, a CD stall vendor who we met on our first visit to Varanasi six years ago. He wanted to give us a special drink, called Thandai, that is sold every evening in a dark alley near the GoldenTemple. The curdled milk with swirls of lurid yellow and orange syrup has a consistency and taste that defies description, but makes you want to return every night to drink it again. Sadly it was our last night.

Last year, Varanasi was not my favorite destination.  But this year, it was hard for me to leave. We made some good friends: Uschi, Sanju our hotel manager…and David, from Elephant and Castle in London who we enjoyed long conversations with over leisurely breakfasts and cappuccino! We made a promise to meet again for tea in London when we stop there on our way back in March.

On Boxing Day, we trailed our cases through the lanes in the Moslem section, a short cut up to the main road and the rickshaws, and then to the railway station. Another over night train ride to our next destination, Jhansi Junction in Madhya Pradesh, and from there a rickshaw ride through country lanes to the village of Orchha.

Our train to Varanasi does not leave until 11.30 pm, but we cannot believe how busy the station is – where are people coming and going at such a late hour on a Sunday night? Woman dressed in finery, young girls in pale pink net party dresses, knitted woolen caps incongruously pulled down almost over their eyes to protect against the cool night air. I imagine they’ve been visiting relatives across town for Sunday dinner. A teenage Moslem boy holds the hands of his two timid younger sisters, leading them across the busy station platform. Tired porters stagger by us, their backs laden with luggage. It baffles us how much luggage a single family will travel with. A large group of adults and children settle down on the platform beside us, laying out blankets, unpacking food. I watch them…while they watch me. In India there’s full license to stare. They all do it – as do I.

Gerard disappears into the crowd to buy mineral water. Suddenly out of nowhere, I’m overwhelmed with the anxiety that he may not come back. If he had a heart attack and died right there on the platform, no one would know to come and tell me. What would I do? Who could help me? The elevator man at the Sunflower is very personable but what could he do? Maybe the organist could arrange for a funeral at St John’sChurch? But how do I find him? Where’s the church…without Gerard to guide me? Maybe that extra cup of chai was too much.When he finally remerges from the crowd, I say, “You’re not doing that again. If you go, I go with you”

Shortly after, our train is announced, and we get on without further incident. With the exception of a couple of over-excited children (at midnight?) followed by the customary loud snorer…the journey is uneventful and we’re able to get some sleep before arriving in Varanasi the next morning.

The gentle-faced waiter at Spicy Bites does a double take when he sees us. “So nice to see you again! But you don’t usually come in December?” It’s true; every other time has been in March or April. Varanasi feels different in December – quieter and less crowded. The foreign tourists are all in Goa for Christmas; the Indian tourists and pilgrims we’re told aren’t traveling because there’s an upcoming election and they need to stay home to vote. It’s also too cool for the pilgrims that come in droves from South India. The shopkeepers say business is worse than usual even for this time of year. “2013 has not been good,” we hear repeatedly. They protest against the inflation of food prices with onions hit the worst, as much as twenty times. Many restaurants no longer include onions in their cooking – samosa with no onions??

But the biggest impact in Varanasi was felt from the floods. We’d heard that it had been a heavy monsoon with landslides in the north of India with many thousands killed. Walking along the ghats, we’re shocked at the extent of the damage. The Ganges swelled so much that the waters rose up and flooded part of the city, leaving in its wake thick mud all over the ghats. To make matters worse, the city had done nothing to reduce the accumulation of mud deposits from the monsoons of the past few years. Now they are forced to address the problem, and a very primitive operation is going on, all day every day. Water is pumped out of the Ganges and then at high velocity used to wash the mud back into the river.

Gerard has a stomach/intestinal upset for a couple of days and not wanted to go far from the hotel room, so I’ve spent time wandering around by myself – a somewhat unusual experience for me when we’re traveling.  (He can’t leave me, but it’s all right for me to leave him!)  We’ve been in Varanasi so many times that I’m quite comfortable especially in the area where we stay. But the narrow maze of lanes surrounding our guest house, Shiva Kashi, are dark and chilly so I walk down on the ghats where the sun shines weakly through the December haze. The locals also like to hang out here in the open space and I’m dodging cricket balls, detangling my feet from kite strings, and stepping over playful puppies of stray dogs. Boat building, bodies burning, head shaving…there can’t be a more dramatic river walk anywhere in the world. A woman alone, I have to deflect an avalanche of requests – pushy Indian boys wanting to walk with me, ‘sadhus’ begging money, children selling postcard s. “Excuse me madam, boat ride?” “Where are you going? Would you like company?” “No thank you, not today,” I say firmly with a smile to everyone, and they move on. But I feel different walking alone. I see my surroundings in a more introspective light. The experience is mine alone… but when I return, I share it with Gerard.

Then a pleasant good-looking young man attaches himself and as we walk I steer the conversation to politics and the upcoming election. He tells me how hopeful he is about the BJP competitor winning, given the bad performance of the Congress Party incumbent who has done nothing to address the deteriorating economy. And then, respectful of an older woman perhaps, he folds his hands and we part. A few days later I meet him again, this time with Gerard who picks up the discussion. The man believes population is India’s greatest problem, and then corruption. “But first you have to address population.” When he marries in a couple of years, he will not have children. “You won’t? What about family pressure…your wife’s desire? “Well,” he backtracks, “at least not for two years, and then only one if I am financially prepared.”

On my way back, I meet a couple from Oregon. The following night Gerard and I have dinner with them. We immediately hit it off. Just a decade older than us, their lives have been uncannily similar. They were in high school in Idaho together, several years later met again in San Francisco and married, and now celebrating their 53^rd anniversary. Neither had the desire to have children and they were able to maintain a very free life style that was not career-driven. And like us, there was a lot of focus on traveling. Denis and Camile had some amazing stories such as spending 30 days on a tramp steamer to Casablanca. It sounds like they know Morocco almost as well as we do. And every time Gerard mentioned some place in India they’d say, “Oh yes, we were there 20 years ago.” They’ve been coming since the mid 80s and when asked why they continue to come (they’ve been 13 times) Camile said, “Where else can you go that’s so exotic and so cheap?” We couldn’t have said it better.

Camile started hitchhiking in the late 50s; following in the path of such greats as Kerouac and Cassidy making cross country sojurns. We all agreed that hitchhiking was the way to go, and like the 8 track, definitely a thing of the past! As the political landscape changed, they left US in the late 60s to live in England, and then Europe. For those who don’t remember, Gerard left under a similar cloud in 1968. And on it goes…they’re even vegetarians! Everyone is so unique with their individual history –even more so as we get older – it’s rare to cross paths with people who have such a similar background to ours. And as fate will have it, we will be seeing each other again soon on the beach in Goa and look forward to picking up where we left off!

It’s early afternoon and the restaurant is almost empty so Manoj the waiter has time to chat with us. For the second time he tells us his story – this time with more detail. He came to Varanasi from Bihar, the poorest state in India in 1997. The eldest in a family of four sisters and one brother, he left school when he was twelve years old. Envious of those who had more money and were able to stay in school, he left home without telling his parents and followed friends who told him how easy it was to make money in Varanasi. Fate was kind; the owners of Spicy Bites took him in, taught him the trade and sent him to school during the day. He learned English from the tourists and now sixteen years later he’s still living with the family and is working in the restaurant alongside the two brothers who own it. In addition to supporting his own wife and child, Manoj sends the money he earns home to his parents.

Contrary to what we’ve seen among our middle class Indian friends, Manoj makes a strong point that dowry is still a major requirement in marrying off women. With four sisters, and a father who is no longer earning an income, much of the financial responsibility has now fallen on the shoulders of Manoj and his younger brother, who works in Mumbai. The marriages are all arranged by the parents, but when Manoj went to see his future wife for the first time, and her father asked how much dowry was required, Manoj replied, “Only pay what you can afford, nothing more.” He liked the look of his wife and felt that she was a good woman and it wasn’t necessary to demand a lot of money like so many other Indian marriages where it’s all about money. He thought about his own sisters and felt that it was good karma not to request a large sum of money. Perhaps then his father also would not be requested to pay a lot of money to marry off his own daughters. On the other hand, when his parents heard what he had done they were very upset with him. “You could have used this money to start your new home,” Manoj replied, “In my heart I feel this is the right thing to do.” And four years later, he still believes this because he has a good marriage, a loyal wife who takes care of his parents, and has given him a healthy daughter.

Now his wife, Arti, is expecting their second child due in two months. And recently Manoj has been returning to his village every few months to accompany his wife on maternity visits to the doctor. Tomorrow he’s going for only two days to oversee the arranged marriage engagement of his youngest sister. He’s lucky he makes enough money to be able to do this. Based on the experience of himself, his siblings and his parents, Manoj believes that arranged marriages have a greater chance of success than ‘love’ marriage.

Varanasi is the other Indian city we love. More ancient than Kolkata, and not influenced by the British, it is also the most sacred in India. The morning sunrise on the buildings is captured in Gerard’s painting.

It’s only been six months since we were last in Kolkata, and the man who works the antiquated elevator at the Sunflower Guest House greets us with a formal bow as he takes us to our floor. His young wife and child used to sleep with him on the ground floor beside the elevator. I ask how they are. “Back in Bihar.” he says sadly. Like so many other restaurant and hotel workers, who are forced to leave their families hundreds of miles away in the impoverished states of Bihar and Orissa. The multi-floored Sunflower with its wide well-worn wooden staircase (an option to the elevator), has the shabby imperialism of a Russian apartment building before the revolution- surrounded not by silent snow but the dusty chaos of crowded streets. In addition to the guest rooms, each floor includes flats where families stay long term although, looking at the state of their rusty mailboxes in the entry way, there’s not many living here any longer.

Last March, in overwhelming heat and humidity, we spent our time on the publicized major attractions (Victoria Memorial, Botanical Garden, Park Cemetery, Flower Market etc.). Now, with cooler weather, we decided to just walk the streets. Like NYC the best way to experience Kolkata is on foot.

We took a walk along Chitpur Street (renamed Rabindra Sarani) which was the nerve center of Black Town during the starkly segregated days of the Empire. Along the way are mansions of the rich who patronized the British and embellished their houses with European arts. These decaying old buildings display architectural features from Greek Classical to French Gothic and everything in between. From street up you can see how the style changes– early English arcading, window carving in the Mughal style, and Gothic decorated stone balustrades, with small trees now sprouting from their moldy ledges.

The MarblePalace is the most opulent with Corinthian pillars and nymphs on the pediments. Built by the Maharajah of Calcutta around 1815 – some of the family still live in an annex. An art collection includes fine paintings from the West – a Gainsborough and Rueben, Ming vases and stone lions and goddesses. The ball room alone has 13 crystal chandeliers. Geoffrey Moorhouse, in his book, “Calcutta: The City Revealed,” was more cynical in his appraisal:  “it looks as if (the artifacts) had been scavenged from job lots on the Portobello Road on a series of damp Saturday afternoons.”

On neighboring small lane sits the home of Rabindranath Tagore, telling us much about the rise of the Bengali renaissance. He was part of a dynasty of wealthy merchants cum artists, intellectuals and religious reformers. The house displays some fascinating paintings especially by his uncle which look as contemporary as anything painted today.

At the turn of the century a nationalist movement was rapidly developing in and around Kolkata of which the Tagore family were very much a part. So the English in their wisdom, decided to partition Bengal to reduce the risk of the growing nationalism. The Tagores were very much against the division of Hindu and Moslem; for years they had stressed the importance of unity. But in 1910 the Queen reversed the partition because of the bitter resentment it created and the rift between Hindus and Moslems was a direct result of the second partition in 1947 when east Bengal became East Pakistan. Rabindranath attracted such distinguished supporters to the cause as Swami Vivekananda the prominent disciple of Ramakrishna, and Nivedita, an Irish disciple who devoted her life to the Indian independence movement. The museum also had a lot of pictures of Rabindranath’s travels especially to China and Japan where he felt a close affinity.

The following day we walked down the Esplanade to so-called “WhiteTown” – where the English governed. Today, it is still the seat of Bengali rule. There’s such a concentration of government buildings in the European style that for a moment you can actually forget where you are if it were not for the smog and the din of car horns at any given moment.

A whimsical twist to all the confusion at the intersections is the soothing sound of a woman’s voice singing a devotional song. We’re not sure what it’s about other than soothing the frayed nerves of the pedestrians. The next moment it changes to the tinny sound of 1920s Indian film music played on a hand-wound gramophone.

Day workers sit expectantly on the pavement their tools arranged in front of them indicating their trade.

The colonnaded wide pavements (sidewalks) along the Esplanade are crowded with retailers. Each morning they set up their stalls, True to the eastern concept of merchandising they’ll be fifteen stalls all selling shirts, and then past them they’ll be ten stalls selling belts, then sunglasses and so on…

While we walked through the crowds, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, sang out from an electronics store and two boys held up their tea-shirts for our perusal!

Anticipating the advent of Christmas, young boys sell Santa hats with likely no idea what the red cone with its white pom-pom signifies. There are even a couple of stalls, in the Moslem area (!) with festive mock fir trees and garlands spilling onto the street.unpacking merchandise that has been stored in huge sacks who knows where over night.

St John’s Church is ready for Christmas with Santas hanging from strands of lights. A jovial dark-skinned man with thinning shoulder-length white hair in tangled dreadlocks greet us. He’s the resident organist and plays an improvised version of Silent Night for us. About our age, he can also play Pink Floyd on request. He’s lived in Kolkata all his life and tells us he grew up poor with a mother who had a Finnish last name. It is true – despite his dark skin he looks more European than Indian. He convinced us to attend the Sunday morning service. As we entered, I’m asked to read an Epistle from the lectern. It brought me back to England, attending the C of E. After the service we continued our conversation with the organist over tea and biscuits. He was very interested in black gospel music which Gerard is going to try and send him. Everyone gave us a warm welcome and seasonal greetings!

Gerard’s back has broken out in a nasty rash – significantly more angry than the first one. Hard to tell if it began with an insect bite, or if it’s just some allergic reaction. Out of my eye I catch a Homeopathic dispensary, so we walk in and a female doctor takes a look and prescribes sugar pills made up for us by the dispensing attendant. When we try to pay he says, “Oh no, it’s a government clinic, medicine is free!  They don’t do much so we return to our Moslem pharmacist friend from last year who recommends allegra and antihistamine lotion. This has more of an immediate effect

After six days, it’s time to move on to Varanasi. We could definitely have stayed longer. The city holds a strong fascination for both of us, and in a short space of time we’ve met some friendly people.

Leaving Nepal was a hard day’s work – this time no illusions about tourist bus, just your run of the mill, broken down small local bus that didn’t look like it would make it out of the parking lot, let alone the mountains! Near the border, we had to catch another bus the 5 Km to the border, which was even smaller. Gerard couldn’t stand upright when some kind soul gave us their seat.

Now we had heard that the crossing was chaotic, but chaotic barely scratches the surface of the total disorganization, especially on the Indian side. Nevertheless with ringing ears from large clean Korean tourist buses blowing their horns at us, not to mention anybody else who had a horn, we found our bus station and got on a “government bus” to Gorakhpur.

We have been in some grubby towns but this one gets the prize! But not only was it filthy, but all of the equally grubby hotels were grossly overpriced. A rickshaw took us to perhaps 8 or 9 throughout the town, and finally beaten down we stayed in the President, which wasn’t quite as grubby as some of the others but still grossly over priced for what it was!

The town had no redeeming features and first we couldn’t even find a restaurant, but through the gloom, kind smiling faces shone through – and came to our aid. While we were searching for a hotel with a rickshaw driver who could speak no English, a young girl pristine in her school uniform, left her own rickshaw and ran over to us offering to translate. The next morning, asking a young man on the street where we could get breakfast, he replies, “No restaurant, but you can get tea and biscuits,” and led us to a cart selling excellent chai. Once again, it’s not so much the places in India that are fascinating – it’s the people! So often, they will interrupt whatever they’re doing and go out of their way to help, surprising us with their spontaneous kindness and generosity. Later, we found one restaurant very clean and pure veg south Indian food.

One might ask, why had we come to such a pit? To catch a train to Kolkata. Sounds simple enough  – for those who’ve never traversed the rocky terrain of the India Railway Reservation System…but for anyone unfortunate enough not to have reservation (like ourselves) we have “waiting list”, “remote location WL”, “RAC reserved against confirmation”, “pooled quota”, “foreign quota”, Tatkal, 24 hour notification and 2 hour notification…etc. etc. And then to complicate things further the computerized reservation center was no where in sight at the train station – only the usual disorganized throng of Indians around 5 or 6 ticket windows pushing and shoving each other.

The station master, in his little office on the side, explained to us what to do and where to go. A light at the end of the tunnel! We purchased a ticket with help from a few more young friendly Indians – but it was a ticket we’d never seen before – premium-priced Tatkal but still only waiting list and without confirmation until 2 hours before departure. So to pass the time we tried to ferret out the “main attractions” (as our friend Bushan would say) in Gorakhpur. We spent a lot of time between our hotel room and the restaurant which served a tasty masala dosa!

As the man said, “Come back two hours before departure…” – and sure enough we got confirmed seats. All’s well that end’s well!  With a sigh of relief we boarded, and the thought came across our collective mind –if the Indian railway system is handling with remarkable accuracy the reservations of 2o million people on any given day, embarking and disembarking in literally thousands of locations, then perhaps Obama should send his so-called computer experts, who set up the botched online healthcare registration, to India to get a few pointers!

After five hours of stopping and starting – peasants, goats, chickens – all climbed aboard; we arrived at Tansen Junction and looked around for our guesthouse “City View Homestay”. What we could see of the town was far from inspiring… then we realized we still had to take a jeep 20 minutes further up the hillside to reach the old town. The streets were steeper than Shimla and mostly pedestrian with a few inevitable motorbikes. Still looking for City View we labored up a very steep incline.

Eventually, at the tourist information center we learn that City View is a euphemism for rooms in local houses. Our choice becomes one that is less than basic or a room in the only overpriced hotel in town.

We opt for the latter and enjoy two days of relative luxury in a room with a balcony providing a panorama of the hills and valley below and a view of both the sunrise and sunset. Once again Gerard’s found a place undiscovered by most tourists. He still hasn’t had enough of the old wooden houses with carved doorways and windows.

In the afternoon strolling around town we hear live folk music. Following the source, we find ourselves in a restaurant garden where a wedding is taking place. Much more interesting for Gerard than the ceremony (which is very hard to figure anyway) were the musicians. I don’t think they get much attention and when Gerard started to take pictures they were all smiles and appreciated someone interested in their music.

Gerard appreciates a young woman gracefully dressed in saris. Here was  a long line – volunteers for some charitable organization – in iridescent blue!

To get the final view of the Himalayas we plodded up to a ridge above the town, and waved goodbye.