The Lonely Old Reprobate

Sat in my room at the Rajwadi Palace in Kumbhalgarh, with its rattling ceiling fan taking the place of the advertised A/C, all sticky and cramped, with no writing desk or creature comforts, I found had become quite amusing for me. I had been in India a few short weeks and already I had gotten used to enhanced descriptions as sales pointers, when the reality didn’t quite meet expectation.

But the peace it provided me as a writer was golden, silence wraps around the contours of the hills like an invisible mist, clinging to every nook, cranny, tree and leaf. A serpentine road meandering along outside the Hotel veranda, adhering to the hillside contours of the majestic jagged landscape rising from the plain like the broken teeth of a broken man laid prostrate, and aching in silence, only interrupted  by the songs of birds seen only in aviaries back in Blighty.

One exotic bird in particular, although unseen, singing with a seemingly impossible dual tone song, which I initially imagined to be two birds singing in ensemble, boomed a rich deep resonant tone echoing through the ravine accompanied by it’s second voice, a dainty, sweet lilting concomitant, enhancing the juxtaposition of the two tone songs levity. Hearing this otherworldly, almost sacred song, reminded me of a TV documentary I watched many years about this precise phenomenon. Such birds are noted for their ability to produce two tones, sometimes simultaneously, using both sides of their syrinx to create harmonious effects. These dual tone songs are part of the complex vocal behaviours, often used for mating purposes, territorial defence, or simple communication. To hear it though, for yourself, in real time, as a foreigner, a stranger, recalling a long forgotten TV documentary I was stunned, the juxtaposed tones while so different, once called a few times became complimentary and comforting. 

My stay in Kimbhalgarh came to an end on the 17th June, and Manish, the driver who brought me from Jaipur one week earlier was there to pick me up at 8:00am sharp, courtesy of my, now good friend Harsh back at ‘Marshall’s Corner’ restaurant in Jaipur.

Kumbhalgarh, is a village community spread among the ravines, stretches much farther than I had remembered in my fatigued state on the day of my arrival, and driving back down the road that morning, I realised there was no way I could have done any more than I had managed during my stay, bed, breakfast, and enforced rest. Taking short walks, marvelling at the vistas, creating in the fresh, yet hot thin air, the heat stiflingly confining for an old westerner full of big ideas, and crippled by fatigue

The Rajwadi Palace Hotel is wedged into a ravine at the top end of the village where the road plateaus, winding around the mountain contours, reminding me so much of Chiaves in the Italian Alps which I have mentioned in a previous blog post. Either side of the road there is to the left a savage incline, or to the right a deadly drop into the ravine below, in the photo above, you can see that diggers have gouged out the mountainside, excavating a channel through which a road surface can be laid, and in India, where a space appears, it is soon occupied by an entrepreneurial opportunist seizing their chance.

Trees cushion sounds emanating from various enterprises along the way, Maruti Gypsy jeeps lined along the arc of bends around the road, queuing up for tourist’s long gone as the monsoon moves in taking their place. One man stands by his fleet taking every opportunity he can to sell you his tours; Government approved, wild life safari, leopard safari, village safari, would you like to horse ride, or maybe camels, sedan cars, restaurant, hotel and only so much, and what a bargain in the middle of nowhere.

And then an overloaded lorry strains and struggles around the bend with crunching gears steaming for mercy, while the village boys zip around it three on one bike swerving past the aging gear grinding behemoth, lumbering up the incline with speed and agility a long past memory pertaining to better days lost, and yet the lorry rumbled on, refusing to die. And somehow this made sense. Everything old and knackered still has a place here – just like me.

On the way down from the mountains Manish pulled off the road and parked up at a roadside restaurant , in the UK, on the Motorways there are Service Stations where you can refuel, rest, have a bite to eat, stretch your legs and generally clear your head. It’s the same idea. At that point we had been on the road for three hours, and it wasn’t a problem for me. So While he went off to freshen up, I sat under some trees in a garden area, watching men working on road construction in the baking heat, water buffalo wallowing in pools of water and a myriad of birds oblivious to mankind, cars stopping, spilling out their human cargo’s and children playing as they do everywhere when unfettered, chattering like the birds, laughing , and running around  as only they would in the scorching dustbowl by the side of the newly, part constructed road.

 I had told Manish earlier that he needn’t stop on my account, that I am fasting today, but if he needs a break, I am happy to go along with whatever he wants. Driving is dangerous when tiredness becomes an issue, and Indian roads are not forgiving, you have to have your wits about you, because there are so many hazards, saying that, I am not speaking solely about other road users like in towns and cities here in India. Out on the plains, or in the hills and mountains there are many more considerations for the weary motorist.

Three’s company, two men and their goat, on their way to market?

We are in the monsoon season now, so driving down from the mountains, there are areas where the rain has brought down patches of hillsides which are strewn across the road, sticky oozing mud and broken rocks, stretches of unmade, and uneven road, roadworks everywhere as the road network grows or is made better in the growing new India, cows, dogs, water buffalo, bikers, and scooters, old people crossing, and vehicles coming at you on your side of the road. At times it is chaotic, so I can empathise, it’s a gruelling 6 hour drive for him while I sit taking everything in, shooting photos, and being awed by it all.

It’s a different culture, a different world, and a different life from anything I have ever experienced. The wildlife is amazing. On this drive I have seen so many exotic birds, cows in the road, with traffic weaving around them, goats in flocks, sheep as well, water buffalo, boars with their young, I even saw a camel, and then there are dogs, one I saw was laying in a big puddle of water pooled after the monsoon downpour, presumably just to cool down, or who knows, maybe trying to rid itself of fleas..

 I had to laugh. For me a bloke from Lancashire, rain is a thing to be despised, it eats into your aching bones irrespective of whatever protection from it you furnish yourself with, under a permanent Tupperware lid sky, grim , and grey, miserable and morbid, killing colour, the same way it kills joy, a constant reminder that no matter your material wealth, life there is poor.

It is not the same thing as it is here in India, especially as the monsoon season begins, and people, animals, birds, bugs and the land itself welcome it like a long lost brother, once loved, but given up to hope, returning like the prodigal son with joy and fanfare, bringing the gift of freshness of new life of renewed faith in all things glorious 

Visually it is so beautiful and exciting. The monsoon rain freshens everything up, the land is lush and rich , and everywhere dashes of brilliant colours pop out at you as women dressed in beautiful saris appear along the way, often carrying outsized pots on their heads, just as you see in movies, but this is real everyday life. And while it looks exotic to me, Manish explains, ‘In the desert, women walk 30Km every day to carry water like that, because where they live there is none”.  

Daily life for many

I have to say ,Indian women are beautiful, I have long had a theory that bone structure is informed culturally. I think that idea stems from me being a portrait artist, with some races it is easy to see. In Europe where countless centuries of migration driven by feudalism  and conquest, bloodlines have mixed, not always to their benefit. It is said that 16,000,000 men worldwide are believed to be direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan. My point being that people from the northern land mass across the globe have had their genealogy intermixed countless times, giving rise to a massively varied facial bone structures. Whereas, India stands alone. True, it has been invaded countless times, but it has always remained India. Even Alexander the Great who conquered the known world by age 33 stopped when he got to India, and was absorbed. The sheer numbers confound. India will never be anything other than India, even the British gave up, once it had reduced it to abject poverty. But with Indian people, their culture, being the oldest on earth, their features are refined in a way which is for more delicate than any other I have seen. Beauty is ubiquitous, and it’s not just the women, the men are equally as handsome.  

Added to that , culturally they are so innocent. Religion in this part of the world encourages community, the emphasis is not so much about ownership because material wealth is scarce, so without being a collective, society would not have been able to survive the countless centuries it has endured. It shows in their eyes, their religion  their conservatism, added together it gives their visage a gentleness not seen in the west. And I am not saying it is the odd individual, it is a racial feature. And while the younger men dress in western clothes in an effort to be cool, and because of availability and practicality, the women retain their modesty, dressed in traditional saris of every imaginable colour, of course, you can’t look too hard, it would be rude, but you can’t help but notice.

Community spirit, 

Footnote:

I edited this last part out from the main body of the piece, because for me it jarred against the spirit of everything else I have written here, but my conscience will not allow me to delete it, and so I insert it here, so you know:

The craggy gorges and ravines gave way to less substantial and impressive vistas, and the road became wider and faster as Manish made up time on the six hour drive in front of us, when to my utter shock and surprise I saw a man, I presume was old enough to be my father laid prone in a ditch by the side of the road, we were passed in a fleeting moment, and I couldn’t voice my concern quickly enough, because of the language barrier, and Manish’s insistence on pushing on. Thankfully there were other people close by who surely would soon see him, but the image of the old turbaned man struggling to get to his feet haunted me, and still does writing this ten days later. 

What if those people didn’t see him, had my lack of communication skills, in my shock, and because of Manish’s insistence to get on, left him there to struggle, when had I been able to conjure up everything I needed to help the man manifested in that moment I could have done something to help, or am I kidding myself making up excuses to appease my sense of guilt, I will never know, but as I look to what I am writing I can see him now and I feel so bad about it.

I don’t know what happened next. Had it been me, as it has been so many times in different ways, my instinct would have been to get back on my feet. I remember one time following my accident in 1984, I was on crutches, the sort which tuck under your arm pits. I was  walking home in the snow. I lived at the top of Saunders Rd, on a hill in Blackburn Lancashire, the same sung about by the Beatles in their song “A day In The Life’ on Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album, and I was struggling. I was crossing a junction on the road I was walking on, and the pavement ahead of me was stepped, the snow was deep and piled up. As I tried to navigate the steps, snow, ice, and gravity overcame me, and I fell straight over onto my back. Had it not been snowing, the fall would have killed me, but I landed in a drift, and like the man in the ditch, I floundered, my leg didn’t work, but somehow I struggled and managed to get back to my feet unseen and return home. So most likely, the old man got back onto his feet as well, but I don’t know, and the not knowing is churning my insides with so many what if’s, so does that make me a bad man?

Fantasy, and split second reality do not marry, and I felt both useless and disgusted at myself simultaneously, would those people see him, would they help him? Had I left him to his fate because of my dumbstruck hesitancy? I will never know, and neither will I forget. I knew in that moment that he could have been anyone. How do we know a persons worth? His clothes looked ragged to me in that split moment, but so what? He looked as old as the hills we were driving through, so how much knowledge was contained under his Turban, could he be the village sage on a morning walk carrying the spiritual wealth of his people? And am I becoming hardened, is this is who I am now?