Day 3, and last 3 days of 34….
No people, I’m not depressed with the fact my B-Day is coming, just in shock that is coming so quickly, and that my life at 35 is not at all as I imagined it to be. But as they say, life is what happens while you make plans… or something like that. Last night I sat with my mom in her bed in Miami, and we stared to go back B-day by B-day, trying to remember what I have done with each one of them. For the life of me I could not remember what I did for my big 30’s, which makes me think it wasn't that good, but I did remember some other fun ones. And the more memorable ones had the word plane and trip engraved on it.
What about last years? As a good dreamer last year I planed to spend my B-day in the Tag Mahal.
Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.
After that poem written by the hand of the Emperor itself Shah Jahan, which sorrow crumbled his heart when his beloved third wife, Mumtaz Maha, died giving birth to their fourteenth child, I filled my heart with hope that life would be changed after crossing the door of the majestic mausoleum. That visit in fact may have been the beginning of a spiritual transformation, or at least the bridge between dreaming India and loving it, but at the time it felt… well, kind of like a rip off. Not because of the actual monument, which in fact it is an amazing creation of men, but because the ordeal I had to go thru to go inside the world’s most splendid tribute to love.
The day before my B-day I adventured to take my first trip on an Indian train. I had bought a first class ticket after the recommendation of many travelers who advised never to board anything lower than 2nd class if you didn’t want to spend the night with rats crawling over you in a very crowded train wagon. Finding my wagon was a challenge on it self. Delhi’s train station is far from organized, or at least in any way a western mind would immediately comprehend. The amount of people moving around in more than 15 platforms overwhelms even the natives. Thus, imagine me with my huge open eyes and a backpack that was not part of me yet, trying to swim through a grubby sea of bodies pushing you around, smells from the finest sweet cardamom to condensed water-free piss, and an overwhelming visual contamination of colorful silks and rats having a party on the trash accumulated on the train’s rails. After my frustrated intent to read the charts pinned on a messy board and understanding absolutely nothing, I cried for help to the first western looking Indian I found. He spoke perfect English and with a smile in his face he was the man who got me finally going on the right direction.
While waiting for the train, I got to meet who were going to be my Taj Mahal adventure companions, a British couple that were almost into tears because they had been jerked around for almost an hour from platform to platform without finding a soul who would illuminate their now obscured vision. “I want to go home,” she screamed. I thought, “well, after all my ordeal was easier than theirs." I found my platform at the first intent even if I wasn’t sure I was in the right place for almost 25 min, and that was only possible because my friend’s driver asked and they pointed him in the right direction. Maybe jerking English tourist around is just their way to get payback for so many years of cruel colonization. The case is that my team was in distress when we finally got in our wagon. They had been in India for few days already, and they seem tormented by the difficulty of understanding their surroundings. But I immediately figured out why, or so I thought at the time… they came unprepared. This lovely couple was traveling to one of the most busy tourist places on earth without any reservations. Of course “Miss Plan” had everything taking care of to the T, and wanting to help I immediately called my hotel for a second room. I had a taxi waiting for me at the station to take me to the hotel, so they were really happy to have found someone with a plan on the way. The taxi driver offered us to takes us around next day for a very moderate daily rate, and advised us to be careful with the many unscrupulous people, unlike him, that wanted to take advantage of fresh arrived tourist, just like us.
In the morning the three of us, exited for the day of exploring and experiencing we had ahead, got into the taxi. This time the taxi driver came with a friend, a very common thing in India. They are so used to having no space whatsoever, that being alone seems to be something no one likes. Indian drivers tent to always have a partner in “crime and in love.” In any case this addition to the trip seemed at first to be of most help. He “knew” all the where about of the city, and even offered to take me to a great place for my B-day on his account. So, innocent us with no plans of our own, we let him to take the initiative of how our historical trip should’ve started. And where else could it start but in a jewelry store or in a hand made carpet factory place. Oh hell, here is where the torment began. The Brits were amateur travelers, and with the politeness that characterizes the founding fathers of our own country, straight we went to the carpet place. I had already been to Turkey and knew very well what was that all about. Every book I had gone through before my departure to India, also strongly advised to stay away from the carpet rip off business, unless of course you really wanted one. It is like this how I spent the first two hours of my B-day, going around looking for carpet places, being instructed in how they are made, how much work they take, to finally being sent to the back of the store where they offer you chai tea and tried to convince you for the next hour with not possible escape from the kindness and persuasion that characterize good business man in this side of the world, that you “must” not leave India without the perfect “magic” carpet. After respectfully hearing the “how making a carpet” story, I told my friends that I was Venezuelan and completely impolite, and since I knew what was coming next, I would be waiting outside. Of course they wanted to leave as well e, but they couldn't make themselves to break their British tradition.
While I walked outside, the driver’s friend with his amber snake's like eyes tried to bring me back again, but he found a fine contender in me. Escaping from him I sat on the boardwalk to watch a seven years old kid flirtatiously dance for me. He was dressed in what I believed to be a Pakistan or maybe Afghanistan’s traditional dancing clothes. His innocent eyes haughtier in black eyeliner had the frustrated aim of transforming them into the eyes of a sex symbol. At first, the beautiful glimming eyes, and the white pearl teeth enchanted me. However, as his proximity invaded my space I couldn’t but remember a scene from a book I just had finish reading, “The Kit Runner” in which it is described the usual practice of using male boys as sex slaves. I looked into his eyes, and all I could see was nothing, a frozen smile, with eyes of stone. I had to move away. His “father” I hoped, was waiting to see if the kid would succeed in collecting the expected tip, but with the story of the book in the back of my head, and the encounter with his unavailable soul, I just ran into the car with the excuse of the already excruciating heat. I don’t know if such was really his luck, or if he was just a kid that liked to dance and found a way to make money for his family, but all I had then and as the rest of my time in India was my heart and my instinct, and I tried to follow it as much as I could.
To be continued....
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nice memories and pic!
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