We’d decided to have a waterproof canvas tailored to go over Damsel’s tray. This will act as a jacket allowing her some measure of dignity – you know, to hide her pointy bits – and a shell to protect us less water-resistant types. To do this we were told we had to go to a body building place.
Damsel was to be worked on by gym junkies?!
As it turned out the men were not so much body builders as builders of bodies; jolly chai-drinking chaps completely devoid of gym grease but amply covered in car grease. We pretty much performed a complete pantomime in order to communicate to them what we wanted done to the rickshaw. The pantomime provided some level of amusement, as pantomimes should, but at the end of it I didn’t understand them, they didn’t understand Moonho, Moonho didn’t understand me, and there were several other variations of misunderstanding as well.
To get no one knew what done to Damsel it would apparently cost 12000 rupees.
So we rang Rahul, our rickshaw dealer, to ask for his assistance. And of course, being firmly in the magical Indian genie category, he appeared with supernatural alacrity. He understood us, he understood them, we understood him… therefore eventually we understood them and they understood us. This was altogether a lot more understanding than we had hoped for!
Rahul had one of those apparent auctions (see second post) with the body builders and by the time he’d finished with them they were ready to dress up Damsel and willing to do it for 8000 rupees.
Since we’ve been in Mandi, Rahul has chauffeured us around, helped us get the rickshaw insured, shared chai with us, taken us to a famous Ayurvedic clinic for medicine to help my tummy (which was still dealing with some errant bacteria and pollution left behind by the amoeba family) and introduced us to his charming wife and little boy.
So, if any of you out there ever want to buy a three-wheeler (I can hear hundreds upon thousands of feet shuffling as you line up) I have one piece of advice: Rahul Solanki, Global Motors, Bajaj Auto Limited www.bajajauto.com. I wouldn’t normally advertise so blatantly in a post, but I rather think I owe it to this man. Bajaj exports to anywhere in the world and, I can assure you, parking will be a lot simpler. It is easier to fit a rickshaw into a small space than gum into a crack in the wall – and it is more environmentally friendly too.
Incidentally, I have just been sitting here watching James Bond on TV sailing upon blue oceans with his bonny lass. No class, I say, no class! Real romance is bumping around India in a blue rickshaw! Perhaps by the next Bond film it will have caught on and they too will follow our example.
They are chunky, they rule the road, and they moo…
It is quite natural to shift the subject from vehicles to cows, because in India they are much the same. They both go anywhere on the road, they both ignore everyone else on the road, and they both honk very loudly. Cows are cars with legs. They park their leather bottoms alongside motorbikes and indeed in the middle of the road if they so desire.
They are, however, much more chilled out than the cars. And much more holy. Maybe it is because of their sacred status or maybe there is something special in Indian grass (and, Shiva knows, there are all sorts of grass in India), but I get the feeling that these cows see the world differently to us. They kick back on frenetic fumy streets like you or I might kick back on an exotic island beach. Their main pastime is to eat green goodies and other gravel-coated morsels at the breakneck rate of one chew a minute. Occasionally they grace the wheels of monster trucks a brief glance, decide the flies are much more of a nuisance, then go back to their cud. This is all done with the supreme confidence of one who knows it will never be reduced to mushed steak on the pavement or carved steak on a plate.
You have to admire them. I’m considering chewing what they chew; maybe then Indian roads might become a relaxing place for me too.
Rewalsar and its fishy inhabitants
Tibetan prayer flags at Rewalsar
A gorgeous one hour bus ride from Mandi, Rewalsar Lake is special for three reasons: it is sacred to Hindus, it is sacred to Buddhists and it is sacred to Sikhs. Each religion has its own version of why it is sacred, but they all agree on the fact that it is indeed a holy lake. Various temples and monasteries cluster together in circular formation around the lake like so many cushy suburban houses. Red-robed Tibetan monks spin prayer wheels, Hindus gather around temples of kid-book colours and turbaned Sikhs ascend stairs to reach their place of prayer. You’d expect some name-calling or at least a naughty gesture or two, but there is nothing of the sort. It is amazing how in some places in the world a simple thing like a border will cause religious hostility while in other places in the world a simple thing like a lake will cause religious harmony.
The most arresting figure overwatching Rewalsar Lake (and there are a few) is a gargantuan 37m tall statue of Guru Padmasambhava. He sits cross-legged and golden upon a hill with a smile more serene than that of the road cow. This dude is supposed to have spread Buddhism to Tibet after flying there on a tiger, as one does. Gazing upon his image is almost enough to turn one Buddhist – at least for the duration of the stay at Rewalsar.
But for me the most entertaining feature of the lake is the fish. Suffused with holy water all day every day, these fish are also holy. Like the cows, they get around with the supreme confidence of one who knows it isn’t going to end up prone on a water-deficient surface with a knife on one side and fork on the other. Unlike the cows, they are not chilled out and they don’t chew; they guzzle. Food purchased at the side of the lake causes delirium the likes of which I’ve never seen (except perhaps on TV when WWF wrestlers reach their climax.) Throw tidbits into the water and it instantly becomes a silvery slimy orgy punctuated here and there by vast gaping mouths.
Can you oblige me for a minute and imagine a basketball hoop steadily increasing in size for fear of missing the ball? Well, that’s pretty much what a Rewalsar fish’s mouth does.
And, just to increase the comic qualities of these permanently alarmed creatures, they have grandpa whiskers! Guzzling, whiskered, holy basketball hoops is what they are! I could have watched them for hours.
Getting Damsel back
It’s another day, and we have now discovered that even our insurance man is of the magical Indian genie category! He is friends with Rahul, after all. Perhaps they met at some magical Indian genie convention.
I think we may be genie magnets. I’ll tell you what, though – we need as many genies as we can get because in India anything may be possible but everything is difficult.
Manoj, who works for ICICI Motor Insurance, spent many hours attempting to organise Damsel’s registration. I’m certain that helping clueless foreigners with registration is not in his job description, but he tried his best nonetheless. At the end of one particularly frustrating phone call he even said some naughty words to the bureaucratic poo head on the other end, and all on our behalf! I was quite impressed.
He also gave us a tour of the valley surrounding Mandi in his car. And invited us to his papa’s retirement party. And, after I’d expressed my admiration for the pretty Hindu knickknack hanging over the dashboard of his car, he insisted on giving it to me. Damsel was most excited to receive her first piece of jewellery!
A colourful farmer's house (taken on Manoj's grand tour)
As if we hadn’t already received our quota of kindness for the day, the ‘body builders’ and their families became our bests mates over the course of several hours. In their house above the bodyworks shop the two owners (who are brothers), their mother, both their wives, all their children, a few extra children from I don’t know where and several sisters entertained us with smiles, giggles, chai, photo albums and family stories we couldn’t understand but somehow still seemed amusing.
And when our Damsel was finished – oh, a more adorable sight there never was!
Well, there probably was a more adorable sight, but not for me in that moment. Damsel the Speed Demon has now become a caravan for dwarves! Several people have pointed out that, considering neither I nor my husband is a dwarf, it might prove to be overly squishy. But I shall soldier on in the face of such pessimism!
Parking Damsel outside a resort/restaurant, we finished the day with the best restaurant meal I’ve had in India so far. The dal I ordered was so good I almost melted and became a part of it; the garlic naan so good that I went limp and nearly dropped it in my epicurean ecstasy. You see, now that my gut is amoeba and bacteria-free, the experience of eating good food and feeling it go in the right direction has reached new heights. I can feel my blood stream greedily sucking up those nutrients and sending them to the parts of me that had until recently gone on strike for lack of proper payment in sustenance.
To prevent vital parts of me going on strike again, concern over the cleanliness factor has also reached new heights. I can hear my organs snarling when anything even vaguely suspicious comes my way. My habits have always been clean enough, but I’ve never been one to obsess over cleanliness. I grew up as a country girl – mud is my friend and great fun to role in!
But for now at least, I use anti-bacterial hand wash before every meal and I’ve taken to drooling when I shower. This is because I figure that if something is on the way out of my mouth something else is less likely to go in. I’ve had a cold recently, and I can tell you now – it is not easy having a shower with a blocked nose and only effluence allowed to pass through your lips. One tends to go red in the face and make some rather odd noises.
Oh dear – but I have gone off on a tangent again. I really mustn’t let Damsel read this blog. She’ll be offended at how often I deviate from her - the rightful star of the show.
But right now she sleeps, and so must I, for who knows what tomorrow might cough up?
1 comment:
no comment for this? why?
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