Registration and Marriage

Damsel and my paintbrush long to be united, but the dastardly men are keeping them apart. They say that registration must come first. This is almost like no sex before marriage!

I never thought it would be so difficult to make my girl legal. Foreigners can register their vehicle in India as long as they have a permanent address, but because they are foreigners they don’t have permanent addresses. Our Indian genies in Mandi did everything they could to help but finally concluded that we had to go to Shimla. Some newfound genies in Shimla did everything they could to help but finally concluded that we have to go back to Mandi. We went to Transport in Shimla and they said we have to go to Delhi. We rang Delhi and they said it is possible to get it done in Shimla.

The only thing they all agree on is that Damsel’s virgin blue cannot yet be marred by my paintbrush. The registration guys might not like it… whoever they might be. That is what I have to figure out, isn’t it? Who are these mysterious people with the mighty power to stamp a form? And where are they hiding? Must I search all the offices in the land? Must I bribe someone to find them? Must I BEG?!

That rant felt good.

Now, let me go back a few steps in our rickshaw story.

In India there is a cool and easy attitude among infants that seems ubiquitous. The children are obviously loved and cared for, but they are not mollycoddled. Us in the West tend to tip-toe around babies, shielding them from the world in wheeled cubicles and silent bedrooms. But Indian parents know that babies are not made of explodable eardrums and glass-blown limbs. Surrounded always by the sounds, smells and sights of a colossal population and its multifarious activities, Indian bubs just don’t give a gurgle. They don’t give a hoot about the hooting horns, prodding fingers or searing sun. They simply do the ‘rag doll’ pose, quite content to lie back in the hammock-like arms of their parents. The ones old enough to have figured out how gravity and legs work together trot around like benevolent little princes and princesses, unaffected by the multitude of wheels and tree-trunk legs bulldozing past.

Manoj’s little girl was no exception. We were invited to our insurance genie’s family home, and she did cute faces all evening, running from person to person in that contented fumbling little person sort of way. This particular little person popped into the world two months prematurely, so she is even littler than the average little person, but her busy legs belie the fact. Sometimes the tiny people of this world are the strongest.

Manoj’s wife, by contrast, was quiet and reserved, but she certainly didn’t hold back on the hospitality front. Cauliflower rice curry, pickled mangoes (oh so good!) and curd from their own cow. The curd tasted so fresh I suspect their cow produces curd rather than milk straight from the teat!

A wedding album Manoj showed me portrayed the joining of some sort of Demigod and Goddess. It was later revealed, however, that these brightly-clad, bejewelled figures were in fact Manoj and his wife. The Indian wedding outfit makes our traditional white dress look positively drab.

A traditional Indian wedding spans over three action-packed days, during which time a series of highly specific rituals I will not pretend to understand take place. At the beginning the bride and groom each have to wear over their faces what appears to be a beaded curtain – the sort that keeps flies out of summer holiday huts and goes ‘clink clink’ when you walk through it. This is important because in arranged marriages sometimes the bride and groom have not yet met each other. I surmised out loud that perhaps the curtains were to prevent the bride or groom running away if the other is hideously ugly, which sent Manoj into a fit of laughter. I apologised for my hopeless sense of humour and Manoj responded by saying, “No, no, this is a good joke!” Perhaps it holds some truth.

Manoj is Brahman, which is the highest caste and traditionally in charge of esoteric religious activities (although these days they can obviously also go into insurance as well.) Being of such a distinguished caste, his marriage to a Brahman woman was arranged by his parents, and he fully accepted this. They met a month before the wedding.

It is impossible for me to envision happiness under such circumstances, but nor can I judge. Perhaps they feel a sense of happiness and security following the steadfast road of tradition. Perhaps their parents’ footsteps are as colourful as everything else in India, making them irresistible to follow. Who knows?

After thanking all our genies one last time it was finally time to leave Mandi in search of this elusive crew of form-stampers and signers. With more frequent bouts of roof-battering rain, the hot breath of the north-bound monsoon could almost be felt. Even as I write, Mistress Monsoon is salivating with anticipation at the idea of drowning North India. The papers say that, tragically, already some people have been electrocuted during floods in Himachal Pradesh. Yet I am told this is only the precursor.

But we were heading out and up to a city that begins at a height of 1950m and ends at a height of 2300m, where Mistress Monsoon’s breath is not quite so hot. The road to Shimla wove through lush valleys and hills like a pattern crawling up a green sari on a curvaceous body. We drove over great hips and down magnificent thighs. Such formations, I’m sure, is why so many cultures call this lump of land we live on ‘Mother’ Earth.

The closer we got to civilisation the worst the roads became. I thought it was supposed to be the farther away you get from civilisation the worse the roads become, but one must expect the unexpected in India. Moonho was heroic in his attempts to avoid sharp declines and potholes lined with teeth, Damsel the Speed Demon was slow and well-behaved and the policemen were hilarious.

Road police don’t seem to know how to react to a couple of foreigners in a three-wheeler. As we approach they half raise an arm, see that we are foreigners, lower the arm, wobble their jaw, take a step forward, a step back… and by the time all that is done Damsel has already warbled past… warbling in a Speed-Demonish manner, of course. Usually an expression of bemusement finally settles on their faces, seen by us in the side mirrors on Damsel. Foreigners in a rickshaw? That is way too complicated to deal with.

For some of that seven-hour trip I sat in Damsel’s open rear end.

That sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

From there I could see what we left in our wake, and I’m not talking about what rear-ends usually leave in their wake. Behind us was a line of people giggling, pointing and waving at us. Truck drivers honked and grinned, ladies toiling in fields called out greetings, lads in cars took photos… at one point two young men on a motorbike kept yelling out something over and over again, waving urgently. They were so insistent that I thought for a moment something might be wrong with Damsel. Then I realised they were crying out “Snap! Snaaaap!”

Nothing, of course, was about to snap. This is an Indian’s way of saying they want a photo with you. I just sort of smiled and shrugged apologetically. If we had a snap with everyone that requested it our progress would become even slower than it already is.

We were greeted by a splendiferous Shimla who had donned its evening hue. Dubbed the ‘Summer Capital’ by the British in 1864, Shimla is an extremely attractive city. Thousands of ramshackles and houses spill down the sides of steep valleys and the many trees reaching for the sky vary in type depending on what altitude their roots fancy. The mall is wide, car-less and lined with yummy little coffee shops, restaurants, knick-knack stalls and ice cream parlours. Here the British left their unmistakable footprints in the form of cottage-like stone buildings and a church. There is even a quaint little theatre called the ‘Gaiety Theatre,’ created for Englishmen to quench their longing for home-like entertainment. Of course, that was back in the England Wants to Own Everywhere days. Since their independence India has claimed what was built on their land and it still runs shows today.

So, we’d found a nice city. A gorgeous city, in fact. But the question remained: would we be able to make Damsel legal?

Gaeity Theatre

Downtown Shimla

Damsel's new jacket, amusing animals and more genies

I tell you, these magical Indian genies are more numerous than first imagined. They always seem to be in the right place at the right time, popping up in a puff of smoke (or fumes) to help us.

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?

Damsel the Speed Demon's first steps, fires and deities.

To avoid our little Damsel being mashed into the road like so much potato, we decided to wait until nightfall before taking her for a practice run, for unlike most beasts the Indian Road Beast is not nocturnal. Admittedly, the trucks and buses don’t look that threatening, painted with pictures and patterns colourful enough to entertain a two-year-old. But do not be deceived. Firstly, I’m convinced the big vehicles compete among themselves to see who can rupture the largest number of ear drums in one day by blasting their horns. And secondly, according to them an inch gap on both sides is ample space if you want to overtake one vehicle with another coming in the opposite direction.

So out we bumbled into the night. Despite the circus going on around them, rickshaws always seem to bumble about with a somewhat blasé manner. Unhappy with Moonho’s initial attempts to get her started, however, Damsel coughed and spluttered and sniffed in a generally dissatisfied manner. After all, she is a lady. A bit of gentle foreplay was needed.

It took my womanly touch to get her started, and Moonho’s manly touch to deal with the gear stick. Stiff with inexperience (being new, she was as yet a virgin), the gear stick was as difficult to stimulate as… well, someone who is not used to a jolly good feel up. We thought perhaps some oil was in order, but all in good time.

Damsel finally allowed us access to her engine, and off we went. She complained some of the way, but after seeing that we would treat her as gently as possible, she finally acquiesced. We practiced in a deserted school ground, and she spluttered and coughed only a little. All in all, I think it was a good start.

Now, you might be happy to hear that there have been some non rickshaw-related events since we came to Mandi. For example, one night we nearly burnt our hotel down.

Usually in Indian hotels and guest houses the bathrooms have little water tanks that you can switch on, and fifteen minutes later the taps will give forth the precious gift of hot water. However, despite assurances that hot water was available in our present hotel, none was forthcoming. The water was not even tepid. I mean, we are talking hard nipple and shrivelled gonad temperatures here.

I suggested to the owner that perhaps he owed us hot water, considering his earlier assurances that our showers wouldn’t be of the “Agh – bloody hell – bah – brrrrr!” variety. He readily agreed, and so a young lad came to hook us up with the relevant doodad. And when I say ‘hook up,’ I am talking quite literally. Bugger the heating tank - we were supplied with a flat, square heating element attached to a wire that was inserted precariously into a power point. Having done his job, the young Indian gave us a deprecating little grin and scuttled away.

Well, for two days this seemed to go all very swimmingly (not that there was enough water in the bucket for swimming purposes, but you know what I mean.) The dodgy doodad, to me, appeared more unsafe than the wheeled monsters on the Indian roads. We handled it with care that verged on paranoia. As it turned out, our paranoia was justified.

One evening, ready to rid myself of the day’s grime, Moonho switched on the electric thingummy. To be fair, we had never been told that it had to be submersed in water before turning it on in order to avoid an eruption of flames.

We learnt this the hard way. The little flat square instantly turned into an electrified bonfire. It was still switched on, the kitchen floor was covered in water, and in my mind’s eye all I could see was my husband copping a premature cremation.

“Agh!” I said. “Don’t electrocute yourself!” I added, which was highly useful advice under the circumstances.

At a loss for what to do, I ran down to the lobby. The scene I made was not dissimilar to Fawlty Towers when he discovered a fire in his hotel. “Fire!” I screamed. “F-f-fire!”

For a moment the hotel manager and all the staff stared at me blankly.

“Come quiiiiiick!” I screamed. I had images of Moonho burnt to a crisp or asphyxiated already. With as much urgency and drama that can be fit into a few seconds, the whole of the staff pounded up the stairs with me in the lead like a charging bull.

By the time we got back the fire had died out. In that moment the smoke-clogged room smelled like roses to me. The fire was out, and Moonho was already opening windows to clear the air; not a likely activity of one who has recently been incinerated.

Ten minutes later the TV was on and we were having a nice chat with the friendly hotel owner about soccer.

They brought in a king-sized incense stick to help clear the air. “Indian air freshener!” the hotel owner explained jovially. I wasn’t so sure how affective clearing a smoky room with more smoke would be, but we accepted it with smiles anyway.

Needless to say, they never gave us another electrical device to heat up our water. Fair enough. That night I had a cold shower and was quite happy for it. I’d had quite enough heat for one day. The next morning they boiled water elsewhere and brought it to us in a nice safe plastic bucket. I felt like a daft and fussy tourist making them run around like that, but my love for hot water is too great to deny, so I gave him many thank yous and finally had my warm wash. It is indescribable how lovely and fresh I felt afterwards.

And now for something completely different!

We have become pretty friendly with our magic Indian genies, Latesh and Deep. We have met up with them several times since the rickshaw kerfuffle, and they have proven to us over and again that the Indian saying ‘A guest is a God’ is taken seriously. We tried with all our might to buy them dinner, but after eating it they rushed to the counter and paid instead. Truly, they introduced us to the most scrumptious samosas I’ve ever had.

Pre-samosa smiles

Then they took us to a temple dedicated to the Hindu Goddess Kali. There are over eighty temples in Mandi – a fact that becomes obvious every evening as the clean, clear sound of bells pervade the air in an altogether more pleasant manner than that of the truck horns.

It looks like playschool but I can assure you it is a place of worship

This Kali temple, though, was another thing altogether. When Moonho and I first saw it we thought it was some sort of luxury hotel and restaurant.

But upon entering, it was revealed to be anything but. At the front was a huge statue of a fierce tiger – this Kali lass doesn’t mess around with horses and donkeys. Only a tiger is good enough for her to get around on, and fair enough! I might feel the same were I a Goddess.

Obviously Indians are much more at home with the idea of getting around on a giant tiger with fangs the size of dentists than a bumbling little rickshaw.

Inside, the temple showed the many faces of Kali. Some were almost maternal and some were decidedly war-like. There was one rather alarming representation of her complete with spurting blood and a decapitated head. The decapitated head was her own. Deep explained to me brightly that this was an image of compassion.

In my books compassion doesn’t usually go with severed heads and blood spurting jet-like in all directions. But after his explanation, I understood that it was indeed the ultimate vision of compassion. Kali had cut off her own head so that those starved of food could feed on her lifeblood. Now how is that for a saintly deed?! Presumably, being an invincible Goddess, she was able to reattach her head after the poor people had had their fill. But still – quite an impressive gesture, I thought.

Perhaps, being a Goddess, her blood tasted like strawberries and ice cream, which would explain the willingness with which the poor folk lapped it up. If we are ever in a rut and she offers us her lifeblood, however, I might be forced to give it a miss… unless she can produced samosas from her headless stump instead.

I’ve decided that Kali is my favourite among the Hindu deities. To show my respect for her grandeur and might, I got down on my knees to pray just as the boys did. Afterwards a man donned entirely in white gave me a tikka, which is a spot of red on my third eye (much more attractive than a pimple.) He also gave me a small portion of sticky sweet rice, and a thimble-sized drop of water for consumption.

Water… Agh! What if the thimble-sized drop of water had amoebae in it? It may seem like a ridiculously small amount of water to us, but to the amoeba family it was probably a luxury pool perfect for bathing in the evening heat. They’d probably infiltrated the temple just because they could sense my intestines coming their way!

Again, I may be paranoid, but if paranoia is going to keep those little miscreants away paranoid I shall continue to be. I stared at the water in my hand, and it stared back at me. I put it too my lips. I never thought it possible for lips to recoil, but mine did. The holy man offering me all these goodies turned for a second, and in that moment I let the liquid drop from my hand to my trousers.

Lucky I’d worn black trousers that day.

Had I given Kali my proper respects despite the deception? Well, maybe I hadn’t been blessed with the holy water, but my trousers certainly had. I left the temple feeling quite normal, but I could swear my trousers had a holy glow to them. Perhaps I shan’t wash them for awhile.

Our next stop was the Sikh temple. The Sikhs are a peaceful people with a war-like history. I’m not sure how this works, but I am assured that it does.

This temple looked not so much like a luxury hotel as a palace. Those who follow this religion believe in one God and equality for all people. The one omnipotent God part I’m less concerned with, but the equality bit sounds fantastic. To prove the point, every Sikh temple offers a full free meal for anyone who drops by. Here, doctors and lawyers will serve you alongside taxi drivers and small market stall owners, and every one of them is working as a volunteer. Every class of person hunkers down for a good plate of tucker together too. The food hall is filled with the sounds of chapattis flipping, dishes clanging and the slop of dal hitting hundreds stainless steel plates.

Before going into the temple proper we were given a bandana to tie around our heads. Moonho and I had to wrestle with the pieces of cloth for some time before being able to secure them around our noggins. Our heads appeared to be bigger than the average Indian head. After our boofheads were finally decently covered, we also had to remove our shoes, wade through a trough of shallow water and wash our hands. Only then were we allowed to enter the sacred temple.

We entered a cavernous room whose white splendour was consistent with its palace-like exterior. The air was filled with such pious devotion that I felt a little like an intruder. I gave a quick prayer in the name of this God about whom I know very little and moved on. Prayers are traditionally reserved for good Beings, I figure, so a little prayer from an ignorant soul like myself here and there can’t hurt.

We found in the building an ancient holy gun (?!), reminiscent of the war-mongering days, and a holy bed encased in glass. Perhaps due to a lack of religious-related English or perhaps due to the fact that they don’t follow the Sikh religion, the boys were unable to explain exactly why the bed was holy or indeed what holy thing was supposed to slumber under its covers. But we paid the bed our respects anyway. I’m quite fond of beds, after all. A prayer to something that provides you with comfort and softness sounds like a good prayer to me!

After our grand tour we thanked Latesh and Deep for shedding a little beam of light upon the very religious mind of the typical Indian, and for doing it with such eagerness. Truly, it is people like this who transform a mere trip into a journey.

Keep tuned everybody, for Damsel the Speed Demon will soon become a proper little house, and we have found just the men to make this happen!

The men who will make it happen...

The Rickshaw Mission.

But first, the Indianized English of the day:

* It was half way through a five hour bus ride that we saw a sign instructing us to ‘Rest A Wale.’ Were they suggesting we ensure the rest of one of the whales living among the rice patties? Or perhaps that we arrest one? I thought alternatively that they might want us to rest awhile… but the bus sped past without any of us resting at all so who knows?

* We were sitting at a rather highbrow restaurant in a lovely garden setting. There was a little outhouse on the lawn crowned with a sign that said ‘Tandouri Knight.’ We were waiting all night for a knight to appear, presumably brandishing a turmeric-stained chicken rather than a sword. But alas, he never turned up.

**                                     **                                         **                                  **

You may well ask why we are on a rickshaw mission, and I can assure you that you wouldn’t be the first (or even among the first thirty.) It is hard to say what inspired me, but one day we were getting a lift in the back of a rickshaw and suddenly the three-wheeler looked like so much more than just a tiny taxi. It looked like a tiny house.

The idea of a portable house has always appealed to me. I remember envying snails when I was a little tyke. They never have to backtrack if they don’t want to because all the hardware they need is already conveniently installed on their back. I liked that idea. At the time I had visions of myself with my plastic Micky Mouse cubbyhouse mounted on my back – but it never would have worked. The ratios were all wrong.

But now, at 29 years of age, it seemed my childhood fantasy might come true! Admittedly, the rickshaw wouldn’t be attached to my back, but I’ve come to be a tad (if only a tad) more realistic in my old age. Its speed would also probably be comparable to that of a snail – but hey! We are in no rush.

So, on naught but the word of a few rickshaw drivers in Mcleod Ganj, we set off to Mandi looking for a rickshaw dealer whose name and exact location we didn’t even know. It wasn’t much to go on, but getting even that much information was like trying to sieve for gold.

The bus trip down brought us through the Kangra valley, where green hills rolled endlessly and each new corner revealed another valley lined with rice patties so numerous as to seem like stairwells for the Gods. Palampur, the tea capital of Himachal Pradesh, was so wet and green I could have been back in Tasmania. Indeed, there were even eucalyptus trees around to scent the air with the smell of home!

A tea farm in Palampur

Smack-bang in the middle of Mandi

Reaching Mandi with no expectations whatsoever, we were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely little buzzing city full of friendly folk and surrounded by more juicy green hills. After choosing a hotel we got straight down to the business of finding out whether a rickshaw was actually gettable in this place.

A goose chase would have been easier than the ensuing hunt for information. I’ll give you a typical example of pretty much every conversation that day:

“Namaste. Do you know somewhere that sells auto rickshaws?”
“You want to ride in an auto rickshaw?”
“No, we want to buy one.”
“… You want to hire an auto rickshaw?”
“No no, we want to purchase an auto rickshaw. We are looking for a dealer.”
“You mean you want to buy a bike, yes?”
“No, no… we want to purchase an auto rickshaw.”

(This is where eyes start to boggle and jaws start to drop.)

“You want to purchase a three-wheeler?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“It is not possible. You cannot do business.”
“Oh no, we don’t want to do business. We just want it for personal use.”

(Silence, blank look, another silence…)

“You want a rickshaw for personal use?”
“Yes.”

(Incredulous look…)

“Why?!”
“Just for fun. We want to drive it around your country.”
“I think you buy a bike is better.”
“Nah – everyone buys a bike. We want an auto rickshaw.”

And this is their cue to start laughing. ‘Rickshaw’ is obviously not synonymous with ‘fun’ in the mind of an Indian. Rickshaws are the little scuttling mice of the auto world, useful only for getting you from A to B and dodging bigger, badder wheels in the process. No one could conceive of buying one and optionally travelling around India in it. But I had, and I was determined that we would!

However, our queries continued to be met with much disbelief, boggling eyes, dropping jaws, amused grins and laughter. You’d have thought we wanted to buy an army tank for casual travelling! Some people said that there was no rickshaw dealer in the city; some people said they didn’t know. Some people said there was and we should turn to the right, some people said there was and we should turn to the left. We asked a policeman where we could find a dealer, and he gave us in return many confused smiles but no answers. Some people really did want to help, and would have if we’d inquired after something normal like where the best restaurant is.

We were in the middle of a busy road, trying to elucidate our mission to a small bunch of Indians who had gathered to witness the spectacle of two nonsensical foreigners, when Latesh and Deep appeared on a motorbike. Because of their English skills, we were able to communicate our goal to them with slightly less than average levels of confusion. After trying futilely to convince us that a motorbike would be preferable, they suggested that we try tourist information.

But tourist information proved to be as elusive as the rickshaw dealer. According to the collective advice of several people, it was this way, that way and the other. Consequently, we went this way, that way and the other. We were trudging in the ‘other’ direction when Latesh and Deep suddenly popped up again.

“We just realised it is Saturday!” they exclaimed. “The tourist place is not open today! How about going to the leader of the auto rickshaw union instead?”

Now that sounded promising! We thanked them profusely as they zoomed off one way and we trudged off the other way (this was another ‘other way’… there were a lot of other ways in this town.)
It was the hottest time of day, and we found most of the rickshaws concentrated in one area like sediment that has settled at the bottom of juice too warm to drink. They sat hickledy pickledy, just waiting, hot little huts on wheels. We asked one driver where we could buy a rickshaw, which resulted in a conversation of the aforementioned variety only less fluent. Another rickshaw driver came to see what was happening, then another. We asked where the rickshaw union was, and they said there was none. I tried again, asking if I could see the rickshaw union leader. “I am the leader,” volunteered one bloke.

I said I didn’t believe him and one of those cheeky grins split across his face. This is the grin that Indians get when you’ve figured out that their version of the truth may not be… well, the true one. It basically says Oh well, it was worth a try. It’s just business – you understand that, eh? It is impossible to get angry faced with such good-humoured cheekiness.

Anyway, there was a growing crowd of gabbing rickshaw drivers trying to work out exactly what the hell these foreigners (or possibly aliens) were trying to get at when – tah-dah! Latesh and Deep materialized before us again! I jumped back and Moonho did one of his ‘O’ faces. They’d appeared in a small cloud of smoke that was either the result of exhaust fumes or genie magic, and we were both starting to suspect the latter. They were our magic Indian genies and were here to grant our wish.

They joined the confluence of rickshaw drivers and there was much chittering and even more chattering. When Indians talk fast Hindi they appear to be having an auction. Words get faster and faster, excitement builds and people seem to be competing, there is a climax and some sort of conclusion, then the excitement dies down… only to start up again when the next item of interest is revealed.

On that day we were the item of interest.

Eventually, after many questions and answers had zipped bullet-fast back and forth between the boys and drivers, a decision was made. We would be driven to a rickshaw dealer.

So this dealer did exist. Woohoo! We jumped into the back of the proffered rickshaw. We were to go with the would-be union leader. Immediately another driver, not wanting to miss out on all the fun and games, jumped into the front with him before anyone else could. And then we were on our way!

When I first saw my rickshaw it was love at first sight. It is Shiva-blue, its skin (ah-hem – metal) is smooth and its little windscreen wiper ever so cute. It’s a truck rickshaw - like a ute that has been squished to a third of its original size by the hand of Shiva himself.

After a few days and an unhealthy amount of paperwork, it became ours.

Or rather, she became ours. Why is it a she? Well, just as I told Mum when she asked little Leah why her favourite teddy was a girl, “Because she has no penis!”

Henceforth, our rickshaw shall be known as Damsel the Speed Demon. I shall paint her blue exterior and she will be art on wheels. She will be our ride, our home and my canvas.

All we have to do now is learn how to handle her. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it…?

Damsel the Speed Demon!

The lady with her wings spread

Damsel's bottom

The Story So Far...

Considering we don’t have a rickshaw as yet, the title of this blog is perhaps a tad premature. But there will soon be a rickshaw. Yes, there will! I have fallen head over heels in love with the little three-wheeled buggies, and love knows no bounds.


While I am waiting to get my baby I’ll give you some background information. The following blog entry is what you have missed from the previous episodes of rickshaw travels (minus the rickshaw.)

As many do, my husband and I started in Delhi. As many do, we buggered off from Delhi pretty quickly. Although I could immediately recognise the positive changes that have been made in the city since my last visit (fewer beggars, slightly less ferocity required when bargaining), all the construction work made it impossible to be in. Drills grumbled interminably, gaping holes yawned in the roads, concrete cracked and crumbled, dust was omnipresent… I guess if you want to clean up a place it is bound to get messier first, after all.

That has been the standard excuse for the state of my bedroom for some time. I hope Delhi manages to get cleaned up quicker than that.

So, still picking concrete dust out of our orifices, we trundled onto a third class train. That bit was easy enough. It was perfectly comfortable. Getting off was the problem.

You see, we’d expected some sort of announcement at our stop. You know - that disembodied voice that follows you around in stations, trains and buses telling you what you should do? The nice lady with a soporifically smooth voice that we all depend upon so very much…? Well, that voice, it seemed, had forgotten to get on with the rest of us.

Our ticket told us we should disembark at 4am. It was an hour strange seen from this new angle of post-sleep. Usually if I see 4am at all I only ever see it from the other direction. But I slept, 4am came, and all was silent. The all-knowing voice didn’t tell us to get off, so we didn’t. Indian transport is known to be late often anyway, right? But we realised after a few stops, as the hour matured, that people were doing the unthinkable. They were getting off without the aid of the disembodied voice!

Acting like the daft tourists we are, we dragged our bags towards the door and asked a man “Have we gone past Chakibank?” He wobbled his head for awhile and then indicated that it was yet to come. In unison we heaved a sigh of relief and at the next stop asked another man “Is this Chakibank?” He said no.

Nor were the next few stops. We started to worry that we had indeed gone past Chakibank, so we changed the question. “Which way to Chakibank?” Moonho asked. This man responded with a series of hand movements that, had we taken literally, seemed to indicate Chakibank as being skyward. Seriously doubting the inclusion of any Willy Wonker-type technology that would allow us passage skyward on this train (we hadn’t paid for first class, after all), we tried our luck with the next person. And the next.

Finally we found a friendly chap who was obviously a part of the ‘in-group’ with the disembodied voice, for he seemed to know what he was talking about. He explained in concise detail what we should have done. What we should have done is gotten off at the 4am Chakibank stop.

Ah, well. We got off at the next stop and, skipping over several train tracks and piles of turd steaming in the morning sun, we climbed up onto the platform of… where? Ah, well (I said again.) It hardly mattered.

It was the scenic route. There was a lot of scenery in it. Lovely scenery, I have to say. One rickshaw, several buses and uncountable convoluted roads later we were in Mcleod Ganj, where we wanted to be. Wherever there is a will there is a way and wherever there is a way there is a bus. Eventually.

Tibetans in Mcleod Ganj

Mcleod Ganj is the place of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees. During my time there I discovered the Tibetan culture to be among the most charming cultures I have ever come across. In fact, with a large group of Tibetans I found myself in strangely familiar territory. These people are much like Koreans. They even look alike. Take a Korean woman, convince her to use less than a litre of whitening cream daily, get her to build up some thigh muscles and change her name from ‘Min-jong’ to ‘Dolma,’ and there you have your Tibetan woman!

Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but even Moonho agreed that the two cultures are similar. For example, we became friendly with a bunch of Tibetans who run a little place called ‘Peace Café.’ I was unwell, and once they discovered this – well! You’d have thought Death had already come to claim his latest recruit! Crowding around me, they immediately commenced a feisty discussion about what course of action should be taken. At some point the Mum appeared (I’m not in fact sure that she is anyone’s mum, but she seems an all-round motherly type) and joined in on the debate. Occasionally they would pause and look at me as if trying to gauge just how sick I was. Gladly, they stopped short of fashioning a stretcher out of odd bits and pieces from the kitchen.

I wanted to tell them they needn’t fret on my behalf, but I’ve already learnt from living in Korea that such a thing is futile. Finally there was a general conclusive sort of mumbling, and they turned to me as one.

“You come here at seven in the morning and I drive you to hospital on my motorbike, okay?” said the boss of the café.

I got the feeling the question was rhetorical. I tried to disengage myself from the promise, not wanting to cause them to spend valuable work time carting around a sick foreigner. But they wanted to help. In some cultures kindness is so extreme as to be philanthropic.

Similarly, I’ve had more than one Korean drag me off to the doctor, usually reiterating things like “Oh dear you must miss your mother!” and me replying with something like “But I’ve only got a runny nose! We don’t necessarily have medicine every time we’re sick in Australia, you know, but… oh, we’re here are we?... Well, I’m okay but… Yes… Oh, alright, let’s see the doctor.”

But there is a difference. In Korea I might get a runny nose, while in India I get something else altogether.

As it turned out, I didn’t burden the Tibetans with the responsibility of my wellbeing. The next morning, thinking I was getting better, I decided that getting up at 6:30am was too heavy a price to pay for medicine I didn’t need.

Good Lord Buddha, I was as wrong as wrong can be!

The Joys of Amoebae

For me, the stay in Mcleod Ganj was pretty much one big tour of the town’s toilets. I know the condition and regularity of dysfunction of all the public toilets in town. I know exactly which cubicles don’t have locks, necessitating a balancing act to avoid anyone having to witness you mid... well, you get the picture. I even know the distance between certain points in town and the toilets, enabling me to estimate with uncanny accuracy the agony levels upon arrival.

Yep, I know the toilets of Mcleod Ganj.

Moonho and I went to the same restaurants together, ate similar foods and we both drank filtered water. Either his gut is lined with steel or my gut is like an amusement park for microscopic nasties. It was during my stay in Mcleod Ganj about seven years ago that a parasite called giardia decided to move to the highly coveted location of my intestines. The relationship was rather one-sided. I think this giardia bloke enjoyed me more than I enjoyed him.

Well, my reputation evidently precedes me. During my absence the word had spread to the amoeba family that my gut was the choice place to be, and they spent no time dilly dallying. I was so sick that even water came straight back up. My own stomach bile didn’t even want to hang around in there with the new inhabitants. My bottom became a water dispenser, despite my inability to ingest any. I almost started to wish that Death did come and claim is latest recruit.

If it wasn’t for my darling husband I’d probably still be in a miserable heap on a bathroom floor somewhere. Despite almost blacking out every time I stood, he eventually managed to get me to the hospital. The woeful wretch I was, when I saw the number of people waiting I burst into tears.

I nearly burst into tears anew when I heard the doctor would see us. And that she was Korean. A practitioner in New Zealand, she was over for a month of doctoring experience in India. She took special care of us. She put me on a drip, allowing a pulse rate of 136 to dive back down to normal. She spoke to me in soothing words I understood. She gave me pills that would kill all the new residents of my gut. Ah, lovely, glorious, wonderful pills! Never before have I been so happy to take antibiotics.

I could almost hear the amoebae screaming their objections, but I didn’t listen. I feel guilty if I accidentally kill a fly, but I can tell you this: I was out to annihilate these amoebae and I couldn’t wait to do it.

The little bastards put up a fight, but finally they started to push the daisies and I slowly – painfully slowly – got better. As soon as I was able to get around again we left Mcleod Ganj. Of course, it isn’t Mcleod Ganj’s fault, but the place no longer holds the same charm for me. I can’t help but associate it with toilets. Toilets surrounded by stunning hills and snow-capped peaks, but toilets nonetheless. Perhaps I can rectify this at a later date, but for now I’m quite happy to be out and seeing a new India.

Mani, Dolma and Passang

These people are the reason my memories of Mcleod Ganj have not all been flushed down the toilet. Mani is a Nepali with coal-coloured curly locks and a wide grin. He and his pretty Tibetan wife, Dolma, got married despite the taboos surrounding cross-cultural marriage. They work with Passang, a Tibetan man with tragic eyes that transform when his infectious laugh fills the air.

One night Passang, Moonho and I were invited to Mani and Dolma’s house for a Nepali dinner. The house was a humble little structure made from mud and straw. Outside chickens tottered around drunk on fat wriggly treats. Also tottering around was Araman, 16 months worth of little boy. A happier child I have rarely seen. With all the dirt, chickens and puppies a child of boundless energy could desire, he spends hours occupied with the aforementioned items, occasionally stopping to allow one of the adults to dote on him. He wears a cool little pair of sunnies and kicks back with the air of someone who knows they are adorable and is perfectly comfortable with the fact.

We settled down on the ground outside and Mani’s mother prepared us a traditional Nepali meal. This is when the near overwhelming Nepali/Tibetan hospitality kicked in. Mani’s mother became almost apoplectic if I tried to help with anything. We were guests and as such were to be waited upon. She served up an entrée, Nepali/Tibetan fermented rice wine (which, incidentally, is almost identical to Korean rice wine), a main course so huge as to be intimidating (complete with a separate vegetarian course just for me) and she refused to eat anything herself until we had swallowed our final mouthfuls.

Full to bursting point of lentil and spinach goodness, we retired to the one double bed in the only private room there was. Everyone else (Mani, Dolma, their son, Mani’s parents and Passang) crammed themselves anywhere they could fit on the two narrow beds or floor in the other room. Again, any attempts to give up the master bedroom were met with load and adamant protests.

That night thunder and lightning ripped across the sky. Bullets of rain pelted towards the earth with vengeance. It was all very atmospheric seen safely from the inside of the mud hut, which stood firmly through it all like the unyielding piece of earth that it is.

In the morning Mani’s mother greeted us with a beaming smile and more rice wine. We were assured that in their culture it is perfectly acceptable to start the day with a rice wine buzz. We politely sipped a little, but left it at that. A rice wine buzz in the morning may be all very good, but a rice wine belly in the afternoon we wanted to avoid.

When we left with Mani and Dolma on their way to work, Araman cried for the very first time that I’d heard. Further up the path I could hear that he’d settled down again pretty quickly though. He’d probably been distracted by a passing chicken.

Life must be good when all you need is a chicken to stop the tears. Thank you Dolma, Mani and the family for treating us like a King and Queen. Thank you Passang for making us laugh and always giving us good advice.

Because of you amoebae memories do not reign supreme!

Mani and Dolma tucking into Korean food at a restaurant

Passang amused over Buddha knows what this time