Travelogue: Escape from Varanasi
The hole in my esophagus persists.
I forgot to mention that while in Nepal, after a particularly arduous sight-seeing session, I made the mistake of taking the doxycycline anti-malarial tablets without water and fell right to sleep. The pill didn’t take long to begin burning a crater in my throat. I’ve barely been able to swallow my own saliva since. But the bit of good news is that today I leave on a train bound for Calcutta. I’m afraid I haven’t made the most of being in Varansi besides the purchase of some scarves and a rose and lawn-colored sari said to be made from the famed Benares silk. The air in this town on the Ganges is stagnant at best. The flies are overwhelming. Despite my growing distaste for this solitude, I keep my spirits up and look forward to Calcutta, the colonial gem.
* * *
The free roaming of cows has ceased to shock me and yet today the wind was knocked out of my by a bull making its way gingergly through sleeping figures lying about in this train station like so many ears of discarded corn. I was confused by its manner of walking, a dragging limp... until I noticed the crimson streak pouring forth from its mutilated hoof.
And oddly, in this chaotic train station of mutilated cattle and putrid smells, I’m comforted by gender separation. I retreat to a cramped waiting room for women. A mother changes her little daughter’s salwar kameez, a young woman toys distractedly with the handle of a shopping bag, and a bald old woman grunts at me when I mistakenly sit next to her on a rickety bench. She is accompanied by other shaven headed companions. They look at once both grotesque and beautiful. Their bruised skulls are glinting in the scant sunlight and smiling their toothy smiles at this foreigner’s acceptance of purdah.
* * *
The Casualty of the Watch—
Roshni reminds me of the daughter of a family friend, the child-like bride who met an untimely end. Not death, mind you, but other unfortunate occurrences. Something about this Indian girl I met on the train to Calcutta made me think of tragedy. She must have been a year or two younger than me and woke me up from my nap to beg me to come home with her. I declined, saying I had a plane to catch in Calcutta. She then asked me for something American for her to remember me by. I offered my Murakami book. She crinkled her nose in disgust and said she was much too busy for books! She eyed my Nike watch (now, with its broken face… another casualty of India, like my ribs and toe) and I hesitatingly handed it to her. After all, I could afford another… after procuring a promise that I would write and call her when I returned to America, she lulled me back to sleep with her stories of her soon-to-be husband in Kashmir.
I forgot to mention that while in Nepal, after a particularly arduous sight-seeing session, I made the mistake of taking the doxycycline anti-malarial tablets without water and fell right to sleep. The pill didn’t take long to begin burning a crater in my throat. I’ve barely been able to swallow my own saliva since. But the bit of good news is that today I leave on a train bound for Calcutta. I’m afraid I haven’t made the most of being in Varansi besides the purchase of some scarves and a rose and lawn-colored sari said to be made from the famed Benares silk. The air in this town on the Ganges is stagnant at best. The flies are overwhelming. Despite my growing distaste for this solitude, I keep my spirits up and look forward to Calcutta, the colonial gem.
* * *
The free roaming of cows has ceased to shock me and yet today the wind was knocked out of my by a bull making its way gingergly through sleeping figures lying about in this train station like so many ears of discarded corn. I was confused by its manner of walking, a dragging limp... until I noticed the crimson streak pouring forth from its mutilated hoof.
And oddly, in this chaotic train station of mutilated cattle and putrid smells, I’m comforted by gender separation. I retreat to a cramped waiting room for women. A mother changes her little daughter’s salwar kameez, a young woman toys distractedly with the handle of a shopping bag, and a bald old woman grunts at me when I mistakenly sit next to her on a rickety bench. She is accompanied by other shaven headed companions. They look at once both grotesque and beautiful. Their bruised skulls are glinting in the scant sunlight and smiling their toothy smiles at this foreigner’s acceptance of purdah.
* * *
The Casualty of the Watch—
Roshni reminds me of the daughter of a family friend, the child-like bride who met an untimely end. Not death, mind you, but other unfortunate occurrences. Something about this Indian girl I met on the train to Calcutta made me think of tragedy. She must have been a year or two younger than me and woke me up from my nap to beg me to come home with her. I declined, saying I had a plane to catch in Calcutta. She then asked me for something American for her to remember me by. I offered my Murakami book. She crinkled her nose in disgust and said she was much too busy for books! She eyed my Nike watch (now, with its broken face… another casualty of India, like my ribs and toe) and I hesitatingly handed it to her. After all, I could afford another… after procuring a promise that I would write and call her when I returned to America, she lulled me back to sleep with her stories of her soon-to-be husband in Kashmir.
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