River Town Chronicles (13 page)

I continued my walk around the outskirts of town and then up the lane to our house. There was a large crowd across from the house, standing in front of the sweet shop. The
mochi
saw me coming and pointed across the lane to the sweet shop. I pushed through the crowd to get a better view. First, I saw Brian and Lori sitting up on the elevated platform of the shop. Then, I saw Tim, sitting cross legged in front of a
karaii,
(a shallow brass kettle). He was squeezing batter from a cloth sack into hot
ghee
(clarified butter,) in the kettle, making a series of concentric circles. When they were crisp, he scooped them out and dropped them into another brass utensil filled with a warm syrup of sugar water. He drained the
jalebis
(pretzel shaped sweets) with a perforated spoon, and served them piping hot to customers crowding in front of the sweetshop, while Brian and Lori took orders and collected the money. I made my way to the front of the crowd and asked Tim where Ram Lal, the shopkeeper, was. Without looking up, his hands still busy with the
jalebis,
he nodded towards the back of the shop. Ram Lal was stretched out on his
charpoi,
taking a nap, his snores barely audible above the noise of the crowd. Apparently, Tim had progressed from apprentice
mochi
to apprentice
jalebi
maker, while Brian and Lori practiced their addition and subtraction, skills expected of all the young merchant children in River Town.

That evening, before dinner, I picked up the
biin
again, and was able to play a few notes before
bhabhi
rushed in with her hands over her ears.
“Sahab. Sahab. Biin mat bajaoo. Ek samp nikal gaya!”
(Sahab. Sahab. Don't play the
biin.
A snake has come out!)
Bhabhi
claimed a snake had come out through the wall in her kitchen! Was there really a snake, I wondered? Or, was
bhabhi
simply searching for a way to end the screeching sounds of an aspiring snake charmer?

PAT WAS PREPARING DINNER
one evening, and asked me to come outside to the kitchen area. “Look,” she said. “Do my hands look swollen to you?” I told her I thought they looked puffy. She said her hands itched, and a few minutes later she said her arms itched too. Not long after that,
bhabhi
and Ram Swarup joined in the diagnosis.
Bhabhi
thought we should call in a traditional medicine woman who knew how to cure all sorts of illnesses. In the meantime, Ram Swarup left and then returned with a heavy wool blanket and wrapped it around Pat. He squatted down in front of her and watched for some sign of improvement. “It's getting worse,” Pat said. “It feels like my throat is swelling up, and I'm afraid I won't be able to breathe.” I rushed out to the rickshaw stand and hired the first one I saw. This was not the time to haggle over price, as I had become accustomed to doing. I would have paid any price. I bundled Pat into the rickshaw, still wrapped in the heavy wool blanket, and told the rickshaw
walla
to take us to the hospital. “Hurry,” I pleaded. The rickshaw
walla
looked back at Pat and dug his feet hard into the pedals. When we arrived, I was told that the doctor was on leave for the next month— in New Zealand. One of the nurses on duty asked to examine her. She observed the symptoms, asked a few questions and then said, “Open up and swallow this!” She poured some liquid down Pat's throat, and a few moments later Pat was retching into a bucket. She remained bent over for what seemed like an eternity. I asked the nurse what was wrong with her. “Don't know. But whatever is inside her needs to come out.” The nurse insisted that Pat stay overnight in the hospital, just to be sure there were no complications.

The next morning, I loaded the children on my bike (Brian on the handlebars, Lori on the bar in front of me and Tim on the rack over the rear fender) and wobbled out of town in the direction of the hospital. When we arrived, Pat was sitting up in bed. “I feel fine,” she said. “I'm a little sore from throwing up all night, but otherwise I feel fine.”

Before we left for home, the nurse took me aside and said she thought it would be a good idea if we stayed at the doctor's house while he was away. “It would be good for all of you to get some fresh air,” she said. “And the hot season will be here soon.” I really didn't want to leave the bazaar, but I said we would think about it and thanked her for helping Pat. Then we headed home, Pat and Lori in a rickshaw and Tim, Brian and I on the bike. On the way back, I was thinking over what the nurse had said. Maybe it was time for a change.

W
E DECIDED TO MAKE THE MOVE
to the doctor's house on the outskirts of town. With the hot months of summer approaching, and the prospect of perhaps more illness, we reluctantly decided it was best for us to move. It was hard to tear away from our life in the bazaar and the friends we had met there. It was especially hard to leave Ram Swarup,
bhabhi
and their children who, by now, were like family members. Life would be less interesting without Kaga's shrill voice, without the
mochi's
quiet presence, without Lallaji's orchestration of the cacophony of the metal trade outside our door, and without visits to the sweet shop across the lane.

I loaded our belongings into the same gunny sack we had arrived with and heaved it up onto the back of the
tonga.
The trip out of town was bittersweet.

The doctor's house was a recently built, modern structure with a real kitchen, including a stove and refrigerator and kitchen table. A flush toilet, that didn't argue with you or threaten you with a broom, replaced the services of Kaga. There were no monkeys on the roof top. No rats climbing the walls, no birds flying around inside the house to contend with. The surroundings were peaceful and quiet. All of this may sound good, but the result was a feeling of isolation and detachment. We could have been living anywhere, unaware we were actually in India, and certainly unaware of River Town.

The next few weeks I spent reviewing my notes and writing. A certain malaise soon set in. The longer I spent in the doctor's house on the outskirts of town, the more I felt the rip current of River Town recede. It was time to begin the swim to shore.

We made the rounds of the bazaar to say our good-bys to the people we had come to love and rely on and headed once more for Delhi.

I
MADE CONTACT
with a travel agent in New Delhi who made arrangements for us to fly to Kashmir as part of our return ticket to the U.S. We boarded a small propeller plane at the Delhi Airport. The plane wobbled its way through turbulent air, as the pilot navigated through the valleys of the tallest mountain range in the world. At times we seemed to be swallowed up in banks of thick clouds that made me hold my breath until we emerged on the other side, into the sunlight. All the while, the pilot engaged in a lively banter with white knuckled passengers behind him.

Finally, we approached a small runway in the Vale of Kashmir, and the pilot set the plane down smoothly in a truly magnificent landscape. I hired a taxi to take us to a houseboat on Dal Lake, where the owner greeted us like we were long lost friends. It is hard to describe the beauty of living on a houseboat in Dal Lake. Each morning, small boats approached selling everything imaginable; fresh fruits, flowers, vegetables, handicrafts, intricately carved wooden objects, shawls and embroidered clothing. Once we bought something, word got around and soon there was a procession of small boats clamoring to sell us all sorts of things.

After several days on Dal Lake, we boarded a bus for Pahlgam, a small town higher up in the mountains, where I had made arrangements to stay in a tent camp. Our tent was situated on a grassy plateau, at the base of enormous snow covered peaks. Here, we felt we were absolutely alone in the immense solitude of the Himalayas. The nights were still and bitter cold. We slept on cots, nestled under a heap of blankets piled on top of us.

On the second morning of our stay in Pahlgam, Pat hired ponies and a guide to take the children on a pony ride, while I hired a guide and some fishing gear to check out the fishing in a roaring river near our camp. Mangle was my guide, and we started at one end of our designated fishing area, called a “beat”, and worked our way down stream. I didn't really expect to catch anything, but within minutes I hooked a huge brown trout, caught in a sheltered pool of water in the fast moving river. Then I hooked another. And then another. I was ready to quit, but Mangle insisted that I catch a couple more of the monster trout so he could take some fish home for his family. When we finally left the river, Mangle surreptitiously tucked several fish under his shirt, leaving me with a legal limit of fish. I took the fish back to the tent camp and gave them to the cook to prepare for dinner, and then went to look for Pat and the kids. After a while, I spotted Pat on the lead pony, followed by Tim and Lori. The guide took up the rear. “Where's Brian?” I asked. Just then, another pony appeared, minus its rider. The guide laughed out loud and turned around. He pointed in the direction of Brian, who was walking toward the tent with a disgusted look on his face. “He got bucked off,” Lori said with a faint hint of victory in her voice.

That night we shared a delicious dinner of fresh trout with the cook and some of the cook's helpers. I guess that the river must not have been fished much since the British left, leaving time for the trout to fatten up and grow stupid in the meantime.

We spent a leisurely two weeks in one of the most beautiful places on earth, exploring the peaks and valley around us. It was a world completely removed from the crowds and scorching heat of the plains of India. Here, the local residents wore
faherens
(loose fitting wool cloaks). They could pull their arms and hands inside their cloaks through the baggy sleeves. Inside their cloaks, when they were cold, they held small clay pots filled with hot coals that heated their bodies and kept them warm. Unlike what we are used to in the West, where we heat the whole house in order to keep the body warm, the Kashmiris heated their bodies instead of the empty space around them. It seemed like a good solution, providing that one didn't fall asleep and set themselves on fire, as I was told occasionally happened.