River Town Chronicles Read online

  Later, I asked Shankar where he got the chicken and he said he found it crossing the road on his way here. “I don’t think it belonged to anyone. It probably flew off the top of a bus, from inside someone’s luggage.” “From inside someone’s luggage?” I mused. I figured he was lying and probably stole it from someone. But at this point, I didn’t really care where the bird came from. Shankar continued plucking and skinning the chicken and preparing the spices to boil it with. That night we had a delicious dinner of boiled chicken, vegetables and chapattis. The children were thrilled and so was I. That night we slept well with our stomachs full.

  RESPITE IN DELHI

  AFTER SIX WEEKS of complete bed rest, Pat was at her wits end. The only excitement during her confinement had been a cobra that slithered through the drain in the floor one day and explored the surrounding area beneath her bed. Her screams brought the chowkidar (watchman), who stuffed the cobra into a large sack and removed it from the room. My guess is that he probably let the snake loose in the field next to the hospital.

  There was no lab at the hospital to check a sample of Pat’s blood to see if she was free from the inflammation of her liver caused by the hepatitis, so I boarded a train and took a sample of her blood to a larger hospital in a neighboring state. The results confirmed that the inflammation had subsided, and she was finally able to leave the hospital and return home.

  I made arrangements for us to get out of River Town for a couple of weeks so Pat could recuperate in Delhi. As soon as she was ready to travel, we loaded the kids and a suitcase on the bus for a five hour bus trip to Delhi, where we all looked forward to a hot shower, three meals a day and some relaxation. This sounded good from a distance, but after a few days in Delhi, we were bored and anxious to return to River Town. Despite the perils of living there, the human bonds we established in the town were much more rewarding than the conveniences of life in Delhi. The anonymity, the exhaust fumes, the traffic, the noise, the haggling and chaos that takes place in a crowded city in India was not that enjoyable. Worst of all, Tim followed me to the market one day without my knowledge, and was struck down by a scooter rickshaw as he tried to cross the street. In an act of kindness, the scooter driver stopped, picked up Tim in his arms and carried him unconscious to the lawn in front of Fonseca’s, where he quickly regained consciousness. Soon after that, Pat said she had had enough of Delhi and begged to return to River Town, to what seemed to us now to be our normal life there.

  A SACRED PLACE

  THE WINTER MONTHSof November, December, January and part of February were bitterly cold in River Town. Wind swept down off the Himalayan foothills and onto the Plains, spreading a blanket of cold air over everything. Inside the house people huddled together and outside they wrapped wool blankets around their shoulders and scarves around their heads. At night, we piled on the razaaiis (cotton quilts) to keep warm. A cold night was measured by how many razaaiis were needed to stay warm. During the morning, bathing under the hand pump or with a bucket of cold water was almost unbearable.

  Life moved more slowly during the winter, and people’s thoughts seemed to grow more contemplative and spiritual in the broadest sense, for almost everything in River Town had some spiritual element attached to it. Take, for example, the name “River Town.” I puzzled over the name for months. I circumambulated the town, scoured the countryside surrounding the town but never saw a river, or even a stream! Why the name “River Town”? Where was the river? When I would ask this question, people would shrug their shoulders. Eventually, I was referred to a sadhu (holy man) perched next to a small shrine on the outskirts of town. When I asked him where the river was, he pointed to the ground. “The river flows underground. You can’t see it, but you can feel it,” he assured me. He pointed to a large, stagnant pool of water that, he said, was connected by an underground channel to the sacred Ganges River. “You can’t see it with the naked eye, or from your house in the bazaar, because the river flows underground.” I knew that if I was going to learn anything more about the sacred dimensions of River Town, I would have to suspend the urge to resist the unknowable and let myself go with the current to see where it would lead me.

  I followed the sadhu to the western edge of town, to the Gauri Shankar Mandir, a temple dedicated to the god Shiva. The sadhu told me the story of how the area was once covered with jungle cascading down from the Himalayan foothills. One day, a woodsman was chopping down trees for fire wood. “All of a sudden, the woodsman struck a tree with his ax and water shot straight up out of the stump of the tree.” The sadhu looked me straight in the eyes to see if I understood what he was saying. “Samjee jii?” (do you understand?) He continued by explaining how the woodsman was frightened and swung his ax again and again until he had leveled the stump to the ground. But the next day, when he returned, he found that the stump had regenerated and stood straight up from the ground. For several more days he continued to swing his ax and level the stump only to discover that the stump reappeared the next morning. Finally, the frightened woodsman told his story to a rishi, a mendicant doing penance in the jungle. The rishi determined that what the woodsman witnessed was the work of the god Shiva. “That tree stump you tried to chop down was Shiva’s phallus and the water you saw was Shiva’s semen, which he uses to regenerate himself. The sadhu took me inside the Gauri Shankar Temple. “Look,” he said. There on the floor of the temple was the stump of a tree. “That is Shiva’s phallus, in the same place it has been since the beginning of time. Even attempts by Muslim armies failed to destroy it.” I made an offering at the temple, thanked the sadhu and returned home with new insights into the enigma of the name of River Town.

  The conversation with the sadhu made me aware of River Town as a sacred place. It is a deep layer that exists beneath the other layers of political and economic history that follow on top of it. Pools of water, tree stumps, monuments and shrines seem to provide the foundation for everything that came after the sacred origins of the town. As I became more familiar with this layer, I could see how pervasive it was. By the 1960s there were thirty six temples and shrines located in the merchant neighborhoods. They surrounded the inhabited world of River Town as persuasive, physical evidence of the sanctity of the town. People visited these places, I was told, for the purpose of darshan (meaning “to see, make known and visible”) and the attendants at these places, the darshaans (Brahmans, or preceptors, who make one “see”) use their mantras (sacred words) to illuminate the town with the sight of knowledge. All of this seemed worlds apart from the day to day business of the merchants and artisans of River Town, and yet it seemed to support and provide the sustenance for all of their activities.

  EVIL SPIRITS

  THE WINTER MONTHS brought on a flood of illnesses. Ram Swarup was complaining of ulcers and his teenage daughter, Saroj, complained of a buzzing noise and pain in her ears. She was nearly hysterical, covering her ears and running around the courtyard moaning. I asked Ram Swarup what was wrong with Saroj. He assured me nothing was wrong, but a real concern was reflected in his eyes. Saroj got worse that afternoon and lay on a charpoi moaning and crying out loud. I couldn’t stand seeing her suffer like this, and again approached Ram Swarup with the offer to take her to the hospital for treatment. “It wouldn’t do any good,” Ram Swarup answered. “This is just something that happens to young girls her age.” And then he added, “she has been visited by a bhut (an evil spirit).” I had recently heard about a girl in the merchant neighborhood who had died from the malevolent action of a bhut. “Let me take her to the doctor and get some medicine,” I said. “Maybe this will scare the bhut away.” Ram Swarup was not moved by my pleading, but bhabhi gave in to my insistence that Saroj see the doctor at the hospital where Pat had been treated. I hailed a rickshaw from the bazaar and Saroj and I made the trip to the hospital. The doctor looked in her ears and without hesitation confirmed that she had a bad ear infection. He gave me a prescription to get filled and said she should be fine in a few days. Saroj and I made our
way back into town and I went to the chemist’s shop in the bazaar to get the prescription filled. I told Ram Swarup that Saroj would need to take the medicine every day for ten days. He looked at the bottle suspiciously and nodded his head. I imagine he was wondering how the contents of this small bottle could drive away a powerful bhut, but, as if to please me, he administered the first dose of the medicine, and I watched to make sure he gave her the full dose.

  The next day, Saroj seemed to be feeling a little better. She was more like her old self, shouting instruction to her sisters in a loud voice and demanding that they do things for her. Later that week, Ram Swarup handed me the bottle of medicine, with several days supply still in the bottle. “No need for this angrezii diwaii (English medicine),” he said. “The bhut decided to leave on its own.” I was worried that Saroj would suffer a relapse, but fortunately she recovered fully after a few more days. The infection in her ears had run its course. The bhut had fled the scene and the medicine had worked its magic.

  RAMA’S PLAY

  OCTOBER BRINGS FORTH A ROUND of religious festivals that are celebrated with great joy and enthusiasm in River Town. The most important of these is Dushera, a ten day festival that celebrates the trials and tribulations of Rama and Sita, the two main characters from the epic story of the Ramayana. According to the story, prince Rama was exiled, along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman, from the kingdom of Ayodhya. While roaming the forest in exile, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. Rama and Lakshman eventually join up with Hanuman and his army of monkeys and attack Lanka in order to rescue Sita. A fierce battle takes place between Rama and the mighty forces of Ravana. Ultimately, Rama, with powerful magical weapons, prevails by destroying Ravana and rescuing Sita, after which he returns victorious to the capital city of Ayodhya.

  Each night for ten nights during Dushera, a grand procession of characters from the Ramayana snaked its way through the narrow lanes of River Town. All of the characters were boys in their early teen years who performed the roles of both male and female characters from the Ramayana. They stood motionless and speechless as they passed through town on animal or tractor driven carts. There were no actions performed to convince the audience of their characters. Instead, the boys were mere vessels for the essence of the characters they portrayed. Rama’s army was equipped with bows and arrows, demons wore hideous masks, and Hanuman, the monkey god who assisted Rama, rode along with them with his long tail attached to the rear end of his costume. With drums leading the way, Hanuman’s army marched through the lanes of River Town on its way to rescue Sita, Rama’s wife.

  During the ten days of Dushera, tableaux scenes from the Rayamana, called jhankis, were displayed in every corner of the bazaar. Each of the jhankis represented a different event and geographic location mentioned in the Rayamana. There was a scene of Rama and his brother Lakshman living in exile in the forest. All vestiges of their privileged life in the city of Ayodhya were stripped away. Instead, they were dressed in simple bark clothing. There was a scene with Hanuman, the monkey god, who led Rama’s army to ultimate victory. And there was a scene of Ravana who, using deception and magic, stole Sita from Rama and carried her off to his fortress in Lanka. The mood of the crowd was festive as it made its way among the blinking lights and familiar scenes of the jhankis.

  On the tenth day of Dushera, a giant effigy of the demon Ravana, made of paper and bamboo and stuffed with fireworks, was set ablaze to mark the triumph of Rama and the return of Sita. The crowd shouted “Jai Ram” (victory to Rama, a common greeting among Hindus), as a huge ball of fire consumed Ravana and his head burst into flames, much to the delight of the crowd of onlookers. It was as if the crowd of onlookers had somehow participated in Rama’s victory and had themselves become, at least for the moment, citizens of Ayodhya.

  THE BRAHMAN’S WORDS

  RAMA’S PRESENCE WAS EVERYWHERE in River Town. Images made of clay were sold in the bazaar. Posters with scenes from the epic Ramayana decorated the walls inside houses. Men assumed the name of Rama as their own, as had, for example, Ram Swarup (the image of Rama). Along dusty country roads, people approached each other with the greeting, “Ram, Ram” or “Jai Ram” (victory to Rama). And then there was bhabhi, who began each morning by singing Rama’s praises while sweeping and making ritually pure her small cooking space that she now shared with Brian.

  In early November, Roshan suggested we visit a sacred place of pilgrimage where heroes from the other Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, were said to have visited in ancient times. So I boarded a bus with Roshan and set out to visit this place of pilgrimage first hand. When we arrived, there were throngs of pilgrims roaming about and we joined them. At first, I didn’t see anything that could possibly attract so much attention. All I saw were small ponds of stagnant water flanked by small shrines attended by story telling Brahman priests. We stopped at one of the shrines to hear the story of how the Pandavas (the heroes of the epic Mahabharata) had cleansed their weapons in the pond next to the shrine in order to get rid of their sins for having killed their relatives and teacher, Dronacharya, after a great battle. We were also told that a shrine on the western edge of the pond was where Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, had placed an image of Rama in his honor. “And over there,” the priest continued, “is where Lord Shiva himself bathed to purify himself of all sins.” “Look! That stone phallus was placed there by Shiva himself after his bath in the pond.”

  Greatness as expressed here was far different from that found in my own and many other cultures. There were no grand monuments to the past, no Taj Mahals or mosques reaching to the sky. There were no sacred performances designed to convince us that what we were seeing was real. There were only pools of water, small, insignificant looking shrines and inanimate stone objects scattered around the landscape. What brought these lifeless features of the landscape to life, I discovered, were the words of the Brahman priests who sat next to them and told their stories. They “breathe” life into them through their words. The miraculous is transformed into the marvelous and revealed for all to “see” through the voice of the Brahman.

  Roshan and I washed ourselves in the water where the god Shiva is said to have bathed, entering the pond at one end and emerging at the other purified of all sins. I wasn’t sure that would work for me, but it was certainly worth a try! After our bath, we had tea and something to eat at a small stand before boarding the bus back to River Town. There was a crush of people all trying to get on the bus at the same time. I thought I felt a hand in my pocket and looked around to see the man standing behind me looking innocent and trying to attract the attention of the conductor handing out tickets for the bus ride. “Maybe that wasn’t a hand in my pocket,” I thought, but just to be sure I took my wallet out of my back pocket, placed it in my front pocket and covered it with my hand. After much pushing and shoving, we managed to get seats in the bus just before the conductor closed the door and the driver pulled out of the bus stop, with several latecomers clinging to the outside of the bus. We hadn’t moved more than a few hundred yards when a woman cried out from the back of the bus. “Choori ho gaii!” (I’ve been robbed!) “My money is gone. Ay Bhagwan.” Then a chorus of similar shrieks came from different directions in the bus. “Someone untied the edge of my sari where I had my money hidden. Ay Bhagwan. He took it all!” Roshan turned to me and said, “Pickpockets. The thieves hid themselves in the crowd and took all their money.” I reached into my pocket again to check on my wallet. Whew! It was still there. I felt relieved to know I was on my way back to River Town, cleansed of all sins and still in possession of my wallet!

  A MEASURE OF HONOR

  DURING THE WEEKS FOLLOWING MY RETURN from the sacred ponds of water and shrines associated with the epic Mahabharat, I turned my attention to the many local shrines and temples in River Town. The sacred boundary of the town, as mentioned before, was marked by the original tree stump that symbolized Shiva’s miraculous regeneration at the time of the town’s origin. Th
e temple there (Gauri Shankar Mandar), was located at the northwest entrance to the town. In addition, the northern entrance to town was marked by a temple devoted to the goddess Kali. At the eastern boundary of the town was the Hanuman temple, honoring the monkey god Hanuman, who helped Rama obtain victory over the evil Ravana (and whose army still ruled the rooftops in River Town!) And the southern entrance to the town was marked by the “River Pond” temple, the source of the underground connection to the Ganges River as well as the source of the name “River Town” itself.

  Sacred places overflowed within the inner sanctums of town, where merchant families negotiated with their gods and goddesses with much the same intensity they applied to their account books, their zinc and copper, their brass pots and pans and their relatives in blood and marriage. They negotiated with them because the ability to command them, care for them, feed them and build temples to honor them was a measure of their own izzat (honor, prestige in the eyes of the community). Among the merchant families, the alloy of commerce and religion, worldliness and otherworldliness, were two sides of the same coin. The elaboration of wealth was accompanied by the elaboration of gods and goddesses and the temples to house them. The search for izzat was reflected in the proliferation of over thirty temples crowded within the narrow lanes of River Town and sustained by the otherwise ordinary looking men in caps and dhotis armed with account books, ledgers and balance scales, sitting cross legged in their shops, forever weighing their izzat.