India Diaries: Day 10

September 2005
by Linda McGrath

Day Ten: Dawn of the Dead Cockroaches
Several times during my stay I had witnessed 4-inch long insects zooming into some corner of the room but I firmly decided to believe they were just gigantic beetles on speed. The fantasy came to an end that evening when I just about stepped on one getting into the shower. This thing made its Mexican cousin look like a ladybug: it was huge; and judging by the fact it was on its back, it looked like it had seen better days. I was starving and I hadn't showered all day but I went into the room and called housekeeping:

“Hi, I'm calling from room 407 and there is a dying cockroach in my bathroom.”

“Yes, madam?”

“Yes, there is cockroach in my bathroom.”

“Yes, madam?”

“Can you please send someone to clean it up?”

“Oh! (Like the thought just occurred to him)Yes madam, I will send someone…”

30 minutes later, a 15 year old boy showed up at my door carrying a broom that looked about his age in one hand and in the other, a big spray can with pictures of a cockroach and a mouse, both comfortingly depicted on their backs (this chemical is FDA approved, surely) … I didn't particularly want to witness the killing so I sat on the bed and listened. I heard the sound of a spray for about 10 seconds. This first attempt must have been unsuccessful because the spray came on again for another 10 seconds. When that didn't work, he diligently finished the entire can and finally emerged through the cloud of fumes coming from the door. He carefully swept the dead body across the room, leaving a long trail of liquid cockroach poison behind him. Once he got to the front door, he propelled the intruder onto the steps with one victorious sweep and turned to me with a big smile:

“All done, madam!”

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I told him to wait and called his boss. I explained that somebody should probably clean up the poison and replace the towels. I handed the phone to the boy and went to dinner, smelling like a truck driver who mistook the roach poison for his deodorant.

I came back to the room an hour later, almost running at the thought of a nice long shower. The room still smelled like poison but it looked like someone had done their best to clean up and two fresh towels were laid on the bed. I ecstatically grabbed one and went for the shower when I abruptly froze in my footsteps: there were 3 new bodies, wiggling in agony.

I called housekeeping 3 times during the night. You know how they say for every cockroach you see, there are a hundred that you don't see… well the air in the pipes must have gotten a little heavy from all the poison, so the entire colony, desperate for some fresh air, decided to crawl up that night to tragically die at the foot of my toilet. I called housekeeping one last time in the morning and had a quick shower before any new ones showed up. I grabbed my bags, all packed from not sleeping, and went to breakfast, never happier to check out of a room at 7 in the morning.

Day Eleven: Bombay
As we were landing, I tried to steal a peek of the city over the shoulder of my neighbors. All I could see was an impressive sprawl of various shades of gray spotted by thousands of blue dots. We got closer and I realized the blue dots were tarps. Apparently somebody has a monopoly on the Indian tarp industry and for the sake of efficiency only produces them in royal blue. And this someone is very well off because they are used for everything: roof, side wall, garage, you name it, every household has one.

I had splurged and booked my next few nights at the Taj Mahal, “ India 's finest hotel”. When I told that to a friend before I left, he asked: “They named a hotel after a beer?” Oddly enough, on my way to the hotel, I saw several billboards advertising Kingfisher airlines, but that's just to confuse you, so back to the hotel. I was shown around the room and after a $5.95 one minute phone call to the US , I hung up and jumped up and down a few times. Minibar, fluffy bathrobe, slippers and most importantly a sparkling bathroom without a roach in sight. Heaven! I took a long bubble bath and went exploring. I think air conditioning in India may be a bit of a status symbol and this being the Taj, the lobby was absolutely freezing. Despite this being the low season, it was bustling with IT and film executives ( Bombay is the Indian capital for both industries). I felt a bit out of place and for the millionth time this trip wished my husband was with me. The first 2 floors of the Taj host half of the stores recommended in Frommer's but I quickly realized we won't be buying anything here. Before I got myself more depressed, I went to the cheapest restaurant in the hotel and had the most wonderful fresh spinach ravioli with a creamy tomato and fresh basil sauce and a beautiful glass of shiraz then went up to my room and curled up under the Scandia Down duvet (I don't know for sure that it was Scandia Down but this is my story) and watched the West Wing until I fell asleep.

Day Twelve: Lunch at the Jaswas
The next day, I had been kindly invited to have lunch with Raj's parents in their home in a suburb of Bombay . If you come to Power, you know Raj. He was the voice of reason who warned me to take cipro with me, among other things, and since my return he has turned into somewhat of the studio's very own India travel advisor. We should put him on payroll, really. But I digress again. Whenever I travel, I can make do without seeing the famous sites but what I am really interested in is seeing how people live. I had been looking forward to this lunch since the beginning of the trip because I felt that it would help fill the puzzle from me: I was finally going to see India from the inside.

I referred to my travel guides for advice on what to bring them and both sources were categorical: pastries or sweets are the can't-go-wrong gift for any host. It just so happened that the Taj hotel has the nicest bakery in Bombay so I went there on my way to the appointment with the driver and bought a sampler of every pastry they had. My heavy box in hand, I went to the lobby to meet my ride at 10 o'clock . I got in the back seat and off we were. Raj had told me this was going to be a full day's trip but there was no way for me to find out how long getting there was going to take exactly because neither I or the driver spoke the other's language. We swerved in and out and around the other cars, passed the Flora fountain and headed out of the main downtown area towards Chowpatty beach. It was a beautiful day, the sun was glistening on top of the ocean and I noticed my driver was strangely conservative in the distance he kept to other moving objects, so I though: great! I won't have to pull my nails out of the back of his seat at the end of this, I can just relax and enjoy the nice excursion.

And then we took a right. We had to, in order to go inland and apparently so did half of Bombay . The traffic almost immediately came to a halt. We were headed towards a left turn corner that redefined the word “chaos”: they were trying to turn what in the US would be a small one way street into a 3 lane both ways boulevard and in true Indian queuing fashion (no such thing as “your turn” here), cars, rickshaws, rusty bicycles balancing two huge bags each carrying the equivalent of 5 dead bodies on either side, all these vehicles were going for the corner. There seemed to be a process to it though: whenever a driver saw a 5 inch opportunity, he'd speed up, then abruptly stop, honk his horn and yell until 5 minutes later, he negotiated his turn again. At first, my driver was the image of calm until we almost got hit and then he too rolled his window down and gave the other guy a piece of his mind. He kept the window down and that was when I was first introduced to the local custom of hacking. The first time you hear it, you think they're dying. When perfected by a long practice, it's a deep sound that engages the deep abdominals to generate the liquid from deep within the lungs and accumulates more volume and momentum as it travels up the larynx until the product is finally expelled with a heavy splash on the ground. It seemed to be a skill that brings great pride upon its master so for about fifteen minutes, we were stuck there, hacking and yelling until the corner finally gave birth to a bus and the route cleared enough to get us out of there. The traffic halted at every single intersection before we left town and every time we did, some kid came to sell us something different: a (pirated?) copy of the DaVinci code (forget the Pulitzer prize, you know you've made it as a writer if you're on the streets of Bombay), a map of the state of Maharashtra or a giant yellow penis-shaped balloon. At first, I politely declined their offers from the inside of the car and tried to joke with them but from that point on, the scenery became more and more depressing. The old apartment buildings of Kemp's Corner turned into shacks and the kids were now trying to sell me a single sock, or a key from a 1967 typewriter or a house brick and I just remained silent, clutching at my prized box of pastries so they don't end up on the windshield. And then we hit the slums and everything came to a halt. Picture on both sides of the highway, tens of thousands of housing projects (because I wouldn't know what else to call them) made of rubble and tarps and trash. I read somewhere that every week, another 5,000 people arrive in Bombay and this is where they go. The kids weren't selling anything anymore. They just came to me and glued their dirty little faces against the window and waited until the driver shushed them away. Every kind of invalid you can imagine came to the window to beg with their professionally perfected cries. At first, the discomfort made me look away, and I thought, this is just a bad patch of the city, we'll be out of here soon. But this went on for miles and miles and miles and then I realized: this is the city! It was almost as if the traffic slowed down right here to give the foreigners headed to the international airport a good look at reality. It was Bombay 's cry of outrage, in my face, and it really got to me. I don't know how it wouldn't. It's impossible to grasp unless you go and see the vastness and the extent of poverty with your own eyes but the feeling when you are there is this overwhelming guilt and sadness that makes you want to sell everything you own and do something, anything, to make things even just a little better.

After that, I don't know if it was the traffic or the introversion of my thoughts, but we arrived soon after. At noon , we pulled up to a beautiful old house that stood as the only one of its style among all the other, much newer and soul-less buildings. Chinubhai, Raj's dad walked outside to greet me. He was 80 years old but the clarity and depth of his conversation would never have given him out. We walked inside and he introduced me to his wife, Alakben. She was a few years younger but she too looked great in a beautifully embroidered white saree. She was still finishing up the lunch preparations, so she left us to it. I noticed Chinubhai was walking irregularly and he told me he had an accident a year ago. He was climbing the ladder to reach the top of the well in the backyard. He insisted it was the top step that gave out and that's why he fell down, hurting his neck. The injury caused an isolated paralysis but he ignored the surgeons' advice for a risky operation and instead listened to another doctor who believed he could restore most of his motion over time. I told him he looked great but inside my heart went out to Raj. All of us children who decide to make our lives away from our parents, we carry this guilt, for not being there. If you're one of us, you know what I'm talking about. And I could imagine his feelings when receiving the news and the helplessness from being on the other end of the world.

There was still some time before lunch so I offered to show Chinubhai some yoga poses and he was very excited. We did cobra to strengthen his back and happy baby to stretch out the back of the body and single legged balancing to work his weaker side and learn to stabilize the hips. We could have gone longer but lunch was ready and we sat down to a traditional thali meal. They were both Jainists, which is a stricter form of Buddhism, and when I confessed I didn't know much more than that, they were both eager to tell me more about it. One of the fundamental principles they live by is “ahimsa”, which translated means “non-violence”. Every food they eat is either a fruit or a seed or something that can be collected from the plant or animal without destroying it. So no meat, no roots, and of course no eggs. I asked what about my precious pastries they had just put in the fridge, and they both just smiled and shook their head. Apart from Chinubhai's accident, they both looked great though, so I thought they must be onto something. They also told me that their saddhus, their holy men take it even a step further: they do not stay in any one city for more than a few months at a time so that they do not get attached. Like Buddhists, they view the world as a transient, ever-changing place and therefore attachment to any one person or object or circumstance is a source of suffering. So these saddhus go from city to city and check this out, they go on foot, because if they used any vehicle, they wouldn't be able to ensure they don't kill an insect on the ground. Fascinating!

After lunch, Chinubhai retreated for his nap. Alakben and I laid down on the daybeds in the living room and kept talking. I asked her if they go out much. They go to the temple and to the market, but not much further. The traffic, she warned me, can be “not good”. Especially in the afternoons, as you get closer to 3, it can take up to 3 hours to get to Bombay . I looked at my watch: it was close to 2. She sensed my alarm and asked me if I wanted to head back soon and I told her that if it meant it would save me an hour of looking at miserable children that I can't give a coin to or the car will get assaulted and turned over by a thousand more, then yes, please at their driver's convenience. We parted our goodbyes and they asked me to take the pastries and eat them all myself. I told them that would be a very bad idea so could they please give them to somebody else?

The ride back did take 3 hours and by the time we arrived, I felt like I had come back from war. I wanted to kneel on the ground and kiss the steps of the Taj hotel. I went to the beautiful poolside café and had high tea served to me from sterling silver teapots. I ate all the scones and cucumber sandwiches and I just stared into the distance for an hour without saying a word. India is the most confusing place I've been to. It challenges us Westerners on every single level. The cows in the middle of the street. The poverty, everywhere. Our natural instinct is to react “how can people live like that?” but then you start to see the smiles. Some of the poorest kids on that highway seemed happier than most of the people you see on 101 at peak hour. The warmth of the people is like nowhere else, and the beauty of the place and the richness of their culture makes your jaw drop. And so to my Indian friends from home who have read this and have put up with my misspellings and ignorance through all these pages, I want you to know that I can see why you live here in America. But I can also see why you go back.