Non-Fiction 1
Traveling Essay
Slush
(As told to me more than two years back by my wife Rano (Shelika Gaur) about her experience of going to her mother’s town Alwar (Rajasthan, India). The story was narrated in her native tongue and I re-wrote it. So more than half of the credit for the creation of this story goes to her)
Upto Sonepat there was no rain. Sardarji was dead drunk and he was driving the bus with a zest and fervor rarely to be found in that geographical tract. Rain or no rain; it was no problem for him. She had guessed right from the beginning that the driver was drunk. She cursed her fate. She had to go a long distance into the depths of Rajasthan and this driver, O just look at this driver. Was he drunk? No, more than that! He was in total fervor, complete fervor. He thought that he was riding the seventh cloud or ninth cloud or something like that. Ah! The veritable, the inevitable bicycle of the Indian roads would pass the gay bus now and then. Abomination. Every rickshawala with hefty passengers and loads of luggage would pass it making the huge grimaces and Sardarji was happy in his own drunk paradise. So slow the pace of the bus. No vibrations through my body, no creepy sensation of the window-glass striking the grooves of tin-frame. Underneath, through the torn plastic covering, the dark brown sponge of the seats thrust out making ugly faces. Odd configurations. People were shouting at him. What are you doing man? The elderly chronically ill people were shouting, the women cradling babies in their arms were shouting and the youngsters with impatience writ large in their faces were shouting. But for him—no problem. He was impervious to all this. Beyond all this—what we call the hard-skinned, the thick-skinned one. He was in his seventh heaven or ninth heaven. When the rains came after Sonepat, he became ecstatic. Bus floated just floated on the road full of knee deep water.
Outside, quite outside the Delhi Inter-State Bus Terminus he stopped. Full thrust on the break-pedal. New ideas surging in his mind—“Empty my bus in a minute. I won’t budge an inch. No going beyond this point. Get down. Get down into the knee-deep water. Empty my bus. Instantly.” He had decided to have his last laugh. He was quite capable of doing that even in his drunken frenzy. Or was the drunken frenzy responsible for that? The rain spouted and we were drenched in a minute.
It was the heyday for the auto-people. Kalekhan Kalekhan—triple the fare, triple the fair— double the fair, double the fair—soon it would be Kalekhan. The auto is good, brand good; its paint still shining proudly. It could take us to the places. Just give it triple the fair. I have still to go a long way, into the depth of Rajasthan. O this traffic of Delhi! How I yearned always to skip Delhi on my way to the sands and dunes and verdant plains and hills. O this abominable Delhi! O this place of corrupt ministers, stiff walking ministers, prime-ministers and presidents always walking like a stiff puppet, making strange speeches and lifeless gestures! Paper tigers, puppets, puppetry. “O how I would like to skip you always on my journey to my real self!” But then the auto wobbled. Stopped. Dead stopped in the mid of the road. “Madam, madam, would you tilt the auto a bit? The front tyre is flat, quite flat, dead flat. I have to change it.” “What! I who paid you triple fair and you are doing this to me?” First it drizzled and I tilted the chassis at an obtuse angle, then it spouted cats and dogs and I tilted the chassis further to an acute angle. By the time wobbling tyre was set aright cats mewed and dogs yelped in my ears. Links the cat, Rocky the dog—inevitable companions on the monitor screen, always ready to help out. Ask them a question and they would wag their tails and answer in a whiff. Where is that great Delhi bus-stand of Kalekhan? But who is or was that Kalekhan—perhaps some black guard lost in the maze of history. Abominable enough, Ominous enough. “Not to worry madam, just hold on. Not to worry, not to worry.” To Kalekhan, to Kalekhan. We ran at our elegant pace. “See, that is your bus madam. To Alwar. A little dusty and torn and crooked but all the same quite comforting and quite ready to take you to the places.”
He had kept his promise. I was sitting very comfortably and I could see the high raised seat of the driver through the partition-net. This is always the best seat for me—just behind the driver where I can slip my bag with pleasure. The conductor was a perfect gentleman. The engine snorted throwing a warm puff into my face. To Rajasthan. The journey begins. Wobbling front tyre, wobbling front tyre. I hope the tyre won’t wobble now. Dhaula Kuan, Dhaula Kuan, Dhaula Kuan, Dhaula Kuan. A jittery drive of another half an hour and the bus halts. Dhaula Kuan Dhaula Kuan Dhaula Kuan. Another misnomer, another mysterious name, another halt at another mysteriously deep well long long lost. A mysterious hint at the wells that go subterranean, into inerminable journeys. Why do these hints crop up again and again? The driver had big Rajasthani bushy moustaches spreading all over his cheeks. “I am a Rajput. I do not drive drab weakling, thinned down versions. How can I? It is Kalekhan. It is Dhaula Kuan. Doesn’t matter. Then what? Let them climb in thousands, nay in millions. Let the bus burst—the best, the best. Let it open up at its seams and disclose its abilities, its prowess. I would drive it when it is up to the brim, nay overloaded, nay spilling down.”
They climbed onto the roof of the bus, they stood in the aisle, they sat into the laps of the neighbors, they puffed smoke, smiled, swore and struck their bulging tummies and grated their harsh buttocks against those of the others and when the bus finally swerved in all grace for Alwar, all of them were absorbed into the one grand rhythm of the engine exuding the strong stench of diesel.
They have built innumerable bridges on the road, it seems to me. They have built excellent roads but the officials extract a lot of money before you can continue driving on those stretches. Toll taxes, scribbling your names on the slips that you throw out after a while, littering the road. Delhi-Jaipur road is excellent. Then you suddenly turn. Off the NH-8 and it is Tijara. A fortress on the top of the hill, a big water tank and down there on the plain the black Jaina-images in the cells full of mirrors. Wonderful place. I was just thinking like that. Just half an hour more, a mere stretch of thirty kilometers and we are at Alwar—its British clock tower, its milk-cake shops, its fresh sugar-cane juice. All that. This bus-driver is exceptionally brilliant, inimitable, matchless—conductor too. Though they fill and overfill the bus they do take you to the places. They have a perfect knack of doing business. Thorough professionals. Cultured too—at times.
It has already stopped raining. Normally they do not take the bus through the town and avoid it, taking the bye-pass. They are supposed to. But this professional pair of the Rajasthani driver and conductor decide to go through the city. They would be able to pick up more passengers. Gluttons—with bellies enormous. Ravenous. “Not to worry, not to worry, madam. It is quite a short-cut to Alwar. That bye-pass would be a long one, a prolonged one, circling and circling around the town. This is good. The veritable goodness.”
It was a narrow lane short-cut. “Don’t worry. Quick sir, quick madam, we would be very quick, awfully quick. Let us go through this small and beautiful village, this ancient town of art and religion, this sleepy town, an ancient Indian village. Rich culture. It would be a very good route, very short one. Not to worry madam.” And they drove one tyre into a side-way drain. O this Indian slush! There was a lot of that and the tyre got into the slushy drain. The bus started tilting. The driver with big bushy moustaches was doing his best. He pressed the accelerator hard leaning, stretching all the way under the steering wheel. The bus was tilting, going down. The driver stopped the engine and jumped out. The conductor was gentle. “Not to worry, ma’am. Not to worry sir, just get out slowly and steadily and calmly and quietly,” and he too vanished. The bus tilted more. It struck against a pole, leaning heavily against it, tilting it. Overhead, the naked electric cables started slackening, dangling dangerously.
All of us must come out. It is too dangerous to be inside. Soon the bus would flow with electric current. But where would we land outside? Straight into a knee-deep slush. It is slush all the way, the knee deep slush. Hold hand to hand, cross the slush, we won’t drown. There is a hand pump just across, at the end of this stretch of road. This hand pump sucks sweet water, cool water right out of the depths of the earth. That bus-driver that leonine-mustached one is not to be seen anywhere. The conductor is there at the end of the five hundred feet stretch. Full of pity for us, he gesticulates wildly. “Not to worry, not to worry. The hand pump is here. Very much here. We would wash you clean here. A complete baptism. A font of nectar.” A veritable sight of optimism. A veritable figure of optimism. “Just reach here. Manage somehow, cross the Rubicon and I would treat you everyone of you with a fresh cup of tea.”
O to reach the hand pump, the very beacon of light, the power-house, the light-house. All the able-bodied and brave men have escaped already. We are the bunch of elderly people, the women not that young and some young too with babies in their arms. Out of the tilting bus, we had landed direct into the knee deep slush. How beautifully and uniformly it was laid on that long stretch of five hundred feet! How beautiful! The power cables had fallen on the bus electrifying it. But we were out in the slush, wading deeply like an albatross caught in the heavy sea-waves. Keep your baby in your arms, your attaché case on your head and wade like an albatross. We clasped hands in a long string of human figures. There were houses with mud-walls, half-baked bricks all around. The men and women of Tijara stood on their roof tops, hanged in their balconies, peeped through their painted windows. Perhaps they made fun of us or cried at us—I don’t know. We went in a single graceful human file, chained hand to hand. Step by step. Step by step. By the time we reached the hand pump and the tea-kiosk, we found the braver lot already enjoying their cup of tea. The lady with the baby shouted—give back my money. “Don’t worry. I would treat everyone of you with a cup of tea. All of you have crossed the slush majestically. Here is your good tea madam. And to you all sirs and madams and completely at may expense.” We pumped water and washed everything. We will wait for another bus, the last bus of the evening. Alwar is just a few miles from here. Not to worry, not to worry. Just remember the beautiful hills of Alwar, those great Aravalli ranges, we would soon be there. We would soon be there. Very soon.
Arun Gaur
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