How Long the Lonely Road

Prepare to meet Kali—in Hell! —Indiana Jones Once I heard a story of a lone Brit astride a Royal Enfield Bullet, a classic motorcycle, the chassis unchanged from the ’50s, and he was driving along India’s highways, fulfilling some post-colonial dream, when somewhere ahead of him on the dusty highway that runs between jungle and mountain he encountered what appeared to be a wall of oncoming traffic, an impossible and anachronistic vehicular rampart. At the far left of the road, in the slow lane, limped two heavy-humped oxen, long horns painted blue, pulling at a cart loaded with hay; a Hindu in a collared shirt riding a bicycle past this, a tuk-tuk ripping past the bicycle with a whole tangle of tied-upped chickens squawking on the back bench, then a half-rusted car with those old voluptuous streamlines around headlights and taillights passing the tuk-tuk, and finally a huge Tata truck, the king of the road, its bed weighed down with cardboard boxes, boxes piled so high they stood abov...

Each leaf on the tree is a holy scripture when you have to teach the soul how to read. —Martin of Bolivia I left the City of Joy for the City of Lights: Benares, the Holy City, nine millennia old. I had heard legends of the corpse fires, the septic River Ganges, but very little of the culture and warmth and energy I found there. The City of Lights is also called the City of Learning, for both Indians and foreigners come to Benares to learn to play the classical Indian instruments—sitar, sarode, tanpura, tabla, harmonium, and their human voice—so that, unlike most of India, every foreigner who lives in the city seems to be there for a reason. The sounds of their rehearsals echo through the alleyways and sing out over the river. I took an overnight train to Benares from Calcutta. I was glad to be on the top bunk, since my feet always stick out and that way nobody trips over them. Still it was difficult to sleep, as my bed smelled like rotten vegetables, and the chai-wallahs walked up an...

No money no honey, No chicken no curry, Full power twenty-four hour, No toilet no shower. —Obnoxious Indian Rhyme Rather than let this become a tale of three cities, my narrative will proceed quickly to Benares, as quickly as I traveled. It was 27 hours by train from Madras to Calcutta, and I thought to break this up by visiting a city halfway between in one of the states scarcely attended by tourists. The city I visited in Orissa is worth mentioning only once and in the following way: do not visit Bhubaneswar. It is interesting only because of the nearby Sun Temple, and the annoyance of the city’s rickshaw drivers, newly come down from a strike where they blocked all the roads and halted the city. At issue was the municipalities proposal of a few local city buses, which would have deprived them of business, and this in the context of a recent hike in gas prices to 50 rupees a gallon (and that’s more expensive than in the states). I arrived there in the morning and left at night; anot...