Home | Hobbies | Books | Mutiara Laut | Website Projects | Links

• Previous

A journey through India

We touched down in New Delhi at one o’clock at night.
The hotel bus was waiting.
A taxi would cost 20 guilders
And the bus was free of charge.
Later we understood why:
He didn’t bring the guests to the hotels they asked for,
But to those hotels where he got a commission.
That meant we only arrived at our hotel three hours later...
and we even walked the last stretch.
On the way to the hotel I saw trees full of yellow parrots.
“Look, a tree full of yellow parrots”, I said.
“Impossible”, Carin said,
but when she took a closer look
she also saw them.
“Oh”, she exclaimed amazed.
Our adventure had started…
We had booked a hotel for the first night
And fell immediately asleep like marmots.

On one of our parties in Amsterdam
we had met a man from India
and he had given us his name card.
Carin phoned him the next afternoon
And we were most welcome.
He sent us his driver.
He lived in a big house in a residential area,
filled with antiques and precious objects.

His wife was a very attractive lady.
He asked me how many businesses I owned.
I quickly started to count, because this was never asked me.
I told him: Four”.
“Oh”, he said. “I own fifty factories”
“Oh”, I said.
 They held a party that evening
and asked us to stay.
We told him about our plans
and asked his advice.
He didn’t understand why we came to his country:
everybody was unreliable
and knew no manners.
It was dirty, everywhere, everywhere
and not safe.
Before you knew it you were robbed or stabbed.
“Go rafting in Nepal,
though that is better in Switzerland”.

When we told him that we intended to travel by train
He roared with laughter.
“That is the surest way to get killed”,
he said.
“I myself always travel by plane “.
“But then you don’t see anything of the country”,
I exclaimed.
“So much the better”, he said.
That evening ended in the best of spirits.

His guests arrived in Western brand automobiles,
-not allowed to be imported-,
wearing yeans and T-shirts,
drinking imported whiskey – not available in India –
and barbequed sirloin steaks from New York.
The ladies talked about shopping in San Francisco and Milan.
We were glad when the driver took us to our hotel
And hoped we would never see them again.

The next morning we looked for a cheaper hotel.
The one we had now was very dirty
And expensive for 460 guilders.
We found a popular backpackers hotel,
Russian style, Stalinist architecture, very ugly,
But it was only 28 guilders.
At that time India flirted with Russia
so there were many of these style buildings in the city.
All noticeable because of their vulgar ugliness.

At the Reception desk
hundreds of people were queuing
so we just sat down, next to a man who was speaking Dutch.
He introduced himself as Arnold Karsten.
He had just arrived from the war zone in Sri Lanka,
had crossed the straits by canoe to India
and would fly back to The Netherlands within a couple of days.
He looked unkempt and dirty.
We finally got a room on the 17th floor.
There was a bathroom: a tank made from granite,
(red in former days) and a small bedroom
with very dirty bed sheets.
Carin flushed most of the cockroaches through the toilet
and made it homely.

A week ago we had read at home
that a hotel had burned down with 45 people dead,

Arnold had been here frequently and suggested
to go into the town together.
He had to go to the hairdresser because his hair
was about half a meter long.
So we went looking for a hairdresser and,
after being cut and shaven,
the barber asked tenfold the normal price
so Arnold walked angry out of the shop.
The barber gripped him.
Arnold turned and punched him.
The barber hit back and in a jiffy
the whole neighborhood came
to help in the fight.
A taxi just passed and we hauled him
and dragged Arnold inside,
but his wallet was left behind,
We didn’t dare to go back and – anyway –
it certainly would be emptied if ever we found it.
It not only had contained his money
but also his passport
and we had read all the stories about this
in the Lonely Planet.
First we had to go to the Indian Immigration Office to obtain an exit permit.
Two days waiting if you are lucky.
And then to the Dutch Embassy waiting there also,
sometimes even for two days.
The reason was that in India they were not allowed to use computers because of the employment.
So all had to be typed on a typing machine.
We accompanied him because he was quite upset
and able to murder the complete population of India. 
He was very over strung and couldn’t stand anything.
We once had a wedding party of a lovely couple
in our restaurant
and it was such a success that we extended the evening

without any extra payment.
We had enjoyed ourselves so tremendously.
He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and would soon be sent out for an assignment,
he told us in the evening having his last beer at the bar.
Where to he didn’t know yet.

We arrived in the reception hall
and it was full with people.
We waited and there passed our friend
of the previous party.
He recognized us immediately
and he was surprised to see us here.
We introduced Arnold and told him about his problem.
“A good opportunity to do something back”, he said.
“Come back in the afternoon and it will all be fixed.”
“How about the Immigration Office ?”.
“I have friends there…”,
and that was true….

We left Arnold , wished him a good journey
and went into town to the Red Fort,
the oldest building in town.
We stared our eyes out :
at the Fort, the people in their garments
and the various little shops.
What a treasures were displayed here.
Countless jewelers with thousands of ornaments, an unbelievable collection.
Suddenly we heard a sharp cry from a woman.
We asked the jeweler what that was about.
“Oh, possibly a woman who burned herself alive.
That happens so often that we even don’t go and have a look.
Probably her parents can’t pay the dowry and the woman,
who lives with the relatives of the husband,
is getting such a hard life that the only thing she can do
is burn herself to death.
It happens so often”.
We stared at each other horrified;
our first confrontation
with the mysterious Indian Culture had begun.

Carin spent the night on the toilet having her first bout of diarrhea….

Early the next day by scooter to the station and ,
after the drama of paying ,into the great hall
maneuvering around the cows and the pariah families
as if that was a normal thing for us to do.
And there was our train, a modern TEE so to speak.
We hardly sat or the breakfast order was taken.

Three hours to Agra, three hours looking out at lovely villages
with huts of mud, standing in a circle as a Kraal in Africa
The day had started. Everybody was bathing in the little rivers
and along the railroad people were shitting.
We had never ever seen it :
so many bare bums on a row and in-between roamed the pigs,
cows, chicken and dogs.
In short : it looked very cozy…

Agra

We arrived in Agra at 10 o’clock.
On the platforms we were offered various hotels
but we had made our choice already.
Our scooter took us there directly without problems:
it turned out he also got a commission…
It was a beautiful guesthouse with a room with a balcony, 
parrots in the trees and a monkey on the balcony rail.
What else could one want for 10 guilders…?
We sat a while in the sun and were burned red after a few hours; 
our first lesson for the Tropics.
We took a scooter to the city centre: to the carpet-weaving mills, 
the marble-workshops and souvenir stalls,
but we had no chance to stop where we wanted; 
only there where the driver got a commission.
We tried another scooter but it was the same story so there was no other way 
than to go by foot, in this heat. 
We went to the Red Fort 
which consisted of about sixteen remnants of a monumental palace.
Outbuildings, stairs and corridors everywhere, a real maze.
Tea cost 10 cents. We drank some amidst squirrels who ate out of our hands.
We visited various shops with trinkets 
and materials for Carin and then to the pub. 
There was only one; pubs are very scarce in India. 
Sometimes a few in the big cities but nowhere else.
To get liquor, one has to go to a Wine and Spirit Shop, 
of which there is only one in every city. 
And it is quite a job to find someone who knows where to find one...
This one here was a gay joint. 
Subdued lights, loud TV and men making love to each other. 
But at least they sold beer.

The next morning we rose at six for the sunrise at the Taj Mahal 
and this is – indeed – a dream.
A serene, virginal, mystical dream 
of which one awakes in the slanting morning light.
Impossible to tell how beautiful this structure is. 
No words to describe how fragile, how refined. Unbelievable. 
It has that “something” which can not be put into words.
The monument was built by an inconsolable Prince 
whose wife died giving birth to their fourteenth child.
It was erected in the seventeenth century as a symbol of love 
and I think that is exactly what one feels when one stands in front of it: 
love, adoration, sublime glorification…
All created in white marble, built in 22 years by twenty thousand workmen.
We were glad we had come so early because, 
if together with thousands of visitors during the day, 
a lot of the atmosphere would have been lost.
Standing on a balcony we saw the river, 
far away in the beautiful landscape and at the water-edge a vulture. 
Such an old-man-alike ugly giant bird with its feet in the water. 
Within seconds there were ten. 
They had spotted a prey but we couldn’t make out what it was. 
Finally there were hundreds of them, all pecking a cadaver. 
It was like a movie.
India, how beautiful you are. 
How colorful, divers, rough, rich and all that mixed together. 
We do enjoy you...
After their meal the vultures let themselves dry in the sun, 
their wings spread out and their ugly heads bent down.

That afternoon we wanted to go to the market. 
According to the map it lies north of the Fort. 
This city has millions of inhabitants, all living on top of eachother.
We ordered a rickshaw and it took us to his shop 
so we got out and took another, 
who took his to his shop. 
This happened four times and we became desperate. 
We had not yet arrived after two hours. 
The commission they get is their income and they will do everything to get it. 
They just don’t listen and refuse to take you where you want to go.
And after two hours we decided to go on foot again…
We found ourselves in the Middle Ages.

Barathpur Bird Sanctuary

We arrived in Fatapusikri, a completely walled city,
four hundred years old with a beautiful Kasbah.
From there we went to Barathpur, to the largest birdsanctuary in India,
the Keoladeo National Park.
We looked for a guesthouse but all were full;
only a shed was still available. Later we were joined by three Dutchmen
and the five of us slept nicely in the shed.
But first we rented bikes and went into the Park
because we still had a few hours before dark.
There were many, many birds: this area is one big morass
and in wintertime a lot of birds from Siberia and China
are hibernating here.
There are about 365 different species, fluttering around.
Parrots, cranes, old-men birds, flamingo’s, vultures and many more.
We also saw a roe with its fawn and, to top it all up,
buffaloes and wild boars.
It got dark and we got lost and when it even got darker
we saw a sign: “Pythonroad” and then we got a bit scared,
all the more when an ox came out of the bushes and crossed our path.
We studied the stars to find out our position
and we tried other things until I suddenly saw this big, dead tree
as a large shadow and recognized it from our way up.
In the guesthouse they were already worried
and planning to look for us with Landrovers.

Jaipur

Again an early rise the next morning to go to Jaipur.
By train but First Class.
After a four-hour journey we arrived
and went to a - us recommended – hotel: Hotel Bissau.
No rickshaw was willing to take us there because no commission...
So we took the public transport with hundreds in a minivan
and then a long walk in the heat with our heavy rucksacks.
From afar it looked a mess and we got our doubts,
but coming closer it turned out to be a fairytale.
Built in 1921 by a Maharaja as a love-nest and it still looked like it:
beautiful halls with cretonne curtains and jewelry in show-cases.
A swimmingpool with chairs in the garden,
a room with a bathroom with bath, running water and clean sheets.
Carin wanted to stay here forever…and she hastened to make it cozy again.
We just slept when we were awakened by a tremendous noise.
Music and what for music: gigantic din.
We jumped out of bed and went by scooter to look for the source.
It was a wedding, so gorgeous, so fairy-like.
The groom was blindfolded and covered with banknotes
and silver- and gold-colored garlands.
The horses were harnessed and decorated, gas-lanterns in various colors,
an accordion player on a cart with four enormous loudspeakers and following,
a complete harmony orchestra to fetch the bride in the middle of the night...
The party would last for three days, we learned.
We also were dolled up with garlands and had to join, if we wanted or not.
We danced the whole night until we dropped
and then we were kindly requested to leave.
When we woke up we saw the garlands and knew that it hadn’t been a dream…
Jaipur, a more colorful town doesn’t exist, I suppose.
The women resemble the most fantastic rainbow with their gaudy clothes,
nose-rings, hip-belts, ankle bands, toe-rings,
on bare feet and with loads on their heads, while suckling a child.

The traffic and life on the streets.

One could write a special book about the traffic.
Basically you can’t call it traffic.
Everybody goes his own way,
crisscrossing and no part of the road is left free.
All that can make a noise will do so.
The coaches with the spruce little horses, the rickshaws,
 the camels with their heavily loaded carts,
the push-carts with the towering loads being pushed or drawn,
the donkeys with their loads strapped around their body,
the elephants carrying people, the horses, the oxcarts,
the buffalos paired by two, the scooters, busses, motorbikes,
one big pell-mell. But no cars….
Everywhere on the street people are selling their wares.
Monkeys play in the ramshackle buildings
while cows and goats just roam around.
Then the Sikhs, wearing turbans and black beards.
This all in a continuous and tolerant movement.
We did not see one single accident.
All stores are supplied with a bed
which is used to work from
and the gaudy cloth and materials are neatly draped
and make a colorful décor.
Vain, beautiful women have them spread out
and are snowed under by the splendid fabrics.

They take their time to make a choice. Nobody is in a hurry,
which is impossible here anyhow.
Someone chases a monkey from his balcony,
the children call “Ta, ta” to you
and the most daring amongst them ask for a ballpoint.
Once in a while a holy man or woman passes,
clad in a humble loincloth or just naked.
They say nothing but just stare with their hollow, big, strange eyes,
the hair uncombed and – sometimes – their faces painted
and with a garland of flowers around their necks,
but nobody pay any attention.
A beggar with a stump where once his hand was,
a child crawling on the street,
its legs dragging behind him or children without legs at all
who move around with their hands pushing a little cart,
a butcher who is boning meat with a knife between his toes
while vultures are waiting on the roof of his shop for the scraps,
pigs roaming the dunghills looking for some food,
the goats and cows being milked in the middle of the road
between the traffic ( the only way to get fresh milk ).
A fight because a rickshaw-driver knocks over a full can of milk,
women backing the chapatti’s in a tandoori,
little fires everywhere preparing some food,
hawking men spitting, music from old radio’s,
a genuine snake-charmer, scrawny dogs all around
and birds in all sorts and sizes, giving a polyphonic concert.
Men and animal make up a world together and let eachother live,
the poor as well as the rich.
What is the “value” of our society, one tends to think.
When the electricity goes off they take a candle
but for us the whole world collapses...
One lives his life here intensely.
India makes you think and contemplate…
When one sees the enormous palaces and forts of the Maharaja’s,
built with an excess of pomp and splendor and their unprecedented luxury,
one tends to think that something has gone awry, but who are we to judge..

That evening we dined in the former palace of a Maharaja,
the Rambagh Palace, converted into a hotel
and one of the finest in Rajasthan.
It was a dream, a fairy-tale;
we pinched eachother to be sure it was real.
A sweeping drive complete with Rolls Royces in a time
that there were hardly any cars in India.
A magnificent park with fountains and a palace
as we only knew from fairy-tale books. An incomprehensible luxury.
Servants in style, wearing yellow turbans elaborately wound.
We once saw the folding of a cloth of one meter wide
and fourteen meters long…
They wore green tunics and white trousers.
The dining room was chique, stately
and imposing with ten meter high ceilings
and walls painted with Renaissance scenes.
Marble lamps, seemingly transparent
and a hand-woven carpet from wall to wall.
The tables laid with the most beautiful silverwares.
Baskets with fresh rolls and real butter. We ordered a bottle of wine,
the first in al these weeks, for twenty guilders.
We were the only travelers,
the rest of the guests were extremely chique people.
We enjoyed it all because it was so unique for us.
For them it was probably quiet normal…
They knew India by plane,
going from one palace to another
or by the Maharaja Express, de palace on wheels.
We knew better, thank goodness…
The food was nice but not special

and the bill came to hundred-and-fifty guilders
for 5 persons.
Our rickshaw-driver was fast asleep outside the gate,
waiting for us and at twelve o’clock
we were back in our nice bed.
And up again in the early morning:
what a pity that all goes so fast.
We are already accustomed to the morning-hawking
of our neighbors,
what they call “oral cleaning”,
to the tea always spilled over,
to the sweeping of our terrace
when we are having breakfast,
to the telephone never working if you want to make a call,
to the regular failing of the electricity
and to the fact that the tap seldom gives water…

Pushkar

PUSHKAR

Known because of its camel market but it was not held at the moment.
A very remarkable place at a large lake full of fish,
that one is not allowed to catch because they are sacred.
Fine: six month…
The ashes of Nehru and Gandhi are strewn out here,
over this lake.
Pushkar is a clean town, believe it or not,
very clean actually. How is it possible…?
To get there we had to take first the bus to Asjmer – 140 km in 3 hours -,
but to get tickets is difficult and is always a sport.
Everybody jumps the queue;
it is unbelievable how pert the people are if they want to push ahead,
but if you don’t do it yourself, you will never get a ticket.
But we were getting very experienced by now …
When we left Delhi it was cold but in the last fourteen days
it had become fourteen degrees warmer
and we were sweating profusely with our luggage:
eiderdown sleeping-bags that we had to guard at the same time.
In Asjmer we had to fight again for a ticket to Pushkar;
fifteen kilometers on that took half an hour.
What a terrible trip with a driver determined to commit suicide

Jodhpur

We went by bus through the desert because the train only goes by night.
Five hours in the soaring heat in an old ramshackle bus.
As we sat behind the driver we saw the perilous way
he overtook the trucks and once he cut in dangerously.
When we stopped at an oasis some truck-drivers came at him
and beat him nearly to death assisted by the villagers
who had nothing else to do anyway.
We thought that our last hour had come and waited tremblingly.
Luckily a Sikh sat also in the bus,
a tall one of two meters and he gripped our driver at his hair,
dragged him into the bus and ordered him to drive away and step on it.
We heaved a sigh of relief.
It went across the barren, stifling desert
and we saw at times little villages with beautiful, colorful women.
Further some skeletons of camels,
dogs and cows and once in a while some antelopes.
Jodhpur.The Durag Niwas Hotel.
It took again an eternity to check in,
like in any hotel because whites are of the lowest caste.
This is the only country I know
of that considers a white person
as inferior and they certainly let you feel it.
You are always the last to be served, everywhere…
At first we had the intention to go further southwards, but traveling in this heat on public transport
was very trying so we decided to go easy.
Doing the whole of India in six weeks is unfeasible,
even half is too much.
We visited the Fort on the mountain,
very imposing, tall and high.
When – in earlier days – the Maharaja died
and was cremated,
his wives convivially were allowed to join him on the pyre, but before they were thrown upon it
they had to make a imprint of their hands in clay
and here such an example was hanging.
The Fort was under restoration in the same way
as it was built before;
all by hand, even transport of the heavy stones and beams, unbelievable…
From this height we had a beautiful view of the city, consisting of mainly blue houses.
That evening we again had dinner at the Maharaja;
the same pomp and splendor as in Jaipur.
Another guest of our hotel told us
that we were spied upon through the keyhole
so we put a corkscrew in it.
That’s what one has learned to do
when one has been here for a longer time…

From Delhi to Varenasi

That afternoon we went to the stairs at the river, the ghats.
They were crowded with holy men and women
and offered a beautiful view of the Ganges and the shores on the other side.
The Ganges is a holy river with the dirtiest water in the whole of India.
One alleges that the water is so dirty that it kills all the germs
and that’s why it has such a purifying effect.
The cremation spot.
Every Indian dreams to be cremated at this spot.
The dead bodies are brought on any available transport.
Sometimes just by bicycle, bound on the carrier or by push-cart.
The place is just an area of black-burned sand
with large funeral-piles where the cremations are continuous:
one corpse is not yet fully burnt or the next body is placed upon it.
The ashes are put into baskets and rinsed in the river
to look for left valuables.
On the way to the ghats are stalls selling secondhand dentures…
We can not discover what is “holy” on these cremations:
everybody is just laughing,
the dogs are playing and the cows keep on grazing.
The firewood is very expensive because the sale is restricted
to only one caste so the poor are just dropped into the river
where numerous vultures are waiting on the other side
to attack the corpses and within half an hour the job is done.
The next morning at sunrise we visited the ghats at the Ganges
where the Dobiman are already busy with piles of washing.
The wet laundry is laid on the stones, smeared with soap
and the scrubbed and smashed on the stones until it is clean.
Half an hour to dry and it is ready to bring back to the clients.
All the laundry of Varenasi is processed here
and everybody gets his own clothes back.
It is unbelievable why all the underpants are not mixed up:
one of the secrets of India…
The ghats were crowded with people praying and bathing, brushing their teeth and peeing in the river.
From afar pilgrims come, hoping to get better.
We went by boat on the river.
Whole colonies of vultures sat at the other side,
waiting for their daily meal.
About ten vultures where pecking at something
floating in the river.
The smell was horrific; it turned out to be a dead cow.
A bit further we encountered human limbs,
not yet discovered by the vultures,
although the stench was terrible.
The cremation place was being prepared for the new day; fresh funeral piles were waiting for customers.
Genuine holy men sat on their little rafts,
meditating with a blissful smile on their faces,
lit by the early morning sun.
Hundreds of dogs were frolicking or fighting
and when one died, the others just devoured him.
Some were blind or lame
or dragged their intestines behind them
and litters of puppies lay in the gutters.
Amongst this all sat the palm- and card-readers performing their first miracles as well
as the masseurs and charlatans with their tiger-teeth and snake-heads,
the nail-cutters, ear-pickers, barbers, astronomers
and more unassorted trades.
You didn’t know where to look, what a special world. Farewell Varenasi.
Holy City, but not “see you again”… India oh India,
you are so horribly beautiful.
There is no country comparable...

From Varenasi to Calcutta.

Calcutta

The guide knew his way well
and he let us get out of the car
and then – as in a dream –
we were taken into Mother Theresa’ Hospital.
And what we saw there was beyond our imagination.
It resembled an immensely large cow-shed
with a central water-gully and on the sloping floor hundreds of people were laying,
swathed in white pieces of cloth like skeletons.
It was time for a bath, the pieces of cloth were removed and everybody was hosed down to get clean, dried
and given a new, fresh piece of cloth.
After that they were fed with spoons…
The poor have-nots were dying here,
surrounded by dedicated nurses, male and female,
from around the world.
We cried seeing so much love and mercy.
How serene and peaceful it was,
here in the centre of this city of wretched misery.

After this we went to Saint George Church,
a lovely little church from 1796 and still beautifully conserved.
A friendly verger, proud of his church, showed us around.
A beautiful, old pipe-organ was calling for my attention
and I asked permission to play, which was granted.
There I sat at the organ,
the sunbeams coming in through the glass-leaded windows,
in the centre of this pernicious city,
with Carin and the verger my only listeners
and the melancholic organ-tones reverberating
through the dead-silent church.
My thoughts were with Mother Theresa
and I played:
“If thou hast to leave this earth,
what was done with love
will be eternally here forever”…
It was enough for this day;
we couldn’t handle more emotionally.

Darjeeling

Another night’s journey of thirteen hours
took us to the North and we had a good night’s sleep.
The train arrived at eight-thirty in New Jalpaiguri,
the main station, linking East India
with the rest of the country.
 India is very narrow at this point.
Just wide enough to allow for a road and a railway.
Here we went looking for the Toytrain,
supposedly standing along a platform,
somewhere at this enormous station.
We found it and I was delighted.
It was still exactly as I had read about,
authentic and still in use as a normal train.
So, not only for tourists
although most passengers just rode it out of sheer fun.
My dream was finally coming true:
we would ride on the Toy train,
the only narrow-gauge mini-steam-train in the world.
The tracks were laid a hundred years ago,
high up into the mountains, from zero to twenty-six-hundred meters high,
with four loopings and innumerable bends.
A tiny baby-loc, a little luggage-car
and one First class and one Second Class compartment, that was all.
A coal-shoveller, an engine-driver, a water-filler
were on board and a ticket-collector,
who had to sign something at every station.
The First class had some passengers,
but the Second class was chock-full.
The distance was only eighty kilometers
but would take eight hours.
It was easy to fall in love with the baby-loc.
It blew steam all the time,
sometimes cheerful,
sometimes crying
and sometimes it hooted impatiently.
The lumps of coal were chopped into pieces on the way
and often it drove so slowly that you could get out, walk a while
and get in again when you got tired.
The whole stretch children hung onto the train
and on the top there were also passengers.
And this, while passing horrifying abysses
as if it was the most normal thing to do,
they kept up for five kilometers or more.
The train went straight through all sorts of villages
where the streets were sometimes so narrow
that we could have robbed the little shops out of our windows.
It crossed several times the parallel roads,
which was not much fun for the jeeps and busses
that had to stop many times.

What an experience.
We probably will never do it again:
into the Himalayas on a toy-train!
It is a train to love
and to shoot film rolls full with its picture.
The “Darjeeling Mail”, a dream…
Carin was scared, as usual,
because it went higher and higher.
The train sputtered and groaned and had to give all it had.
Once in a while it stopped to have tightened some nuts
and bolds or to be refilled with water.
Often we had to go backwards onto a side-track
to switch a point or to give way to an oncoming train.
All in all we were one-and-a-half hour behind schedule…covering only eighty kilometers…
What an adventure!
And then to think that there are still people
traveling to Darjeeling by bus because:
 “It goes faster”.
The higher we climbed the cooler it became
and everybody put on warm clothing,
but we hadn’t brought any.
Often we came so close to the huts
that we could have snatched the food from the tables.
You could look two-thousand meters down;
the rails were sometimes just two meters from the abyss.
The locals don’t look like Indians.
They have wide cheek-bones and are split-eyed.
Also they dress differently
and are soooooooooo much friendlier,
they even smiled.
They wear balaclavas, bulky coats and sweaters,
gloves and shawls but we perished from the cold
as it was only fifteen degrees at that moment.
Thus we arrived in Darjeeling, the land of the tea.
It is a beautiful, vast city, clinging to the base of the Himalayas.
The houses were slightly western and there seemed to be no poverty.
It was dark when we arrived at the Pagoda Hotel,
where the lights failed every five minutes.
The room was acceptable and we had to book for 2 nights.
Then we went into town to find some grub.
There was no continental food available,
but there was an abundance of very small restaurants
with curtains and partitioned rooms, so very private.
The lights went off at every moment.
Most of the shops have generators but they give off such a smell
that you don’t go in for pleasure.
It was a very touristy place with everywhere Darjeeling tea for sale, of course,
although they still don’t know how to make a nice cup of tea.
Too much milk and too much sugar.
Most of the locals have Tibetan/Nepalese faces.
We went to bed, it was so cold, and we were benumbed.

Back to Delhi

There was one shop that could deliver one within a day,
 which was fine as we had to leave in two days.
Then we went to buy merchandise for him.
In his sales-area were all those restaurants for the rich
and they always took their kids with them,
so we thought about children’s toys.
We bought a mini-bus full of plastic nick-nacks: little dolls, toy-cars etc. and the boy’s face radiated
and so did ours.
The next day around four o’clock the wheelchair arrived
as well as the toy-supplier.
Beaming we unpacked it all.
A large board had been constructed behind the seat.
We fastened all the merchandise on it, hoisted him on the seat
and gave him a shove on the way to a new future…
We walked back to our hotel where we met the owner on the roof-terrace. We proudly told him our story.
 “Don’t bless the day before it is over”, he said softly,
not wanting to ruin our pleasure.
We had the warm feeling to have done something in return.
India, we enjoyed you more than any other country we have visited.
It was strong meat but we could digest it.
Farewell
and until we meet again…

The next morning we packed and prepared for the journey home.
We still bought some last things in town,
had lunch, checked out, ordered a taxi
and off we went.

Before we turned the corner,
we looked back
and from far
somebody on a cart
waved goodbye…

• Previous