Travelers

Lee Travels

Lee spent a good deal of time on buses and trains. She liked traveling though she wasn't much of a sightseer. She sat and looked out of the window. It was always the same countryside. Intrinsically it was boring, but to such an extent that the boredom became interesting. It was always the same and one could see that it had always been the same. The land was usually parched and ugly except where there were fields. When there were fields, there were peasants in them and these too were always the same: drab bodies in drab loincloths. They drew water from wells or guided bullocks drawing plowshares. The wells, the bullocks, the plowshares, the dry land, the everlasting sun: they continued mile after mile, day after day, while the train traveled on.

Inside the buses or trains it was also always the same. But whereas outside it was empty and silent, inside it was just the opposite. The public transport was always overcrowded. Crammed to bursting point. Everyone was traveling. They went to attend weddings, join pilgrimages, visit relatives in distant places. They brought many children with them, and some livestock, and a variety of shabby bundles. Many of these bundles held food: much eating had to be done in the course of
the journey. Journeys were always long, for, in order to get from one place to another, great distances had to be traversed. Everyone accepted the overcrowding and the ensuing heat, smells, and discomfort without question.

Lee also accepted them. She was happy traveling this way. She felt she was no longer Lee but part of the mass of travelers huddled and squashed together. And when she looked out of the window, and the hours passed, and nothing ever changed out there, then too it was easy to forget about being Lee. That suited her very well. It was what she had come for: to lose herself in order—as she liked to put it—to find herself.

Raymond Writes to His Mother

Raymond had come for different reasons. Here he is writing to his mother; he writes to her about three or four times a week. They had always shared everything.

“. . . Bought another handloom rug. I know I'm overdoing the handicrafts and I'm sure I shall soon be quite sick of them but in the meantime they're nice. It's getting very snug in here. Actually, I feel as if I've been living in this flat for ages. I'm already familiar with the exact daily routine of my neighbors. E.g.: at seven every morning the householder from downstairs sits in his courtyard to be shaved. He sits on a chair like a king and the barber scrapes at his cheeks with some great cutlass—a murderous-looking instrument which, however, he wields very tenderly. In the next courtyard regularly at the same time two women fight with their servant, a pock-marked old man who fights back, and in the courtyard next to that another woman fights with
her
servant, who doesn't fight back. He is an undernourished boy who looks eight but is probably twelve.

“Yesterday I looked up another of my New Delhi contacts (uncle of Surinder who is a friend of David Manse, who was at Cambridge with me). They asked me to dinner. I'm getting quite blasé about accepting sumptuous hospitality from strangers
for no merit of my own except that I happen to know someone who knows someone they know. The food, as always, was superb and excessive. Everyone here eats excessively—those that do eat, I mean. There were the usual questions which I'm getting adept at answering though never to anyone's satisfaction. They're all sure I'm hiding something. I notice that people find it hard to believe that anyone should want to come here of their own free will and on no particular business. Certainly, all the Indians I meet seem, most of them, intent on getting out. Quite a few of them have recently been. I'm shown the ice-cream mixers and tape recorders they've brought back with them.

“But now I too am entertaining. Great excitement: Shyam keeps popping in and out to show me dishes and trying to decide which will do for sandwiches, which for cakes. It seems none of them will do for anything and we shall have to acquire an entirely new set. Shyam also thinks it might be necessary to outfit him with a new uniform consisting of a high-collared coat with gold buttons. He points out that some American ladies equip their bearers with white gloves for the purpose of serving guests. I retort that my guest may not have as high standards as the guests entertained by the American ladies. Then Shyam becomes suspicious and, pressing inquiries, discovers that my guest is in fact an Indian, and a mere student at that. I'm afraid this entirely destroys Shyam's pleasure. But I continue to look forward to my guest. He seems a pleasant boy. I met him at that wedding I wrote you about. His name is Gopi.”

Asha Is Bored

Asha lived in an apartment in Bombay. It was a beautiful apartment in a very modern block and she lived right on top, from where she had a wonderful view over the sea. It was the rainy season and the sea was in turmoil and huge waves rose up like sea monsters and flung their spray far over the land. Usually
Asha loved this sight—she adored things fierce and passionate because she herself was so—but now she was bored with everything. She moved from one room to the other and out onto the terrace where she leaned on the parapet to look with moody eyes over the heaving sea. This palled quite soon and she was back inside, fiercely kicking at things that got in her way and quarreling with Bulbul, her old woman servant. Bulbul retreated into the kitchen where she winked at the other servants and told them that it was going to be a rough day today.

But she was wrong. Instead of tempests, there was an unnatural silence shot through with Asha's heavy sighs. She drank some vodka, which, however, made her feel worse. Then she began to telephone various friends, hoping that they would come and visit her and cheer her up. But either they were not at home or they were not free to come. This made her feel she had no friends. No friends, no lovers, nothing, no one: only Bulbul and the other servants who would have left her tomorrow if they got a better chance elsewhere. Especially Bulbul, who pretended to be so devoted, just because she had seen Asha born: she would be the first to run off if there were anyone else to give her money the way Asha did and saris and blouse-pieces. Just as Asha had reached this point in her thoughts, Bulbul came up behind her and began to massage her temples in the way Asha usually loved. But today Asha flung her off and told her to keep out of her way for the rest of the day and preferably forever; that would be the best, if she could pack up and leave and not show her ugly old face here again. Bulbul took it all quite calmly and said her baby, her sweetheart, was out of sorts today, and then she went off into the kitchen and made a nice meal off some leftover fish curry and a piece of pickle.

The way a finger probes a wound, the tongue a hollow tooth, so Asha sought to aggravate her aching soul. She did this by looking at herself in the mirror. Yes, then indeed she had cause for pain. However, as she looked—fascinated in spite of herself, drawing back from the mirror and looking from the best vantage
point from over a shoulder proudly turned—she began to find that there was after all still something left to admire. Her eyes burned with fire, her bosom heaved; her hair was still as black as ever, and what did it matter that this effect was achieved with the help of a tiny bit of art. Not a young woman but, she found, a handsome one: and she was about to cheer up when it struck her that, however handsome she might be, who was there to admire and appreciate her the way she needed? She took up the framed photograph of her husband that stood among the gold and crystal vials on her dressing table; she pressed her face against the cold glass. But that too was no satisfaction: not only was he dead, but the memory of him alive was not all that pleasant. She had had a lot of trouble with him.

The telephone rang and she pounced on it greedily. With what joy she greeted her friend Tara Bai! They talked and soon Asha was quite cheered up. Tara Bai had rung up to tell her about a dinner dance she had attended the night before and what a scandal had been created there by one of those new little starlets. Only she couldn't tell Asha over the phone because—well, it was so
dirty,
said Tara Bai giggling madly, she would have to wait till they met. At once! Asha commanded, they must meet at once, they would have lunch together, perhaps drive out to the restaurant on the beach and eat steak and watch the waves. But Tara Bai was busy for lunch, she was going to meet—guess who, and she giggled again in a sly way so that Asha knew it was one of those young men she was always taking up with. “Wish me luck,” said Tara Bai and smacked loving kisses into Asha's ear before ringing off.