Find Me At the Gates
Part Two: Why I Left India
29 February 2012 Wednesday
I had put off returning to the States and all it would entail: moving from San Francisco to my condo in Venice Beach, starting a new job in my family's business. India seemed so distant and vague. Visiting the spot where I spread my father's ashes twenty-three years before had been an intense experience. Going back there helped me find peace with the world. Ramesvaram, a rural town in the South, was still a private paradise, just as it had been in 1989. The view from my hotel window was exactly the same: the Indian Ocean with islands in the distance; black crows playing in the branches of nearby palms.
My father was Christian, but since I had been a member of an Eastern guru group at the time, he said it would be okay with him to spread his ashes in India. He died peacefully at home after a two and a half-year battle with cancer. He was grateful for every day of life in those last thirty months and said that 1988, his last year, had been the best year of his life. The island where we spread his ashes was visible from my hotel window.
It was ridiculous to graduate college, then go look for a guru. It was the fashion then, but looking back now it seems futile, like looking for a surrogate father figure to take care of me. Spending time in India again made me realize how much regret I'd been carrying about my involvement in the group. I kept a journal the whole year in India and wrote about my religious feelings, thinking that perhaps later it would make a good book. I loved India and wished I could stay there forever.
I ate breakfast in the hotel, it had a sophisticated British feel, with its bleached white buildings, tidy boundary wall and flags atop every pillar. I checked out and said goodbye to the kindly Indian gentleman at the desk, then walked outside and hired a rickshaw. The driver put my suitcases into the back of his canopied, three-wheel scooter and opened the door for me. The rickshaw rattled as we sped down the driveway and out the open gates of the hotel grounds.
We buzzed down the road, with the ocean to our left. Several pilgrims stood waist-deep in the warm, sacred water, poised in prayerful reverence. Temple pagodas and ashrams had become a familiar sight along the shore. The Ramesvaram temple was on our right. A group of villagers walked down the road carrying bundles of food on their heads.
We continued on toward the bus station. It was just about 8 a.m. We passed through an open-air market crowded with animals, motorized scooters, cars and rickshaws. The floral scents of incense hovered in the warm air, blending with the smell of frying bread, as shopkeepers prepared their morning meals. It was an exciting chaos of bells and honking, people bustling and merchants speaking in Telegu and English. The stalls displayed posters of the gods, strings of meditation beads, and flower garlands for offering. Every shop had set out trays of tilak, vibhuti, and kumkum, the clay, ashes, and red powder religious Hindus use to mark their third eye. Straw awnings extended from the stalls, forming a roof over the marketplace, to block the hot mid-day sunshine.
My driver navigated the crowded scene and took me to the temple where I spread my father's ashes twenty-three years before. I wanted to see it one last time and say goodbye to the priest. After that, the rickshaw driver took me back into town, to the bus station. I found a seat on the bus and waited as passengers gradually filled the empty seats. The driver jumped on, started the engine, then jumped off. Beggars passed down the aisle soliciting donations, then left. More passengers got on until the bus was crowded, then the driver got back on, closed the door, clashed the gears, and the bus growled and rolled out of the station.
The bustling marketplace gradually gave way to neighborhoods of simple bungalows and then to farmland. We crossed a suspension bridge with wide views of the Indian mainland and continued down the narrow highway. Brightly painted lorries seemed to head straight toward us on the narrow strip of highway, but then veer off to the right shoulder at the last minute. Indian drivers drive on the left and punctuate these maneuvers with honking, and our driver honked vigorously at every vehicle we passed. The Tamil Nadu countryside was dotted with farms. Beyond the fields rose brown, rocky mountains with thickets of palm trees around their base. Occasional clusters of roofs or a temple cupola showed through the trees.
After a few hours, the bus pulled into a village. Beggars and merchants crowded around the vehicle, hoping to catch our attention. A woman sold me some bananas, making the exchange through my window. Back on the road, I offered bananas to the other passengers and got them to tell me about the local news. Barreling down the monotonous, dusty road had a hypnotic effect. The dry air was too warm despite the air conditioning. Heat mirages played on the road. After a while I dozed off.
At 4 p.m. the bus pulled into Madras. I got off, claimed my bags and caught a taxi to the airport. I thought about the moving company that had been storing my belongings for the past year. All they needed was a phone call and twenty-four hour notice. It was so simple, yet the thoughts kept tumbling around in my mind. It was difficult to relax in the rumbling black taxi, hoping all the flight connections would go smoothly. The driver turned off his motor at every red light, perhaps to conserve gasoline. At last we pulled into the Madras airport, where the driver put my suitcases on the curb and sped away. I was still in India, but was already starting to miss it.
The airport was a simple cement building with a paved parking lot on one side and a runway on the other. Groups of taxi drivers stood in the shade, smoking and talking. Some wore cotton sarongs tied around the waist, while others wore cotton drawstring pants with faded cotton shirts. The day had been hot, but was quickly slipping into evening. A porter pointed at my suitcases and I nodded, offering him some rupees. He tossed the heavy bags on his head and balanced them with one hand. "Follow me madam," he said. He was tall and thin, probably from the North and very old. He went through swinging glass doors and I went after, trying to keep up with him. He stopped at the check-in counter, set the bags gently on the ground, then disappeared into the crowd.
I checked in and soon boarded the plane. It felt good to fall into the plane's cushioned comfort. It would take several more flights to reach Los Angeles; I would spend the night in New Delhi, then catch another plane that would take me as far as Tokoyo. Today was leap day - an extra day - with three days of travel and a time change still ahead. I was exhausted by the time I passed through customs at LAX on Sunday afternoon. It was a fateful decision to return to Los Angeles, a city that held so many memories. Maybe I should have stayed in India. Or maybe everything after that, including my imagined car wreck, was meant to be.
