A Samosa with Extra Chilli

 

I’m passing in front of the famous Chotiwala restaurant at Rishikesh. There is a spicy rush at the eating point. The portly pink mascot sits with his tall choti and peers into the crowd with unseeing eyes. I wave at him to effect not the slightest reaction on his face and move on the pathway leading to Lakshman Jhoola.

You have Baba Kali Kamli’s Swarga Ashram community dining halls, first aid centres and rows and rows of the begging friars waiting for at least as much as mother nature won’t mind giving us—just enough to meet our need, keeping us out of the loop of greed.

Further on, you have big mango gardens on both sides. In between you have tiny cottages surrounded by the terai trees, the luxurious variety of vegetation that enjoys the advantages of both the plains and the hills.

There are numbered cottages, kutis, under the pious protection the Swargashram trust and banner. Kuti number 30 is very impressive. The dweller seems to have devoted a lot of attention in managing it.

In these tiny hermitages, surrounded by beneficent greenery, the unending quest to know the ultimate reality gets a stable platform. Here, the seekers of truth can rest and pause, unbothered about the struggles that they have faced so far in life.

There are yoga kendras and Sanskrit vidalyas situated among the groves. Yoga and meditation centres are a hot sell among the foreigners. Lynched by the inhuman onslaught of consumer and cultural monopoly that leaves hardly any choice for adventure, they arrive here to set out a new path of fun and frolics with the soul.

Taking a stroll along these spiritual delicacies, I take a U-turn and start walking back to have a visual revision of these vistas of faith. A destination-less walk can have as many U-turns and side-turns as possible. A foreigner seems eager to talk as I am walking on my destination-less path. It’s a mature conversation and we walk along the Ganges to reach a tea shop.    

The Canadian is a handsome man of around 50 years. He looks impressive with a baritone voice. Holding tea glass in one hand and caressing a street dog with the other, he looks to have a decent amount of share in both the physical and the metaphysical domains. He has spent a lot of time travelling all over India. He is almost proud to declare himself a staunch Indophile.

‘I love samosa. It’s better than the best burger any day. The corporate are destroying the Indian culture. Back home, you travel thousands of kilometres but still you come across the same food, dress, language, lifestyle, weather and culture. So why should I move around there. I love to travel within India because every step takes me to a new experience,’ he enlists the reasons for being so deeply in love with India.

Well, we have been taught that India is ‘unity within diversity’.

‘Allopathy is good for surgery and trauma. In the rest of the cases, it destroys one’s system. I prefer ayurveda any day. But the corporate-driven cultural onslaught is so powerful that in the next two decades, entire India will be the same boring Western caricature. Then I’ll be able to hang my travelling boots and rest at home. No more adventures,’ he looks sadly into a group of sadhus eating at the langar served by an ashram.

I know it’s lovely to have an exotic, chaos-loving spirit. However, we cannot ignore the fact that poverty and struggle are the backbone of Indian exoticism. The mankind’s sole obsession is naturally a kind of stampede to throw away the yoke of poverty and suffering. Things will of course change. The corporations feel this desperation at the mass level. They throw the baits of ambition, hopes and aspirations.

The entire cosmos itself is being heaved around by a mammoth ambition towards more sophistication and complexity. This ambition can only survive with a huge mass of unfulfilled dreams at the base. It cannot afford to have too many success stories because then, with everyone a winner around, who will labour at the base of mundane activities. The pyramid has to have a huge base of losers. The bier of success has to be carried by the bereaving mass of frustrated people. But that doesn’t mean the losers will stop fighting. They will continue waging wars. The corporate will keep their futile hopes alive. Some will jump out of the boiling cauldron. But these will be generational changes in a particular lineage. For one winner, there shall be at least 100 losers, only then the equation will sustain.

The Canadian is already on the verge of losing the hopes of retaining a poor famished India that appeals to his adventurous soul so much. But another cup of chai by an otherworldly figure revives his Indian exoticism. 

She is a beautiful girl in blue silk sari. Who is she and what is she doing here?

She challenged herself to the farthest limits of her insecurities and came all the way from Japan to marry a man who appears just like any other poverty-beaten figure around. He runs a tea stall. She challenged herself to love unconditionally, absolutely in avoidance of any expectations and security; just the pure bliss of giving all you possess in your mind, body and soul to your beloved.

She has a beautiful round face, puts a bindi on her forehead, wears a peacock blue sari with a golden embroidered blouse. She has taken up the role of a traditional Indian housewife in all its meaning and significance. She picks up the empty plates and glasses, arranges chairs, puts into order the stools, washes utensils, reads an elementary Hindi book in between, while her husband and mother-in-law run the tea stall.

It’s a ramshackle thatched enterprise by the street running down at the end of the bathing steps. A little alley leads from here to the Ganges. Some chairs and stools and wooden benches line up the alley. The sadhus, tourists and pilgrims sit down for tea and cigarettes. She moves around with petite delicacy, the symbolism of her exotic presence larger than the hills to the north.

One of the customers is a short, fiery, slightly built young man with razor-sharp, rolling tongue that stings with acerbic pieces of information, primarily scandalous in nature, with lots and lots of B.C.s. He was born at the premises of one of the most reputed ashrams on the banks of the holy Ganges. His father works at the charitable hospital run by the ashram trust.

‘All this is sham show. Fake babas. It’s basically business. Money. Fuck it, what religion? To have a room here you have to be a foreigner, or possess a gorgeous girl on your arm, or donate rupees in lacs. This man grabbed the property. The previous swami was poisoned. The scandal should be busted. He is always surrounded by 20-30 women who have ditched their husbands for holy dips. They are all part of a big political game. He has a rich family in another state. His children stay in a nice city. He has grabbed all the land up to the hills. India is poor because half the land has been grabbed by these fake babas. If the government takes it back most of our problems will vanish. Do you know who are the real babas? They are the ones who survive in the streets, who beg, stay on the road, eat and bathe in the open, who have surrendered every convenience that may make life comfortable. All the big-name ashrams are money business, popularity and politics. The babas don’t miss a chance to sleep with a woman. Yoga has been glamorized to the extent of being a sex show. It’s like any other product or service. I have seen it with my own eyes. All this big shiny building is hollow inside. There are dalals who manipulate and run the show in lieu of the favours done to them. It’s just like an institution like any other anywhere in any city. Intrigues, strategies, fakery, lies, deceit all are used to sell the services and grab political patronage. The babas are thriving. The Congress used to spank them on their bums. Now they will thrive for a long, long time till the present government is there.’  

He seems a little cantankerous typhoon. You cannot stop him. It’s better to listen or, more suitably, allow his words to enter from one ear and exit from the other without any slowdown midway in the head. If you allow them to take even a slight pause in between, it will definitely take a heavy toll on your mental and physical being. He has enough stinginess to put a robust hole in the fabric of your faith.

There are people at the tea shop who try to defend their faith as he vehemently pokes verbal spears into the soft tissues of their faith. Those who have reasons to keep their faith will go to a fairly long distance to retain it. There is a fight, starting with verbal vollies to graduate onto scuffling and jostling. The attacker on faith is pitted against many defenders of faith.

The Canadian gets into this multi-hued excitement of India and tries to save the little revolutionary. As it happens, the one who tries to stop the fight becomes a sitting duck kind of punching bag. The Canadian gets severe jabs on his ears and scalp. Both parties increase the frequency of their punches as they find there is someone intervening and hence the risk of a full fight is already reduced to a large extent.

The Japanese bride shrieks with shock as her carefully arranged chairs and benches are strewn around. She drops the tray she is holding and runs to hide behind her mother-in-law who takes up her broom lest the ruckus takes bigger proportions and threatens their establishment.

The Canadian gentleman stands with buzzing ears, bleeding lip and blackened eye. India is a happening place after all. The little offender against faith is howling with wounded pride and anger. Choicest abuses drizzle down. A policeman arrives and disperses the crowd.

I feel sad for the Indophile gentleman. I motion him to accompany me towards Ma Ganga a few paces down the little alley. He walks towards the holy waters and sits on a step, his feet immersed in the swift flowing currents. He washes his face. After a few pensive moments he smiles.

‘Sometimes it turns too spicy with eye-watering chilli. Just like samosa is sometimes too pungent. It’s an exception though. My experience of the great Indian cuisine is too big to be spoilt by these exceptions,’ he seems in decent control of his self after the jolting strikes.

‘Mother not only cleanses sins, she dissolves pain also, I mean real physical pain,’ I say.

He completely agrees. ‘But next time I will remember that I am just a witness, only a visiting observer of the game of Indian exoticism. I will avoid the role of a participant in any capacity,’ his smile graduates to a full laughter.

By now I know that he is recovered in the real sense and leave him there by the side of Ma Ganga to reflect more about his search. I then move on my own little path.