Friday 1st December 2006: Udaipur

The day after I last wrote my grandfather died. I found out when I went to check my e-mail at lunchtime, but was only able to speak to my mother in the evening. My father had already left to be with my grandmother. His death was not unexpected - he had been seriously ill for over a year - but the actual moment of finding out that someone you love no longer exists is always a shock. I could write a lot about him but somehow I don’t feel I really need to, except to say he was one of the greatest people I have known. Whatever our differences of opinion, however his way of thinking was profoundly different to mine, I can only think of a few people I have loved and respected so much. I will dedicate the rest of this book to his memory.
  Unable to face people that evening, I anaesthetised myself with beer, chicken and a book in Kuwera, the neighbourhood garden restaurant. The butter chicken was a vivid red and tasted artificial. It worked its black magic overnight and by the next day I was sweating, shivering and shitting water. Delhi belly, Bombay bum, Rajasthan runs and a death in the family: Wednesday was my nadir and I hope never to feel that low again on this trip. At one point while I was languishing in bed between trips to the toilet, bingeing on oral rehydration solutions, Savitri, Sumita and another woman came in, muttering something about curtains. They were evidently surprised to see me, and despite my protestations of “bimar hoon” (I’m ill) I could read patrician disdain in Sumita’s face. In the late afternoon cool I hobbled miserably down to Kailash’s shop for a much-needed tearful phonecall with my parents.
  One thing that has helped cheer me up this week is a number of thoughtful e-mails from friends, some of whom had met my grandfather. Everybody has commented on the fact that it must be hard to be so far from my family at a time like this and, in a sense, I agree. Being on another continent separates me from the physical contact I really crave, and talking on the phone is hardly a substitute for the warm, frank conversation punctuated by comfortable silences that seems so necessary at these times. On the other hand, callous and repressive as it may seem, being cut off from the family like this almost forces me to keep moving and get my teeth back into the business of living in India.
   I put this philosophy into practice on Thursday, and again today, and after a long couple of days of proof-reading and corrections in the computer room I have completed the microplan. Ellen, Anna and Zelda were all working in there today, and Ellen entertained us by reading extracts from  a paper she was studying, written in the hallmark florid prose of Indian academia. At one point Dilip came in and, seeing us laughing hysterically, commented that I was “soaring aloft on the heights of my microplan”. With a pleasing irony he found the extract in question - a monster of a sentence containing both the expressions “moot point” and “trichotomy” - as funny as the rest of us, knowing full well that his own English was scarcely less outlandish.
   And so with more of a whimper than a bang, I have technically washed my hands of the Maal project, although I will try to tag along for some of the technical survey which will be conducted later on, and I will follow up Dilip’s recommendations to speak to Rajendra about initiating a petition to lobby the government for a road. I have arranged a meeting for Monday (4/12) with Sumita to discuss a new project. I am still hoping to get another microplan, but on the two recent occasions that I broached Dilip about this, he seemed a little cagey.

*

I’ve just had a long interruption in the form of Amir, who tells me that keeping a diary is a very good thing, and that I must hence be a very good person. Why is it good? How is this remotely logical?  He has revealed himself over time to be a melancholy, emotionally-needy oddball although I must qualify this by mentioning that he is far more likable than Karan, the other great oddball, ever was. His great problem seems to be an obsessive idolisation of friendship, particularly with girls. He wants friends to be the kind of people you give half your kingdom to or sacrifice yourself for at the drop of a hat, expecting this intensity of affection to arise almost from the first meeting. Little wonder then that girls retreat from this onslaught of intimacy and he gets hurt. There is an ongoing situation with a girl he has romantic feelings for, but who is involved with somebody else, and he wanted to know why calling her ten times today might be viewed askance. I tried to give him some advice, probably the same advice that everybody else has given – hold back, slow down and enjoy more superficial friendships as well. Friendships where you can enjoy each other’s company and conversation without committing yourself to dropping everything and solving their life problems whenever things get heavy. But he doesn’t seem to understand – “Surely if they are my friends I will share everything with them? I will do anything for them” – this Indian obsession with sharing, serving!

*

Yogesh left today under a slight cloud. Until earlier this week I had been unaware of the tension  building up in the guesthouse and it was Ellen who finally alerted me to the fact that relations between Priya and Yogesh were fraying. Yogesh, it seems, couldn’t help himself and made a pass at Priya a few weeks back. Knowing that he was engaged in all but name to somebody else, she rejected his attempt, wounding his sizable male ego and initiating a low-level round of bickery warfare (which evidently didn’t stop her cooking for him, as I discovered to my cost last Sunday!). The other night, for example, Yogesh walked into the girls’ dormitory without waiting for anyone to answer his knock. The ensuing dialogue, according to Ellen, ran something like this:

PRIYA: Why must you do these things, Yogesh? A gentleman would wait for ladies to answer before coming in.
YOGESH: Arre, Priya, you have double standards! You ask us to respect you as empowered and liberated, and now you want us to respect your purdah as well. You are not thinking logically.
PRIYA: Please go, I am not requiring your company at this time.

The conversation is not restricted to India - I remember tough-as-nails Melissa telling us how she would be furious with a boyfriend who did not help women with heavy bags up flights of stairs, and Ellen mocking her as an inconsistent feminist - but perhaps India with its growing breed of gutsy, independent women is where it is becoming most relevant today.
   I am not sure how things were concluded between the two of them. We had a slightly desultory last meal for Yogesh last night, and Priya arrived late but was amicable. This morning, however, Amir told me with a triumphant “I know something you don’t” look that “There is so much shit going on, man. I don’t think you are realising it.” I assured him that I was aware of what had been happening, but he insisted that I didn’t know the full story. Perhaps the full story has now left with Yogesh, in a late afternoon rickshaw bound for the station.


Next Post - Saturday 2nd December 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Friday 2nd December 2011)