29.12
Yogi was glad for a side-way door to leave.
The satsang circuit had become a weight.
Forced to wear his heart on a holy sleeve
he had to role-play as every person’s soul mate.
Barhai had said. “Ah, Utterakhand! We’ll wait.
You go and see the Himalayan snow.
Amrik will bring you back by the due date.
It will be a rare experience. Go, just go.”
Margot’s signal! Was she trying to break through?
Oneiric words were pushing his heart rate.
To hear so clear a message was deja-vu;
so he’d slept little when Amrik came at eight.
29.13
They took a bus to Meerut to catch a train
and walked the streets of musical instruments —
a local industry of drums and horns
for Indian brass bands. Amrik stepped into
a roll-a-door store and flicked a latch.
The harmonium gasped and coughed to find its voice.
Amrik’s hand ran up and down the keys,
then song took flight with intricate raga rills,
elaborating flightpaths for a line of birds.
Yogi was shocked, hearing such classical heights
of an Indian voice in love with syllables.
Who’d have thought this merchant talked to mountains?
Yogi’s kirtan? A Simple Simon version.
29.14
Time to rush on for the Chandigarh train
second-class sit-up, six hours to Punjab.
Amrik yanked Yogi up and through the door
as the long snake slithered away from Meerut.
They wedged into sweaty vinyl seats,
four moustaches leering back opposite
at the foreigner in his crisp white chola.
Amrik Singh, the short and stocky Sikh
in dark blue turban, business suit and tie
squeezed their bags onto the luggage rack.
Some psycho-bluff was needed to gain a hold
in this give-no-dog-an-inch demesne on wheels.
Yogi clamped his guitar between his knees.
29.15
Above and opposite two young newly-weds,
off now, to visit relatives in some
village perhaps, or honeymoon in Himachal,
had managed to sit up happily jammed together
on the luggage rack – now a romantic nook,
an invisible zone of public privacy
away from myopic eyes of home in-laws
ready to walk in on, and ogle a pretty bride
with hennaed hands, jangling wedding bangles
that she must wear for months to say ‘hands off’
to any male. It was a luxurious bed
for a giggly couple, while those below ignored them.
Yogi half-peeped and thought of Margaret.
29.15
The train moved on. Ragpicker boys boarded
between stations brooming the floor for tips.
Some got a kick and a curse. Snack-wallahs packed
salty treats in newspaper cones for zilch.
One of the four moustaches bought some grams
offering Yogi. He crunched a roasted chick pea
nodding his thanks.
A gift demands a gift.
Amrik dug out a tin-foil wrap of paronthas
with dollop of pickle oily at the core,
offering around. One of the four tactfully
took just one, sharing the Sardar’s wife-packed
travelling luncheon. Ghee-spread rotis oiled
the wheels of the railway journey, clacketing north.
29.16
The compartment soon became a gaming parlour,
the clip-on wall tray attracted playing cards
with popping eyes and gesticulating hands.
“Are you feeling comfortable?” Amrik asked.
They’d only traded glances since leaving Meerut.
“I’m fine thanks. How long will it take to reach?”
Yogi had not inquired about the journey.
“We stop in Chandigarh. I have seva there.
Tomorrow we will join the Hemkund yatra.
My friends are waiting.”
Yogi knew that ‘seva’
meant ‘selfless service’. Enigma still held its cards.
Impoliteness might have pushed, calling his hand,
but he knew he had to play a game of patience.
29.17
In the next compartment a group of schoolgirls
started to sing and clap. “What’s that Amrik?
Is it a party?”
“No, Sant ji — Antakshri
a parlour game. He listened, then translated:
Baithe, baithe, kya karein? Karna hai kuch kaam,
Sitting, sitting what to do? Pass the time with a game?
Shuru karo antakshri, leke prabhu ka naam!
So let’s play Antakshri, invoking first God’s Name.
Amrik said : The letter ‘m’ starts off the next round:”
Mehfil Yeh Humari Hain
Toh Bol Do Yeh Saare Zamane Se
Men Not Allowed, Men Not Allowed!
A typical Hindi-English Bollywood mix.
The last line rang out like a strident challenge
and the four moustaches shouted their own version:
Women Not Allowed, Women Not Allowed!
29.18.
The station coming up was Saharanpur.
The newly-weds were getting down. He jumped
to the carriage floor, grabbing their bag.
It was her turn. She dangled hennaed feet,
ankleted, over the edge. Her nose-ring jiggled,
while necklace and gold earrings made her more
resplendent in blood-red salvaar kamiz,
her vermillion sindoor parting married hair.
All eyes turned up. It was too far. The train
was stopping fast, so she took a leap of faith
into husband’s hands about her petite waist.
The warm crushing together of shy bodies
made all sigh at the starting heat of love.
29.19
After Saharanpur they measured time
by flashing stops: Pilkhani, Sarswara,
the ochre earth, the thorny kikar trees,
green fields of paddy and wading buffaloes,
next Kalanaur then onto Yamunangar.
The Yamuna was swollen with monsoon
as they crossed the pylon bridge into Haryana,
green miles of farmland and more rail sidings:
Mustafabad, Barara, Tandwal and Kesri
three clackety hours until they reached Ambala.
The blue snake pulled up. There was delay.
The four moustaches left and new ones came.
Chai-wallahs boarded with aluminium urns,
white plastic cups while coolies in red coats
fought over luggage. Yogi and Amrik waited.
29.20
As Yogi and Amrik moved to window seats
a woman was taking a shortcut over tracks
baby on hip, lugging her ragpicker bundle.
She struggled, but none on board could help,
fearing the train would leave. She stepped from rail
to rail over bitumen fill, struggling her bundle
onto platform concrete, then tried to climb, but her
baby slipped from her hip, plummeting headfirst
onto a steel rail. She jumped back screaming,
but the picked-up infant was now a thing of jelly.
It was hopeless to watch as the passenger train inched out
of Ambala Station — lives transformed forever.
29.21
As fire is covered by smoke and a mirror by dust
the obvious cannot be seen.
As an embryo grows through love or a moment of lust
death reneges on the life caught in between.
As Yogi thought of the child with a jelly-dead head
he tried to accept what he saw.
One slip of a hand had lost the gold in the thread
and wrecked a natural law.
What lay uncertain ahead was a curtain of rain,
shrouding the nothing that’s there.
And the capital Chandigarh, also ahead on the plain
might just leave him gasping for air.