We left McLeod Ganj on a sunny Saturday morning—the first we’d seen the whole two weeks we’d been there. The night prior we took our beloved music teacher, Kumar, out for dinner at the Japanese restaurant—his first time—and taught him how to eat with chopsticks. He loved the tempura, Japanese pakora!, but decided the dipping sauce wasn’t enough and shook out the whole salt shaker onto his meal. He was enthusiastic, I’ll give him that much. We said our goodbyes, promising to send him MP3 discs of Beatles songs.
The ride to Amritsar was beautiful, that much more impressive since we hadn’t moved in 2 weeks. We made the decent to Kangra, the surrounding lush forests glistening from weeks of monsoon rain, and emerged into the plains as the afternoon sun filled our view in a panorama of saffron light. I, in my Gravol drugged state was in utter bliss, chatting with some Cambridge Lit students who were volunteering in the Tibetan community teaching English, but Brandon was strangely taciturn. He had a headache. Early on in the bus ride, the ticket collector blew his whistle right into Brandon’s ear, making him flinch, which made the 2 Indian guys behind us laugh. Without thinking, I turned around and asked them if they thought something was funny. It shut them up. I wasn’t angry. It’s something that happens here and frustrates me. Indians laugh at misfortune. The moment I turned back to my window-gazing, a change occurred in me. Though it makes no sense to me, I realized that they laugh at misfortune because they have to. They have to make light of things if they are to ward off that darkness that threatens to engulf them daily. Who was I to demand they change their social reflexes to suit my moral values? Since that moment on I was free from the frustrations that plagued me since I arrived. In reverse, Brandon has taken up the role of moral crusader—writing in service complaint books and demanding logical behaviour. Balance.
The new elated me arrived in Amritsar and was nearly brought back to earth when we found out that though we had reserved a room, there was no room for us. The one time we decide to book ahead and we’re stuck in a single bed with a bathroom down the hall…with bedbugs to boot. We moved the following morning to a room with HBO and were happy campers once again. We made friends with a German ex-lawyer motorcyclist, 15 months into his open-ended journey of the world. Brandon was reading “The Tin Drum” coincidentally, and Lars gave us a German history lesson as we explored the old city, drank Pista Milk (pistachio and almond milk), and sat watching the bathers at the Golden Temple.
The temple. The only other experience that can compare to the holiness of being there as night diffused the heat of the afternoon, was the first time I heard gagaku (traditional Japanese Buddhist music). Women bowed their heads to the marble floors. Carp swam by the legs of bathers dipping their babies into the holy water, laughing, turbaned, sleek-skinned. The chanting of the scriptures echoing off the surface of the water mingled with the breeze to wash away the traffic and dust of the street outside. It was even a respite from the heat, the only cool place in the city. I had been cleansed. I was ready to enjoy Rajasthan and the final six weeks of our trip, giddy and anxious to feel that desert sun on my face.