Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hospitality. If he'd wanted company he would not have moved out
here, would he?
I crept out of the hut abashed.
An hour further into my hike through hostile vegetation, in heat
like an endless series of burning veils swirling in flames on every
side, I discovered a series of caves in the rear slope of the mountain.
By now I was not so much thirsty as turning to dust from the inside
out.
One cave had signs of human life around the yawning entrance: a
mangled pack of India Kings, a dried-out folded leaf containing traces
of rice, a few crumpled pages from
India Today
, and a square of old
cloth draped over a rock as if to dry. Where there's litter, people are
never far away.
I wandered into the cave without thinking what I was doing. It
was
really
dark in there, and I could smell incense burning in the
hot, damp air, along with hints of camphor. Hospitals came to mind.
The rock roof slanted down steeply in a funnel toward the source of
these smells. Close to what the echoes of my footsteps told me was
the farthest reach of the cave, I realised I felt the presence of another
being. The minutest sound of breathing may have rustled the air
before I sensed its presence.
My eyes had to adjust to the heaving, bulky darkness before I
could more or less make out some sort of human form sitting not
six feet away, as if sprouting from bedrock and more stone than
flesh.
'
Namaste
,' I said, oppressed by this fat, narcotic air, and the twenty
million tons of stone entombing us.
There was just the breathing and the almost inaudible thump of
life's rhythm distinguishing itself from the great stillness
surrounding it.
Then a voice like the churning of worlds boomed, 'Siva!'
I got out of there fast.
By four-thirty I was staggering toward the edge of town, my
brain shrinking with dehydration, my tongue a dessicated old
sponge. At the first chai stall, via sign language, I downed seven
Campa Colas, a Limca, two Gold Spots, and a fresh lime soda. When
