Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
walls decorated with several framed photographs of the Maharshi,
along with one of someone who resembled Phil Silvers. A calendar
bore a coloured image of Siva off on a hunting trip in the woods: a
bow and some arrows, deer leaping across the background. He was
muscular, this Siva - good definition. He also had profound hair,
great style, in fact. And very expensive jewellery. He did not look
like the Destroyer of Worlds. He looked more like a hairdresser
from Manhattan. Below this groomed, ruggedly pastoral Siva, a boxed
sign read K MOHAN: HYBRID SEEDS. END SEARCH WITH
MOHAN SEED (FULL GARRANTY). There was a local address
and telephone number for anyone tired of searching in vain for fully
guaranteed hybrid seeds.
Ashram inmates sat in rows on the flagstones, each in front of a
banana leaf that already contained a plum-sized mound of lime
pickle and another of lumpy salt.
You had to have your wits about you when dinner was being served
here; this happened so fast there must have been a competition going
on. Two men holding a container of rice the size of a dustbin ran to
the head of each aisle of cross-legged diners, one rapidly shovelling
rice onto the leaves with a utensil like an aluminium ping-pong bat,
the other dragging the container along ahead of him. These men
were swiftly followed by four others, each carrying a ladle and a large,
steaming pail. In seconds I had a foot-high mound of rice, much of it
in brick-sized chunks. It would easily have fed ten people. I'd barely
broken down the lumps and formed a volcano with my rice when, in
quick succession, four ladles splashed their contents into its crater: a
pint of
sambhar
, a pint of
rassam
, a pint of
dal
, and a pint of vegetable
curry in which I could not identify a single vegetable. I bolstered up
the rice volcano's walls, sweeping slopes up to the summit. And just
in time, for bearing down on it was another breathless crew with
ladles: curd so thick you could hold it, buttermilk with large leaves
in it, poured into a metal beaker, and finally a huge clod of okra
cooked until the pods chewed like licorice. The Indians called them
'Ladies Fingers.'
India has two aspects - in one she is the householder, in the
other a wandering ascetic. The former refuses to budge from the
