Are You Experienced?

the hardness of her teeth and the softness of her mouth struck me as a miracle of evolution. For a while, our kiss became the entire universe.

Then she was taking off my shirt, and I was taking off her shirt, and it occurred to us that we really weren’t getting very far like that, and we leaped off the bed, stripped ourselves and hopped back in.

Through a haze of mounting lust, I noticed that she kept her knickers on.

As we swamped each other in more kisses, I started trying to discreetly remove her pants without her noticing. In response, what had previously been an ‘Mmmm’ started turning itself into a ‘Nnnn’. I had to try and hurry before the ‘o’ came along. My attempt to yank the pants over her buttocks made an ominous ripping sound and broke the spell.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No sex.’

‘Why?’

She kissed me, even more passionately than before.

‘No sex,’ she repeated, pausing to wipe saliva from her chin.

‘Why?’ I said, during the next pause for breath.

She answered me by turning me over on to my back and disappearing under the sheet.

‘I love James,’ she said, then shut me up by wrapping her mouth around the end of my penis.

For the rest of the week we hardly left the Rainbow Lodge, and spent our days smoking, eating, chatting, going for the occasional wander and having almost-sex.

For the first time, I actually liked India. The vibes with Liz were on the mend, and all the hassles of travelling seemed much less intense and demoralizing now that we had found a calm little enclave where we could pass the days.

I also lost my aversion to Indian yoghurt when I was introduced to Bhang Lassi, which is a drink made out of milk, yoghurt and hash. The superb thing was, you could order it from the hotel staff, which came in very handy when you were feeling too stoned to roll another joint. I didn’t really like the taste, but became fond of Bhang Lassi anyway, since the best way to relieve the boredom of constant dope-smoking is to drink it.

There were loads of other travellers hanging out at the hotel, and because everyone shared joints it was an extremely sociable place. You ended up talking to a whole range of people, and most of our evenings were spent in pleasant, semi-comatose card-games which were dominated by the passing of spliffs and the exchange of ideas about travelling. I was mainly into the cards and the drugs, while Liz took to all the philosophizing with depressing enthusiasm.

No one ever seemed to get tired of talking about Indiaahh. I didn’t see what there was to theorize about, and how you could possibly set about trying to

explain

a country, but everyone, it seemed, had a theory. Liz, predictably enough, lapped it all up, and I could tell that my cynicism about the whole thing was beginning to get on her nerves.

One guy, called Jonah, had been travelling almost nonstop for seventeen years. He claimed it had been almost a decade since he last wore shoes, and warbled on indefinitely about how inhuman it was to lose contact with the soil. He also said that whenever he encountered a beggar, instead of giving them money, he gave them a hug.

For hours on end, he held court over the group with tales of disease, robbery, drug abuse and foot-rot. These stories were just overtures, however, to help him draw a crowd. And it was only when he had a proper audience that he would embark on his favourite topic: a Unifying Theory of India.

‘India,’ says Jonah, ‘is at the same time the most beautiful and the most horrific country – and Indians are both the warmest and the most brutal people on earth.’

Although Jonah has barely warmed to his theme, Belle, an American hippie dressed in military fatigues, jumps in. ‘India,’ she says, ‘is a beautiful country, but let’s face it, guys – it’s ruined by the people. They’re all obsessed with money. They always want something off you. All they can think about is selling and buying.’

‘You haven’t scratched below the surface, man,’ says Ing, a Scandinavian who has the build of a famine victim, but always seems to be eating. (Intestinal worm, according to Liz.) ‘Commerce is simply a modern, kind of, thin sheet of plastic that has been wrapped over the rich carpet of India’s history. I mean, this country has been invaded so many times, but it has always survived with its own culture in place. Capitalism is just the invader of today, and when it is defeated like all the other armies, there will be left behind the same spiritual people who always have lived here.’

‘It’s very cheap,’ says Brian from Nottingham. ‘You can get cheap things.’

‘But… what’s your name again?’ stutters Belle.

‘Ing.’

‘Ing?’

‘Ing.’

‘But Ing – capitalism isn’t going to vanish like all the other invaders. This time, India’s lost the fight. Its character is disappearing. Only a fool can say that India is still a spiritual country.’

In England,’ says Brian, ‘a banana costs up to twenty pence, but here you can get a bunch of ten to fifteen bananas for as little as thirty pee. That’s a huge saving.’

‘Let us not forget,’ says Burl (Belle’s boyfriend), ‘that India has never recovered from British colonization. It will be two or maybe three more generations before Indians can truly respect themselves again. By which time it might be too late.’

‘I love it here,’ says Jonah, ‘but I hate it here.’ He nods sagely.

‘I,’ says Ing, ‘hate it here. But I love it here.’ He nods even more sagely than Jonah, who gets a bit miffed and tries to up the sageness quotient in his nod. This doesn’t work because the miffiness shows through, so Jonah withdraws from the battle of nods and rolls another joint.

At this point, Xavier embarks on his theory. ‘India, lack manee a beeg countray, souffers a crush under eetz own weight. Lack a whale own ze beach, ze size of eetz own self-population, eez ze mourder weapon of involunaree suiceede.’

Everyone looks at him blankly.

‘J’aime l’Inde. Mais je la deteste,’ he says, emphatically. Everyone nods sagely, trying to show they understand French.

‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it?’ whispers Liz in my ear, her face alight with stimulation.

‘It’s all bollocks if you ask me.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘Easily. It’s all bollocks.’

‘But… all these theories. People who’ve travelled all over the world and are willing to share their experiences with us. Do you realize how lucky we are?’

‘We’re lucky not to be like them, that’s for sure.’

She touches my cheek, and looks longingly into my eyes.

‘Please, Dave. For me – just for me – will you please try and leave behind all this Western cynicism? Please. This is our chance to expand our minds. We have to take it.’

I look back at her. She has that look of desperate sincerity in her eyes that people get when they need sedation. Unable to think of a way to wriggle out of it, I decide that the only courteous thing to do is to lie.

‘OK. I’m sorry. I’ll try.’

‘You promise?’

‘I’ll try and be more Eastern about things.’

Fortunately, she doesn’t notice that I’m being sarcastic.

The real India

After a week in Manali, disaster struck. Jeremy turned up.

I thought I’d find you here,’ he said, as he emerged at the end of the path.

‘J!’ shrieked Liz, leaping from her chair and rushing to give him a kiss.

‘Hi, Dave,’ he said, apparently oblivious to the fact that we were supposed to hate each other’s guts.