‘Mmm.’
‘I see you’re partaking of the local poison.’
‘No. I’m smoking a joint.’
‘J! You were so right about this hotel. It’s amazing,’ gushed Liz.
‘This hotel
Without even asking, Liz took the joint out of my hand and passed it to Jeremy. He placed it between two fingers just under the knuckle, curled his hand into a fist and sucked the smoke out from around the base of his thumb.
Next thing I know, he’s teaching Liz how to do the same thing.
‘You’ll notice a lot of the locals smoke like this,’ he’s saying.
Two days later, Jeremy tried to organize a day-trip. He told everyone in the hotel that there was a holy cave inhabited by Sadhus half-way up a nearby mountain, and that anyone who wanted to go should meet on the veranda first thing the following morning.
I was initially against the idea, just because it came from Jeremy. However, it was such a long time since I’d done anything active that the prospect of a long walk actually felt quite inviting. Also, if I wanted to stay in favour with Liz, it was important to show a bit of enthusiasm for something vaguely Eastern. A cave’s a cave if you ask me, but since it was supposedly a holy one it satisfied Liz’s mind-expansion credentials, so taking part in the trip would score me a few Brownie points. I decided to join in.
By ten o’clock a reasonable crowd had gathered: Burl, Belle, Ing and Jonah had all turned up, along with a guy call Ranj who was, of all things, Indian.
Shortly after we had set off, I spotted Liz (who was at the front of the group with Jeremy) giving a hug to a beggar. The beggar looked suitably disgusted by this behaviour, so I attempted to compensate by giving him a few rupees. Even though I couldn’t see Liz’s facial expression, I got the impression that post-hug, she had a whole new walk. Her body language now said, ‘Everybody look at me – I’m just so damn serene it hurts.’
A mile or so down the road, it emerged that Jonah knew of a short cut. This burst Jeremy’s bubble, which put me in an excellent mood, and left Liz at the back of the group, in charge of consoling him. I ended up talking to Ranj for most of the walk.
Ranj, it turned out, was from Putney. Instead of wearing all the traveller gear (which by now even I had bought), he was dressed in Levi’s and a tight, freshly laundered T-shirt which showed off his toned muscles. He also sported the first hairstyle I’d seen since arriving in Manali.
He told me that he’d been dragged over by his parents to meet the family, but it had all just got too much for him, so he’d run away to the hills. He said his family was really rich and had contacts everywhere who would be out looking for him, so I shouldn’t tell anyone that I’d seen him.
‘Fair enough,’ I said.
‘I swear, they’ll find me. Wherever I am, they’ll find me and drag me back.’
‘Are you sure you’re not being a bit paranoid? I mean, it’s a big country.’
‘You don’t know how it works here. My family’s got their fingers in everything. I just need to say my name, and a total stranger will know what family I belong to, and word will get back to them of where I am. I swear to God. And I’ll be in such deep shit when they find me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I ran away, for fuck’s sake!’
‘But couldn’t you tell them you just wanted to go backpacking?’
‘Backpacking! You think they’d let me go backpacking! Travelling around like some low-life, with dirty clothes on my back, sleeping in bug-infested hotels with stinking hippies. Never in a million years would they let me go off like this. And on my own! Jesus Christ! They’d think I’d gone mad.’
‘But I thought everyone did it.’
‘Yeah, I mean, loads of my mates back home have done it. But not me. I’m not allowed.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m Indian. And this is no way to behave for a respectable Indian.’
‘Travelling’s respectable.’
‘Pah! Travellers are the scum of the earth.’
‘But we’re rich. We’re Western.’
‘So?’
‘So we can afford to buy expensive things.’
‘And…?’
‘So people act like they respect us.’
‘Exactly. They
‘You can’t say that. It’s racist.’
‘Of course it’s racist. I hate Indians, man. They’re fucking barbarians. All they’re interested in is money, money, money. I’ve been pinned down by ten thousand cousins all day every day for the last month, and all they want to talk about is stereos and cars and whisky and property prices, and it’s driven me up the fucking wall, man. That’s why I had to get out. I’m not interested in all that shit. I’m not interested in my dad’s poxy business, and I couldn’t give two shits if all his crappy clothes fall apart ten seconds after they’ve left the warehouse. It’s all crap. It’s materialist crap.’
‘But I thought India was supposed to be, like, a spiritual country and everything.’
‘That’s why I’ve come travelling. I want to find the real India. I’m searching for, kind of, my spiritual motherland.’
‘Like Manali.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And the Rainbow Lodge.’
‘Exactly. This is it, man. Holy caves and all that shit. This is the stuff.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘This is amazing.’
We walked along in companionable silence for a while, admiring the view.
‘it’s funny,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You know how Manali just feels right.’
‘Yeah.’
‘How you travel through all the stress and the money-grubbing, then you arrive here and, like, instantly know that you’ve found the real India and everything.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I mean, it’s odd, because in all the time I’ve been up here, you’re the first Indian I’ve had a conversation with.’
‘So?’
‘I dunno – it’s as if the best bits – the bits that feel most like India – are the places where you don’t have to talk to any Indians.’
‘Too fucking right, man. Too fucking right.’
I ended up trying to explain this theory to Liz in the evening, and she almost burned me at the stake as a heretic. I’d never seen her so angry. For the time being, Jeremy was the royal favourite, and I was an incontinent corgi.
Ranj was the first person I’d met since arriving in India who I actually liked. We got on well from the start,
