Last evening, as I sat on my new 100 rupee chatai next to the sadhu, three unifrmed auto-rickshaw drivers emerged from an auto and asked me to come along with them in order to recover my pouch. I refused. I told them to bring my pouch to me, after which I would pay them for their service. The pouch, after all, has 1500 rupees cash in it. They never returned.
I did go to my bank before that - and withdrew all the money left in my account, which was not much, just 1100 rupees. Of this, 200 went to the auto-rickshaw. Another 200 went as a deposit to this Internet establishment. I spent another 200 on beer. And I paid off the tea shop and the cigarette shop - and bought some more packets of cigarettes.
And I advanced Abdullah a sum of 300 rupees for ganja - but the guy disappeared, and has not shown up after that. Thus, in the late evening, I was cashless - and the booze shop refused me credit.
Now, I had been walking around barefoot all of yesterday, because my plastic slippers had been stolen, and the soles of my feet were hurting real bad. So I went alone to Beach Road, and sat down where I usually do, opposite the Mango Man. Now, this Mango Man came to me and returned to me my plastic slippers. Hooray!
But I needed some booze - and it was this Mango Man who advanced me a sum of 200 rupees so that I could drink as much as I do every evening. The evening passed off well. At the end, the food-stall where I usually buy dinner gave me fried prawns and fired chicken legs on credit - 110 rupees - and I ended up sleeping next to the sadhu, on my new chatai.
Sometime in the early hours, I awoke. And I went to Beach Road and sat down at my usual spot. Gradually it turned dawn. And it was very beautiful. Just one fuck-up happened - and some passing morning walker chastised me over my smoking of cigarettes. If such people do such things to tourists - then Pondicherry can FORGET all about it.
When the sun was high, I walked back to the Hotel Continental and picked up my bags. I wanted to use a toilet - but they said all rooms were full. But the sadhu showed me the way out - and gave me 3 rupees to pay at the Sulabh Sauchalaya on Beach Road. But it was an AGONISING experience sitting at an Indian-style toilet. When I left, I told the guy managing the whole thing that foreign tourists need Western-style toilets - and would be willing to pay even 10 bucks for a crap. As if on cue, a Big Bus drove by - on which were emblazoned the words: Pondicherry Tourism Development Corporation.
I changed into a fresh t-shirt and spent the day with my friend the saintly sadhu. Some decent guys joined us. We smoked cigarettes, and some bidis, too. We drank some beer. And some strong stuff, too. I had wanted to take a HOLIDAY today, tired after so many weeks of walking up and down, writing and writing, day after day after day. I had wanted this HOLIDAY to be a day in which I would smoke some chillums of ganja with my sadhu friend. And I told my sadhu friend many stories of the sadhus I have smoked chillums with - in Gangotri, in Devaprayag, and elsewhere. He enjoyed my stories. But he said that such smoking was impossible here, because of The Police.
I told him that The Police should be asked to regulate Road Traffic.
I told him that Drug Traffic should be Free.
In the end, I went to sleep high on alcohol. As did my sadhu friend. I awoke just a while back. Drank a cup of tea on credit from the tea-shop. Obtained a pack of cigarettes on credit from the shop next door. And then I walked and walked all the way here to write this post.
See you all tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment