A Thousand Steps

MYSORE


feelin like it might be time to leave India for a spell; getting in altercations in fruit markets, temples looking the same, the cows are turning yellow. Gotta head to London for a new visa anyway- rain and cloud and real beer and real wine and family.
“He grabbed my ass!!” yelled Katya, pointing. Little guy in a plaid lungi, glanced over his shoulder as I started after him and began to run, around stacks of bananas and chikus, men tottering loads on their heads in the mid-day market. He slips through the bike barrier but I catch him by the wagon outside the market- “You learn some respect, man!! What you do if I grab your wife?!” I’m jabbin him with my finger, crazy beardo tourist towering over him, he’s yelling back in something that’s not English or Hindi, I keep jabbin, “You like I grab YOUR wife?! Huh?!” Jab jab. “You learn some RESPECT!!” I slap the back of my hand into my palm violently- I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to mean, but the little guy looks sufficiently scared and bewildered, so I pick my way back through the wide eyes and veg stalls, back to buyin’ peas. Dig for the fresh ones. Couple minutes later the little guy walks by again, crates on head. I give him the mad-eye stare-down as he passes. Couple moments later he’s at my side again, jammering away. “What’s he sayin, what’s he sayin” I’m asking the pea walla; he doesn’t know. Nothing is between just two people in the street in India though- pretty soon we got an audience, one of them’s good with English, "What’s he sayin?!" English-speaker says, “What happen what happen?” “He grab my wife bum!” I grab a chunk of my ass at point to the little guy. This gets translated; animated jammering from the little guy. “He say no no, not him. Him not like this. Other man. Coolie. Make 2, 3 rupees per hour. They like this!” I point, and yell across the stall, “Was this the guy!” “YES!” she yells back. “This is him! He grab her!” Jammering, jammering. “No no, not him, he say!” I look in the little guy’s eyes- sincere, puppy-dog almost. Maybe he’s true- I can’t forgive him right here though- what if he did it? I mean, he did start to run. I don’t know, what the fuck; I shrug. “Challo”, I say. Let’s go. We’ve got almost 3 kilograms of peas now anyway.

Stepping round husks and shells, bangle shop wallas yelling, veg vendors yelling, their customers yelling back; for the sixth time since I entered the market someone grabs me and demands, Which country you are from? I could say, Pakistan- then they laugh and think I’m a new friend making a joke. I could say somewhere they’ve never heard of- Estonia; then they repeat it to themselves a few times, start to ask me all about Stoneyaar, curious. I could be honest- Canada; then it’s, Which part? French or English? Trrronto? Wancuva? It is the perfect impossible question for these guys; Which country? And if that doesn’t work- Your name, friend? Answer, and you’re into a conversation, and then you’re buying something you don’t want for a price you don’t like. Don’t answer, and you feel rude for ignoring a simple question, so innocently asked, specially if it’s a kid, specially when they repeat the question five times. There is no solution- my reaction changes according to my mood.

We took the bus to the top of Chamungi hill this morning; One of the eight holy hills of Southern India, proclaims the sign. A thousand steps to the citadel overlooking Mysore- but the bus is only six rupees. No brainer. We get off and it’s a circus of souvenir stands, package tour buses, snacky shops and pilgrims lined up all around the temple at the centre of it all- the eye of the storm. We walk to the wall at the hilltop’s edge to admire the view and escape this unexpected mayhem, but we’re greeted with a gentle slope of plastic dumpings and human waste down the mountainside- I’m suddenly glad we didn’t climb a thousand steps for this.

I sit on a wall above a thinner patch of waste. I think about the 24-hour train ride I have ahead of me tomorrow, and then a long flight to a whole different world- a quieter world, an ordered world, cold rain and grey skies. I get that creeping feeling in my scalp, that chapter-ending feeling, that almost-time-to-flip-the-record feeling that’s part sad, part pensive- that turn to look back at the mountain you’ve descended before you continue the hike into the valley. I guess this is India, Part One. Flip the record.
I jumped off the wall to start down a thousand steps. Two young women were struggling up the steps, hunched and bending to mark every single last step with red and yellow turmeric powder. I stepped around them and started down.