All eyes seemed to fall on me, the women’s more than ever. They were watching, sniggering, twisting their lips. Making me feel foolish and ashamed. Because I was alone, because of the way I was dressed. I couldn’t take being watched like this so I went to the edge of the courtyard away from the music and stood at the wall in the shadows thinking I would be all right there. But there other pious women began to notice, to hiss at me, curse me for leaning against the wall, for doing things I didn’t even know were wrong. And when I stepped forward and squatted down to try to hide they hissed at me some more.
I retreated from the dargah back to my car. I cursed them all the way. I drove a short distance until I reached Jor Bagh, parked and cut myself a line, then drove through the city at speed.
Him and me, we are driving up to Majnu ka Tila in October. The prayer flags are fluttering over the stagnant Yamuna breeze. He’s picked me up from college to drag me here, called me out of the blue.
Rain came down for a day yesterday, out of season, surprising us all, bringing up the sewage and leaving the heat behind, and the flies and mosquitoes and the traffic fumes. Here by the refugee colony, old metal coaches are parked full of Tibetans, young men, young women, old men and women, all weighed down with boxes of supplies and possessions, waiting to head back up to the mountains. Foreigners too, sitting exhausted with their backpacks and matted hair by the side of the road, and the tangle of prayer flags over everything.
Inside the colony we walk through the alleys, past Internet cafés and travel agents. In a guest house there’s a longhaired Tibetan from Amdo called Losel, who dresses like a basketball player, speaks American English and has fifty tolas of charas he’s looking to get rid of.
He grins at us in the murky restaurant with four cheap marble tables. There’s the smell of fried food and incense. Next to him a stocky monk is slurping noodle soup, dripping sweat from the end of his nose. His arms are tree trunks, and although the rest of his body is hidden within the crimson robes, you can feel the strength of it, the kind of strength that pulls trucks in its wake and lifts rubble. He has a wiry moustache and goatee and a hairline low on his head.
Losel puts an arm around the monk’s shoulders, saying, This is my brother. The monk stops eating, turns his head towards Losel and curls his lip, the kind of sneer that’s reserved for a cockroach. Then Losel says something in Tibetan and the monk produces a great grin that transforms his face and continues eating.
He hates it here, Losel says, addressing me, gripping the monk’s shoulder even tighter. He thinks Delhi is a hell and I’ve become one of its demons. He’s only here for a night to pick up supplies, but even this is too much. He thinks the city is evil, it gives him a headache, dealing with the dishonest people, the liars and the thieves. He’s from Amdo, just like me. We came together over the mountains, eight of us through the snow walking single file at night from Amdo through Tibet to Nepal and then here. It took eight weeks — hiding in the day, walking at night. They have the snipers up there. It was OK though, no problem, no one died that time. One of us died later but he had TB. Two more are in prison now.
Losel was seventeen when he left home. His mother was worried he’d end up dead, or worse, Chinese. He didn’t want to leave at first, he liked it up there. But he got into too much trouble. Squabbling over an unpaid debt he blew up a Muslim bookie’s car. He made a petrol bomb of the gas tank and blew that old BMW into the sky. His mother sent him away the next day.
The monk interrupts him, begins talking, talks fast and stern, as if he’s lecturing. He goes on like this for a while and Losel gives him short replies, starts to laugh, until the monk bangs his fist on the table, gets up and walks away. Losel watches him go. He says, He worries about my soul. He’s going upstairs to watch people killing each other on STAR Movies. He likes the action films best of all.
We drive down from Majnu ka Tila to the Tibetan Monastery Market. Through the flyover arch we walk to the stalls of clothes surrounded by college students. Left before the main market, past the bell of the monastery — there’s a small alleyway, nothing more than a gutter between two buildings, on either side of which there are more shops selling bags and shoes and all manner of counterfeit clothes. At the end of that alley, dodging the sewage running through the middle, we come to a door with panels painted black so you can’t see inside. Into that drab building, through another door on the right, and you’re in Tibet.
The room is a great dark canteen full of noise and incense, twelve tables of monks and laymen all together, photos of the Dalai Lama on the walls alongside a giant photograph of Lhasa from the air. High in one corner, a TV is screeching, half the room absorbed in its boom bang, the other half in conversation — loud, intense, spirited — or eating. Monks gobble noodles. We sit at the only empty table and Losel orders Coca-Cola, thentuk, phing sha, fried beef momos.
They begin to talk about the charas, how good it is, where he got it from, what the price should be. He says he’ll sell for three hundred, you can sell it on for six. Who’s buying?
There are some Israelis in Paharganj, they’re waiting for it right now, they called last night.
Coming from?
Old Manali — some are heading to Goa, some of them are going home. They want to take it back with them too.
At the end of the meal we leave the monks and the smoke and go back down the alleyway, back into the market, inside one of the countless shops, up some step-ladders in the back to a storeroom above the ceiling, full of shoeboxes. A pretty young Tibetan girl is sleeping, Losel shakes her awake. My wife, he says. She stretches and yawns. Without a word she pulls out one of the shoeboxes, pushes it towards us and goes back to sleep. Fifty tolas inside, creamy little pellets wrapped in cling film.
Losel passes him one, he peels the film off, scratches it with his nail, sniffs, nods, throws it back again. He takes the envelope from his pocket, counts out fifteen thousand and hands it over.
The Israelis are waiting for us on the roof terrace of Anoop Hotel. They don’t stay here, it’s just the meeting place. The Israelis. Most of them are just out of the army, muscled, tattooed, letting their hair grow long — the women as tough and free as the men.
Others are scared of them, and they keep to themselves, they don’t mix well, they move in packs, don’t suffer fools. But they love him. They think he’s a crazy one, this crazy Indian coming into their world, talking with them as one of their own, talking with a brain, charming them. Not like the others, not trying to suck up and serve. He wears a Star of David when he meets them. They love him for this too. They laugh. They say maybe he’s one of them, he could be one of the lost tribe.
And they hate Delhi. Another reason to love him. He makes the city bearable for them. They call him up on the phone and he makes it better, he knows where to get hold of the best charas, the best dope, the Valium and ketamine from the corrupt pharmacies.