‘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.
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.
‘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 Manali, it’s as simple as that,’ he replied. ‘Now where’s some weed?’
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 they respect you. But they don’t. They think you’re dirty and tight-fisted, but they suck up to you because they want your money. Remember that. No Indian in this country will ever become your friend. Whatever they say to you is a lie – they only want your money.’
‘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.’