From My Notebooks In 1977: A Wedding on the Way to Bodhgaya

From Patna I’m on my way to the religious heart of India but suffer a most felicitous interruption – dancing girls included.

Sunday 20th February

After a haircut (very short) and breakfast with Jha I leave for Bodhgaya anxious to settle down to my piece [I was planning an article on the election for the Sunday Times] and unsure whether this will be the place, though Carol recommended it so highly. It’s a long ride – the short cut I had hoped to find eludes me – and very little English is spoken here. I’m reluctant to stop and ask because of the great crowds that will gather. This is something of a dilemma. People will help, I’m sure of that, but there is no measured response – this one gets in colder climates – and the surfeit cannot be managed. I don’t want to be riding today. It’s too hot. I’ve got too much stuff, and the road is squalid and uncomfortable. I can detach myself from this discomfort and be content – but sweating in a crowd would push me either to anger or to a self-mocking surrender. I should have enough petrol for 100 miles. Gaya is 72 miles, but 15 miles before getting there the main tank runs dry and 5 miles later, the reserve also. I can’t understand why the reserve is so unreliable. Does it splash over? Anyway, there I am.

The passing scene as I sat beneath a tree and waited for help to appear.

A couple of villagers come to talk – a Brahmin who looks sly but a bit bright, tells me how poor he is. The other fellow has just come from the village on his bicycle. The Brahmin interrogates him and then sends him back to the village. [To get petrol for me.] The other fellow accepts his instructions willingly. I would give him money, and struggle to empty the oil from my jerry can, but the Brahmin says No, pay later. I sit under a tree and read. Heller. [I was reading ‘Catch 22’]

Nothing happens. Eventually I try to flag down a car. The driver waves me away impatiently. A truck coming the other way pushes him off the road, gives me a thumbs up sign. The camaraderie of the road. Then two chaps on a Bullet stop. The pillion rider wants to help, but they haven’t enough petrol. So we stop a car. And they pump petrol from it to give me a litre. He is the vice-Chancellor, retired, of Madagh University and asks me to drop in at Gaya. The Bullet rider says I must appear at the wedding he’s going to. I can’t refuse, though it means I won’t see Bodhgaya before dark.

He’s a small, solemn, bearded fellow – a Rajput (i.e. Kshatrya). Wedding is off the road, by a village. The groom’s party is under a big tent with multi-coloured ceiling, cushions and floor-coverings and a throne for the groom who is covered with head gear. The father and grandfather, and the pandit wear brilliant yellow turbans. There are weapons also on show, traditional for the warrior cast.

Two dancing girls take turns with a group on tabla, sarod (with bow) and harmonium. She moves languidly from foot to foot (ankle bells) and then shuffles out about six steps in a very stylised way that’s supposed to be very erotic. The facial expressions are most interesting to me – a sort of smugness, indifference of a deliberately false kind (almost contempt).

Sometimes she picks out someone who might pay her money, and squats in front of him, singing some verses at him directly, and accepting a variety of humiliations and jests until he pays up (10 rupees seems usual).

Meanwhile, over at the bride’s house, a similar ceremony is going on. The house is drenched in coloured lights. Next morning groom and bride together endure a series of symbolic acts – he is covered with things dangling from a paper hat, with spangles and mirrors sprouting from it, in heavy clothes, almost invisible, and has to spoon milk with a leaf from one pot into another one and then on to some smouldering cow dung, sometimes with a silk sheet held across his face, while the Pandit jabbers away harshly from some tattered papers, losing his place, coughing, stopping for consultations. Then, in the middle of it, the group and the dancing girls crowd in, and she sings over the top of it all, while the observers chat. And I imagine being the groom and I think I would go quite crazy.

Later before leaving the father reads my hand, as promised. He holds it in a handshake, then pushes back my thumb. “Acha,” he says. “You have a very determined soul. This is reflected also in your mind, etc.” What he tells me is the flattering side of my personality, and true enough. I’m quite impressed. My planet is Jupiter. For seven years under bad influence of Mars, which will continue for two years. After that Success!!! I have a weak hold on the affections of women, and owe everything to my mother. There will be two accidents, not major but not minor either, in these two years. (I wonder if I’ve already had one of them).

Overnight the son and I slept side by side under the tent. People were very concerned about the security of my things. Already two bags and four pairs of shoes have been stolen.

This has been an eventful week. A French journalist, Patrice Roux, brought me to a small town near Paris to meet Anne-France Dautheville who is known, in France, as the first woman to ride a bike across the world. We had never met. What made it most interesting to me was that she travelled at the same time I did. We had a very lively conversation, helped by the fact that she is a lot younger than I am, and her English is better than my French. It was recorded by Patrice who had a film crew with him. He says he was very pleased, and I enjoyed it so much that I typically forgot to take any pictures myself. Take it from me, she’s an attractive, strong-minded woman who has fought and won many battles in life.

I hope that the video gets out, because the other happy thing that happened was a delivery of books, and I finally have copies to sell of Jupiter’s Travels in French. Not only that, but my Italian publishers tell me they are reprinting. So, it’s been a good week for Jupiter.

See you next week.