Diwali

Above: Yamuna River Laundry in Agra

Wednesday 2nd November 1983

After the usual Jaggi breakfast, but without the usual extortionately priced jam and butter with the toast, we started packing our bags. Fat Jaggi came in oozing false camaraderie and offered to buy much of our essential luggage, assuring us that we could replace it all at a fraction of the cost in Nepal. We declined this offer but took him up on the offer to leave our bags in his office rather than paying another night’s room rent.

Now we had nothing to do until the train departed at 23:00 hrs. We browsed a bookshop, and I bought a cheap Judo book for 6.50 Indian Rupees before we sauntered off along the main road towards the fort. We stopped at a café for a lemon tea served up in the Indian deceit cups which were as shallow as Indian friendship.

Coming up the road we were hard pressed to shake off our most persistent trishaw rider who had followed us about for days. We always seem to be killing time on our travels for one reason or another. Back out in the blazing sun we made our way to the railway bridge over the Jamuna river via smelly streets where pigs wallowed in the sewage puddles and snuffled amongst chicken feathers and entrails.

We crossed the bridge via a pedestrian footway by the railway track and looked down at the water buffalos wallowing in the river. People (women) were washing clothes by beating them on rocks at the waters edge while others hung them out to dry in the sun on simple racks.

Older women collected buffalo shit which they moulded into pancakes and arrayed to dry in the sun. The Taj Mahal was visible above a bank of lush green palm trees. We returned via the Gwalior Road with a few cold drink stops en route and settled in the Pradesh for a cup of tea.

A long while later we moved out to an open-air establishment next door to continue reading our books and leisurely drink sipping as dusk begins to slowly darken the sky. Over the last few days there has been a gradual build up in the Diwali celebration.

Diwali, Divali, or Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights, usually lasting five days and celebrated during the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika (between mid-October and mid-November). One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, Diwali symbolizes the spiritual "victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance". The festival is widely associated with Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. Diwali is known as the 'festival of lights' because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps called 'diyas'.

Each night more lights and decorations appear in the streets and balloon sellers abound. Children hurl thunderously loud bangers (fireworks equivalent to a military thunder-flash) into the street and adults fire off rockets at waist height across the alleyways, inducing shell shock (now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in us.

Loud music blares from the shops from tinny speakers and radios and a veritable cavalcade of flashing fairy lights adorn the modern shop fronts on the Taj Road. We discovered a new place to eat in. This was called The Candy and it was just around the corner from Jaggis. I tucked into an egg curry with juicy vegetable pillaw rice in clean comfortable surroundings.

George was still on his anti-rice campaign and grizzled about being unsatiated again; apparently a paper-thin nan bread was no substitute. We read our books until the waiter kept asking us if we wanted anything else, a not so subtle hint to be gone. We collected our gear from Jaggis and made final use of his toilet facilities before setting off for the railway station.

A waiting trishaw driver squealed with joy at the prospect of two passengers with baggage, but he was sadly disappointed as we disappeared into the gloom on foot. In the station forecourt I was assailed by an old crone who jabbered and flailed with her puny arms. We pushed on into the crowded, noisy station and set up camp in a relatively quiet corner. I was still feeling rough and the lack of any cold drinks was no comfort.

Eventually our train came in but there was no sign of carriage number M24 which our reservations were made on. An official-looking idiot with a clip board directed us to a carriage jammed to the roof with writhing squealing humanity. We returned to the organiser who directed us to another carriage as confidently as he had pointed out the last one.

In disgust we fought our way on board and plonked down on the first free bunks that we came across. A while later a scruffy looking fellow in a blue woollen skull cap (beanie) appeared and asked us for out tickets. He ascertained that we were in the wrong bunks and bid us follow him while he evicted the throng of passengers that were occupying our beds.

We climbed onto the wooden shelves and tried to settle down as the other occupants of the carriage scrabbled and clawed for space to cram themselves and their huge loads of baggage. Blue hat worked his way along and gradually sorted out a semblance of order, checking off the useless bunk occupants against a computer print-out sheet. The metal cage grills over the light bulbs cast shadowy grids patterns over this glorified cattle truck as I lay scrunched up on a five-foot-long board and eventually dozed off.