Talking god and real estate

“Are you here to see the Shiva temples, then? Or on a holiday?” a man on the front seat turned around to ask us.

We were in a Sumo, a means of public transport in these parts, heading out of Almora to Jageshwar, a temple town about 100km from Kathgodam, the nearest railway station, in Uttarakhand. It was about three or four hours by bus to Almora from Kathgodam. I looked at the familiar road; we were now almost directly below the animal rescue centre housing sullen, gargantuan man-eating leopards. I’d be sullen and gargantuan too, if I were holed up in a cage and fed buffalo meat daily.

“She likes the temples,” said my husband.

“Holiday,” I said simultaneously.

The man nodded, finding nothing contrary in our answers. “It’s a powerful god,” he said. “Powerful.”

We smiled. It was only a little subterfuge; it’d have been rather strange to say we were going because the day was clear, and if we were still in the mood for it by the time we reached, we’d climb up to Vriddh Jageshwar and see the Himalayas spread out at 180 degrees, from Garhwal to Nepal; or, failing that, see if we could find a familiar face and just talk.

To say we were travelling for this, and because I liked to hear strangers’ conversations in these vehicles, would have been disconcerting to own up to. People visit Jageshwar mainly for its 9-13th century temples, located against the backdrop of a sacred deodar grove.

The Sumo stopped at Panuwanaula, thanks to the passenger who’d been travelling from Bareilly almost non-stop since the previous day. He had to have his tea. We had time. These vehicles stop for practically anyone, or anything. If we’d told the driver we’d wanted him to wait a bit while we selected and bought a box of sweets, he’d have not only agreed, but also suggested which shop was the best. And he’d have railed at us gently for not telling him we wanted to buy sweets in Almora, because there was a better shop there.

On another similar ride from Munsiyari, two women had wanted to stop at a temple and pray; the driver stopped for a good 20 minutes or half-hour while they got down, and maybe tied a prayer on a piece of paper, while the men from Delhi grumbled in the backseat. They tied written prayers and bells at this temple in Chitai; I’d seen one such tied petition where a student asked that his family move to their new home soon, that they prosper and that he should do well in studies. Also, that he should play for Manchester United one day.

The woman sitting next to me asked if we’d been to Kausani. I said we had.

So had she; she’d stayed there for a while and done a course on Gandhian thought at an ashram there. But it was long ago, she said somewhat wistfully, before she’d got married.

A young man sitting near a window said he was studying theology in Varanasi. The child on his lap, who was prone to car-sickness, was his niece; he was on his way home to a village near Jageshwar.

Religion was almost living here, an everyday thing intertwined in the affairs of people in a way I’d not seen in a city. A Hindi newspaper here had some time ago carried photographs of the cast from the 1980s’ television series Ramayana ; one of the actors was visiting the area and this story was featured prominently in the newspaper, together with images of the actors from the serial, complete with fake gold crowns.

And here, our pace slowed, to move in time with everyone else’s. One reason was the pine trees you looked at when you got into a bus, or the view of a brown or purple horizon with mountains in it. Another was the people. For instance, there was our razor-blade, vegetables and tomato ketchup man. We’d gone to buy razor blades, and the shopkeeper didn’t exactly have what we were looking for. “I’ve got a pack,” he said slowly, and brought it out. “But it’s not the same brand you’re looking for.” It was also opened. He said, “You try it on your razor. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll take it back.” He then spread out his palms like a conjurer and looked at us over the top of his spectacles. “ Mamla open hain .”

By the time we reached Artola, it was later than we expected, and the day had become hot. We decided to abandon the Vriddh Jageshwar plan; we’d just walk to Jageshwar, three or so kilometres away, hang around, and start back later in the day.

Lunch, then, was the inevitable amaranth, thick rings of cucumber, chapatti, dal and rice. I eyed the water and asked the cook if it had been filtered. They did have a filter, he said cautiously, after a moment.

We’d had this conversation before, though I’d almost forgotten it. So I said yes, but was it working? No, he said scrupulously, it was not working. But they did have it. Never mind, I said, do you have Bisleri? No. But he offered to run down to the shop and get it. See if you can get me a Pepsi too, I got up to tell him, but he was halfway down the road by now.

We went near the temple to pick up the latest gossip, see if the priest, who always did comparative cost analysis of property prices in Mumbai and Haldwani, was anywhere around and could be tempted to take a break from his temple duties for a cup of tea with us. He was.

The cost analysis started out this time with the young priest, a rhododendron tucked behind his ear, asking what land prices were like now in Mumbai, say, per acre. We told him one talked of Mumbai prices in square feet, and not for land, either. He was astonished, he said. Square feet? Thousands of rupees for a square foot! Suppose the building collapsed? Jageshwar was better, he said, his hands sweeping towards the temples and the squat houses, and the old deodars. He distrusted towering buildings.

It had clouded over now. Otherwise the view from Vriddh Jageshwar would have been fine today. The priest remembered us coming back from such a walk before, when we had stayed here, looking for a house for a couple of months; our mortgage had been paid, and we decided to take a gap year. Or two or three. We hadn’t found a house here, but we liked to come back whenever we could. In the Vriddh Jageshwar temple compound, several empty quart-sized bottles, imprinted with stylised roses, were thrown behind a knee-high wall. They may have been bottles of rose water, which is commonly used in worship. But there were far too many of them; the bottles had all contained liquor.

The day had been clear, and the view had stunned us into silence, the mountains ablaze and splendid as we gazed at them from behind trees that fringed patchwork fields and villages. The walk up had been a little gruelling; downhill was always better. We stopped to unwrap cold, rock-hard aloo parathas near someone’s low boundary wall, and tore at them, starving. We had almost reached level ground when a woodcutter, who was also part of the roadworks gang, waylaid us in the gentlest possible manner.

He had heard us ask someone for a place to stay, and said he had a room for rent. “It’s here,” he said, his manner a mix of deference and determination. “Just here, away from the crowd. You should see it.” It was a Kumaoni house, ochre wood over a cement base. Tiny, delicate cacti and succulents overflowed from tins and plastic jars in his garden. The room the woodcutter wanted to rent out had pictures and paintings and sketches covering the walls, some disintegrating over the dirt-dark mat. There was a pervasive smell that wouldn’t leave our lungs long after we left. Weed.

We enquired about him.

“He’s found some tourists,” said the priest, dismissively. “Let’s see how long they stay.”

After a while we got up, reluctantly.

The vehicle that dropped us to the bus stand was, sadly, empty and the driver, monosyllabic. We gave up after a few false starts.

I thought back to the conversation that had got me hooked to travelling in uncomfortable vehicles with lumpy, sliding seats in the first place. Maybe I’d never hear another one quite like it again.

We’d been on our way to a market, and the vehicle picked up a cheerful, almost college-age girl.

She whipped out her phone and started making calls in rapid succession, the conversations going something like this:

“I passed. Yes, I called to say I PASSED.” She raised her voice, casting a fulminating look at the back of the driver’s head, who did nothing to tone down the piped music.

“You remember that girl who delivered a baby, and whose in-laws... yes, she, she’s failed. Got left behind by a few numbers. Sir asked her to get her paper rechecked. Sir himself asked her.”

“Yes, yes, I got through. Can’t hear anything. I’ll get home and call you... poor girl... last year, people had really odd marks. Seven, nine...”

“Yes, I wish sir had asked me to get my paper rechecked last year — I’d have saved a year... no, not her — poor thing, what’ll she get by getting her paper checked again? She got just one mark... yes, let’s talk later, please.”

Of all the things about the Himalayas, apart from the views of quiet, magnificent peaks in the sun, I remember the conversations; all I want to do is get back into one of those Sumos, and ride. Never mind the destination.

(Suhasini Kamble is a Mumbai-based copy editor)

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