It was a gloomy January day in Old Delhi, and the mood on the street was unusually flat. People were just getting on with their business as I wondered what the day might have in store for me.
Early morning chai and stuffed paratha had set me up for an adventure, but where to find it? I took to the back streets which were brown and dismal, covered in the overnight rain which reflected the men’s heavy grey djellabas on the wet surface. Hoods were tilted down to keep out the drizzle. Without the hint of a glint, I was in the mood for kicking a can down the street. The colour of the previous afternoon had disappeared, and the joy that it gave had gone. Dust turned to slime, potholes had become puddles, and the sodden crows pecked away at new piles of detritus. It was the bleakest of days.
I was spotted by a short man in a zipped-up leather jacket, who quickly identified me as a foreign tourist; he was straddled over a Royal Enfield 350. He beckoned me over with a backward nod of the head. I didn’t warm to him at all, I had doubts about even talking to him. I spoke no Hindi, but he managed to find a few clumsy English phrases. It appeared that he was asking me if I had any Western goods to trade.
I was hesitant but intrigued, as I suspected that he must have intuitively sensed the boxed set of Estee Lauder perfume, talc and body cream for discerning ladies, that I had in my daysack. I was a little embarrassed to be carrying around such a hideous box, designed in soft pinks and gold, with a transparent cellophane lid. Western products like this, or indeed of any kind, were hard to come by in India. They carried great social status and a good price.
Travellers were a good source of such products to the domestic population, so consequently they would buy things available in one country, and sell them at a profit in another, in order to eke out a modest travel budget.
I was wanting to sell, so I carefully presented it, allowing him to look, but not to touch.
The Easy Rider asked, ‘How much?’. Then, before a price was even mentioned, he beckoned me to ride pillion. From his snap decision, I sensed a sale might be imminent.
Thrusting ahead under lowering cloud, we slalomed goats, puddles of unknown depth, and children mustering for a game of cricket. The grim streets were very narrow and in this kind of weather, they had lost their usual charm.
I hung on tightly to a rail circumventing the back seat of the Royal Enfield as my rider showed off its power, and his ego. I soon became lost and terrified in the maze of fragile dwellings. In the thrill, my head spun, my pulse raced and my back tensed as I resisted every lean and turn. Minutes later, on shaking legs, I stood outside a concrete house with bare reinforcing rods projecting into the sky.
Should I be making this journey, considering that I had not trusted the motorcyclist? My curiosity prevailed, it led me to follow. Anxiously, I ascended a rickety flight of wooden stairs. He led the way, then drew back a heavy steel bolt from a door at the top. From his side pocket he took a large bunch of keys, and like a jailer, he opened one of the locks, then he opened another, and the door swung inwards on its substantial hinges.
He beckoned me to follow him into a gloomy interim space. There was a second door. He flung it open after calling out a brief word in Hindi.
I was taken aback. I gasped audibly. I was not prepared for the interior that this bleak house had to offer me. I was assaulted rather than enchanted, by its décor. My still-shaking legs became rigid as I surveyed the room.
All four walls and ceiling were a deep pink; the doors and their frames, the light switches and socket board were all roughly streaked with the same pink paint. I was bewitched by a gallery of overwhelming wall posters and figurines of gaudily decorated Hindu gods: a commanding purple Siva with an orange trident; a handsome blue Krishna amidst his white cows and adoring gopis; a jolly pink Ganesha, regally seated on a golden throne; and a foreboding black Kali, wearing a necklace of demons’ skulls, her tongue dripping with scarlet blood. Adjacent the king-sized, four-poster bed, which left little space for anything else, was a small plaster-cast statue of Laxmi, the opulent Hindu goddess of wealth, rising out of a vermillion lotus flower. Drapes of dusty magenta chiffon hung from the overhead structure of the bed. My head spun. India was new to me. I didn’t understand these images that affronted me with their outrageous colour.
Upon that bed lay an outstretched, overweight woman in her mid-thirties. Adorned in a pink silk saree with a tight, matching blouse, her long flow of coal-black hair was freshly oiled and scented. The tone of her complexion lightened by heavy make-up. The bare, overhead neon strip light railed against the outside gloom; it did not flatter her, for it sharpened her most miserable expression, which had little to do with the dreary weather. Glancing back at the bed, I noticed a half-consumed box of chocolates spread out beside her onto a crimson satin bedspread.
I saw a poor woman enslaved and isolated. She was the epitome of ennui. I felt sad. What was this entrapment?
Her taciturn master beckoned me to pass over the Estee Lauder, whereupon my initial sympathy for her became severely tested. I had to allow him to touch the goods. He presented the box expectantly to the lady in pink, laying it down carefully upon the bed.
She hardly moved before finally feigning interest. Condescending a sideways glance, her upper lip crinkled. She twisted her torso to poke her finger through the crisp cellophane and tore out the body cream from the presentation package. She crudely squirted some onto her forearm and sniffed. We both awaited her judgement, which came swiftly and silently.
Without sampling the other products, she brushed the presentation box aside and defiantly turned her head away.
The motorcyclist spluttered, then his ego descended the rickety staircase. I followed in a state of disbelief, conceding that my naïve and misplaced investment would yield me no return, wiped out at the flick of a hand. I swiftly concluded that trading was not my future.
Back on the brown street, I reflected that the colour inside that room had brought no joy.
Under the low cloud, it remained the bleakest of days.