More Culture Shock

It is not yet 9 a.m. but the cool morning air has already been supplanted by a gassy, dusty heat. The sweater I wore when we left the hotel is off and sweat has begun to streak my forehead. Our forward pace has slowed considerably by the time the ramparts of the Red Fort loom over the ramshackle color of the Chandi Chowk bazaar in the old city. The sights, sounds and smells of the crowded shops and streets have begun to fill my senses quite agreeably. In the space of a few short hours the paranoia we felt upon arriving in this country has somehow evaporated leaving in its place a quiet contentment and sense of wonder that we are actually in India. Imagine! As a young man I had dreamed of reaching this enchanted kingdom and here I walk in the company of my family.

The streets are already so crowded and there is so much activity that I am overwhelmed as we walk. This would be a fair or circus in North America but it's everyday life here. I am not processing much yet. I am drinking everything in as we walk. Even in Central America I never felt such a bustle of activity everywhere. There is a feeling of vastness about it all, of it being so big, so much, that it's impossible to comprehend.

We walk through the parking lot towards the Red Fort entrance. It's already jammed. A disheveled drunk is careening between the cars waving a liquor bottle. He's wearing a shabby sports coat which flaps loosely over his scarecrow frame. His whitish gray hair is wild, his aboriginal face, his bony black legs extending down to cracked, dirty bare feet. He seems to be cursing in Hindi, yelling  interspersed with singing. Though we are the only Westerners in sight he pays no apparent attention to us nor does anyone in the crowd seem to notice him. He is a streak of raucous activity in this sunny morning but might just as well be invisible to everyone but us.

We pay a small admission charge of a few rupees and enter the grounds. This fort was built by Shah Jehan but its rust red stonework seems light years away from the serenity of the Taj Mahal. Inside, even the earth is of the same brilliant red and where we walk red dust clings to our shoes. Tourists with cameras, mostly oriental or Indian, stroll leisurely across the grounds. This is our first actual experience of Mogul architecture and we find ourselves gazing in wonder through the intricately carved marble pillars of what the guidebook says was once the harem. I imagine the dry pools filled with water and people the courtyard with figures from the past. Our voices seem to echo slightly. Once again I wonder how we got here, what we are doing here.

Days before leaving I had picked up a travel book that was crammed full of information on how the traveler to India might best proceed and in this book it was mentioned that the tomb of the great sufi teacher Inayat Khan was in New Delhi. Since this was our first stop, I decided then that visiting the tomb would be a priority for us.

The writings of Inayat Khan had been an important part of my life since the early '70s when I became aware of his books and the connection between spirituality and music that he expounded in them so succinctly.

In my mind, since I felt the need to rationalize such things, this alone was sufficient reason to come, to pay respects to a revered teacher but I also knew that the decision to come had not come from me and the fact that we were now here opened my mind to a play of fantasy, the idea that perhaps we had come for a reason  that was yet to be revealed. However, I was no longer the naive young man who had traveled towards the East in search of the sacred wisdom of legend. I felt I had already journeyed far and perhaps even learned a few things along the way.

So my sense of wonder was tempered with a growing sense of my own maturity. Had I come to India to meet my guru? Not likely. There were however things in life like kismet, fate, not so cut and dried nor open to analysis but real, operative behind the apparent play of things. In other words my need for romance was undampened by age and as far as I was concerned, anything might be possible.

Standing within the precincts of this medieval fort strengthened my sense of mystery. I was no student of either history or architecture but something in me loved to absorb the  ambiance of this site, took it in like a food. Perhaps there is something to be said for study of the history of a country one intends to travel to, opening one to a greater depth of knowledge on the journey.  I, however, reacted more like a sleeper suddenly awakening into a strange and exotic dream.

Although I had done a fair amount of reading and studying in my life I knew little or nothing about India. My brain was a tabula rasa. What was written there was strongly influenced by the moment, by what I was feeling, what I thought I saw. If there was such a thing as destiny then this trip was surely an example of it. There was no doubt about it, there was something here for me. Something which had little or nothing to do with analysis or rational thinking.  I could feel it in my bones.

After a couple of hours of camera clicking and pondering vistas over the wall, we are ready to leave. We are momentarily distracted by a man on the grounds outside the wall, holding a monkey on a leash and yelling upwards for us to pay attention to the tricks they are preparing to perform. He prods the monkey viciously with a stick. My daughters exclaim how mean he is being.   He will get no baksheesh from us.

Outside in the parking lot, the drunken wild man continues his perambulations but somehow his intensity seems muted. We cross the busy intersection bisecting the tourist attraction from the chaotic bazaar and have not gone far before we are stopped by a street photographer. The four of us pose at curbside in front of a backdrop held up by an assistant. The photographer huddles under a black blanket behind the ancient wooden frame camera and there is a flash of gunpowder, like in those movies of the Old West. The film in its clip is extracted from the camera and developed in a galvanized bucket. Our sepia portrait, a lasting treasure, shows me as Clint Eastwood, Karen a princess from the Arabian Nights and our angelic children as themselves, too beautiful to be fully human.

By the time we return to the hotel we are exhausted from our long walk in the hot sun. My nostrils are dust-caked, a new and soon to be familiar part of daily life here. We have not yet fully recovered from our first encounter with local cab drivers and so our walking tour is a form of self-preservation but I resolve to keep to my resolution and take some kind of public transport to visit the tomb of Inayat Khan, tomorrow. For tonight it will be further rest and pampering in the form of a fine dinner somewhere near our hotel.

This evening after dinner I write down my intention to visit Inayat Khan's tomb in a little black journal I purchased from a bookseller in Connaught Circle with the word Saraswati embossed on the cover in gold lettering. The goddess of music and learning is a fitting symbol for the cover of my travel sketchbook. In it, I intend to keep a daily record of my thoughts, experiences and dreams in much the same way as I have done for the past fifteen or so years.

Before going to bed I perform a familiar meditation. Out of its new black traveling case I take my old Suzuki guitar, a companion of many other journeys. The touch and sound of its strings is soothing and healing to my spirit.

I came to India with my family this time, a very different mode of travel from one used to solitary journeying but also with one item from my days of past travel, this same guitar, which miraculously materialized in the mountain of unsorted luggage at the airport just about the time I had given up on it. At the very least, I felt that I would continue writing songs while in India and have some tasty material to bring back to the West and record when we returned. Little did I know that India would impact me so strongly that I would not be able to write any music at all until after we had left it behind.