INDIAN MADE FOREIGN LIQUOR
1.
My father, John Frum’s self-imposed exile as best I can imagine it:
The only line out of Dharamsala was a convoy pulled by two miniature steam engines that huffed and shuddered down the steep grade and narrow track of the arch gallery, cutting through the terraced tea-plantations, step-like ledges of impossible green contouring the foothills of the Himalayas; the train grinding and clattering down each
layer in succession, puncturing each foggy isothermal veil to reveal a slightly different configuration of neon dabs snatching black handfuls from the glossy thickets of tea, baskets bobbing on their ruined backs.
John’s travel agency purchased him an entire first-class compartment, and he spent the last leg of his journey, from Kashmir to Bombay, alone in a riveted cage occasionally woken by a uniformed porter yanking open his capsule and presenting him with yet another tray of tin rice and curry bowls that he would later come by to collect, and a disposable ruddy clay pot of thick yogurt he would not. John tried not to look out
his window. When he did he often found himself face-to-face with one of the children constantly leaping and clinging to his window and would be forced to watch a filth-blackened face smear itself open against the glass and watch the labial pink contortions of what seemed to pass for funny faces in rural India. A spitty afterimage would remain for hours, attracting flies. Nighttimes they vanished and John roamed the cars or stood between them and smoked, watching embers sucked into the slipstream, orange meteorites streaking off into the starry blackness beyond.
Gradually the air thickened and the endless yellow mustard fields zipping by were replaced by water buffalo wallowing and tugging at reeds; the tracks rose off the ground onto an earth mound and the train appeared to skim its way across an endless puddle.
John awoke to a knock one morning and found what appeared to be a dozen cratered Milk Duds mashed up against his compartment divider. Some were mustachioed and all waved paper chits. A conductor’s arm -– khaki, jangling with brass epaulettes — thrust its way between them, rapping at the glass. John kicked off his sheet, unlatched the door and a horde of Indian businessmen piled in, a cloud of persnickety energy crackling between them, the smell of putrefying non-veg meals leaching out from the identical space-age cylinders of gleaming zinc each one carried next to his Bakelite briefcase.
Reeking of hair tonic they shoved John’s suitcases out of the way, tumbling leftover pots and lighting harsh twists of raw tobacco and clove. They crammed into the slippery vinyl seats, wedging themselves in, grabbing themselves, farting, sneering and waggling newspapers.
Each one was dressed the same: a blinding white shirt stained at the pits, the unseemly outline of an undershirt and a pair of dark nipples lurking beneath. They wore itchy-looking charcoal slacks and toothbrush mustaches, one yanked open a window, spat, turned to John: “Next stop: Victoria Terminus.” He smiled, his teeth stained red with pan.
John fixed his gaze out the window, breaking off occasionally to smile at his fellow passengers –- unabashedly staring at him — and curl his foot backwards to tap the scuffed surface of his suitcase to reassure himself of its presence. Outside, a pair of rails swooped in beside theirs, then a second, then a third, then the tracks swelled into a blur of docking trains, rail sheds and telegraph cables bisecting the glistening skyscrapers looming in the smoggy dawn beyond. An instant of black then a vast steam age industrial cavern: triangular struts, ornate clock faces dangling from the ceiling, scrawls of hand-painted Hindi flashing by.
Vendors lurked on the platform, tending cauldrons of chai, stirring from their mats as the first class cabin approached. They lurched towards him, squabbling amongst themselves, unfurling brown arms, clutching foil packets and baskets of cigarettes, waving at him, clawing at the window as the train passed by. Shoving one another out of the way as they gave chase.
The businessmen stood, grabbed their cases and jostled out into the corridor as the train jerked to a hissing, shrieking halt. John gathered his floppy leather suitcase and walked after them down the corridor. He watched the last businessman step off and become the last segment of a long white maggot wriggling its way into the brown mass swelling on the platform.
John stood teetering at the threshold of the first class cabin, the cool hollow tube-like corridor behind him the sweltering swirling masses in front. The anemic breeze of an electric fan rustling the hairs on the back of his neck felt like a tether, no one knew where he was, he didn’t know a soul in the megalopolis beyond.
His heart went from a canter to a gallop.
The station walls and ceiling were smeared black with a century of carbon deposits so thick it looked cobwebs or fur or stalactites; the air was blood warm and moist and even perched above the teeming horde he felt he was inhaling a million other exhalations. Tuberculosis, polio, smallpox, pneumonic plague, giggles of contamination horror pin-wheeled through his head. There were so many of them out there it was like wading into curry, they would tear him apart, chunks of him bobbing in the churning mass of humanity, an instant of white froth, a microdot of milk subsumed into a bubbling cauldron of broth, a twist of smoke swallowed into the smoggy haze above.
John stepped off the ladder, pushing his way into the crowd, a suitcase struck his shin, someone thudded into him, then someone else; he turned, furious he was singled out, but the expressions around him were neutral. He clutched his bags closer to his body when a hand brushed against his, paper dry with calluses when everything else was damp with subtropical humidity, his testicles shriveled in, his scalp prickled, a chill drilled into his core, but nothing happened. Not one of the hundreds, thousands of Indians elbowing past him seemed care. He relaxed his muscles and understood the ebb and flow of the crowd around him, there was a current, a direction, he let himself be swept along, no longer caring where it took him. He towered above them all, a head and shoulders jutting above a swirling sea of humanity; a godhead, a fungal stalk piercing up from an acre wide root system of rhizomes; rip tides rippled across the surface, he shrugged off inquisitive probes of his pockets, tugs at his luggage straps -— here, rubbing shoulders with millions of his brothers he no longer felt like a clotted booger of cream buoyed through society on his father’s money. This was bliss.
John was eventually disgorged from the station, nearly tripping as the crowd deposited him halfway down a flight of stairs. He caught his breath leaning up against a railing and looked back at the Victoria Terminus, this vast alien thing of wild arches and crenelated spines pulsing with throbbing chains of light bulbs, palm trees swaying beside it, and all around him, everywhere, were the teeming, jabbering masses; they were all so beautiful, even the grotesquely misshapen mistake croaking at his side. He looked down, staring into the eyes of what must have been a leper, a human roach, a creature with gnarled fingers curling in on themselves, an ashen mask for a face and he saw his own tiny reflection, doubled. He reached into his pocket and dropped a handful of damp bills into its basket. Hard currency: He was a god to these people.
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