Black Chai and Hashish

Wednesday, October 20th

I arose at 4:30am. My feet hit the cold marble floor and I stumbled into the bathroom to perform the morning ablutions. I turned on the tap to fill up the five gallon bucket and plugged in the heating coil. It would be ten minutes before I had hot water, and I took that time to brush my teeth. Once bathed, I spent the next several minutes washing out the bucket and rinsing the floor. Finally, I brushed any remaining water on the floor toward the drain with the purpose built broom. A long rubber strip attached to a broom handle. This is my twice daily ritual.

I have fallen back into the pattern of mindless mental chatter during my meditations. With just a couple of days to go before the retreat ends, I am again wondering the point of the whole exercise has been. Clearly I am not on the fast track toward enlightenment. Even my best efforts fail to bring me close to a sense of accomplishment. But, I won't dwell on these thoughts. It is early in my journey, and there is still a chance that despite my failings, a profound transformation may take place.

Today's expedition took me to the German cafe where I met up with Musette. After a light lunch, we set off to engage in our favorite pass time of shopping. By now we are known to a number of the shop keepers who wave a greeting as we pass by. Every where we stop, there is always a cup of chai on offer, as is the custom here. It is quite easy to get addicted to the sweet milky tea that is always served piping hot. Some where along the way I lost sight of Musette and so made my way back over the bridge alone.

On impulse I stopped in the gem store to look for my friend Ravi, but he had traveled to Delhi and is likely to be away for the week. Disappointed, I decided to stop at the cafe below his shop and have sweet black chai. The owner recognized me and very quickly set about making a fresh pt of chai. I sat on the muddy bank at the only table available in this make shift cafe. I was soon joined by local named Gopal who introduced himself as a local tour guide, and proceeded to tell me his life story.

Gopal was born to a very poor family, and he recalls traveling around the state with his parents as a small boy, to work on construction sites. The work was hard and paid very little. Families like his lived and worked on these sites until completion of the project, and then moved on. It was a nomadic life that offered little stability to the young Gopal. With no education and no ability to read or write the prospects for him were non existent. By the time he was thirteen years old he ran away and found himself in Goa. What began as liberation, hanging out at wild parties and meeting foreigners, quickly devolved into addiction. He had developed a cocaine habit and lived in a drug induced haze for six years before returning to Rishikesh. He managed to get straight and got himself odd jobs in the hotel industry

Like many in his position, he courted tourists and had a three year relationship with an Israeli girl, which abruptly ended when her mother showed up and took her back to Israel. He is very pragmatic about the loss of the relationship and shrugged it off as simply another closed chapter in his life. He has recently married a girl selected for him by his parents; after the marriage his new wife spent one month with him before returning to her home some 300 kilometers away. She is pregnant with their first child and he hopes that she will return before the birth.  She will live with his parents in what he describes a “plastic house” which they have occupied for the past 36 years. The structure is made of bamboo columns covered in heavy black plastic for a roofing, and the walls and floors are made of mud. Gopal does not live there, instead he finds shelter in a small lean to at the side of the road, but goes home for meals.

Life, Gopal complains is very hard and he feels cursed by fate. There is no joy in life he says.  His only escape from the sheer hopelessness of existence is to smoke hashish. Unlike cocaine which made him aggressive, he has found that hashish mellows him.  When the worries of the world become too much, it is his refuge. It has become a way of life for him. He leaned conspiratorially close to me and confessed that he is actually a dealer. Removing a long pencil of black tar from his pocket he informs me that this costs 1,200 rupees. I politely shake my head and indicate to him that I do not smoke. He shrugs, and casually puts the hashish back in his pocket.

As a parting gesture Gopal takes hold of my had and places it on his shoulder and then begins to massage my arms in circular strokes. “I have aryuvedic oils that I use for a full body massage,” he whispers. He is a purveyor of all things and at thirty six, still has the advantage of youthfulness that is not yet marred, despite his abuse of substances. His name like his despair, is tattoed into his flesh, and cannot be veiled by his playful comraderie.

A friend passes by riding a bright red and white motor cycle, he waves and shouts a greeting as he speeds past the cafe. Gopal lets me know that his friend is riding a brand new bike purchased by an American girlfriend. According to Gopal, she is old, but has a nice body.  I suspect that he is envious of his friend, and hopes to find himself a new girlfriend. Whilst I chatted with Gopal, the cafe owner had prepared pakora and jilabe for me to taste. One savory and the other sweet, and both delicious. I am touched by this simple gesture and communicate my gratitude with nods, as his English is limited.

As I walk back for evening meditation, I am again struck by the stark realities that people are confronted with. There is a pyramid of poverty with subtle gradations of deprivation that are threadbare and impossible to distill in the morass of hopelessness and despair that haunts the Gopal's of this world. This is clearly not the only reality in India with its burgeoning middle class, but it is what I am witness to for now.  Life is mortgaged for as little as Dostoevsky's loaf of bread or as much as one hundred Lakh. And the price exacted is a piece of the soul.