Our huge day, one of a few, is today. We’ll ride to the next camp, getting our act together and taking it on the road… We will ride 3 ½ hours in the morning, break for lunch and naps in the rare, tiny patches of shade on the sandy ground. The horses are unsaddled and fed and watered. Then we ride 3 or more hours in the afternoon, sitting out the hottest hours of midday.
Manisha and I are getting to know one another much better, but I’m still no expert. She is only happy when pushing to the front of the pack at a swift, extended canter—almost a gallop. She is deaf to my “Whoa”s but does begin to respond to the kissing noises I hear the grooms making to calm the most riled ones. So when we ride right up a red-ribbon bedecked ass, if I pull back easily on the reins and kiss, she actually backs off for a split second or two, enough to get a sliver of air space between us and the next horse.
The characteristics of sand in these giant dunes are not discernible from those of water. Color is the only distinguishing factor. Here the grains of hot sand undulate in waves and tiny ripples moved and re-shaped by the wind.
Weeks after my return, someone forwarded to me a photo of the horses that had been digitally converted to sepia tone, like an old tintype print. It seemed somehow truer to the desert’s color than all of the colored photos I had seen or that were stored on my camera.
Occasionally we would ride past a twisted Banyan tree, with red string tied around its trunk—these were holy trees, natural shrines and worshipped. The desert days were so quiet—the huffing of the horses, the creak of saddle leather, our laughter broken by long spells of each of us in a reverie of observant awe or exhaustion, or both. This is hard. Traveling in completely foreign circumstance reminds me how very much there is to discover about myself and the world—so much unlearned—I long to be home while simultaneously wishing Bob and I had no jobs or responsibilities and could just explore. Everyone wishes the mundane episodes of life could be balanced by peak experiences, but like the poor in Delhi, I have seen enough to know exactly what I do not have (mostly that is time), so I wish for it more fervently. Had I never tasted travel, I would not be this hungry. I sometimes ache with the appetite.
It is too hot for birds, insects, anything to add a layer to the sands absorbing silence…except children. It’s a mystery how even the screeching peacocks were too oppressed by the heat of midday to scream, but little barefoot children never tired of tottering after us, well past the range of their lonely mud-walled homes, squeaking “Ta-ta, ta-ta.” At first, none of us knowing these words, we answered back cheerfully, “Ta-ta!” taking a gloved hand from reins to wave. Only later, after several days of ta-ta-ing, were we told it means “old ones.”
The second half of our day’s ride, after lunch and napping on skinny nylon camp pads in the scrub amid a wide peppering of goat droppings (and having to hike for a bit to find anywhere not in open sightlines to use as an impromptu bathroom bush) we are ascending a bit through hillier ground and a few passes where the earth cleaves. We summit what seems to be the high horizon and it opens into completely barren sand dunes. This is the Hollywood/Lawrence of Arabia version of a desert with gentle sandy rises and the only pattern is the ripples of windblown sand. We’ve left the sticker bushes and knobby thorn trees behind. This alien landscape holds us rapt, as thunder begins to rumble way off in the distance. Clouds are congealing into a gray but not threatening mass ahead over the rise. Too soon, we break around a bend and begin our descent into the valley below and back into the same flora of before. Now our vision extends far across the valley and we see the clouds have truly gathered into jumbled gray masses…and the occasional thunder rumble makes us begin to respond with an “Uh Oh” or two. We are exhausted and thinking surely the ride has to end soon for the day, it will be getting dark soon. A flame orange sun pokes out from under the bottom edge of clouds, glowing just above the horizon before us. Our horses are picking their steps carefully and are mostly mellow at the end of this long day. We shed sunglasses that now darken the area too much for comfort, working our way down the hills. The storm is gathering momentum, and now we can see an occasional lightning flash sparkle on the darkening horizon. The thunder, thankfully, doesn’t spook the horses too much, though I think we were all anticipating it might as it picks up in frequency and is clearly much closer to us.
We finally arrive at a long stone wall in the middle of seemingly nowhere on the level valley floor. The wall has a large archway in it, and a whitewashed structure or two to one side. This is Tantwas, our camp spot/first village. Waiting for us at the gateway, is the village (maybe 20 people) with large drums, finger cymbals, dancing women and chanting men, plus three men on a stone platform near the wall with antique-looking rifles, all presided over by Banver Singh, The Thakur of Tantwas. There really ought to be background music every time the Thakur of Tantwas is mentioned—he is such a character…and to say he is a character is as understated as saying our horses were “spirited.”
The drumming ramps up a bit and the twirling/dancing follows suit as we are instructed to line up our horses facing the wall. The thunder and lightning add a little something to the show, and the horses are beginning to dance a bit. Manisha is relatively calm, but some are getting skittish. Groom staff members come and hold the bridles and help us to line up. A man with a tray of small brass pots and rice comes along the line and gives each of us, and each of our horses, Puja.
Puja is a blessing of good luck, usually signified by a thumbprint of red paste on the forehead (third eye) with lucky rice grains stuck to the smear. Our horses and we are red-dotted, it is getting dark, and the Hemingway-esque Thakur Sahib with his one rheumy eye (he lost the other in the war), orange turban, and old rifle slung over his shoulder pulling the white gauzy fabric of his khurta across his considerable belly, mounts the stone platform with his gunmen. Drumming increases, competing with the thunder. We’re told to shorten our reins and hold on, as the three gunmen are about to salute us. Drums, thunder, and now guns…not a recipe for calm mellow horses. Only two guns fire, the third fizzle in sparks. Manisha is brilliant and I’ve been stroking her neck the whole time to try and instill any sense of calm amid the mounting chaos. Some horses spook. The crowd is loud and the thunder is getting huge, real explosive claps now instead of rumbling. We are told to follow the dancing girls and our host who has mounted a horse and holds his sabre aloft as he leads us single file through the archway to the open field that is our first remote camp. The tents have all been set up and a campfire can be seen in the middle. The women dance, drummers drum and promenade, and we slowly follow on our prancing, nervous mounts. We make it to the horse’s area where they will stay and have not even dismounted when the sky opens up and we are pelted with a ferocious load of hail. The horses don’t understand why they’re being hit and everyone is frantic trying to untack them and blanket them. There is a loud smack fairly often of hailstones hitting riding helmets. I don’t have a helmet so I get pinged on the head a few times, and damnit, it hurts. One of the horses breaks free and runs a bit, but not far. We all bolt once the horses are taken over by the staff, and we pile into the nearest tent. It is Alexander’s and the doctors’—the closest we could find. Someone lights the sole candle and we can only laugh, and chow down on a box of chocolate candy Alexander had stashed.As the hail lets up to a softer rain, we find our own tents in the dark. Villagers are re-stoking the campfire and it is flaring up casting some light to make it easier. We change into dry clothes and wander to the dining/bar tent. This extra tent is our communal space with plastic chairs and a table set up. We eat most meals outside, weather permitting, but can always hang out here. We all have drinks. Barry had been thrown from his horse today (apparently just for the grievous sin of opening his water bottle—a noise that his particular horse cannot abide, and she reared HiHo Silver-style, sliding him right off the back) so he has to buy a round. There is a small dog-eared book in which each of us has a page and we write down our drinks throughout the trip and settle up later. There is, in addition to the vodka, whiskey, rum, etc a bottle of Indian moonshine—several of us give it a try. It is like grain alcohol with a bit of orange essence. One small glass is enough and I go back to vodka.
There is a ceremony of sorts beginning outside, so we head out to the now quite large fire where the chairs have been set up in a crescent around one side. On the other side of the fire are twenty or so villagers, smiling and singing and seemingly fascinated by us, as we are by them. There is a troupe of performers beginning. An old bearded man in full red regalia—long coat/skirt over pants, and turban—occasionally whirls like a dervish as drumming and singing find cohesion in the group. His skirt, as he twirls, flicks the flames.
One man, seemingly the troupe leader, squats low by a small double cauldron of glowing embers over which he chants and pours oil. Blessings? The old man now has added a long whip to his spinning dance. Younger men dance up to him, arms raised, and he whips them around their torsos to much hurrah-ing. Next he dances with a sword, swinging it overhead, dangerously close to us, as it all gets a bit sloppier with our drinking (and theirs as well, I’m quite sure). He licks the (supposedly) sharp blade edge for more cheers. We, of course, cheer and clap for every little thing as well. It is celebratory and resembles a freaky acid trip from a 1970’s movie scene with the golden flickering light, the frenzied drumming soundtrack, the real or imagined threat of drunk men showing off with weapons…and the Thakur of Tantwas peering from the shadows behind the gathered villagers.
The fire attendant/oil libations man sits closer to the fire’s edge now and fishes from the embers small, seemingly red hot coals, which he places on a small dirt mound he has built up. One of the frenzied dancers, evidently working himself into a trance of sorts, stoops down and takes the ember between his teeth and parades around the circle. This is done again and again with many coals of uniform shape fished from the fire. After many rounds of coal chewing and cheering, a smallish, dinner-fork sized trident is waved around by the old red man with much fanfare, then he proceeds to tower over the kneeling, fire eating dancer, and thrusts the sharpened handle end through the man’s tongue, piercing it. Again, the rather proud and gory sight is paraded around in front of us—his eyes rolled back into his head, tongue bleeding. All this time, and it is considerable, the same three-beat drum tune drones on and on. More dancing, rupee notes waved over our heads as a blessing (and as a cue for tips). The tip pan comes around, money goes in, and then, funnily, it is counted out in front of the crowd. More drumming and singing and we drift off, one by one, to the dining tent for a late dinner.
The rain has drizzled a bit off and on all night, but it is pleasant as overwhelmed and full-bellied riders make their way to their tents for the first camp night’s sleep. I am up around the all-but-dead fire with Alexander, Doc, and Caroline…and Alexander gets the idea he’d like to try to hold a hot coal in his teeth. We encourage him as only the foolish can, and I mound up some dirt, fish a small ember from the pit, and place it for him. With some trepidation he does it and is elated—totally high on having done something he thought he couldn’t do.
The next half hour is spent with him trying to encourage us to do it too. It is a playground game with him trying several strategies from suggesting we are cowards, to it being an honor thing, to a flat out dare (the most effective for me). Finally we go and wake up Rebecca, thinking, like the LIFE Cereal commercial, we’ll get the young one to do it…and she does, without a lot of thought or drama. Eventually we all hold hot glowing coals in our teeth, forming one of those stupid but ridiculously fun group trip alliances that happen very late at night after many drinks and exhausting days. I eventually go to bed, licking my teeth for signs of burned enamel crumbling away in the night.I find when I hang out with Alexander, trading sarcastic murmured banter or just stories, I feel like I am back in high school or college where I tended to always be the mouthy sidekick to the laughably handsome leading man, cracking wise and basking in the deferred glow of being buddies with the Big Man on Campus. Of course, I judge myself stupid for seeking this for the first few days, and I stop trying to create ways to hang out with anyone in particular and instead look for situations to unfold unforced, finding the greatness of spending time with each person who crosses my path. I had thought Alexander might be a more streamlined channel INTO the experience…that I could glean from him some secret to make me fully part of what was going on. I wanted a shortcut to the enlightenment I had already decided was available to me on this journey, forgetting or intentionally ignoring the knowledge that we all have to get there on our own.
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