Enlightenment was disappointing.
Bella Cooper might have been born into an ordinary white English household, but she always knew in her heart that deep down, she was Indian.
Yet Bella had been in the country for almost three weeks and still not felt that vital spark ignite her spirit. She’d expected something to have moved her as soon as her feet had touched ground – but the airport was all pollution and noise – nothing spiritual about it. She’d chanted at a Buddhist temple, watched the vultures flying above the towers of silence and salaamed towards Mecca more than once – yet nirvana felt as out of reach as always. In fact, she’d been told that swatting a fly in front of a Jain prayer hall had probably ‘moved her soul further away from divine consciousness’. Not that she could take the man seriously – it was just a bloody fly!
Three whole weeks of visiting temples and worshiping Mother India – surely her soul should have gained enough karma for her to transcend to enlightenment, yet Bella felt no different than before.
So like any other non-enlightened tourist, in between temple visits, she'd also done the important places like Delhi (dirty), Jaipur, (too hot), and Agra (not much to see outside of the Taj Mahal which was just one building) before ending her tour with a couple of days in Mumbai.
After landing in the sprawling coastal city, Bella booked a taxi to the India Gate to fit in a quick sightsee before finding her hotel. She had a few hours this evening to see as much as she could – might as well use them wisely.
The India Gate teetered between the murky grey sea and the sprawling city; seemingly as popular with the locals as the many European tourists milling about. Bella was once again shocked at how little respect the locals paid her; Mumbai was even worse than Agra. People crowded in from all sides, hands pushing and shoving as they tried to get the best views of the ocean. They had no respect for the tourists who had travelled for miles; not giving up the best seats for her to view the glorious sunset.
Everyone looked so different from the Indians who lived back in Lancashire; dusty (and there was dust everywhere), skinny, stinking of strange spices and clothed in such vibrant colours they could have passed as parrots. Hair glistened with grease while their skin was as mucky as it was tanned and yet, somehow despite all this filth, teeth gleamed whiter than any Hollywood starlets.
Plus, they were all so short. Bella was a tall girl so back home she was used to being the same height as men, often taller than most other women. But here, she loomed like a pale, sweaty, blonde giant above everyone.
Perhaps that was why so many people took her photo. Some Indians were subtle, sneaking a phone out to pretend to call someone, only given away by a shutter 'snick' sound. Others gawped at her, snapping away with an expression that made her feel like a zoo exhibit. But the worst were those who insisted on asking her permission, making her admit to being a freak. They’d gather with their friends, taking turns to stand next to her, the girls clutching at her hand, the boys never too close as if she had something contagious. Then they’d all swap around as someone else took a picture and she had to keep smiling her fake smile all the time.
As if reading her thoughts, Bella felt a gentle tap on her elbow.
“Miss, excuse me. Miss, photo?”
Shaking her head, Bella used the only Indian word she knew “Jao” to order them away as she lunged towards the taxis that prowled for customers. Any tranquillity gleaned from the sun's rays was long gone as she scrabbled for her guide book.
In front of her stood two other white tourists; backpackers with miserable expressions and cheap tie-dyed clothing. They were haggling with one of the taxi drivers, lots of tutting and shaking of heads as they held up a wrinkled fifty rupee note – so Bella skirted past them, slipping into the next car. Just because her guidebook had recommended ten rupee tips and agreeing prices at the outset didn't mean she wanted to waste time.
Naming her hotel - a farce that involved pointing to a map in her guide book and shouting the name louder and louder – she closed her eyes to compose herself. It was hard; all she could hear was the non-stop beeping of taxis, the growling of smelly auto-rickshaw engines and the incessant chatter of the unending crowds.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to examine Mumbai. She’d never thought a city could be as huge, busy, and dirty as Delhi – but Mumbai managed to have surpassed it in every possible way.
People seemed too cheap to pay rent, instead sleeping on the streets. Along the pavements, Bella saw row after row of bedding and bags tucked neatly against the wall. Fewer cows roamed the streets here, but instead there were an abundance of semi-naked men pulling ancient handcarts. Horrifically over-laden, this didn't stop the men from hauling the wooden carts out into the traffic; the kind of frenzied traffic that made Paris appear tame.
An interminable amount of time later (Bella was convinced they were going to crash at least three times), the cab pulled up in front of a tall, filthy building.
She’d booked the holiday herself – almost three weeks – plenty of time to see the whole country. Well, the interesting bits, anyway. The flights weren’t cheap, so she’d saved a few pennies on the hotels. It was only a place to lay her head, she’d thought, so what did it matter?
And as she looked up at this faded, rotting edifice, she knew she’d made the same mistake as in the pervious cities. She’d barely opened the cab door before a skinny youth had grabbed her backpack from the boot of the car and hauled it inside the hotel. With no time to haggle the exorbitant thousand rupee taxi fare, she paid up and ran inside.
The boy hadn’t stopped, shouting over his shoulder in Indian to the older man behind the desk before disappearing into a lift. Bella hesitated, not wanting to let her bag out of her sight (she’d heard so many tales of thieves), but her English politeness meant that she had to check in before following the thief.
“Bella Cooper. I have a room booked. One night.” She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and flattened it on the countertop separating her from the man. His only answer was the Indian head waggle that she still hadn't managed to translate. Did it mean that he understood, yes, or no, he had no idea or maybe she had a room? The nerves above her left eye twitched as she admitted to herself that her bag was long gone. Surely the boy was just taking it for her? The man behind the desk was moving slowly, muttering to himself as he typed on an ancient keyboard, his oiled moustache glittering in the glow from the monitor.
“Room 312, have a nice stay, Miss Kapur,” he declared in a beautiful, clear accent, jangling a key at her.
Bella forsook the lift as too rickety and took the stairs. A young boy paused in his sweeping to nod at her as she pounded past, but she ignored him. She was on a mission and this boy was not the one with her luggage. Panting and sweaty, she eventually reached the third floor. A door stood open. 312.
Pausing in the doorway, she saw her rucksack laid reverentially on a suitcase stand, while the boy was kneeling by a fridge, stocking it with Coca-cola branded bottled water. At his feet lay some Indian brand bottles it looked like he had removed.
The lad saw her frown and stood, grabbing the Indian water while waggled his head. “Fake water, Miss. Good for Indian, not so good for English.” He patted his stomach and mimes retching. “Only drink this brand,” he pointed to the fridge. “No bad stomach for you.”
Her cheeks flushed from both the exertion and her unfounded fears, Bella found herself over tipping dramatically. Not the recommended ten rupees, but two crisp hundred rupee notes. She was happy enough to see the lads appreciative grin as he left – that was – until she saw the dead fish.
Unlike Delhi, at least the room was mostly clean. No dirty sheets, no aircon unit rattling away just outside her room door, this place was almost luxurious. For a prison cell.
It was the bars on the window that did it. The bars that stood between her and the dead fish. One milky eye peered in at her through the streaky glass. A crow hopped about nearby, tilting its head as it first peered in, then back at its feast.
“Have your bloody fish, I don’t want it,” Bella pulled a curtain across before collapsing back on her bed with a groan.
#
The next morning, Bella placated her rumbling stomach with a banana (and weren’t those also tiny and weird and nothing like proper English bananas). It was annoying that no hotel made a proper breakfast. Bella knew that Indians didn't eat beef, but why didn't they sell bacon? If she'd skipped dinner, she doesn’t feel awake until she had some nice filling bacon and eggs.
Bella waited at the entrance of the hotel for a taxi, rubbing her eyes and grumbling. She'd not got a wink of sleep. New York be damned, Mumbai was the city that never slept. People, cars, animals – the noise was horrendous.
Men with scary red teeth spat onto the pavement while a group of beggars shambled past, too intent on the cars to notice the white girl hovering nearby. Bella patted her money belt, checking it was safe. She'd heard all sorts of stories about beggars and thieves and, well, just plain rotten behaviour.
"Miss, taxi?" A distinctive black and yellow cab slid to a stop in front of her, the driver leaning out of his window to pop the back door.
"The Sidd... the Siddha..." Frowning down at the words in her guidebook – the Siddhivinayak Temple was easier to read than to pronounce – Bella gave up and just reeled off the road name. "Dadar West, on the way to the airport."
With nary a head waggle, the taxi driver darted out into the heaving traffic. A 'mere' five lanes of cars on a road marked for two, Bella noted with a shudder. Getting in a taxi was a lottery of death, and Bella knew that she'd never been lucky before now.
The temple itself was like all the other Indian temples she had seen – beautiful, complex architecture ruined by the sheer number of devotees praying inside. Before Bella had even crossed the threshold, she was surrounded by men in orange robes, buzzing like flies who came over again and again, however many time she shook her head to shoo them away.
"Puja, miss?" One of them said as he tied a yellow thread around her wrist.
"What does that mean? Is it a way to enlightenment?"
"Enlighten, miss, yes," the young man nodded, his smile wide. "Best pujas in India in this temple. Come. I'm a Brahmin, I'll show you."
Bella barely noticed the other men fading away as she followed her guide. He explained each carving in great detail, each word lifting her spirit until she found herself floating in a haze of goodwill. Ringing the bell in the temple, washing her hands in the holy water – every action raised her hopes for enlightenment.
"Thank you, miss," eventually the guide lowered his head when he stopped at the exit to the temple, one hand outstretched.
"Oh, erm." Bella pulled out her purse and counted her money. "How much?"
"Whatever you think it was worth, madam," the holy man replied without raising his head.
"Oh," Bella looked at the notes in her hand. Seventy rupees was a pound, so perhaps that five hundred rupee note... Pulling it free from the bundle, she proffered it to the man. "Without a proper puja, your life is worthless. No respect for the gods," the man intoned in a deep voice, ignoring the note.
"Right. Enlightenment," she pulled out a handful of notes, around three thousand rupees – what was that – about twenty pounds, maybe? She'd never been very good at maths. "Thank you, miss," the notes were gone from her hand a split second before the Brahmin disappeared into the crowd.
Her own high didn't last much longer than her cash.
"She got fleeced," a Yorkshire accent chortled to her left. "Didn't read the signs."
Dropped off her cloud with a thump, Bella scanned the crowds for the culprit, but none of the tourists were looking her way. However they all did look like they were giggling at something. One even took a photo of the sign next the entrance. 'Use Official Guides. Only 10 rs.'
It might have been her last day in India, but she felt foolish handing over almost all her remaining cash for what amounted to a ten-minute tour.
"I was fleeced," she sighed, feet now firmly back on the ground. "I'm no closer to nirvana than before."
Safe in her taxi to the airport, Bella watched the heaving Mumbai streets disappear behind her with a heavy heart. All this dirt and poverty and grasping hands – there'd been nothing good about India at all. How had she thought that deep down, she was Indian? There'd been no change to her soul, no insights bursting across her brain like champagne bubbles – nothing. What a disappointment.
Bella grabbed a magazine from her travel bag as her taxi swerved and beeped its way through the ghastly traffic. As she ripped open the cellophane, the photograph on the front page arrested her. The stunning panorama over Hong Kong takes her breath away as something flutters in her chest. Recognition, familiarity maybe. Her skin flushed as the hair on her arms rose up in time with her heaving chest.
Perhaps that was the problem, perhaps she’d made a mistake. All this time, she'd thought she was really Asian, but perhaps it had always been East Asian. After all, she did cook a mean sweet and sour pork, and she loved those funny chop-socky movies.
“Hong Kong,” she mused, eyes tracing the skyline in the picture. “My true spiritual home.”
