Where is the passion when you need it the most?

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The following writing is another extract from some of the work in my book. I thought I'd post it up as it describes one of the not-so-good times I had while travelling. I sometimes found it difficult to admit to having bad days, and succumbing to loneliness and other difficult emotions, but it's part of my travel tapestry and I hope some people who read it might resonate with the feeling behind it as being something we can all experience at certain times.

Pushkar


I lay on the bed, wondering at which point I could consider that this man was molesting me.

I was in Pushkar having a Reiki session, with someone who was highly recommended in Lonely Planet. Maybe this was what was clouding my judgement: I must be imagining what he was doing, over- reacting even?

But no, there it was again; he was definitely focussing all of his attention on my crotch area, and he was absolutely definitely touching it. In a somewhat lingering fashion in my opinion. I knew enough about chakras to know that this area was one of them, and that Reiki worked on the basis of unblocking energy, so it was reasonable this was one of the areas he would be working on. But I’d never had reiki before, I didn’t know how ‘hands on’ it actually should be, particularly when delivered by a man to a woman. Every time I became convinced that he was going too far, and was about to say something, he’d move his hand off again, and I wouldn’t know what to think.

It wasn’t a very productive session, considering I should have felt calmer, lighter and clearer afterwards, and instead my mind was in a spin, thinking, ‘Have I just been groped for the last hour, and not said anything?’. The Reiki practitioner was delighted, however, with how the session had gone; he had a full rosy glow to his face, and was beaming broadly. This worried me even more.

“How do you feel now?” he asked me, smiling in anticipation.
“Um, I don’t really know,” I said, busying myself with rummaging in my bag for the right rupees to pay him. I was going to pay him for this?
“ Yes, yes, you feel good, more energy now! When I was working here-” he pointed to my crotch, practically poking it with his finger, - “...I felt much much energy rushing - this is good, very good! Now you will have whole energy and life is very fine now, very good. I feel the energy, I feel very good now too, my energy rushing also, very very quick, this is good!” His face got rosier and brighter with every word.
I shoved the 200 rupees into his hand, and ran out of there as fast as I could, not stopping till I bumped straight into a cow round the corner.
“Get out of my way!” I shouted at it, and was promptly punished by its deposit of a great big cow pat millimetres from my foot.

I wasn't having a good time in Pushkar. it was Holi - India’s main festival of the year, celebrating the end of winter and the beginning of spring, therefore more widely celebrated in northern India. Holi being also the most cheerful and exuberant of the Indian festivals, it was traditional to cover everyone and everything in brightly coloured paint, almost like a coloured water fight that would last all day.

It should have been really fun, and even I could see that it did look fun from a distance. But I didn’t know anyone in town - I’d wandered around a lot over the last 3 days, overcome again by pangs of loneliness; but in this tight, western travellers' enclave, it seemed impossible to penetrate into people’s worlds; everyone was in groups, 90% of them had dreadlocks, and I just felt too shy to approach anyone else - it seemed like I was the only person by myself.
Holi made it worse - here I was in the middle of a huge celebration, with everyone screaming and shouting and laughing, including the red-faced monkeys, who scampered up and down the steps by the lake, swinging across the trees and leaping from rooftop to rooftop of the guest houses; and it was one of the loneliest days I’d had in India. Earlier on, a man had come up to me while I was having breakfast, grinned, and dabbed my face with splodges of pink and purple paint, saying, “Happy Holi!” The people working at the guest house had also called “Happy Holi!” when they’d seen me in the morning, and shop owners along the street did the same. But now I was standing just slightly apart from the melee, with the shouting and dancing and laughing and throwing of paint and coloured water going on around me, the streets of Pushkar becoming more and more pink, and I just felt hugely alone. And ashamed. Ashamed that I was in the middle of this amazing energy, this day of wildness, more abandon than I’d experienced anywhere so far in India, and I was so paralysed by shyness and loneliness, that I’d made it impossible for myself to join in.

I was so disappointed in myself. I thought I’d been making progress along the way, getting used to travelling alone, approaching people, talking to strangers, striking up conversations - why had I slipped back like this, why did I still feel like this? All the good feelings I’d had in the previous weeks seemed to be eluding me now, in any case if they were there, they were entirely eclipsed by this upsurge of vulnerability and insecurity.

Everything put together, coming here to beautiful but ruined-by-tourism Pushkar, being what felt like the only person in India who wasn’t celebrating Holi, had come to a head. Then lying on a massage table for an hour trying to assess whether or not I was letting myself be sexually assaulted had just added insult to injury. I couldn’t wait to leave the place.


My mood took hold; I sat on my rucksack on the hot path next to the bus stand in Pushkar, waiting for the bus to Udaipur, and it seemed like everyone was with someone. It was a tourist bus and everyone who came along was travelling in twos or in groups. They all had the remnants of Holi paint on their skin, clothes and hair. I smiled at one or two of them, as an initial way of making contact, and was met with blank stares, as people just returned to their own conversations. I knew I was imagining it, but I felt like the empty spaces around me were really obvious - that I was the only person travelling alone. I hadn’t quite felt like this before. I’d had moments of loneliness, moments of panic at the prospect of being alone, but up until now, the reality of it had actually always been ok. I couldn’t work out what was so different here, since I’d come to Pushkar, and why it still felt different. Most of all, I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting on a bus for the next 7 or 8 hours, with everyone ensconced in their little groups. I had to breathe long and hard to swallow back my tears.

The bus sat by the side of the road for a good hour before it left; people were getting on, most of them westerners, one or two locals. I felt steadily worse and worse. Why had I come away by myself? It was such a lonely experience. I was tired of the tension every time I moved to a new place; would I meet anyone, how would it be, would I cope? Although these worries had got less as time had gone on, I could see now that they’d always still been there, still bubbling away, just more subtly. The last two days in Pushkar had been the loneliest two days of my trip so far, and now I almost felt like I couldn’t go on with it. I held up my book to shield my face, unable anymore to hold my tears back. All I could feel was that I wanted to go home, but again: where was home? Where was it? I was tired with looking.

“Please,” I kept saying silently to myself, over and over, though I didn’t know who I was talking to in my head, “please let it be ok.”

Just as the bus was about to leave, 3 people came running along the street, their rucksacks bumping behind them as they dragged them along the ground. Two women and a guy. They clambered on to the bus, their faces bright and smiling, their arms also still tinged with pink paint from Holi, and they sat in the seats in front of me, and immediately started talking to me. I don't think I've ever felt so grateful in my life.

The guy was chatting animatedly about Holi and got out his camera to show me a video he’d taken of the main street in Pushkar during the celebrations the day before. I hardly wanted to look, with the bad memories it held for me, but pretended to be enthused, as he was pointing at the streets, with the ground and walls covered in pink, and the crowds of people shouting, also covered from head to foot in pink.

“Look, everyone is so happy! And we were standing here, then here, and then we moved there, and that was so funny, this guy, he just threw all this paint on us and we laughed and laughed!….. And look at all the dancing! So funny!”
He stopped for a moment and looked at me.
“Where were you?” he suddenly asked.
“Sorry?” I said, reddening and trying to stall him.
“Where were you - during Holi? Were you here too, in this street - were you dancing here, maybe we can see you?”
I hoped to hell we couldn’t see me on his camera; I’d be the one alone in the corner, watching.
“Er, I think I was somewhere over there,” I said quickly, pointing vaguely to the corner of his little screen.
He looked at me again, slightly suspiciously, I thought, this time.
“I don’t remember seeing you,” he said.
“Well there were so many people there! Of course not, I don’t remember seeing you either,” I said, trying to think of a way we could get off this subject.
“Yes, but - “ he faded off, and then just said,
“Did you have fun, did you enjoy Holi?” It was almost like he knew.
“Oh yes!” I lied, feeling myself redden again, “Yes, it was really fun, of course.” I laughed unconvincingly.
“You don’t have paint on you,” was the last thing he said to me about it, before he clicked off the power on his camera. Then he smiled kindly at me and changed the subject.

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Comments

[Arnab]

I am so sorry to hear that...India is full of all kind of people ..what a pity!