and I were so overcome by the romance of our journey that we decided to be married by the ship’s Captain, an event reminiscent of those classic seafaring ceremonies of yore.
In the spirit of occasion Jennifer Kapoor went below and commandeered, as she said, “the best looking European Don Juan I could find.”
He was Alejandro, a handsome Spaniard whom Rebecca and I had met at various Goa celebrations. Unfortunately he could not be the best man and stand up at the wedding because he was so inebriated he could not stand. We propped Alejandro against the life ring and Jennifer Kapoor accompanied Rebecca as maid of honor. The first mate was my best man. The brief rite was held on the open deck and highlighted by a beautiful, gigantic red sun setting into the Arabian Sea behind us.
The Captain entered our marriage into the ship’s log.
Chapter Two
“Hark, now hear the sailors cry Smell the sea and feel the sky Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.”
“INTO THE MYSTIC,” VAN MORRISON
A threat of war hissed through Bombay. The world powers had ludicrously allowed the creation of an East and West Pakistan with thousands of square miles of India in between.
We checked into the Ambassador Hotel, then went to fight the lines to buy railroad tickets “towards Kathmandu.”
Everything got hazy that first night in Bombay. We ran into our would-be best man, Alejandro, and he asked us if we had ever been to an opium parlor. “Your honeymoon night in Bombay … why not?”
“We go to ‘vice’ part of the city. Anything goes … for centuries,” Alejandro emphasized, “for centuries!” Alejandro further explained that “the deal was to visit the O dens in the Sokologie Square part of Bombay but, above all, to avoid spending many days there.”
“Come, I’ll take you down there,” he said “and we must go now and you must start to say the following mantra: ‘I will not stay more than 8 hours, I will not stay more than 8 hours’ because the masters of the pipe will continue to offer to refill your pipe until there is no money left. Some people have actually started to get their mail there,” he further cautioned.
“We’re headed to the mountains and safety tomorrow,” we replied in unison.
When we entered the opium den we caused quite a stir. Seeing a beautiful blonde woman such as Rebecca always caught some local attention. The docents of the den spread new newspaper on the floor and gave us a tin can for a pillow. Squatting next to us and filling the long opium pipe with small balls of “O,” these den walas instructed us to take big, full drags on the pipe. Like every drug in my experience, the first-time use is the best-time use and I was quickly transported to blue lagoons, red sails and golden sunrises. We were offered tea and soft drinks and, of course, many opportunities to refill our pipes. Now and then the Alejandro warning – “no more than 8 hours” – would occasionally bounce cross the bucolic scenery that I was enjoying in my head. Rebecca and I agreed it was time to go. Alejandro refused and we left.
We were astonished to find ourselves greeted by a brand new day – It was six in the morning and the city of Bombay was rocking. We walked into the breaking day across the Square and saw thousands of prostitutes stacked in tiny cages six stories high in building after building. Everywhere small cooking fires shed an eerie glow on the teaming populace, each soul eking out a bitter survival in scenes that rivaled everything I recalled from reading “Dante’s Inferno.” We could not have been farther from our small, conservative, hometowns. It felt as if I had just looked into a strange mirror. Everything looks back at you differently. I had walked through a door of perception. A time shift. The teaming masses of Asia were now a “reality.”
We missed the train and awoke after twenty-four hours of delirium to receive humankind’s most horrific notice of reality. India and Pakistan were at war. Bombay was under blackout with the threat of Pakistani air force bombing. The entire populace seemed to be in a wild, patriotic panic. Lawlessness and civil chaos were breaking out in the streets. Bombay was within striking distance of the Pakistani air force and all seaports and airports were closed. The only safe move was inland, and fast.
Chapter Three
“If you smile at me you, know I will understand ‘Cause that is something everybody everywhere does In the same language.”
“WOODEN SHIPS,” STILLS, CROSBY & KANTNER
Tight, white, starched collared shirts, turbans, dhotis and Levis pushed and paid to get on the Delhi Mail and hopefully get out of artillery range and death from above. An expired ticket and a bag full of rupees got us on the train.
Any seasoned traveler during that era will tell you that the best part of discovering India was the rail system. Created by the British during their Raj Empire, railroads still employed mostly Sikhs as engineers and station managers. They ran the train system to perfection and to the minute. It was always unbelievable to newcomers that one could schedule a train trip across thousands of miles of India, a country where nothing – I repeat nothing – worked and find, surprisingly, that the trains showed up nearly to the minute. Then you found your little name card placed neatly on the door to your cabin and discovered savory food and pleasant service awaited you from employees who truly appreciated their jobs as did the most elite in the country.
Our first train trip was not nearly so posh. We were two of twelve, emitting excessive body odor from nervous fear and the speculative scramble to board, in a four-person cabin. Rebecca and I were forced off the train when it was commandeered by soldiers for the war effort at Allahabad. We were very fortunate to find accommodation in a hotel owned by a local family revered for generations as classical musicians. The war ended and with it the constant tension everyone was experiencing.
We left the confines of the hotel grounds and ventured into the central market. This led to a bizarre experience of human interaction in a Muslim jewelry shop in the Allahabad souk. Rebecca and I drew a crowd of hundreds, pressing and milling outside the jewelry shop. Every minute or two one of the young nephews of the store’s owner grabbed a cat-o-nine-tails and ran yelling and screaming and slashing into the pulsing throng and beat them away from the door. Within moments the crowd began to form again to watch the blonde Western woman. The shop owner’s volatile young toughs would again grab the cat-o-nine-tails and race out of the building flailing madly. “Taxi please” and thanks to all for pounding on the fenders and windows, too!
The international media reported a million dead and the creation of the new nation of Bangladesh. Mercifully and fortunately the war was brief. The truce allowed us to get a first-class train cabin to Agra. One of the propaganda tools that the Indians effectively used to rile up the population in the war effort was to broadcast that the Pakistanis were trying, daily, to bomb the Taj Mahal. The propaganda would turn out to be beneficial to us since there were virtually no tourists in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Not only did we get our choice of the finest room in the finest hotel but, for a small fee, we were allowed into the Taj Mahal, alone, at night. On two consecutive evenings, under the dome of the Taj with our Tibetan bells and bowls, we made the musical swirls for which these instruments are so famous. On the second evening we caught up on our interrupted honeymoon in the temple built as a monument to love; we were alone, newly married and under the influence of a wonder of the world. The experience elevated hearts and
