Editor Note: Harold and his wife Katie vacation in Kochi, hoping to get a sense of the real India, which has eluded Harold on his many business trips there. He eventually has a deeper experience than he had anticipated, one that expands his understanding of himself and others.
~
“What’s that heavenly smell?”
My wife eyed a platter brimming with plump pancakes. After meeting at the airport that morning, we’d grabbed a taxi to the Chiramel Residency; but we’d been too excited to rest. We joined other early-rising guests seated family-style around a dark mahogany table for breakfast.
“Masalas dosas,” answered the hostess and passed the serving dish to Katie, who heaped three on her plate. I usually ate a continental breakfast—tea, toast with jam, and either granola or fruit— at the modern, A-class international hotels where I stayed when working. Rice-fermented flour crepes, wrapped around potatoes and onions cooked in curry, seemed suspect; but I tried one.
Before I’d left on a three-week business trip to the information-age cities of Bangalore and Hyderabad, I’d suggested Katie join me for seven days of vacation at the end. I’d often complained to her about my job as a technology consultant in the past. “I float on the surface in a bubble of gleaming high-tech buildings and new economic zones…no contact with local culture.”
“Let’s try something different,” Katie had said. “Discover the real India.” She’d sat on the living room floor surrounded by guidebooks. “Kochi is a major port on the southwest coast; a stew of varied civilizations.” On the internet, she discovered our guest house built in the 18th century for a Dutch sea captain.
We finished a final cup of tea and bolted outside to walk the cobbled streets surrounding the Chiramel. Around a corner, we collided with a parade in honor of Shiva, the major Hindu deity. Dark-headed young men, wearing white lunghis tucked at their waists and drooping over their ankles, led the march with synchronized drumming. Their curved sticks struck in unison and the crowd swayed forward three steps, paused, moved back half a pace, and then surged ahead again. Our bodies responded to the hypnotism of the beat, but no longer remembered the ancient rhythm.
In the center, four elephants were decorated from tusk to forehead with bright gold-painted baubles with garlands of flowers hanging from their necks. Mahouts perched behind their ears to guide them. Katie stared at their rear legs, great pillars holding up building-sized bodies. “Oh, they’re shackled.” Enthusiasm for the spectacle drained from her voice, and we moved on.
Our heads swiveled to follow the rolling loops of Malayalam, the local language, on the billboards splashed across buildings, and our noses tickled from the hint of pepper, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon drifting from spice stalls. We’d forgotten to bring water and wilted under the glare of the sun suspended above us. At an outdoor booth, we paused to drink Golden Eagle beer served in plain teapots because of restrictive liquor laws.
“Look, Katie.” Chinese fishing nets fluttered like graceful moths on a slight breeze whispering off the Lakshadweep Sea below us. “Four men are required just to operate the complicated system of counterweights.” I enjoyed explaining the history of what we saw. “Traders from the court of Kublai Khan introduced them seven hundred years ago; they’ve been used ever since to dip for fish.” I covered my half-finished glass of beer when Katie moved to pour me more.
“Feeling bad?” Katie pushed her damp black hair off her forehead.
“Stomach’s upset,” I said. Katie was tired and we strolled back to the Chiramel, ate a light dinner, and went to bed early. Our room had only a ceiling fan that stroked air toward the teak floors but provided little relief from the heat building at the end of the rainy season. Neither of us slept well.
The next day, we walked along the seawall past old factories that manufactured rope out of coconut fiber. After some wrong turns, we left the neighborhood of rich merchants. We entered small lanes where squatters, who had fled the countryside to seek opportunity which they did not find, had thrown up shacks of scavenged wood and metal. Gray canals stagnated beside their homes. A rainbow of bottles and faded food wrappers lodged unmoving on the lifeless surface of the water.
“Oh, my God.” Katie’s voice quaked.
“This is not the India where I work.” The dense smell made me sick. We backtracked to a street we remembered.
In the afternoon, we paused at the old Parade Ground. Barefoot boys whooped and drove the soccer ball down field. When we turned to leave, we discovered a young girl, no more than four, standing across the street in front of an abandoned building. She wore a dirty blue dress attached to her thin-frame by the two remaining buttons. Her outfit had perhaps never been cleaned and she had not been bathed for a long time. Behind her, we saw an old woman squatting on the earth floor over a small fire, a man urinating in a corner, and two little boys crouched in silence against a wall. Embarrassed, we backed away and returned to the hotel. I slumped on the couch in our bedroom and experienced an urgent spasm.
“Here, this should settle your stomach.” Katie placed a hot glass of tea beside me.
I had toast and tea for breakfast the next morning, and we walked four blocks to a pharmacy where I purchased a laxative. Worried that more extreme measures might be needed, I asked, “Do you sell enemas?” Those, the pharmacist informed me, could only be obtained at a hospital.
Back at the hotel, I took a laxative and lay down for an hour. Although my condition was unchanged after the nap, we decided to visit Mattancherry Palace. I rushed through the portraits and statues, only stopping before the murals. A cheery Lord Krishna, Hindu god of love and divine joy, used his six hands and two feet to bring fulfillment to eight aroused milkmaids.
“Sure knew how to please a gal,” said Katie. I smiled but steered us outside. We rode in silence back to the Chiramel while I attempted to focus on divine foreplay instead of churning intestines.
The next morning, I recognized treatment had to escalate. In the phone book, I located Gautham Hospital, open 24 hours a day, and called their pharmacy. “Hello, this is Mr. Lawton.” I employed my most professional telephone diction. “I wish to purchase an enema packet.”
“Yes, sir, we are having enemas,” a cheery female voice answered.
“Um...do they come in sterilized packaging?”
“Oh yes, they are very modern.”
“I’ll be back shortly,” I told Katie and stepped outside the guest house to search for transportation. Normally, I took taxis, but the only available vehicle was an auto rickshaw, its gaily-painted sheet metal body resting on three wheels. The auto-wallah stood nearby, waiting for a customer before jumping in front to steer the two-stroke engine like a motorcycle.
“Hello, do you know Gautham Hospital?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, I am knowing where it is,” said a slight man with receding black hair. His response expressed a certainty absent from the more common head bobble, which may mean “Yes,” but carries so many other rich and, to a foreigner, obscure implications. It might convey, for instance: I don’t know, but I am sure such a place exists because you ask for it, and I will drive you around aimlessly until we happen upon the hospital or I am fortunate enough to find someone who has actual and specific knowledge about its location.
He spoke good English, whereas I possessed only four words in Malayalam—hot, cold, north, and slow. None explained my current predicament and communicating through sign language and mispronounced place names would have been iffy. Before committing to the driver, I asked, “How much to drive, wait while I pick up medicine, and return?”
“Whatever you are thinking is right, Mister?” His eyes revealed nothing.
I knew rickshaw drivers often employed this gambit before insisting on a price two or three times the normal tourist fare at the end of the journey. A surcharge on foreigners is the way of the world; but if you don’t bargain for a fixed rate, you’re a sucker.
“How many kilometers to the Hospital?” My hands fluttered in a questioning gesture. “Without knowing, I can’t determine what’s fair.”
“Four and a half.” He avoided mention of money entirely. On the other hand, he seemed familiar with the route.
“I think 50 rupees would be enough for there and back.” My opener amounted to $1.
“No, sir, I could only be driving you one way for 50 rupees; but for both ways, I must have 75.” Raised black eyebrows and a saddened look conveyed his unspoken message that he would take me for such a wretched sum if I was unable to pay more, but to do so was an act of great charity on his part. Guilt, I accepted with resignation, would percolate throughout the trip until he trolled for a substantial tip at the end.
“60 rupees; that’s fair.” I struggled to discover the normal charge for tourists, but my gastrointestinal tract sputtered: “Quit haggling, you piker.” Aware we negotiated over 30 cents, so little for me and so much for him, a small tremor of uncertainty entered my voice.
Sensing weakened resolution, he shrugged as if to confirm even 75 rupees was not enough.
I flushed and perspiration dampened my ecru linen shirt. “Okay, I’ll pay 75, but you must wait while I pick up medicine.” The rickshaw groaned and tilted as my hips pressed between metal bars, and I sandwiched my large frame into the bench for passengers in the back. I lowered with care onto a neatly patched cushion. Little space remained, although I remembered seeing a father, mother, two children and a pig fit in the same spot without problem.
We lurched into traffic around a bicyclist and avoided an oncoming bus. In a cloud of dust and acrid exhaust, the driver accelerated toward the first corner and asked, “How much are you paying for your hotel room?”
I didn’t respond because I’d never confronted this question before and was uncertain where this thread of conversation might lead. My stomach clenched at the sudden motion.
“Why do you tourists always bargain with us rickshaw drivers? The hotels charge you 5,000 rupees for one night and you say nothing, simply pay.”
I choked on laughter...and a little shame. Of course, he spoke the truth. “I also try with hotels, but such negotiation doesn’t work unless I’m going to stay a week or more.”
His brown eyes darkened to opaque black.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “It’s easier for tourists to bargain with a chauffeur than with the invisible person of wealth who owns a hotel.” After this confession, a temporary bond flowered between us. “What’s your name?” I’d begun to like this driver and wanted to place him within his community, and a person’s name reveals their religion in Kerala.
“I’m Joseph,” he said, identifying himself as a Christian, a small minority among the dominant Hindu population of southern India, although whether Catholic, Syriac Christian, or evangelical remained unclear. “And you are called?”
“Harold.”
“How many children are you having?”
“Three. The eldest a girl, my middle a son, and the youngest also a daughter.”
“I, too, have girl, boy, girl,” Joseph responded. “What work are you doing?”
“I advise technology businesses on how to run more efficiently.”
“Hmph.” He expelled his breath in a cynical burst. People who tell others what to do make a lot of money.
“Do you own this rickshaw?” He shot through a transient opening between a car travelling in front of us and a blue delivery van approaching fast.
“No, a big man is owning this one and ten others. I must pay him 150 rupees per day.”
I calculated how many hours Joseph worked before he earned anything to support his family and tried to envision his life. “Are your children in school?”
“Yes.” Joseph straightened. “All three learn Hindi, Malayalam, and English.” We darted right and left avoiding rival vehicles. “I dream that my daughters will work at a call center, and son may become a bellhop at a fancy hotel.”
“Where did you learn to speak English so well?”
“I am learning from driving foreigners,” Joseph answered. Without books, his gaining command of English over the years must have progressed slowly. My stomach twisted, and I almost moaned.
Our horn blared at pedestrians fanned across the street as we careened between vehicles bearing down from all sides. Potholes pitted the road like a disease. Smells of cow and donkey droppings, brewed chai, and clarified butter from a nearby Ayurvedic herbal medicine clinic overwhelmed me. Despite a nominal nod to driving on the left side, Indian motorists appeared to consider every part of the roadway too valuable to leave unused.
After a four to five kilometer trip, we arrived as predicted. I asked Joseph to wait and waddled toward the pharmacy window to remind them of my recent call about purchasing an enema. There was general acknowledgement that I had indeed inquired. “Yes, sir, we are waiting for you. You have already been seeing a doctor?”
“No.” I sensed complication and provided a detailed description of symptoms, hoping a dense thicket of words might distract them. My eloquence made me sound knowledgeable I believed, perhaps an American medical expert who should be accorded reciprocal respect.
The attendants were polite, as Indians are to foreigners in most circumstances, but firm. I was not going to receive an enema without consultation. “You can be seeing the doctor here shortly.” In this part of our exchange, I learned it was not merely an issue of consulting, but that the procedure must be performed in the hospital by medical personnel.
“When I called, I understood I could buy the enema to administer myself.” I beamed my best “I’m an honest farm boy from Wisconsin” look, but they remained resolute.
“No doctor, no enema.” I had passed a point where I retained any control of the situation.
“Okay,” I capitulated, resigned to a public catharsis instead of the quiet dignity of self-help. “First, I must return to my hotel and pick up my wife; I don’t want her to worry.” I needed back-up. Smiles all around. This seemed reasonable to them, and I had no desire to expire with some contraption up my bum without at least one friendly witness. Oh God, I thought, I’ve got to hold on a little longer.
“Joseph,” I said returning to the rickshaw in a slow shuffle. “I have good news and bad. The bad is I have to return to the Chiramel to pick up my wife before I can buy the medication....” I was vague about the type. “The good news is I would like to pay you 200 rupees for the two round trips.” I no longer cared whether I paid too much and offered 50 rupees above our agreed rate. I needed to be seen as just, especially when facing a medical procedure I feared might leave me hemorrhaging on the floor.
Joseph nodded and started the engine. Back to the hotel we zipped. “What medicine is Mister requiring?” Joseph’s right eyebrow arched, its blackness interrupted midway by a scar.
“I…uh…am having stomach problems.”
“Diarrhea. Very bad.”
“Um, actually, it’s the other way.”
“What way?”
“Well….” I gave up. “I’m constipated.” The contents of my stomach had hardened into concrete and pressed down and outward with excruciating force.
“Oh, yes, that also is not good. Perhaps you have not been drinking enough water?”
“Not sure,” I said. His suggestion sounded like the home remedy of people who cannot afford to visit the hospital. And I was becoming worried the problem might be greater than clogged intestines.
Katie was waiting when we arrived. I grabbed her hand and explained the situation. “You look gray.” She stroked my arm.
We walked outside and sped back to the hospital in the rickshaw. As we drove, I concentrated on deep breathing. The procedure might take quite awhile—both to complete the operation and wait for results. To ask Joseph to stay seemed too much.
“Joseph, here’s the 200 rupees I promised,” I said after we pulled into the entrance. “You can pay the owner of this rickshaw. The balance of 50 rupees will start your profit for the day.” I grinned through clenched teeth at how well the math worked out and how easily I’d understood the figures. “I’ll probably be a long time, and there’s no need for you to wait.” I held up the thick book I’d brought with me to read.
Joseph retained 150 rupees and, with the slightest of smiles, returned 50. I looked at the torn and dirty note in my hand and offered the bill to him a second time. “200 rupees was our deal, Joseph.” Again, he refused. About to press with more vigor, I halted in sudden recognition. Pride. He, too, wanted to be fair in his own eyes. I derived some comfort from this one positive aspect of my dilemma until my gut cramped and all distracting optimism vanished. I gripped his right hand in both of mine and shook.
At the pharmacy, I made my purchase and was ushered past several Indian patients waiting their turn to see the doctor. I squeezed around them, looking at the floor and hoping to avoid eye contact, a white foreigner too important to wait while the poor of Kochi were expected to be patient in their misery. My head deplored this preferential treatment; but my intestinal system shouted with joy. With a backward glance, I noticed Katie escorted to another area. To my surprise, Joseph followed her.
I entered a small, sparsely furnished examining room with a narrow cot covered by a coarse blanket. A nurse directed me to lie down, and I handed her the enema package. I wondered what would happen next until a more senior nurse in a crisply-starched uniform and hat separated the privacy curtain and felt my tight, bloated stomach. “You tourists, you travel around everywhere on your bottoms and don’t drink enough water. You need at least four to six liters a day; also, eat many small bananas.” She raised her fingers to demonstrate the three-inch type hanging at market stalls everywhere. “And vegetables.” With a start, I realized Joseph had been right about the cause of my problems.
Over the next fifteen minutes, several nurses peeked into my little space. Their faces appeared solemn. Motionless in anticipation of the next directive, I picked out the word “enema” from soft, lilting voices speaking Malayalam. Clearly, the whole hospital staff knew why I lay there. My pride sank.
An older woman, the doctor, entered in a shimmering green sari and repeated the scolding on how to avoid blockage. Over her shoulder, I saw three younger nurses examining a gallon-sized plastic bucket filled with a pink, soapy solution. I prayed the mixture came from the sanitized packages I’d bought; but I no longer was in charge, in truth had never been, and was reduced to a wavering hope for a favorable outcome.
I followed directions to roll over. A nurse carried a neat stack of toilet paper to the adjoining tiled room, big enough only for a hole in the ground with two foot rests on either side. Her act almost certainly constituted a concession to the tender sensibilities of an American visitor, unused to the shredded newspaper provided in other public facilities.
Katie and Joseph waited when I shuffled out, still shaky and subdued from my experience. I spoke to Joseph. “That was good of you to wait.”
“I did not think it proper your wife remain alone,” Joseph said, “and I worried about you, Mister Harold. Stomach problems are difficult.” I noticed the dark shadows under his eyes and realized he was not my age like I’d thought, but fifteen years older, closer to fifty.
When we arrived back at the Chiramel, I fished for my wallet. Joseph’s eyebrows arched. “I want nothing more. Driving is my job for which I am paid. I remained with your wife because it was the right thing.”
I managed to extract my billfold. “Yes, but I must pay for your time.”
“Not for what one man should do for another.”
I thought to shake his hand again but instead made a slight bow and pressed my hands together in prayer. Namaste. A divine spark resides within us all. Joseph bent his head slightly in return.
With Katie’s help, I negotiated my way into the hotel and up to our room. I unfolded onto the starched linen of the bed and smiled up at her. My eyes closed, and I slipped back into the comfort of my world.