India.... A True Story?

Although it was the umpteenth time I was landing in Delhi, I still felt the "slap", the gust, that unmistakable smell that hits you when you step off the plane. It smells of spoiled food, of spices, of sweat, of dirty clothes, of dried dung, and of many other human things. At the airport exit Kesar was waiting for me, the very dear Indian friend with whom I had been working for many years. Impeccable in his pinstripe suit, his white shirt always with a slight ring around the collar, his unlikely ties and the two pens in his breast pocket. Kesar had a tour operator specialising in organising trips to India, Tibet and Nepal. He took me to Safdarjung Enclave, south of New Delhi, where he had an apartment he put at my disposal during my stays in India. «If you like, Alberto, there would be a group of sixteen people arriving the day after tomorrow...

they are doing Varanasi, Kathmandu, Lhasa, would you like to accompany them..?» Kesar asked me, showing me the detailed itinerary when I arrived at his office later. I replied that I would rather wait a while, that I wanted to go to Rajasthan for a couple of days to visit an Italian friend of mine who lives there. Italian friends living in Rajasthan, in truth, I never had any, but since Indians are very curious it was an excuse to avoid too many questions. Kesar very kindly insisted on putting a car with a driver at my disposal, but I persuaded him that I preferred to travel on the evening train.

Anyone who loves humanity, in all its manifestations, from the most ordinary to the most bizarre, should take a train in India: in its carriages people cook, eat, talk, sell, buy, do business, arrange marriages; it is like a village that travels. Here in the West we have lost the habit, I do not mean preparing meals or haggling, but the most natural and simple one of chatting. In India people do not listen to music on their phones, do not read magazines; as far as possible, they do the very same things they would do if they were at home. Darkness fell, suddenly, without my noticing, and with the night all activity ceased. The passengers curled up on the seats, wrapping themselves in their long shawls; some, lying on the floor, in the bluish light of the compartment, looked like rolled-up carpets. The clatter of the train died down at dawn, at the Jodhpur railway station.

I jumped almost on the fly onto a motorised rickshaw that was revving past. "Meherengard Fort" I shouted to make myself heard.

The room I loved most in this mighty building, built of red sandstone in the sixteenth century, was the one where the Maharaja stayed with his consort. An immense hall, the walls decorated with frescoes, stucco, plays of coloured mirrors and hard stones set into geometric figures; on the floor, gigantic, extremely fine silk carpets, big low cushions topped with smaller ones; everything seemed to have remained as in past centuries, as if at any moment the ruler might enter with his princess. But the real peculiarity of this hall was its large windows; on the sultry summer afternoons, mats soaked in rose water were placed there, so that the wind, filtering through the narrow gaps of the thin reeds, cooled and scented the room. I began to feel tired and sat down in a corner, fantasising about how many loves, betrayals and embraces those beautiful walls had seen.

I half-closed my eyes and for a moment had the impression of smelling the scent of rose water carried by the wind.

He asked me which country in Europe I came from and how it was that I found myself in Rajasthan. «I am Italian... I work for agencies that organise trips, I take people around India,» I replied. «So you know our country well?» «Well, I would not say well; let us say I know how to get around, and for India that is already a lot.» The man smiled: he had a short-sleeved shirt with the usual pens in the breast pocket. His white hair, combed back flat, made his dark, chubby face and his quick black eyes stand out. If at first I had thought, here is the usual bore, now I hoped he would keep talking to me. As always I had been wrong to judge people too hastily. He had a beautiful name, Ashoka, like the great enlightened emperor who lived in India in the third century before Christ. «And what do you do, Mr Ashoka?» «I am a maths teacher.» «Interesting...

you Indians have a natural aptitude for the exact sciences, and then the zero, you invented it, I believe...» «If it comes to that, we invented God too,» he said, laughing, and continued: «in India mathematics and religion have in common the fact of not being questioned... perhaps that is why we are so good... at both...» «You are Hindu, I suppose, Mr Ashoka?» I asked him. I enjoyed, after asking him something, adding "Mr Ashoka", rolling that name around my mouth like a click. «Actually I am Jain,» he replied. «Would be or are?» I asked again. «I am. You see, for us, however rationally one may have doubts about the existence of all our deities, and if you know India you know how many there are, some even ridiculous, if not grotesque, religion is part of our life and one lives with it as one lives with the rain during the monsoon and the sun during the winter.

If our country is still united after two thousand years of guests, Mongols, Turks, Arabs, and finally the English, it is only thanks to religion.» I found it curious that he had called invaders, usurpers and colonisers "guests". «But how do Jains differ from Hindus, Mr Ashoka?» I asked him. «In everything and in nothing: the Jains pushed the idea of moral rectitude to the extreme to counter the caste system, but they ended up being a caste themselves. They believe liberation can be achieved only with total purity, not only of the soul but also of the body; that is why they cannot dirty their hands, cannot eat impure foods, like onions for example, because they grow underground.... you will never find a Jain doing manual work, and by virtue of this, over the centuries, they have only done intellectual work or work tied to the exchange of goods.

In reality they do not differ from Hindus; the Jains have just been craftier.» «And you, instead, are Catholic,» the professor asked me. «No, I am not Catholic, I am Christian.» «Is that not the same? What difference is there?» «A bit like between Jains and Hindus,» I replied, and Ashoka burst out laughing. Then I went on: «Catholics are bound to the precepts of the Church, must receive the sacraments during their life, must adhere to moral rules; in some way codes of behaviour are imposed on them that everyone should follow to earn paradise and with it eternal life. Very simple! For us, after death, Mr Ashoka, there is no reincarnation as there is for you: if you have been good you go to heaven and stay there among streams and flowering gardens until the end of time; if you have been bad, instead, you go to hell where everything burns in a whirl, again until the end of time.

Deadly boring! Do you not think so, Mr Ashoka?»

alberto nicolai -