The Paler Shade of Autumn (2 page)

Seemingly, a fraction of a second after her eyes close, her alarm buzzes, slicing though the silence with its tinny ringtone. She attempts to drag her eyelids apart, but can only manage a one-eye squint, enough to see the screen of her mobile glowing in the darkness of her hotel room. She texts Thor:
No dinner. Too tired. Meet tomorrow, breakfast. Autumn
.

Autumn double checks her alarm is off, switches her phone to silent and throws it onto the bedside table. She rolls over and closes her eyes. Sleep extends its soothing embrace, finding her in seconds, and she maintains a peaceful oblivion until the morning sun peaks through the cracks of the hotel’s curtains, welcoming her to her first full day in India.

Before anything happens in your life, good or bad, you first have to decide that it will happen. Sometimes the decision is made knowingly, sometimes subconsciously, sometimes it is made and then refuted, but the original decision will usually override the latter.

When had Autumn first made the decision to visit India? Two years ago she returned from a Contiki tour around Europe and Britain. Braving the hostels and backpacker accommodations, language barriers and culture variations in Western countries, the natural trajectory took her East. And so, two years later, she ends up in India. Why alone? She hasn’t quite put her finger on that, but she’s sure it has got nothing to do with starting a romance with her travelling companion, Thor.

After breakfast in the hotel restaurant—as organised during her mind-muddled haze the night before—Autumn and Thor embark upon exploring Patna together. Despite his continual drivel, otherwise known as conversation, she is grateful he is here with her. He seems to exude an unfaltering confidence in all things and, despite being annoying in all other moments, as they now brave the unknown streets, language and ways of India, his confidence is an admirable quality.

This day is all about being a tourist, with no time constraints, and becoming accustomed to all things relating to one of the oldest inhabited cities on Earth. Autumn’s fear of catching a taxi and bargaining the fare is squelched after their first trip, which is from the hotel to Hanuman Temple, right near the rail station they will need tomorrow.

As she and Thor watch waves of tourists and locals flow through the white, concrete temple, handing over their meagre offerings of rupees in exchange for their wishes being granted by the presiding God Hanuman, her stomach pangs with a conflicting sympathy. In such a place as Patna, it is difficult not to note the absolute poverty portrayed on street corners by beggars and performing children, despite the marked improvements in recent times attempting to reduce the enormous chasm between paucity and surplus. Seeing those with so little offer their pittance, with desperate dependency that their wishes will be granted, creates a dissonance in her soul. She raises the point with Thor who provides an answer that gives her perception a blunt shift.

“Of course. Even in Australia, it’s those who earn less that are the ones that contribute most to the lottery. It seems the less you can rely on your own ability to earn money the more likely you are to depend on chance or, in this case,
wishes
to make it for you.”

Autumn nods. “You’re right. It’s the same problem, simply manifesting itself in a different way.”

He winks, clicking his tongue. “You got it. Different culture and to the extreme.”

She smiles. “You’re quite a surprise package aren’t you?”

He leans towards her, so close she can feel his warm breath on her face. She edges backwards a step, but is blocked by a brick wall. “I’ve got another surprise
package
I can show you later.”

Autumn pushes him in the chest and side-steps around him.

“Oh, come on,” he says jogging to catch up. “What happens in India stays in India. No-one has to know.”

Autumn rolls her eyes.
I’m not on some sordid cricket tour
.

Her sudden soured mood doesn’t stay low for long as they negotiate a fare to the Patna Museum with a local taxi driver. Thor turns out to be a master haggler; a skill he says he learnt at end-of-year football trips in Bali, along with God knows what else.

The museum is a surprise: an English-styled monster of a building, painted a soft yellow and rimmed with orange, which gives it a distinctly Indian quality. She is starting to see that the Indian people are not adverse to the aesthetics of bright colours, apparent in their dress and the buildings. Autumn’s gaze is continually drawn to the beautiful silk saris, in a myriad of colours and patterns, worn by the majority of Indian women—a purchase she will have to make before she leaves. Even the men are not afraid to deck a bright shirt.

They view the many artefacts, statues and paintings, including the cremated remains of Gautama Buddha and a tree root claimed to be two hundred million years old—no creationism is taught here. The museum is beautiful and brimming with possessions showing the spiritual origins and sheer age of India, like the life-size statue carved from a single piece of stone depicting an incredibly voluptuous woman: Didarganj Yakshi, transported from the banks of the Ganges where she had stood since the Mauryan Empire’s rule in 320 BCE.

Beholding objects from eras long since gone, peering into the tombs of the past, is breathtaking, surreal even. Autumn’s first conscious recognition of the human timeline on Earth was at twelve years of age where she witnessed Aboriginal paintings in a cave in Queensland, perfectly preserved for three and a half thousand years. Despite, as a child, what she had read about Australia’s history, she lost sight of the fact that the country has not been occupied for a mere two hundred years but, indeed, forty-thousand.

They travel from location to location, discovering as much of Patna as is possible in a single day. As night falls, a beautiful orange glow from the lava coloured orb on the horizon transforms the city. They drive, welcoming the fresher afternoon air that cools their body through the open doors of the three-wheel taxi, through the city of neon lights, back to the hotel.

Exhaustion settles over Autumn like a weighty blanket. A blanket she shares with Thor, though he won’t dare admit it. They eat dinner in the restaurant, blood-shot eyes, long, slow blinks, reminiscing about all they saw and what tomorrow holds. Over the day, the wall has receded from around Thor, his superficial shell has fallen away, leaving quite an intelligent and thoughtful man behind, whose real name, he finally admits, is David. After dessert of pistachio honey-cake and ice-cream, David walks her to her room.

“Thank you for a very enjoyable day,” she says, as they linger at her door. He takes two steps closer. His eyes slide from her thighs languorously up her body until he meets her eyes again.

“It doesn’t hurt that you’re an absolute babe.”

She crinkles her brow. “Don’t ruin it.”

“I know how we can make it a whole lot better, but it involves the both of us getting naked.”

She cringes and shoves her key-card in the door. “Goodnight, David,” she says, pushing down on the handle and marching into her room. She shuts the door in his face. A loud bang sounds on the door, followed by a throaty shout, “Prick-tease.” David’s footsteps taper away as he stalks back to his room. Autumn rolls her eyes and sighs; regrets ever thinking that he is intelligent or thoughtful. If he even attempts to spend the day with her tomorrow, without an honest apology first, she will punch him.

The massive size of the Patna Junction Station is something to be marvelled at, let alone the quantity of people crammed along the platform that seems to stretch forever. The trains here are so long, up to twenty-four carriages, necessary when there are thirteen million passengers transported everyday throughout India.

Autumn looks around at her company, still finding it hard to confront the broad gap between rich and poor. On one hand there are formally dressed men in tailored pants and shirts, and families with women in colourful clothes adorned in beautiful gold ornaments, while others—men, women and children, with twisted hands, filthy rags and dirty feet—sit on the soiled platform or are interspersed among the other travellers. For the first time in her life, she no longer begrudges the Australian taxation system and its socialistic stance to see that no Australian citizen is left to starve or steal to survive.

Pilgrims and Buddhist devotees are present in the hundreds from a broad array of cultures. And the high-toned banter that floats around the platform offers a comforting familiarity when the voice is of an English origin. The upkeep would be tremendous with so many people trampling through the station day in day out, so Autumn can excuse the lack of cleanliness; however, she can’t extinguish the subtle anxiety of being among an alien swathe of humanity, loud and chaotic, in such a small space.

The long blue train pulls up at the station and Autumn grips her ticket, along with David’s arm, despite his lack of apology. They see where they are seated on the chart pinned on the outside of the train and join Westerners, mainly, and well-to-do Indian passengers in the seated, air-conditioned carriages, while all others squash into the general section. Though the platform is bustling, inside the train is relaxed, at least where they are seated.

She sits back and lets out a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t do this every day. It’s stressful,” she says to David.

“You’d get used to it.”

“I don’t know about that.”

He smiles and then looks to his lap, like a small boy who has been found eating all the chocolate eggs before Easter. “I’m sorry about last night, Autumn.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He nods. “Thanks.”

The two hour trip is pleasant enough, as is the auto-rickshaw ride from the Gaya train station to their ultimate destination: Bodh Gaya. Bodh Gaya is noticeably lower on the chaos scale, more peaceful than Patna and Gaya. Autumn wonders if the palpable relief she feels settling in her mind is due to the ancient spirituality ingrained in the soil, the atmosphere, but knows the lower population and remoteness is the real culprit.

Bodh Gaya is a pretty little town, which when lush from the rains would be beautiful. The town is flat and surrounded by fields dappled with monasteries housing monks from many different cultures, and local inhabitants who have caught the entrepreneurial bug, setting up temporary eateries and shops. The rickshaw parks outside the main temple, Mahabohdi. This temple is one of the four holy sites relating to Lord Buddha, the place where he gained his perfect insight. In the Mahabohdi grounds stands a descendent of the Bodhi tree: the tree under which Buddha reached his enlightenment. It stands beneath the searing heat, year in year out, beckoning believers and the curious alike to gaze upon its outstretched arms.

To find the dimensions of this place that houses pure spirituality, she must look past the lines of beggars and rows of children that border the fence—faces dirty and limbs deformed. She must look past the hordes of makeshift shops selling pendants, rugs, ornaments and statues, all bearing the symbols the many forms Buddha has transpired to over the centuries. She must look past the lined, sundrenched faces of the old and meek to uncover what it is that draws so many from all around the world to this Mecca.

“What is your plan for the day, Autumn?” asks David, looking quite pale, perspiration beading across his forehead.

“Are you ok?”

David screws his face up and shakes his head. “I’m not sure I feel one-hundred per cent to tell you the truth. I don’t think I should’ve eaten those cucumbers on the train.”

She peels her backpack from her shoulders and retrieves a bottle of water, unscrews the lid and offers it to him. “Here. Keep yourself hydrated.”

He takes a long pull of the water, his hand trembling. “This heat doesn’t help. It’s like walking straight back into an outback Australian summer.” He bends over and wraps his arms around his stomach. “I need to find a toilet.”

Autumn nods and peers around. She points towards the temple. “You’ll have to go in. There will be some in there. I’ll wait for you here.”

He crumples his body again. “No. Don’t wait. I’ll be a while.” He marches off towards the temple’s compounds. “I’ll text you.”

Autumn sighs. Ahead of her is a long, dusty path bordered by peddlers. She wanders along the narrow channel, towards the temple, to inspect the trinkets on sale. Some of the makeshift, transient vendors are seated on rugs, their goods laid out before them: rings with the plump, gold Buddha on their face, two-inch high metal and sandalwood statues, and Buddha pendants. Others stand behind benches swathed in dusty blankets holding their array of knick-knacks.

Autumn inspects thumb-sized Buddha statues; thinks she should buy one as a memento of her journey and, concurrently, support the local vendors whose sole income is what they sell to the pilgrims and tourists. It is evident during her short stay in India that foreigners provide a healthy percentage of sales. Her white skin and western clothes are to Indian beggars and vendors what the red cape is to a bull. They charge and plead, beg and bargain, to the point where polite
no-not-todays
and
no-thank-yous
have evolved into blunt
NOs!

Today, around her shoulders, Autumn has strung a large scarf in an effort to not only blend in a little more, but to stave off the excessive ogling. In and around Patna yesterday, many, many men (the streets are abounding with them) would point and nudge to their fellow companions and stare as she walked past them. It has never occurred to her before that her meagre C-cups could produce such a stir, to an extent even David thought excessive. So far, the scarf hasn’t proven to help in her quest for obscurity, but it does feel like a quasi-shield while David, her human swat, isn’t here to help her deal with the onslaught.

Autumn grasps the statue between her thumb and forefinger. She inspects it closer: a smiling Buddha painted in gold and robed in red. His swollen belly protrudes from the rest of his rounded body. Knowing what she knows about Siddhartha Gautama’s life—his years of self-denial, hunger and starvation—and knowing what she knows about his time under the ancient fig, fighting the demon of desire, where he eventually gained enlightenment and was elevated into Nirvana—this gold statue seems to contradict all of that. But where on earth has commercialism not bastardised something that is, in essence, quite pure? Regardless though, she bargains a fair exchange for the statue and continues down the sandy corridor of makeshift stores.