[In continuation of Chronicles of the Middle Kingdom [Part - III]]
The trailing account of my visit to China are true and accurate, and mostly honest. I've been trying to pull off bit of the ol' Jack Kerouac, and miserably failing at that. I'm frantically chronicling everything, every hour, every event, every frikin' step taken and place lived at, but not every sentiment.
For all the fun and frolick that I had surrounded myself with, I still felt like Forrest Gump, running away from something. References to the past incidents made their way into our merry conversations every few hours, not in a sad, desperate way, but in a pensive, studied manner. They included recalling and retelling the chronicle of events several times, justifications and considered silences, and were dotted with several 'y'knows' and 'I-was-like-s' and 'he-was-like-s', as such conversations usually are. The way in which a tongue keeps returning to tease a blister in the mouth, not allowing it to heal. I wasn't heartbroken anymore, or doubted even for a moment that I was over it for good. But it seemed like a gaping hole had been left open, which indicated that something in life had been missing but I couldn't quite put my fingers on what it was, and mostly I was just trying to fill that damned gaping hole with fun, fun, fun - as if fun was any sort of a replacement for happiness. Though happy I was quite often, sometimes even euphoric, but that deep seated contentment had abandoned me. That mother-of-all-fucked-up feeling that accompanies a love-loss, had been assuaged long back, but its lingering, nauseous aftertaste followed me through a range of enjoyable distractions and indulgences, from Delhi to Beijing to Hangzhou and back to Beijing, like a lurking shadow. Occasionally when the distractions were bright enough, like a midday sun they would make the shadow disappear, and I would silently assure myself - 'really, I'm so much better of on my own!' and 'life's done me good!', and 'oh thank God its over!' and I did not for a moment believe them to be untrue, but the scheming shadow would play peek-a-boo every once in a while and throw at me the 'why me-s' which at one go would collapse my assurances like mere dominoes.
And so back to Beijing I came from Hangzhou, the shadow clinging close by my heels. That night we went to Yugong Yishan for a reggae concert to celebrate Bob Marley's birthday, which was one of those midday-sun-type, happy-happy, joy-joy events and I verily drank like a truant little teenager; and swayed to reggae music; and shared a drag of some good stuff with a Bob Marley doppelganger complete with dreadlocks; and danced with a suave Italian. One mad African singer of a reggae band playing that night, took much of a liking to Naj. He so totally fronted her that some men lifted her up and put her on stage where he almost started to grind against her. She hid her face, pleading all the while "I can't be seen like this, I'm a diplomat! Please don't take photos! What if someone told the Ambassador!", while we guffawed our hearts out. I punched the lurking shadow in the face, and asked it never to return again.
But return, it did, and with vengeance, the next day. For the day that I had reserved for my most-awaited Chinese mission - The Great Wall - was the most lugubrious of all; the sky was inky, the air thick, the sun uninterested. Cold and grey feed a shadow and strengthen it. My lightfootedness eventually transformed into treads heavy with the weight of the thick overcoat and gumboots and the past, and my legs felt tired of running away. All through the way to the Wall on the mini-bus, while the guide (a young Chinese girl who spoke considerably good English) gave us a tour of tombs of various Chinese rulers, the past reeled like a film in my head. It was midday by the time we reached the Wall. No one chose to hike all the way up to the Wall. I presume because no one felt particularly adventurous on such an uninviting day. We all took the ropeway up the the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, and by the time we reached up, the sun was up again and I was breathing easy and trying to let go, once again.
The Mutianyu Great Wall isn't the most popular of the various sections of the Great Wall, because it isn't the closest to Beijing. But this meant much fewer tourists and much more space to run about. The entire Wall was our playground - we posed, jumped, sat, jumped again, ran about like mad freaks, stretched out hands, stretched our legs, climbed up stairs, jumped down, posed some more, drank some water, ate some snickers, and took many many photos. Of all the historical places I have visited, the Wall is my favourite. I was informed that in spring-time the cherry trees on sides of the Wall come to life, and I almost wished I could be back in spring just for that! The cherry on top of the cake was the giant slide through which one slides down the Great Wall, adding an element of thrill to the expedition. That night the girls got together and watched all sorts of chic-flicks, and Naj and I spoke some Madagascar-speak, which are our insider jokes and are incredibly funny to us even if repeated for the 11869545th time.
With my last day at Beijing fast approaching, Naj had another exceptional culinary experience planned out for me. The Chinese Hot Pot! Restaurants that specialize in Hot Pot have special menus which contain everything raw you may want to cook yourself and eat. The tables have two kinds of broths brewing fresh over a burner underneath the table, one spicier than the other. You may choose the ingredients you want brewing inside each broth. We ordered for mushrooms, steak, sweet potatoes, noodles, varieties of meat and...duck blood. Duck blood came as coagulated red jelly which once inserted and cooked in the broth didn't really taste any different from anything else. Among a selection of sauces, you create your own special sauce - mine included primarily mushroom sauce, peanut sauce and mustard sauce, and bits of other sauces. You pick the cooked ingredients directly from the Hot Pot, mix it with the sauce and eat it. I liked the steak the best.
My final day in Beijing was a day done, perfectly Sex and the City style. Naj, Lysh, Carole and I went for brunch at Colibri: Coffee, Cupcakes and Fine Eats, which took its "fine eats" part quite seriously! The rest of day we spent shopping - I bought a total of 5 shoes, including boots in 4 different colour and several dresses and put Naj's bargaining skills to quite a test. Whatever I saved in the bargain though, I spend twice as much paying for extra baggage later.
The last and the freakiest of my great Chinese cultural experience had been saved for the last. The girls and I went for a Chinese massage. The massage itself was a much-deserved at the end of this whole week of running about all over China. But Then, the masseuse convinced me to try "fire cupping". Frankly, he merely muttered something in Chinese, which was roughly translated by Carole to me as "you have a lot of bad energy inside your body because of spices and hot food and you should balance that with the fire cupping therapy". I had no clue what fire cupping meant, but getting rid of bad energy sounded all zen and spiritual to me, given the state of affairs, so I said "Okay". It was only after he started sticking cups all over my back, practically immobilizing me that I was informed that the hideous flaming red marks take about 2 weeks to fade away. Getting rid of bad energy wasn't exactly as life-changing as I had expected it to be. I have no regrets though. I have grown up on an ardent belief that any new experience is a good experience. And I was only more glad to have some marks to show off, as evidence of my Chinese adventure, like a tan after vacationing at a beach.
Just as my Chinese vacation came to an end, there were more and more fireworks all over the town, presumably because the Chinese New Year week had come to an end, but I took it to be China's ceremonious send-off to me.
Vacations don't satiate my inconsolable wanderlust. If anything, they leave me pining for more, like two droplets of water to a parched throat. But if I were to simply think in terms of the things I value most in life - including fun, friendship, seeing and doing new things and staying in a constant state of motion - my Chinese visit summarized all that I want out of life. And by the end of it all, as I realized there's so much more to see and do and experience if you open yourself up to the world outside, the gaping hole seemed considerably smaller and defeated.My return flight to Delhi was via Guangzhou. An American boy, around 19 years of age, came up to me asking if I was going to India too. The kid reminded me of my cousin and we stuck around together for most of the journey back. He had been raised in China and was traveling to Rajasthan in India to assist in some humanitarian projects during his gap year. At the Guangzhou airport, he sat learning and practicing Hindi sincerely from his little book of "teach yourself Hindi" and asked me his doubts every now and then. At the Delhi airport, he asked me if I knew any good hostels, and after a moment of consideration, I invited him to stay the night at my place. I offered him chawal, dal and sabzi at night and let him sleep on the couch.
Next day, as I helped him get an auto to the railway station, on my way to work, he remarked "Thanks, I hope all the good karma pays off."
My thoughts went to a day, seven years back, when a sweet girl had allowed a complete stranger like me to stay the night at her place in Hyderabad and had fed me tuna sandwich the next morning. Today, she is one of my dearest friends and we had just had a vacation together after several years. Since that day, seven years back, I have never denied a well-deserving soul a couch for a night and some food.
"Just pay it forward, Johnyboi." I told him and drove off to work.
