June 3. I kept waking and falling back to sleep from 5:30 to 7:30 am, I didn’t sleep much but I couldn’t stay in bed any more. Couldn’t figure out the water heater and my shower had to be cold. Maybe it is what a needed, a cold shower, it was brief. It was surprisingly cool in the morning, I guess that’s what you call mountain air, but that too didn’t last long. I had planned to be the first at the train reservation office when it opens at 9 to get a ticket to Varanasi. I was there waiting and waiting, then went in on time. There were already two people inside. I realized that I may not have enough money to buy two tickets, one into and one of Varanasi, I wouldn’t want to be stuck there. So I stupidly run back to my room to get more money, up and down steep hills, my leg muscles haven’t worked this hard in a while. I am back, same people are still there. Its my turn. “is there anyway to get to Varanasi, from anywhere on any class?” the clerk checks all options and looks at me with half closed eyes and says “not possible.” ok this is it, I am leaving and going back to Dehra Dun, I had seen the day before that there is an AC bus that leaves at night for Agra, sounds like a good option.
I pack my things and get out, get a parantha for breakfast and off to the bus stand. Chaos can take place anywhere anytime here. Something as simple as getting on the bus can be the most confusing ordeal with people literally pushing you out of their way to cut you off. Yelling and screaming, bags being passed above me to make it inside before I even get a chance. Once I am in, I am told that I must first get a ticket at the ticket window. “ok, I guess there is a system here, lets go to the ticket window.” the room is empty and a little opening to the side is the ticket window. I lean down to speak into the opening, I only see a woman’s mouth and a piece of her sari. She tells me I must wait until the next bus gets here before she can sell me a ticket. Fine. I wait thinking I will be first. A few people come and ask and are also told to wait. I get up and ask again then I am told to wait. This is getting frustrating, the room is getting fuller and there is no telling who was there first. Then a group of men and women storm the room and form a lopsided line, sometimes there are two or three people together, its hard to make out the line. I rush off my seat and try to get in, convinced I was there first. I get passed from one hand to the next like a volley ball in a match, you can’t hold on to it for too long and you must pass it on to someone else. I end up at the end of the line. Everyone smiles under their big mustaches as if nothing happened. I am oddly calm inside yet my face probably showed that I was very annoyed. It was an ordeal to get the damn ticket, a tiny piece of paper with the bus number and seat number. This is the illusion of a system, there really isn’t one. Each person in line is buying tickets for others who had given him money. I guess this is what they call organized chaos. Even armed with a ticket getting on the bus was a battle. Shoving and yelling and arguing about which seat is which number. I finally sit and big man is next to me. As the bus takes off he holds with both hands the bar in front of us attached to the backs of the seats. He has a grin on his face like a child. His armpit is cupping my shoulder, I can feel his sweat seeping into my thin cotton shirt. I am annoyed but keeping calm. With every twist of the road the man pushes closer into me, occupying his seat and one third of mine. Still grinning and holding on to the bar in front as if he is on a roller coaster. Regrettably I think of the orientalist stereotype, feeling guilty I thought of it at all, but this man was a child. He hardly grew beyond adolescence. I am sure he is a good family man, I mean he took his wife and three kids to vacation in Mussoorie! But he is a child, not in the “oh you are so youthful how nice and refreshing” kind of way but rather in the “you are so fucking annoying grow up” kind of way. His wife on the other hand, like most women here, seems to be more in control, more aware, and with a more advanced mental faculty.
The girl behind me hurls, affected by the motion of the bus. I offered her some of my baby wipes, hoping she would take them all so that I get rid of them without feeling guilty for throwing them out. She only takes one or two. We are now on flat roads again and almost there.
While in Dehra Dun I decided to check out the supposedly world’s tallest stupa and a Buddhist complex. I sit on a table in the heat of the day, partially shaded facing the stupa and I catch up with my writing. “I think this is a day to get a hair cut, new beginnings new hair cut.” I realized how light I feel, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I had been so distracted all day but sitting here watching the prayer flags flutter in the wind and the bells coming from the top of the stupa gently sounded off reminded me, ‘this is the first day of a new chapter in my life.” and it feels good.
I had I walked out of the Buddhist complex and walked towards the main road looking for a barber. I found one shop, it was midday and the heat was a bit suffocating. The barber was sleeping and stood up promptly when I entered and pointed me to the seat. I had my backpack which I sat against the back wall. I was dripping with sweat. I realized after he put the apron on that the power was out. The ceiling fan wasn’t working. He didn’t understand English so I had to explain how I like my hair without words. I think he understood that I like the sides short and to just take a little off the top. He proceeded to cut my hair using a not so savory looking comb and a pair of scissors. He did it all manually, even the sides. I haven’t had my hair cut without using a clipper in probably 20 years. No lights, no fan, sweat covering my face and his. It was strangely nostalgic. I always liked going to the barber. I always thought it was an intimate experience. A man grooming another man. Standing closely. Almost always my elbows rub against the barber’s groin, not on purpose but just because of the way I sit, with my arms folded and my fingers clasped. There is one barber that I will always dislike. The man that used to cut my hair when I was a kid in Alexandria. I never really liked him, he was the first barber I can actually remember. His shop was opposite our apartment and we went there every three Fridays. Barbers and hairdressers in Egypt are notorious for gossip. One time he told my father mid-haircut that he saw me kiss another boy in the stairwell of an apartment building. My father stormed off, I don’t think because he was actually angered by what he learned but because that was the reaction expected from him. He had to act like a good father and go home to confront me. I told him that I did. I don’t remember what he said back but I remember looking at him barely yelling as if the volume was muted. It was over and I think he returned to finish his haircut. We never talked about it after.
Back here in Dehra Dun, my barber seemed frustrated or annoyed that he had to do it manually and he was huffing and puffing. He was turning my head in the direction he needs rather aggressively. Hair would get stuck to my face because of the sweat. He was done fairly quickly and I was pleased I didn’t look like a total mess. He asked if I wanted him to clean the edges with a blade and I said yes. “new blade! New blade!” I don’t think he understood what I said but I watched closely to make sure he used a new blade. Once done cutting he wet my hair with a spray bottle and started massaging my head, that was probably the best part. I never hear my neck crack so loudly. He then showed me a cream and asked if I wanted it, I thought it was a hair product so I said sure. I had apparently agreed to a facial.
He put my head back and dabbed my face with cream. I regret agreeing since I don’t know what he is about to do. He put some kind of oil in his hands and proceeded to rub my face. It felt like baby oil and cream being rubbed into my face. This didn’t seem like a good idea but with my eyes closed it didn’t matter what he was putting on my face, I imagined I was at a spa. He then sprayed my face with water and wiped it off with a towel. I have no idea what just happened but I felt like I had some kind of make over, new haircut and an Indian facial.
I was still done hours before my 8:30 pm bus. I sat at the bus station reading my book and watching people. The bus to Agra had seats on the bottom and sleepers on top, it was a bit strange. It was an AC bus and at first the temperature was just barely enough to keep the skin from breaking a sweat. A couple of hours later I was freezing, it was so cold I couldn’t sleep. I woke up in the morning with a wool blanket on me. I am not sure how it got there. I vaguely remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing the blanket sitting on an empty chair and taking it. The person who must have had it was still there in the morning. Regardless I slept and in the morning I was in Agra.
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