The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck, page 2
“The ducks are on the other side,” Babba informs me.
I focus the light on a cage the butcher is pointing to. He thrusts his fist inside as if punching someone. A quack, loud and clear, draws me nearer. He pulls the bird out, attempting a smile as he speaks.
“He says it’s yours for nineteen rupees … a good price,” Babba interprets.
I close in to identify the duck, steadying the light on its rust-colored bill. What? Yes, a rust bill and a dull brown neck. It’s not a pink-headed duck but rather a common red-crested pochard, annual winter visitor to India.
“Please, don’t tell him,” Babba advises. “Just buy it and we can leave without trouble.”
Babba grabs the duck and I hand over the money. Dejected, the two of us leave the shop. Babba doesn’t want the pochard; he became a vegetarian long ago. Its wings have been clipped, so we can’t release it. I give it to a family living on the street, and we walk back to the river along one of the city’s larger avenues. The return trip takes half the time of the original trek down the side streets, but as Babba explains, “You get your money’s worth the other way.”
At the bathing ghat, I decide to bid Babba farewell. This doesn’t sit well with him.
“How can you leave me? How can you be so cruel? Are we not friends? Look at my legs, my hands… I will cook for you. Pigeon pie. Duck stew…”
“Enough,” I shout and lead him into a teahouse.
Over sweet cakes, we agree that he will become my tutor, giving me language lessons for half of every day. He will also act as my guide, with the understanding that when I want to be alone, he will disappear. In return I’ll pay him the fifteen dollars a day he has asked for.
This arrangement works well. Occasional problems arise, but Babba is always quick to explain that I’m at fault. My morning routine stays the same, while the time I previously spent prowling the museums and libraries is given over to Hindi lessons. Babba uses the streets as our classroom. We roam Calcutta together, Babba pointing something out and then stating its name in both Hindi and Bengali; a half block away, he tests me on the word or phrase. When I fail, he theatrically asks anyone nearby to help teach me. During the course of a normal afternoon we share pots of tea with four or five different people, all volunteer tutors.
One day, unbeknown to me, Babba tells the workers at the game–fowl market that I will pay a handsome fee for a pink-headed duck. This sends the cogs of local commerce into high gear. A day later, my thirteenth in Calcutta, while standing on the left bank of the Hooghly, I spot one of the riverboat captains sprinting toward me. He’s carrying a bamboo cage containing three wildly pink ducks. Fortunately for the birds, the paint is latex and easily washes out.
Only hours later another pink bird is laid at my feet. Fluorescent overspray dapples the sandals of the eager seller, Amrik, a young man who usually peddles screwdrivers and wrenches near the bus stop. What attracts me to Amrik, besides his winning smile, is his capacity for lying. He swears that he has just scooped the bird from the river, insisting that the coloring of all Indian birds comes off when touched by foreigners.
“It’s your white skin crying for color,” he tells me, gently stroking the bird.
When I point out that he’s holding not a duck but a red turtledove, he quickly corrects me: “It may look like a biki [Dove] now, but it was a duck.”
My eyebrows arch in disbelief; Babba turns away, wheezing, trying unsuccessfully to swallow his laughter. Amrik is undeterred. “It is true,” he continues. “You see, when a pink duck leaves the water, it changes into a biki. If it was raining, it would still be a duck, but it is not raining today. That, my American friend, is why it looks like a biki. Don’t you understand?”
For a small price I buy the distressed bird from him. As I sit in the back of the teahouse, swabbing the biki first with kerosene and then with soap and water, I decide to leave Calcutta. Originally I had planned to spend only five or six days in this city, and now I can foresee what will happen to me after Amrik brags of his sale, telling his pals that the American will buy any pink bird.
At first Babba is angered by this news, but noting my reaction, he starts chastising himself for being inadequate. “I know why you leave. Because I am miserable, I make you miserable. Because I am poor, I make you feel poor. Because my bones ache, you suffer… Yes, you must go. Who wants to watch me die?”
He drones on and on as I try to think of a satisfactory way to part. I summon the owner of the tea shop, and after twenty minutes of haggling, we stand and shake hands. I’ve just leased the shop for the night in Babba’s name. Like the mythical phoenix, Babba rises from the ashes of misery, becoming a new man. He will be the host of a party.
“There is much to do and little time,” he says, excusing himself from the table. “I must invite everyone and keep an eye on the kitchen.”
I leave for my hotel as Babba begins to harangue the shop attendants, ordering them to clean the place. It’s a thirty-minute walk to the Rest Happy Lodge, my residence for the past week. I chose it for its name, cheap price (six dollars a night), and pleasant staff. It’s the perfect antidote to the Fairlawn Hotel, where I spent my first nights in the company of impolite westerners, burly Australians, and Japanese shutter-clickers. Where the Fairlawn aspires to recreate the atmosphere of the raj (the employees dress in silly getups and call the guests Sahib or Memsab), the Rest Happy, not listed in any brochure, doesn’t pretend to be more than it is: a quiet place run by a sleepy family.
Packing is no great chore for me; I’m content to wear the same outfit for days on end. If I need something new or fresh, I buy it. But when it comes to camping and camera supplies, experience has taught me to arrive in a foreign country fully equipped. My gear fills two bags and weighs nearly fifteen kilos. Cameras and film account for most of the weight, and the remainder is survival or medical equipment. I’ve also brought a variety of presents to give away at opportune moments: a gross of “New York, New York” pencils, a dozen wrist watches with built-in AM radios, plenty of 3-D pins of Godzilla, and a hundred disposable lighters printed with the image of Michael Jackson.
Two hours later there’s a sharp knock at my door. Babba has sent some of his friends to escort me to the party. What a pleasant surprise, I think, until one of them tells me to hurry: the dining and music can’t start until I arrive. Music?… I didn’t hire musicians.
The teahouse is packed; the entire neighborhood seems to be here. Babba is king tonight, and he breaks away from his court to greet me. To my relief he reports that the musicians and the special items he has added to the menu cost less than twenty dollars.
“What’s a party without music, Searcher of the Duck?” he asks.
All along I’ve assumed Babba to be celibate, a man dedicating the last part of his life to god. But as the night rolls on, his true self is revealed. Instead of walking, he starts sashaying; his hands rove and his skinny legs straddle anything warm and round. When I ask him about this, he stands on a chair to shout, “I love sex.”
Luckily, only three people bring painted birds to the party. Without much argument, they agree to clean off the birds before joining the festivities. Although many Hindus are disdainful of liquor and drugs, this crowd, the citizens of the fowl market, swig from flasks and light pipes filled with various substances. Off in a corner, near the musicians, people dance, using their eyes and hands to interpret the lively ragas. The party is a success and continues, I’m sure, long after I’ve left. A little after midnight, as I make my exit, Babba stops the music to make a toast. His words follow me all the way to the hotel.
“To the gods, to us, to the pink-headed duck!”
The next morning Babba is waiting for me in the street. He looks a mess. He hasn’t slept, and after all the dancing, his legs really do ache. I hire a rickshaw, and the two of us take a farewell tour of Calcutta. It’s mid-September, hot and humid. Heat radiates from the macadam, making the buildings appear to undulate in the liquid air. There’s no wind, and the diesel exhaust from the traffic is suffocating. My urge to revisit tourist attractions wanes with every drop of sweat coursing down the rickshaw puller’s back. Babba insists that I’m a fool for worrying about the driver.
“This is his job. You paid a fair price and you should not feel bad.”
These words fail to change my feelings. Near the Maidan, a city park, the so-called lungs of Calcutta, I hop out, instructing the driver to take Babba wherever he wishes. My friend leaves his seat to embrace me. We say nothing, knowing that this is good-bye.
One place in the park beckons to me, a small plot of land I call the “Rat Palace.” When I first happened upon it, I was shocked, but now, after several visits, I’ve come to appreciate it. Protected by a low fence of welded hoops, thousands of brown, black, and gray rats lord over one of the few green patches in the city. Their kingdom is a labyrinth of holes and tunnels spread over a quarter acre. Invariably there’s a crowd watching the rats race about, tossing them food and cooing, as if admiring a newborn child.
Hindu gods assume many forms in their various reincarnations. Shiva, god of destruction and re-creation, once lived on earth as a rat and, as a result, hundreds of thousands of Indians revere them. The Rat Palace is a living example of Indian adherence to the laws of Karma. Who knows whether that rat is your grandfather?
“Quite a sight, eh?” I suggest to a well-dressed businessman standing beside me.
“It must be strange for an … American?”
“Yes, American.”
“Calcutta must be very different from your home,” he says, aiming shelled peanuts at a massive brown rat. “Where are you from in the States?”
“New York.”
“Yes, this is far from New York. Here I am feeding rats on my lunch break. But you know, when I went to university in London, I often went to the zoo to feed the animals. The English love to feed squirrels.”
“But these are rats.”
“Yes,” he says, pausing a moment to study a peanut before tossing it. “But so what? Let me ask you something. Are rats bad? Do they not have a life?… Are they lacking status among other animals?”
“Well…”
“You don’t have to answer. I’m not a Jain, but I do believe all things must be given a chance to live, and we must oblige that law. The poor in this life may become the rich in future lives.”
“That is a philosophy I don’t understand.”
“No, that would be hard for an American.”
“A skeptic, please.”
“Or a skeptic. Let me give you a better example. I have a friend who owns a flour mill. Twenty percent of his stores were being lost to rats each year. Not long ago he put two cats in the warehouse. That was his solution and, I may add, a very sane one.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, now he has many cats and still loses twenty percent to rats. Life continues the same, even though we come and go. And speaking of going, I must return to my office. Will you finish feeding the rats for me?… Thanks so much.”
I stroll down the path after him, munching the peanuts.
2
Red Tape in New Delhi
“Think of Rome and Washington rolled into one and you have New Delhi,” reads the first line of a slick travel brochure aboard the plane I’m taking to the capital. Dismayed by the thought of such a blend, I doze off until we’re circling above Indira Gandhi Airport.
Through the porthole I can see far below the lights of New Delhi strung out in a vast, precise grid; the streets run in straight lines, true as an architect’s ruler, unlike the streets of Calcutta, a city that looks as if it was laid out aboard a yawing man-of-war.
At the airport information desk I peruse the list of government-approved hotels in level three (beyond cheap) and spot the Long Rest and Happy Hotel. I decide to head there; perhaps it’s operated by relatives of my congenial hosts in Calcutta. I wander about the airport for a while to let the horde of cabbies and bag carriers expend their energies on the other passengers. When at last I exit, a mob surrounds me. Dozens of hands grab for my bags; cabbies bark exorbitant fares; guides shout conflicting directions. I nod to one driver, who clears a path to his car.
“What was that all about?”
“Bad timing. You were everyone’s last chance. The next plane arrives tomorrow morning.”
The Long Rest and Happy Hotel, or simply L.R.H., as the night manager refers to it, is pricier and less appealing than I expected. “We are upgrading ourselves,” the manager says, pointing to several buckets of mauve paint near the door. He leads me to an antiseptically clean room.
“Just like America, no?” he says proudly.
“Just like America, yes,” I reply, nodding. The room will do until I find something better.
I spend my first day riding city buses, the number six, then the number twenty, and so on for seven hours of circles and transverse lines, never sure where we are going or when I will get off. The bus system is an ideal introduction to the city. A rolling lesson in demographics, it provides access to the various neighborhoods and the people who inhabit them. Babba’s Hindi lessons prove invaluable, especially his tutoring in slang. From one of my fellow riders I discover that the city has no game–fowl market. He also doubts that I will find a pink-headed duck anywhere near Delhi.
In a local bookstore I buy a city map and a relief map of the Indian subcontinent. The relief map is brightly colored to mark political divisions, but two areas are unnamed and untinted. One is a narrow section near the giant rhododendron forest of northeastern Sikkim; the other, triangular in shape, lies in the upper Brahmaputra River Valley, near the conjunction of Burma, China, and India.
Why has the printer erased two chunks of the world? Is this uncharted territory or just a mistake? Research in the library and the National Archives suggests that the white areas are indeed unexplored and uncharted. If any outsiders have investigated these regions, I can’t locate a record of their explorations.
At last I know where to head next in my search. Where but in a region unseen by modern man, defined only by imaginary lines of latitude and longitude, would the pink-headed duck be hiding? But how to get there? Both areas have been closed to foreigners since Indian independence in 1947. The officials at the Sikkim and Assam state tourist offices in Delhi tell me that only the federal government can issue permits.
I pore over my maps, including those I’ve brought from America, for routes that lead into the unknown regions without passing too close to army bases or major government projects. After several hours I find what I’m looking for. I will request permits to travel the length of the Tista and Brahmaputra rivers, the major waterways of Sikkim and Assam. Both rivers, fed by the snows of the Himalayas, drain the uncharted areas; both are distant from the rumblings of tribal or international war; and both offer ideal habitats for the pink-headed duck.
Permits are issued at the office of the Ministry of Home Affairs in Lok Nayak Bhavan, a dreary, block-long, five-story building not far from India Gate. Its windows are blackened, sealed by dirt and decay. Rust stains streak the concrete facade. Public bathrooms are near the entrance, but there’s no running water, and a putrid smell fills the air. Police and heavily armed soldiers patrol the grounds.
A line of people snakes its way around the corner of the building. Although the office is open only three hours a day, everyone with a visa problem must come here, and this afternoon it looks like every nationality in the world has a representative on line. Concentrating on lesson eighty-five of Hindi Is Simple, I wait for my turn to enter.
Two hours later a tired-looking man sitting behind an unpainted plywood desk passes me an application form. The questions are the basic Ws (who? why? where? when?) and leave little space for answers. I fill out the form, hoping whoever reads it has a sense of humor. A clerk takes my completed application and disappears down a hallway. Moments later laughter echoes from the next room. The clerk reappears and tells me to return the next day: the undersecretary wants to see me. I leave elated and confident that I will get my permit.
Instead of heading straight for the hotel, I decide to venture down side streets, and I walk for several hours until, footsore, I stop at a teahouse. I ask questions about the neighborhood of the boy serving me. He’s polite but too shy to say more than three or four words at once. However, when I ask him if he knows of a good hotel, he points next door and goes on about how wonderful the place is. I survey the whitewashed stucco building and finally spot a sign no bigger than a grapefruit announcing the Grand Life Hotel. There’s no mention of it in my travel brochures, and the state Regulatory Office doesn’t list it—two good reasons to check it out. The lobby is clean, the price cheap, and the TV room is filled with all sorts of people. Perfect.
The manager is out, so one of the employees takes me on a tour. I like the rooms and place a deposit on number seven, reserving it for the next few days.
Dinner is a private celebration, with me drinking to my own health and brilliance; I’ve found an intriguing new residence and I’m sure my permit will be granted tomorrow. Yes, I tell myself, eat and be happy, for in a matter of days dinner will be over a campfire on the trail of the pink-headed duck.
The next morning I check out of my old hotel and carry my bags to the Grand Life. The manager answers my hello with a frown.
“I’d like the key to room seven, please. I made a deposit yesterday.”
He stares at me blankly, so I repeat myself in Hindi. His nostrils flare. I try Bengali.
“I understood you the first time,” he says. “You must be confused. This is not a tourist hotel. Try the Yatri Newas.”
I fish in my pocket for the receipt. At this moment I spot the man who accepted my money trying to slink out of the room.
“That guy!… He let me register and took my money. Look, here’s my receipt.”
The manager flies into a rage, yelling at the employee, who keeps his eyes on the floor,
