All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (8 page)

Varanasi: the Fortune Teller of the Ghats

After the Mela I made my way, like most of the
sadhus
, to Varanasi: India’s holiest city, and only a few hours from Allahabad. Here, along the primeval stone ghats of the river, makeshift tents housed a growing number who had come to pay their respects to Mother Ganga now that the festival was over. It was here, too, that I would meet another type of
sadhu
, a female recluse who would show me, as if by opening a box of delights, a glimpse of the ineffable.

On the day of my arrival, for what would turn out to be a three-month stay, the city was at its finest – a clear, lustrous January day, the air pleasantly chill, the River Ganges serene, and what seemed like all the children in the city upon their rooftops, flying kites. Ahead of the Makar Sankranti festival, an auspicious day on the Hindu astrological calendar and also the date of the great annual kite festival, keen practice was going on. On every narrow rooftop, tiny children gathered beneath their kite strings. The skies above the holy city were dotted with thousands of
patang
or fighting kites, their lines sparkling with glass fibre to cut opponents from the sky.

Kites have been flown here for more than 1,500 years; it is believed they were brought to India by the Chinese traveller Fa Hien, a Buddhist monk who visited India around ad 400. They’re the simplest of designs: tailless diamonds made from tissue paper and bamboo, and when they fly the paper rustles in the wind. No sound so typifies Varanasi in my mind as that rustling of scores of brightly coloured shapes, some decorated with gods and goddesses, dancing above the ancient dwellings, an orchestra of rustling paper.

Some time later, I found myself installed on the fifth floor of an archaic guesthouse, one of the highest buildings in the city, not far from the Manikarnika Ghat. By some stroke of luck, I was given a room overlooking the river, so that through the large panes I could see a whole stretch of the Ganges, with spires of dark smoke rising from the cremation ground and ancient river craft poling the currents. Numerous rooftops also lay within my view, so that I could see
dhobi wallahs
hanging out their washing, flame-red chillies spread out to dry in the sun, and women picking the husks from the mounds of silk-white basmati. Many city dwellers covered their roofs with wire mesh to protect themselves from the monkeys, and it was easy to see why as I caught my first sight of an entire tribe, leaping at full speed from parapet to parapet, shrieking mischievously. Monkeys, although sometimes bothersome, are considered avatars of Hanuman the monkey god, and, in Varanasi of all cities, it is forbidden to interfere with them in any way. Consequently, the city dwellers have to put up with all manner of roguish pranks: the theft of food, clothes and shiny ornaments; the destruction of property; fighting and mating rituals noisily enacted on thin corrugated roofs; or in the case of certain hapless tourists naively holding bananas, fully fledged assault.

Nonetheless, for a time at least, it is a pleasure to see them on one’s windowsill. Until now, India has yet to impose those strict barriers between the animal and human worlds that render Western cities so particularly sterile. To see a cow garlanded and sleeping between rows of traffic, a temple monkey receiving
prasad
or vultures descending upon the Towers of Silence, is to feel connected still to a larger web of life. The Indian gods, too, in all their animal forms, remind us that the natural world is one of the most obvious manifestations of the divine we have.

As the dusk fell, I ventured out on to the ghats for a look at the city. I’d been here some years before and felt immediately at home on the bustling waterfront, with its plethora of pilgrims, boatmen, swamis both real and fraudulent, awe-struck Japanese tourists, tick-ridden mutts, portable barbers’ shops, knuckle-cracking masseurs, beggars, musicians, goats, corpses and a million other forms of God.

Along the waterfront there are massive flights of stone steps, stone piers and platforms that jut out into the Ganges, and on each of these a Brahmin priest sitting under a palm leaf umbrella awaiting the customer; behind this, the sharp spires of Hindu temples. Amid the clanking of bells, the buzz of innumerable voices raised in prayer, salutation or commerce, male and female bathers proceed in endless streams to the water, clutching their brass vessels to save some of the Hindu world’s most sacred water for future use.

What at first seems like perhaps the most anarchic place one has ever seen soon begins to reveal a complex system of order. According to scripture, each of the eighty-four ghats of Varanasi represents 1 lakh (100,000) of the species described in Hindu mythology. Of these, five ghats – known as the
pana jala tirthas
– have a special importance. Each represents one of the five natural elements, and to do any form of spiritual practice here is to see a far quicker return on one’s investment. In the same way that for certain Catholics, walking the road to Compostella guarantees, if not the key to heaven, then a bit of oil for the lock, the Hindu who reaches Kashi (the ancient name for Varanasi) feels that what he has to say will be heard here that much more easily. For those fortunate pilgrims, to stand on one of the five
tirthas
is to arrive – as close as one may in this earthly realm – within earshot of God.

It was on the edge of one of these
tirthas
, just as the moon was rising above the river, that I first saw an intriguing character who would open the door for me, over the weeks ahead, to the tightly knit subculture of the
sadhus
who seemed to line the banks of the river. He was French, entering middle age, although a ten-year heroin addiction made it difficult to tell precisely how old he was. When I laid eyes on him he was playing chess on one of the stone piers which overlook the river, his face quietly rapt, seemingly oblivious to the gathering crowd of Indians who were following the game’s every move.

Walking past at right angles, I saw only a dishevelled foreigner, pasty-faced and wrapped in a russet blanket, sitting across from a prosperous-looking Indian, clad in immaculate
dhoti
and waistcoat. The contrast struck me as amusing, for it is all too often the case that despite our comparative wealth by Indian standards, we travellers are invariably dirtier and less well presented than even the poorest peasant. Backpackers, myself included, seem anxious to quickly shrug off the expectations of conventional life, as we enter that nether world of ‘the road’. Our scruffiness and sheer disarray never fail to baffle the spotlessly clean Indians, whose very religion equates worldly cleanliness with spiritual purity. By that reckoning – amongst so many others – we travellers have a long way to go.

The Frenchman, despite his dishevelment, was at any rate thrashing the Indian chess player with apparent ease. Neither was the Indian doing his own credibility any favours by making constant references to a colossal tome laid out on the stone in front of him. Nudging closer, I managed to sneak a look at its cover.
62 Masterpieces of Chess Strategy
, it was called, by one Irving Chernev.

As the moon swung out over the Ganges,
diyas
(devotional lamps) were laid out beside the players to ensure their view of the board. A chai seller trundled over with his metal canister to cater to the ever-present Indian need for a sweet decoction of
Camellia
sinensis
. I struck up conversation with another spectator, who was able to give me the low-down on how this extraordinary match had come about.

‘That
feringhee
[foreigner] is from France,’ Amir explained excitedly. ‘And he is coming here every year to Benares [another name for Varanasi]. Each evening many people are playing chess out here besides Ganga, and one day this Frenchman is asking for a match. Foreigner is
thrashing
his first opponent!’

‘Were you watching?’

‘Actually, no. I was working in my shop at that time. But I was coming back next evening when my friend told me that Frenchman was again to be playing. This time
very
fine local chess player is coming. Some more Indians now coming to watch, and once again this Frenchman is wreaking havoc with our man!’

I couldn’t help chuckling. Indians, perhaps with good reason considering that they grow up in such a hugely populated society, seemed possessed of a stronger competitive streak than most.

‘So what about this man’s chances?’ I asked. ‘He seems to know what he’s doing.’

‘
Great
champion,’ said Amir. ‘Captain of Varanasi District Chess Association. Best player for long distance in actual fact. Brain is tip-top.’

Another man, keen to join in the conversation, sidled up to Amir. ‘
Bahut samay se dekhā nahīm
,’ he said. ‘Long time no see.’

‘My friend Rajesh,’ introduced Amir. ‘You should visit him. He is making excellent horoscopes.’

‘Handy,’ I said. ‘An astrologer. Can you make a prediction about this match?’

Rajesh grinned, exposing gleaming teeth. ‘No need for
Jyotisha
in this instance. India has already lost too many wickets.’

This was certainly true. The Frenchman, in a display of skill which appeared almost insulting, had plunged his queen into a nest of the Indian’s pawns, then proceeded to make a kind of systematic culling. Each further conquest prompted yet more riffling of the chess book, and the occasional whimper of frustration from the beleaguered Indian. Opposite him, almost luxuriantly, the Frenchman lit his cigarette.

Very soon it was over. The competitors shook hands, pats on the back were awarded to both men from the admiring throng, and the defeated Indian was animatedly praising the Frenchman’s technique. ‘Not for many years have I been beaten like that,’ I heard him say. ‘He knew
every
strategy I employed. Every one! An encyclopaedic knowledge, I tell you.’

After that a few days went past and I forgot about the match. But as I sat in the rooftop café of my guesthouse one evening, who should walk in but the chess player. He looked even more sickly than I recalled and sank feebly into his chair.

‘You’re the chess player?’ I said. ‘I saw you play a match on Monday. On the ghats.’

His bleary eyes lifted. ‘You saw that. It was fun, no?’

‘Not for your opponent. How did you get so good?’

He shrugged and flicked a Gold Flake cigarette from its packet. His nails were filthy. ‘I am not so good, actually. I was better once. But here the standard here is . . . well, quite amateur, actually.’ As he lifted the cigarette to his lips I noticed his hands were shaking. ‘I am not boasting,’ he added. ‘But I could have given that guy half my pieces and still won. It was child’s play for me. He knew the great games by rote but not . . .’ he exhaled, ‘but not the meaning of them. You take my point?’

He was called Honoré, it turned out, after Balzac, who had also been a chess player. He supported himself by teaching chess strategy in Paris. He had once played for the French national team, but even then another mistress was drawing his attention.

‘I am a junkie,’ he admitted almost at once. The confession seemed to make him feel better; he could look me in the eyes. ‘Heroin. I have been in rehab twice. My father came with these two big guys to the squat where I was living, and they carried me to a car and took me there. I fought them the whole way, but then after several months I came out clean.’ He rotated the cigarette between thumb and forefinger, squinting his eyes at the blue smoke. ‘Then I fell back into it. Down the rabbit hole, yes. More re’ab. But since then . . . three years, I ’ave this habit still. I cannot shake it. Perhaps I don’t want to . . .’ He gave an involuntary shiver.

‘Why the hell not?’

‘I like it too much. I mean, perhaps it’s stating the obvious, no, but when you’ve felt that good, one wants to again. Nothing else in this . . . world can really compare.’

We talked on. Between cigarettes he rolled himself hefty joints and smoked them down to the nub. He was the kind of character a writer dreams of: charismatic, highly eloquent, possibly doomed. His inner life flowed out in jump cuts and memories. He spoke of chess players as if they were movie stars: Bobby Fischer, Mikhail Tal. He knew their legends and their quirks. Not being much of a chess player, I struggled to follow as he replayed the games which had inspired him, relating the winning moves K
X
5 as if mere mortals could hope to share the genius he so clearly saw in them.

‘Fischer always said that chess is war. You’re trying to
crush
the opponent’s mind. I think at one stage I felt invincible. My mind was so strong no one could touch me. But the heroin has taken the edge away. As much as it delivers me to a plane that not even chess can touch, it lessens my ability to think in that super space – that magical space, you know – where the most serious chess happens. If I ’ave a regret, it’s that.’

‘Magical space,’ I said. ‘Yes, I understand that. But you’ll kill yourself if you carry on, won’t you? Do you
want
to kill yourself?’