Wanderlust

Seth was suffering from The Sinus Thing today, so I took off solo to explore town. About 10 minutes in, a beggar woman walked up to me, her face folded into finely drawn lines. She held up her small silver bowl and smiled at me, speaking in silent and worn Hindi. She patted her soft old belly and said “chapati, chapati.” Something about her eyes reminded me of glazed amber, and the fine wrinkles on her leathery face reminded me of my Oma, my mother’s mother, who, in her old age, also had dark, folded skin. I agreed to buy her some chapati.

One bag of chapati flour, a bottle of soy oil, and a bag of salt cost about $7—roughly what she might make in a week or two. She placed the flour on her head and led me out of town. We walked about a mile through exposed and trash-filled yellow dirt to an encampment strewn with blankets. A fence made of bamboo and twine encircled the place; beds were placed both out in the open and inside of leaf-covered huts. Women in brightly colored saris, with plastic bangle bracelets up to their elbows and multiple silver and beaded necklaces, squatted near a fire. It was a Rajasthani gypsy camp.

About seven women trickled in out of various corners of the camp when we arrived. Some, thankfully, spoke good English. They implored me to sit on a blanket and share a bidi, or small, leaf-wrapped cigarette with them. The bidi was potent little tobacco bomb that left a pleasant buzz inside of my skull.

The gypsies had come from Jaisalmar by mule. Pushkar, with its many tourists, presented good business opportunities, so they settled here. Someone gave them trouble about settling on the land at first, but leaves them alone now. They’re an extended family of married and unmarried women, widows, men, and bejeweled, dusty little kids.

When I asked one woman about her husband, she said he took the drink and left. Every morning, they walk one hour to get water and carry it back in clay pots on their heads. The rest of the day, they go do henna in the market, teach dance, and, as far as I could see, hang out, cook, smoke, and take care of the kids. The camp had a lull to it, especially around midday, and I could easily see myself becoming a squatting, gossiping chain smoker with the rest of them.
After the obligatory questions—how old you? You married? Kids? No kids? Oh…(face falls)—they told me about Puva, the old woman. She’d been widowed years ago and had no family. The big gypsy family allowed her to sleep by their fire, but could not share food with her, as they had to take care of themselves first. Her eyes were failing and her lungs were weak.

“She has two month, then she see no more,” Sanita, a girl roughly my age who spoke the best English, informed me.
“What then?” I asked.
“We give her a stick and tell her which way to walk to town.”

With failing eyesight and no family, Puva cannot make jewelry or do henna, two things that help gypsy women sustain themselves. Nor can she dance, she’s too old. When I asked how old she was, Sanita shook her head and said very, very old. About 40.

The women put mehndi, a marital wedding design, on my hands using henna squeezed from plastic bags. Before the henna was dry, they started dancing, a display complete with drums and a built-in audience. They did a traditional dance with flowing skirts and tricks like bending over backwards and putting a 100-rupee bill inside of her mouth. They continued to smoke like chimneys. I found yet another bindi between my lips as I took pictures. They then took me to their kitchen area, where I shared in throat-burning dahl and homemade chapati.

After buying some jewelry and giving them a kickback for the food and the show, one of them, Shanti, accompanied me back to the market. We sat in the middle of the dirt for a cigarette break halfway there. She informed me that my clothes were mediocre and I had to make myself beautiful. Next thing I knew, she’d stuck a bindi on my forehead and smeared dark lipstick on my lips with her pinky finger. She also gave me a ring to wear. Much better.

It was mid-afternoon when I finally got back to the hotel room, where the food service guy had locked Seth inside. He was a steaming heap of feverish blankets when I found him. He’s better today. Somehow, after smoking 4 bindis yesterday, I’m worse. After visiting an adorable hole-in-the-wall café this morning for breakfast, we’ve both collapsed into the dizzy, snot-ridden world of unending sinus colds.