Signs of Life by Stephen Fabes

Author:Stephen Fabes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2020-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Back in Kathmandu, I plotted my escape. The date of my flight from Mumbai to Hong Kong left me with a few weeks to meander south through India. I left Kathmandu, climbing above the smog and out of one valley and into the next, where a long string of cars were locked in place through the obstinacy of two bus drivers. Rounding a corner, neither had made the merest of concessions. Now the grunting faces of their machines were millimetres apart and someone was going to have to reverse, but by the time that point was conceded, several dozen motorists had done what the drivers here did with professional endeavour: closed all gaps. I squeezed past the cars and should have had the entire downhill to myself, but vehicles in the other lane, sensing an opportunity, were using mine. They veered into my path, flashing their lights – the international symbol for ‘I’m about to be a moron: cope with me’. Not my country though, not my rules. I swallowed my road rage.

I coasted back down to Terai and crossed the border into India, passing a touring cyclist, a young Indian, on the way.

‘Hey, you got any weed?’ He looked painfully hopeful.

‘Sorry, man.’

He sighed and said, ‘I worked through my stash’.

We wished each other good luck and I held out my hand for him to shake. He looked uncomfortable, but reached out anyway. And then I could see why: he had an extra thumb – preaxial polydactyly, if you want to be fancy – a limp, useless appendage hanging out with his functional ones. A few years ago, Akshat Saxena from Uttar Pradesh became the world record holder for the highest number of digits. He was born in 2010 with seven digits on each hand and ten digits on each foot. Extra digits are more common among Indians than any other nationality. This seemed fitting somehow, something to do with India feeling like an exciting and excessive place. Or, as A. A. Gill put it, ‘Whatever it is you’re looking for, India has it with six arms on.’

I was now riding through the state of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous. And fittingly, that’s how I remember it, as a muddled vision of people: boys in early-morning cricket games in the dusty spaces on the boundaries of towns; a man carrying a whole bed on his head; women overfeeding me roti choka; a circle of children bewitched as I slathered on sun cream; and waves of women in black niqabs, always far from the Muslim men with their dyed-red beards. I felt the impact of the crowds too: the sun dulled by the chalky haze of pollution; litter burning by the road; an acrid fog of melting plastic. I passed through nowhere that I remember with any clarity, and slept often in police stations that smelt of incense, guarded by officers with bayonets who slept on the stone floor. I was never turned away, and was always fed and watered.

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