To Hellholes and Back by Chuck Thompson

Author:Chuck Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2009-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

Over the following weeks Joyce and I cover enough ground to, if not entirely forget about Belu, at least keep the possibility of his return at bay. Our next stop is the “lake city” of Udaipur. Touted in guidebooks and on Web sites as “the Venice of India,” Udaipur will be touted in this book as an example of why not to trust travel writers. “The most disappointing schlep on the subcontinent” would be a better slogan for this dried-up organ.

Rather than a glittering tourist jewel, the “most romantic city in India” turns out to be a two-bit claustrophobic dump overflowing with the usual brigade of death-or-glory merchants pushing spoon rings, watercolor prints, and a few million other trinkets nobody wants. Teeming with the usual multitudes, all of whom appear content to pass the time of day clogging the sidewalks and streets, Udaipur calls to mind the immortal words of The Simpsons’ Apu contemplating the possibility of having children: “Well, perhaps it is time. I have noticed that America is dangerously underpopulated.”

In Jaipur—where those nine synchronized bombs killed sixty-three—our guesthouse is clean and comfortable and run by a woman who radiates more warmth than a tray of breakfast muffins. The other resident Indians, however, prove it’s not just the underclass that’s ready to jump all over you in India.

After dinner I get into a political discussion with a local magazine journalist and a retired Indian professor of economics. The journalist, a tubby, smiley guy with round spectacles named Rama, clings violently to the notion that the CIA’s covert omnipotence is the cause of every problem in the world, as well as a controlling force behind everyone in the Middle East from Afghan poppy farmers to twelve-year-old Palestinian terrorists. His stridency puts me in the awkward position of once again defending a government whose actions I’m normally happy to bash like a piñata.

“The whole world is united in its hatred of the United States,” Rama giddily informs me.

“Just wait until China is running the world,” I say.

“China isn’t taking any shit from you Americans anymore,” Rama says.

I ask him what he means by this, and he refers to America’s alleged accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

“Even if that was intentional, which no one knows for sure, how did the Chinese respond?” I ask him.

“They sent a firm message letting you guys know that you’re not the only ones on the block.”

“A firm message. That’s your definition of ‘not taking any shit’?”

“The Chinese have missiles in space aimed at the United States.” Rama jabs the air, his pudgy fingers representing nuclear warheads raining terror on America.

“Belgrade was ten years ago,” I say. “Now China needs the United States as much as the United States needs China. Without America’s unprotected markets, China’s economic miracle can’t continue. India’s, either, for that matter. Nuclear annihilation makes no sense for anyone other than rogue terrorists. Even North Korea doesn’t want it.”

“America is a country whose ruin is awaited by the world and will be cheered by millions.

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