❝AT TWENTY DEGREES NORTH LATITUDE, He then revealed that in the same little hotel in Bhubaneshwar, in the old town, the populous and sacred Old Town, I shared some encounters with a grieving Brahmin family who came from the interior of the province to attend the Lingaraj. The widow of the deceased, limited in her movements but not in her belongings, was grateful, from the first day that I helped her with some access stairs, for the way in which without hesitation, resolutely, I took her by the arm to climb them together, all this without having stopped greeting her beforehand, palms joined on the chest and forehead, mediating a resounding namaste with a smile and a good morning in Hindi.
In successive encounters, with their elegant game of sari and choli, sitting In the courtyard leading to the establishment, she tapped sharply with her hand on the seat of the wooden chair next to her to show me that she wanted me to come closer to her.
She also ordered some sweets that they made themselves in the rooms (some of the rooms on the ground floor were equipped with kitchens), as tasty as they were delicately handled.
In his presence, neither his twin sons nor his daughters-in-law flinched or made faces.
Having gained some confidence as a result of all this, the two daughters-in-law ended up jumping on me to ask me, because they were scrutinizing the foreigner that I was with curiosity, if the creams I used when I went out were to achieve such white skin. I explained to them that they were not. But they insisted.
Either I added some more explanation or they would start again now that they had opened fire. So I explained to them that one of them used it because she had atopic skin, something incomprehensible there, it's true, I know, and the other one simply for sun protection even though the sun wasn't shining all the way.
With them, with the creams, in my hands, I showed them the labels so they could check it themselves. The colour, or lack of colour, was factory-made. Now, yes, when I drink two gin and tonics my throat takes on an indescribable blue colour, just like that of Almighty Shiva in this month of Sawa and celebrations. They did not doubt it or so I thought from their expressions.
And their curiosity, and I'll stop here, continued to grow, it seemed limitless. They looked at each other and in a low voice they asked me again, this time if the skin was so white, equally white all over the body or if there were even whiter parts. I pretended not to understand, but they turned the question around to continue investigating.
These spontaneous conversations that sometimes arise, although in the heat of the moment, fall mostly on the more embarrassing side, and the language, which gives wings when it is not your mother tongue, later turn out to be funny, I admit, very funny. The matriarch said goodbye to me on the day of her departure with true affection.
The tuktuk driver who took you directly to the Lingaraj temple, although he took you in a complete detour.
On the eve of leaving Bhubaneshwar, two of the friends came to say goodbye very affectionately to the little hotel. pundit from the macro dinner at one of their houses, which I already wrote about at the time, with a small bottle of Mango Lassi (I've become addicted to this yogurt smoothie that looks like condensed milk with mango, ginger and cardamom).
I was not able, as I would have liked, to celebrate a farewell dinner with them because the owner of the family hotel, with the American journalist who spends long periods in Orissa and with whom up to that moment I had not really exchanged two full conversations (too unsociable), wanted, just that night, to invite me to a dinner with a local menu. Infinite cordiality and jokes, but on a small terrace near the large pool of sacred water at Bindusagar which occupies part of the historic centre and from which the most voracious mosquitoes must have come out to suck a good part of the oxygen-rich blood that I still had at that point.
View of Bindusagar pond at dusk with the whitewashed temple in the middle.
On the way to Nepal, which I confess I was afraid of, nothing special or boring happened to me. And once in Kathmandu: home sweet home. So similar, but so different, Indians and Nepalese. The weather, rainy, yes, although with bearable temperatures, brought me back to routine, to a traveler's routine, of course. ●
