And this is where it all ended. My dream. India 1997. Gunilla and I. I escaped my surroundings in an infantile and desperate state and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I remember that my beloved mother was worried and that she just told me “Mikael, isn’t three weeks in Majorca enough?” But blinded by my dream, I took my backpack and simply went to India. Ray, the man from whom I bought the flight ticket, sort of realized that I was on the wrong track, and he asked me if I had any idea what travel in India was all about. But omnipotent as I was, I didn’t care to ponder the question. He told me about a woman who would be on the same flight, who had lots of information about India. I got her name. It was Gunilla. And as the stupid 20 year old guy I was, I sought her out. Dressed as an Indian clown, she saw me at Heathrow, and judiciously ignored me. I tried to page her, but she paid me no heed. I could hardly get a word out edgewise in English, but I found a nice English guy on the flight, and tried to eke out a conversation, and actually managed somehow. Well, in Bombay, my luggage got lost, and I waited and waited. I couldn’t handle the situation, and had a terrible pang of homesickness. And through all of this, I found a screaming woman, DEMANDING her baggage, and it dawned on me that this was Gunilla. I dared to approach her, to ask if this indeed was her.
“Who the fuck are you?” was the answer. I simply explained that I had gotten her name from Ray, the man who had sold me the flight ticket, and that he had suggested that I ask her a few questions about travel in India. She mellowed at that very moment, and we ended up having to stay in Bombay for a day, since the flight to Delhi was delayed by a whole twelve hours.
Fortunately, Air India compensated us with the five-star treatment in a hotel, and Gunilla and I just happened to be next door to each other. Later on, she knocked on my door and wanted to talk, and as we did, we had lunch together. I took an instant liking to her, and we ended up deciding to travel together for a couple of weeks. She was someone who really knew her shit about arriving in Delhi in the middle of the night, and she correctly saw me as this snot-nosed youth on the run. One of her friends was supposed to pick her up at the airport and she offered to let me stay together with them for the night. It was January 18, 1997, and it was fucking COLD. Krishna was the name of her friend, and he was an exceedingly gracious man. The following day, Gunilla left me to go stay with another of her friends in Delhi. But Krishna was really nice to me, driving me into the city to the quarter where his office was located, and in the evenings, let me lodge with him for free. I decided to move to the central part of Delhi, and with the help of Gunilla, I got the name of a decent hotel: Mehta’s Room. It was a small hotel in Connaught Place, right smack downtown. Since it was January, it was really cold, and I requested an extra blanket, and they were nice enough to provide me with three thick ones to prevent me from freezing to death in bed.
Every morning, we met up at the Don’t Pass Me By Café, where I ate plain Tibetan bread with black tea, which delighted me to no end. I got ripped of big time one day while trying to see a bit of the city on my own. Gunilla saved me and we found the guy who ripped me off, although we obviously didn’t get any of my money back. Nevertheless, Gunilla threatened him with police action, and the tout was never heard from again. I was so scared and shocked that it reduced me to tears. But Gunilla was there to comfort me, and just explained that this was the way things happened in India. I was scared. I escaped to the Main Bazaar to try to get “back on stage”. I found a really cheap hotel, where I found myself drinking whisky with a couple of English guys one night. We did some sightseeing in Delhi, including, among other sites, the Jama Masjid, where we ascended the minaret, in its narrow lightlessness, where someone had the audacity to attempt to steal my money belt. It scared me even more, compounding a sense of fear and hatred of India. But Gunilla, once again, was there. She calmed me down, and we escaped from Delhi all the way down to Madurai.
The train to Madurai took almost 60 hours, with a short stopover in Chennai. We had dinner surrounded by Indians completely fascinated by seeing a young and completely disoriented foreigner pierced up like pin cushion, trying in all futility to “fit in”. I was obviously unsuccessful in this attempt with my morbid-patterned rave pants, piercings in all sorts of strange places, and my not-so-groovy Nepali hat.
New College House was the hotel where we lodged. Madurai’s salient feature is the Sri Meenakshi Temple, where you can be blessed by an elephant, simply by giving it a coin, thereby receiving a blessing from its trunk on your head. I got the blessing two or three times, and found it most amusing. This was my happiest memory from that trip to India, and my joy was indescribable. We had plans to go to Kodaikanal to see the mountains, and then afterwards to Goa. And even though there were thirty years between Gunilla and I, we became the very best of friends. Once we had finished touring the temple, a tailor found us, offering to show us the temple from a nearby rooftop. But of course, there was a catch, and he wanted to sell us clothing of “excellent quality”, as so often happens in this country. He took us to the Water Temple in a large rowboat, which was so jam-packed with Indians, that it was a miracle that we didn’t sink, drowning every last one of us. We took it all in stride, laughing the whole way, filled with happiness to be living such a wonderful experience.
But it all ended. On my way back, I stopped in a phone booth to call home. My Dad answered, and I immediately understood that something was terribly wrong. The only thing he said was, “Mikael, come home. Your mother is dying, and I want you to come home right now.” And in that moment, my whole world crashed down on my head. I only remember saying, “Please Dad, just pick me up from the airport.” Six thousand miles away from home, my tears fell ceaselessly. The rest of the memory is hazy. Gunilla took the phone from me, and promised me that I would be home before the respirator could be turned off. And in the meantime, I went back to the hotel to pack my bags, and Gunilla called the Embassy and various travel agencies, and the following morning, I was on a flight home. My three month trip lasted only two weeks. I cried nonstop for the 24 hours it took to get home. I sent a fax to the ICU at Sahlgrenska Hospital, asking the nurses to read them out to my Mom. My singular goal was to arrive home before it was too late. And I did it. In the event, my Mom survived, and she lived another several years before she actually passed away. But I never got the chance to get back to India, and all the remained in terms of memories from the trip was just of one big trauma.
Today I am sitting in the very same hotel in Madurai, crying the day through as the memories flood back. But I am here to make my peace with India. And I went back to the temple, have been blessed twice, endlessly pacing around the streets, crying. I made my way back to the Water Temple, openly weeping on the street, thinking about the meaning of life. This is the most important and seminal event for me on this trip. And it took me ten whole years. But I did it. And I did something good with it. And my Mom was here with me, to share the good memories, and I can finally leave it behind me. I finally have closure. And so far, I can honestly say that I’ve had a fantastic time, and now I can enjoy the rest India in all its splendor.
This is for my Mom and Gunilla, both of whom no longer enjoy the luxury of being alive, like I do.
(Intro: Sade “Flow”)
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