Rayma - Crossing the River Kim - Bhatgam - 16 km / 10 miles
In the morning Tahir and I are served the best ginger chai tea in all of India and the world! Tahir is teasing me into drinking mine India-style, pouring it into the saucer to cool before sipping. I’m not sure why but he finds my technique very funny and anyway I prefer my tea piping hot. We are to visit the neighbours across the road as they have a family member in his nineties who was a child when Gandhi passed through during the Salt March. It is another welcoming household and Erico sets the elderly man in a shaft of sunbeam and takes his photograph. He is dressed head to toe in white khadi and when he sits, he folds his legs around himself. Upon departure from my “nautilus house” our hostess places tilak on our foreheads and I in turn give her a peacock feather. Erico must be glad. I’ve been collecting the long feathers as I find them, saving them in the rear of the van where they’ve been tickling the back of his neck. Tahir drives us to the highway to continue our search for the river crossing. Eventually some locals direct us to a path running down between two fields. Watching for snakes the three of us walk single file, the air filled with the sound of water irrigation pumps tick-tick-ticking. Every time I hear these pumps I think of Gandhi’s pocket watch and his penchant for strict time keeping, a practice I have yet to master. We reach the river and although it’s not wide it is too deep and too swift to traverse on foot. We cancel that plan and head back to the highway to renew our walk, crossing the river by bridge. A dog has joined us, trotting ahead and looking back every now and then to check if we’re still coming. Approaching another brickwork factory, we wander in to see what’s going on. The dog scurries up a pile of bricks to keep watch as we explore what feels like an archeological dig site. Some buses are parked nearby for the transportation of workers to the site. It’s not busy but no one tells us to leave. Trenches have been dug with hoes and wheelbarrows creating mounded rows of clay ready to be formed into bricks. As the pit deepens, the sides are reinforced with brick which then form the walls of the kiln, its roof the raw clay at ground level. Pierced with arched doorways the surplus bricks are placed inside for firing. A couple is in the trench hand pressing clay into molds then laying them in precise rows. They see us but stay focused on their task. Freestanding piles of baked bricks stand guard with the monumentality of Chinese terracotta warriors. A clay chimney towers above this scene of complete efficiency, nothing wasted, just transformed through ingenuity and manual labour.
We Are Of The Same Clay - Virginia Dixon, oil on canvas, 32”x28”
Our dog has wandered off and we carry on without him down the uninhabited rural road. We’re hot, hungry and thirsty having had no breakfast. The prospect for food looks slim. Tahir has been keeping a close watch on us today, stopping the van every 3 or 4 km ahead until we are in sight so as not to lose our way again. He’s heard there is a food stop at an intersection a few km on but we’re a little skeptical about what it will provide in the way of meals.The crossroad turns out to be a highway and right at the intersection is a dhaba, an outdoor kitchen with several picnic tables in the shade of trees! We have not seen anything like this as yet and it feels like another miracle. We order an assortment of freshly prepared dishes and sit down to feast and rest from the mid-day heat. Tahir and I have bonded over our mutual love of tea and today is proving bountiful. After eating, Erico and Tahir pull out their phones and begin the communications. I have a phone but try to avoid communicating while I’m travelling. This is evidence of the generation gap among us as I remember when travel meant sharing stories and photos on return. Today I’m a little irritated by it in part because of the added presence of the car. More likely I’m just hungry! We linger at the table because of the heat and because the morning walk was quite arduous.
Once Erico and I set off along the road heading south of the intersection everything changes. The road winds languorously through a tunnel-like canopy of trees bordered by channels of green water blooming with wild iris. Not a car to be seen or heard, the air cool and green. We fall under its spell, walking in wonder and silence, not wanting to burst the dream with any disturbance. When we do finally speak it is to express the same feeling of being borne and reborn.
We come to another school. The young children are boisterous and happy for this unusual event of visiting foreigners and we line up for photos together. I continue to be impressed by the beauty, energy and apparent health of the children I see in Gujarat. The road continues along its quiet way, dogs and children our main companions, little girls carrying pots to fill at the local well, older boys posing for photographs in the studied social media stance, hairstyles carefully coiffed and glistening.
We pass another brickwork and more ochre coloured dogs and I’m pleased with the overall unity, feeling complete and happy.
Tahir pulls up and announces he found another “very fine house” for our night halt in Bhatgam. My mind is picturing the previous night’s quiet elegance but we are brought to a large modern semi-detached home housing the families of handsome twin brothers; their wives and four young children and an aged grandmother. A third brother and several neighbours join in welcoming us. I get an uncomfortable notion the husbands might have accepted we foreigners without the support of their wives, who seem cooler than other women we’ve met. Perhaps they don’t really want two dusty pilgrims staying the night now that they have a modern home to enjoy. Perhaps I’m completely misreading them and they feel shy! There is however a bit of irony in my unease at their opulence as Gandhi met with excessive wealth and indulgences on this day in his Walk and gave a severe scolding to both himself and his pilgrims for succumbing to the pampering they received. The elderly toothless grandmother is very elegantly dressed: a pink cotton sari, her hair styled, bejewelled with gold bangles, wedding band and long beaded necklace strands. She sits cross-legged on a swing with her third son keeping close watch beside her, holding her hand lovingly. I engage with the little girl cousins who are playing a version of hockey with a soccer ball and paddles in the spacious open-concept layout of the home. I’m shown up to my room and decide to stay put as I’m finding the household very loud and chaotic after the peaceful walking. Before long the excited children have found me and want to show me their room and toys. As we explore their quarters the power goes off and we’re left in pitch dark. One of the fathers brings me a head lamp and I return to my room to read until things get resolved- although power outages might be the norm here. When we’re called to dinner the three of us are placed at the dining table while the wives and children sit in a circle on the kitchen floor eating their meal Indian-style- with especially loud voices! The twin brothers are absent but in the evening Erico joins them outdoors for a game of soccer.