Varanasi Eight - Finale

Now I’ll give you an example of the part of hospitality I don’t enjoy. We were slowly making our way back to the house when someone suggested mango juice. I was stuffed and said I wouldn’t have any. Well, they wouldn’t have any of that. I had to say at least seven times, and in the end extremely severely that I wasn’t hungry and didn’t want any mango juice. I sat down at the mango stall content in my mango-lessness. Suddenly I saw one of the people with us make a gesture towards me, and covertly order another mango juice. I had to quickly step in before the shopkeeper could pour the glass. I didn’t want any mango juice!

The problem with their hospitality is that I often don’t actually want it. There were several times during the trip that I would much rather have been left alone to scrape a few hours of sleep instead of being fed or given a pile of gifts to choose from. I’ve had this experience multiple times in India. They want to be hospitable so much, that you are obliged to take what they’re offering. In Canada if I said I didn’t want mango juice my companions would ask, “Are you sure?” And when I affirmed my choice they would accept it. But because all that these Indians give is out of kindness you can neither refuse them, nor nurse any feelings of anger.

We finally made it back to Rohit’s house. I was ready to go to sleep then and there. Instead we stayed up talking, and Rohit’s sister did some henna on my hand, while Melody got dressed up in a beautiful saree. By the time the henna was done I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Rohit’s sister then began showing us family photos, then things she had knitted, and then gave both Melody and I necklaces. We were given a supper of chipatis, rice, dahl and subsi (vegetables). What can you do in this stream of hospitality when all you want to do is sleep?





At long last we settled down to sleep – inside this time - at about midnight. I dropped off like a rock. We woke up again at about three in the morning, said our good byes and bustled off to the train station.

Before the train left we grabbed some junk food to tide us over for breakfast and then we all had a nice nap of about two and half hours. We played a bit more pictionary and dozed intermittently. Outside our air-conditioned coach was a small passage with the bathroom stalls on either side and a door open to the Indian countryside. Melody and I leaned out and looked down the train to see other heads and hands peeping out. We stood for a while and watched the countryside go by. Fields sprinkled with tan coloured huts and green trees swept by us.



There’s no transportation quite like a train. You pass through the back of a country; you see the little lives of little people in little villages trundle by. You see it all and yet you’re not a part of it.