35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘WE SHOULD SHARE OUR SEX ENERGIES’
the rest. It was probably a week’s wages – but for me it was still only
twenty dollars. They all seemed overjoyed, offering us beedies and
asking me to take their photograph. One man, in a script that
resembled the tracks an ink-logged spider might leave behind,
painstakingly wrote what turned out to be his address on a flimsy
scrap of paper – so that I could send him a copy of the photograph.
Having sold my camera in Bangalore, I asked Esther to oblige.
Grudgingly, she did. Then we set off again.
The driveshaft rattled unnervingly, but apart from this, the car
seemed fine. ‘Feh!’ said Esther. ‘Did you smell those creatures?’
‘They probably haven’t had the Jacuzzi installed yet.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
I confess that I was glad to hear her cramps were so bad by the time
we reached Poona that she intended to ‘rest’ in the best hotel
available, then carry on to Bombay. She couldn’t wait to get back to
‘civilisation’ and the flight that would carry her home from Santa
Cruz airport. She’d never return. David looked at me mournfully,
but he would toe the line. And he still does.
Alone once more, and heartily enjoying it, I had the driver drop
me at a hotel near Shree Rajneesh Ashram, bidding him farewell
and a safe trip to Bombay. He looked at me balefully.
‘Much trouble with driving shaft,’ he said. I agreed.
‘I am having to explain this trouble to boss, sahib. Boss too much
angry. Now I am paying for repairs so no money for family.’
‘I paid for the repairs,’ I reminded him. He looked at me with
frustration.
‘Bye.’ I walked into a place called something like the Sri Ganapati
Meales Hotell.
‘Sahib!’ I could hear behind me. ‘Baksheesh, sahib?’
The Sri Ganapati Meales Hotell had a yellowed rectangle of
paper pinned above the front desk. It bore a lofty thought from
Mahatma Gandhi extolling the virtues of work – printed in wobbly
type. Five old men sat in an office with huge dusty windows, drinking
chai and chatting. They had clearly seen me. I waited some minutes,
then hit a bell the size of a crash helmet, producing a muffled ping.
Before long, I was reduced to shouting and rapping on the office
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