Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06There Nick paced around, looking at a wide dirt track that branchedoff from the road, inspecting his map, muttering aloud “It must be ...”squinting at the horizon, looking down the metalled road, saying“Hilsa? Hilsa?” to passing strangers. All part of the conjuring act that Ihad ceased trying to understand. “That must be northeast ... and there’sa lot of cycle tracks going that way ... It must be ...” My place was tostand poised for the decision, with an agreeable smile that I hoped wassupportive rather than condescending, and then follow. Somewhere inwhatever direction, we’d go for alms, there was water everywhere, andat the end of the day we would be in another field or village more or lessthe same as where we started from.N I C KTrying to find our way using the maps I had with me was not like mapreading in England, where you could note something from the map andthen follow it. As ever in India nothing was that certain. I had three maps:a modern German one of eastern India, up to date but on far too smalla scale to be of much use away from the main roads; a commercial Indianone of Bihar State, on a bigger scale but crudely made and very unreliable;and the copies of the maps from the British India Office. Thesewere on a large scale, full of detail, but fifty years out of date. The threemaps hardly ever agreed with each other and only occasionally, evenbetween them, agreed with what was on the ground. Route planninghad thus to be a tentative business. I would combine the informationfrom all three maps with various bits of advice we got from locals as wewent along. As most people had never been more than a few miles downthe path, this advice was usually even more unreliable than the maps.With all of that we would try to make our way.As we proceeded, my mind would go again and again through thesame mental cycle. It would start with anticipation. We will go there,and along this path, to that place, and we will see this and that, and so1 9 4