Ali
needed me. He needed my expertise and unique skills. He needed me to text his
girlfriend. I met Ali on one of my first mornings in the dusty streets of
Jaisalmer. I was outside the fort, dodging cows and scooters in the narrow
lanes, when Ali desperately waved me over, introduced himself and leapt into
his story. Ali, like many others in Jaisalmer, could not read or write and so needed
help him to woo his American beau via text messages.
“Say
something nice!” Ali pleaded.
“Well,
what exactly do you want me to say?”
“That
I love her and that I wish she was here, and that she is beautiful.”
“How
about just saying you miss her?”
“Tell
her I want to marry her!” He beamed.
“That’s
not very subtle…”
“Tell
her I love her!” he screamed.
I
did just that, abandoning any coyness I may have had were it my own
relationship and showered her with clichéd compliments. Ali loved it; it was
exactly what he wanted to say. And so it went, from then on I was his go to
guy. He would phone every day to invite me to drink chai with him and plot the
courtship of his girlfriend, to barrage her with adoring messages.
I
was in Jaisalmer to volunteer with one of the popular camel safaris, seeking a
respite from the frenetic hustle and bustle of ordinary India. My job was to
help the camel safari company with their email correspondence, although I was
quickly put to use in different matters. It seemed that Ali was not the only
one in town in need of a love-letter scribe. Soon enough I was playing the same
role for every man in the camel safari company. I was continuously asked to
write emails to foreign girls who had passed through Jaisalmer before. To write
their “desert man love letters” that came from their desert man hearts.
It
was a strange role. I first found it alarming, their obsession and fascination
with any girl that crossed their path. They needed little encouragement or
often none to become fixated with a girl, the likelihood of a possible romance
having no bearing on their fantasies.
It
was in stark contrast to my own approach to women. While traveling I can be apprehensive
about relationships due to the inevitable complications that arise.
Continuously traveling means a meaningful or long-term relationship is very
difficult, if not impossible to maintain.
To
keep the dream of extensive travel alive one tends not to pursue relationships,
to choose the freedom and loneliness of solo travel over the fulfillment and complications
of love affairs. At the heart of this matter is a slight fear of vulnerability,
a little skepticism in the fleeting nature of love but, ultimately, a rampant
wanderlust is most to blame. One plays matters of the heart safe under the
excuse that one is living a greater adventure, the life of a wanderer.
It
was on the desert safaris that I found the peace and open spaces I came looking
for. Our group of tourists and guides would bounce along on the camels,
enduring the ride more than enjoying it, our glazed eyes glaring through the
heat searching for foxes or vultures or any form of life. Trotting along in
single file and unable to chat, our thoughts would fade into a desert-induced
reverie. Finally we would arrive at the campsite, relieved to give our aching
bodies a respite from the heat and the constant pounding from the camel riding.
After
lazily exploring the dunes we would settle down to watch the sunset. It was
under the spell of one of the sunsets that I remembered a quote about the
ocean; that the wonderful thing about the ocean is that it makes you think the
thoughts you like to think. It is the same for the desert, I thought, or
mountains or any form of grand nature. So far removed from the tensions of
peopled places, we could revel in the setting of the sun in silence or quiet
conversation forgetting our tired trivial thoughts and petty worries. As our
bodies and minds relaxed it felt like we were revitalizing our frayed souls with
every deep breath and still moment.
This
reflective air would continue into the night as the desert enchantment engulfed
us further with the appearance of every new star. The guides would chat and
gossip non-stop around their cooking fire, their teasing and laughing the
melody to the constant beat of the slap-slap-slap of the chapatti making. The
guests were more pensive and the camp-fire conversation was typically
philosophical often moving onto classic traveler’s discussions about how the
world ought to be.
One
such chat turned into a questioning of my own lifestyle. While the guides
washed our dinner plates with the desert sand I answered a volley of questions.
Why had I been travelling for so long? What was my motivation? I muttered
something about everyone having their own path, that there are many different
paths to happiness and this one happened to be mine. I tried to explain the
sense one has that life is incomplete and that this cannot be all there is, the
inner conviction that there must be something better, fuller and more
satisfying elsewhere.
But
what was it, what was I searching for? I was not so sure I could say exactly
what it was. I think I understand
what the French philosopher Andre Breton meant when he said, “All my life, my
heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name”. Fighting off sleep that night
staring up at a panorama of stars so encompassing and bright that it felt as if
I was a star myself, floating freely amongst them, I lay thinking about that
very question. What was I searching for?
Back
in the city, and back to playing romantic advisor. The love letters remain
unanswered and the guys grow despondent. I go for chai with Ali and he tells me
that his girlfriend has realized that it is not him sending the whimsical and
romantic messages to her. She has stopped replying to them. He is distraught
and fears it is the end.
I
see them go wild with lust and adoration and feel slightly vindicated by not
being so girl crazy, to not fall into a similar madness. What if I have got it
all wrong though? If this extended traveling has in fact been a subconscious
search for something, could it be that that something more was the bliss and
fulfillment of love? If what I was avoiding was the very thing I was searching
for? Is it really that simple? It feels too much like a lame line from a movie
trailer.
After
a few weeks the desert, with its uplifting effect, has done its job. I am refreshed
and even restless. It is time to move on. I drink one last chai with Ali, still
as animated as when I first met him but with a certain fresh sorrow about him
now for his failed relationship. Something turns in me when I see that, a type
of jealousy. Not for his pain, but for his passion. And with that thought, I leave.
On a midnight train to Delhi my journey continues. As always, I am alone but
free, still in search of that something more my heart cannot name.
