Read Online Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle by Russell McGilton - Free Book Online Page B

India), goods and services were demarcated: textiles occupied one street – furls of blue, white, red and chequered patterns sailed on the footpaths – while metal goods – hooks, chains, cases, hardware products, nails and tools – were up the top end near the chowk (intersection). Behind the chowk and near the town square was the vegetable market, and nearby, the milk shops bubbled and frothed sweetened milk in huge woks as patrons munched on sweets, chatting, laughing and wiping away their milk moustaches.
    The Pharmacy Market was in the next street, occupying most of it with small shops only big enough for one man. Packets of drugs were lined up, sitting in the sun. I’d heard some were most likely copies of the authentic product or, worse, contained not the drugs at all but turmeric. One company had apparently had so much trouble with their products being copied that they had to change their packaging three times in a year.
    ‘Hello. Where are you from?’ called an English accent. I snapped around to see a thin Indian man with glasses smiling from inside his tiny pharmacy. He wobbled his head and I thought instantly of a praying mantis.
    His name was Sunil and his father had immigrated back to India from England, hence his clear Manchester accent. He was the oldest of his siblings and was therefore responsible for looking after his parents. His father was a doctor and Khandwa was his hometown.
    ‘Here is a very dusty place, very dirty,’ said Sunil from inside his shop.
    ‘Oh, but I find it positively cosmopolitan,’ I said. It was busier than most of the small towns I had been to in India in my brief two weeks of travel.
    ‘Sure, it may be a city, but you know there’s nothing to do here. People are concerned about working and making money. They don’t want to talk about other things like the rest of the world.’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘You look tired. You should get some sleep now. Come back later when you are rested. I like meeting people like you. Where are you staying?’
    ‘The Motil.’
    ‘Near the railway station? Ah, it’s not very nice there. There is a better place I know. Very clean rooms. The Rinjit Hotel. The food there is very clean.’
    ‘But I’ve been eating at the food stalls all through India.’
    ‘You shouldn’t! The food is poor quality, and then there are the flies!’
    Later that night, I met Sunil at the Rinjit for dinner, the kitchen now firmly open and serving piping hot meals. As the night progressed, while we ate outside in the restaurant garden amid burning oil lanterns, Sunil’s accent glided out of his smooth English to its natural Indian staccato.
    ‘Eighty per cent of the people of India,’ he said, chewing on a chapatti, ‘and I’m sure you’ve seen them, are terribly poor. The common man here, if he is lucky, will have five rupees in his pocket. Not even enough to buy soap!’
    Sunil was right. India still has the world’s largest number of people living in poverty in a single country. Of its nearly one billion inhabitants, an estimated 350–400 million live below the poverty line.
    ‘Do you think,’ I began, ‘that using the soap will get rid of the germs after … you know, after you’ve been to the toilet?’
    ‘Sure. Most of them.’
    ‘You think it’s hygienic?’
    ‘Very hygienic!’ He raised his hand up as if asserting a high truth.
    ‘Then why does everyone eat with their right hand?’
    He looked dumbfounded for a moment then shot back with, ‘It is the custom!’

    ***
    The news of my malaria travelled fast.
    Sitting at an Internet café, where the owner had blessed every computer before letting me sit down, friends and family were understandably concerned. My sister, a nurse, consulted a doctor and said that I should be okay once I had taken the drugs, as the strain I had caught only stayed in the blood, unlike others that resided in vital organs such as the liver even when treated.
    Alan suggested that I come home, in case