The dynamics of the road on a long trip in the countryside are not the same as those in the cities. Although the average speed is also not very high, the reasons for it are different. The road winds before you, a 5 to 10 meter long stretch of broken up asphalt surprisingly appears, a few wide open pits suddenly show up, a series of smaller holes dot parts of the route and cannot be avoided, or sometimes around towns or villages vendors are exhibiting their stuff alongside or animals are crossing the road. Most cars on the cross-country roads, which are usually two-way, have headlights and blinkers, but these are only used in nighttime driving, with one exception. When there is an oncoming car and there are ditches or potholes to avoid, the driver changes his lane and turns on the headlights in order to warn that he will not return to his proper lane. This implies that the oncoming car should allow him to pass either by switching to the shoulder or by pulling over. As far as the driver is concerned, there is no right and wrong at moments like this. If you see headlights in front of you, you move to the side or just stop. Then you put your headlights on and the car in the opposite lane pulls over.
Long distance drivers are, in fact, quite dangerous. They smoke grass all the time, since marijuana here grows everywhere, and they are not really worried about getting into accidents and even getting killed: “We all are in the hands of Bhagwan, who knows and sees everything. He will protect us or let our body die, and then we will be re-born.” Fortunately, drivers do not travel alone. There is always a traffic-and-maneuver-aide, who keeps them company. When parking is in process, they get off and stand outside in front or in the back yelling instructions. If it is a public bus, the assistant hangs out of the open doorway on the left side of the bus, standing on one of the steps, he executes manual regulating signals, gives instructions to his driver or informs him about the situation in the rear. Unlike the truck drivers, the assistants are luckier and throughout the journey get to remain seated while leaning out of the left window. I imagine their arm regularly gets numb, since all the time it is hanging out from the window to perform the blinker functions manually.
On the other hand, blinkers are used during nighttime driving, but in a very specific way that caused me quite a bit of stress before I figured out the exact methodology. Imagine the following situation. You are in the seat next to the driver. The car is moving at 40 miles per hour on a two-way interstate road with only two lanes in both directions. Helped out by the lights of the cars further in front in the darkness you can barely make out that a truck or some kind of a van or bus is coming towards you from the opposite direction. Most certainly, you anticipate it will simply drive by. However, quite unexpectedly you see its inner blinker go off, as if the driver is warning of his intention to move into your lane and crash into you head-on. At this point your driver also puts his blinker on, as if indicating that he is also about to switch lanes. Your brain instantly searches for some logical explanation of what you think is about to happen and then you start worrying at what point they will return to their lane. But, actually, no one leaves their lane or changes their course. Then, another motor vehicle heads your direction and you observe the same system of signaling through the inside blinkers without any consequential change. Of course, these are no complicated maneuvers involved in any way, you realize, but you still wonder what the hidden meaning is. Finally, you understand that blinkers are only used to delineate the dimensions of the cars, which is obviously a conventional technique for vehicles coming from the opposite directions to safely pass by each other, absolutely crucial especially at night time on such narrow roads where street lights do not exist, there is no dividing line in the middle, the headlights are rather dim and the surrounding darkness is dense and impenetrable.
I remember the most dreadful ride I had at the foot of the Himalayas. I embarked on a journey by bus from Mussoorie – a small mountain resort town built as a summer retreat by India’s British rulers. I was going to attend a fair and visit a temple further up in the mountains. The view of the Himalayas spreading gloriously to the horizon was awe-inspiring and I sat in the very back of the bus to enjoy the scenery and possibly take a few pictures. However, it soon became clear that I wouldn’t be able to do that. We were traveling on a decrepit strip of a dirt road that was wide enough for only two cars to pass at a time. On one side was a drop of at least 300-400 meters deep, on the other a wall of rocks with no safety nets covering them. We saw boulders that had fallen onto the middle of the road, blocking traffic. Sometimes these rocks had to be bypassed by driving nearly on the edge of the precipice, with the bus almost hanging off the cliff. The driver’s assistant would get down and run in front of the slowly moving bus to have a better view of the track of the tires, and yell out instructions. Observing his boyish look, the passengers seemed to doubt his expertise, but kept their fingers crossed in the hope that he had directed the driver before in similar situations, especially when one of the wheels was about to hang in mid air.
The most terrifying experience, however, was when the bus was racing at full speed up the bumpy narrow road. I worried that it was going too fast, that the driver did not have good control over it and he wouldn’t have enough time to handle a sudden emergency. He was driving right in the middle of the road. What would happen if a car jumped out from around a bend? Every time the bus came near the edge to pass a vehicle coming from the opposite direction, I closed my eyes and my heart stopped beating. I could not keep still in the back, so I sat in the front by the driver, as if I was going to help him steer. I asked him a few general questions about elevation and distance, but he must have guessed my fears and reassured me that he had many years behind the wheel. He explained to me that I shouldn’t worry because he honked constantly precisely to alert unseen vehicles of our presence. He also tried to convince me that when the bus was going uphill on a mountain road, it had to go at a fast speed, and if possible avoid slowing down and stopping or else it could get stuck on the road, unable to start climbing upward again. And then, of course, the bus would never arrive at its destination.
So we continued to fly. However, understanding how focused he needed to be, I decided not to distract him and once again returned to the back seat which, unfortunately, was on the side of the precipice. Every time I looked out of the window, I could only see barren steep slopes covered with rocks and no trees, no bushes or at least roots to stop us or slow us down, if we were to go off the road and roll down, which seemed at times imminent. While staring into the void, I tried to calculate the number of times we would flip over before hitting the bottom. The best-case scenario, I concluded, would be for us to be swept by a talus and slide downhill. This way the bus would not turn over or make sudden jerks and so my chances of hitting against something hard or getting stabbed by a glass or metal piece of debris would be certainly reduced. I had no luck, I told myself, my heart jumping at every bump or turn of the road and I imagined how time and again how we were going to slip and fall into the abyss and how no one could possibly come to our rescue in such a place. I figured out with some hope that perhaps help could come from a helicopter, but I further wondered how it would reach the wreckage. My mind was in a whirl. Most likely it would not be able to land and so a rope would be necessary to lift the survivors, but would they have a long enough and strong enough rope to reach us and pick us up with? I looked around at the other passengers on the bus to identify the ones who were older than me or younger and after whose rescue my turn would come. Choking with emotion, I said farewell to my family several times, and thought about what I had forgotten to tell my children and my husband or what I had failed to do for my loved ones.
We arrived safely at the fair. My legs were shaking, my heart was pounding and I was dizzy. Right away I thought of the return trip. No, there was no way I was going to get back on that bus and get killed! I would explore other options and find an alternative. I rushed to ask a few people here and there what else I could do to go back but no one seemed to have a solution for me. It even occurred to me that I could buy myself a bike and place my fate in my own hands. However, every one said this was not going to be safe at all and, after all, there were no bikes being sold at the fair. The local people laughed outright at my ignorance, simplicity and lack of understanding of how the universe operated and that the one’s destiny was not at all in one’s hands. Somehow they persuaded me that the trip back was not so dangerous. We would be driving on the inside lane of the road, next to the rocky hill, so there was no longer any risk of us falling off from the edge of the cliff. I calmed down. I had no other choice but to go back on the same bus.
I turned my attention to the fair – the crowds around the stands, and the goods for sale. Everywhere there was a cheerful hum of voices, songs, chuckles, giggles, and festiveness. I climbed up to the temple of Durga perched on the top of the hill. She is regarded as a reincarnation of the mother goddess and her name literally means ‘inaccessible’ or ‘unattainable’. The Puranas, a vast collection of ancient legends and myths, philosophy and rituals, offer several versions about her origin. According to a popular account in the Markandeya Purana (the Devimahatmya section), Durga was created by the gods in order to save them and the universe, from a powerful demon called Mahisha, whom they could not destroy and who was brutally taking over the three worlds, namely earth, ether, and sky. From different parts of their bodies they created a perfect warrior in a female form, because the demon could only be killed by a woman. They granted her their joint energy and strength, called shakti. They also bestowed their most dangerous weapons on her and in order to fight holding all of them at the same time, she appeared with many arms. She had unparalleled beauty and her face was lit up by a crescent moon shimmering on her forehead. The battle with the demon was fierce and long-lasting, but in the end it concluded with a victory of good over evil.
I stood patiently in the line of worshippers at the gate of the temple holding the bowl made of banana leaf full with a flower garland and other offerings which I bought from a lady in front of the temple. When my turn came, upon entering I rang the bell, which was hanging above the entrance, in order to attune my senses to worship the goddess guarding the moral order of the universe. Moreover, it would wake her up, so that she could protect me and my family by dispelling all evil spirits. In the dusk I slowly approached the altar. The statue of the goddess was draped in a red silk sari, shining with golden embroidery, with jewelry around the neck and on all of the eight hands, and adorned with flower garlands. She was seated on a tiger, a symbol of her unsurpassed might. I carefully observed the actions of others around me and when I came before the goddess, I also bent down to touch the dust around her feet. I prayed to her to save my family and me from harm and just to be safe I did it in Hindi, in Bulgarian and in English, but when I attempted to do it in my shaky French, I was pushed away and could not finish.
I returned to the bus. This time I sat in the front. Soon we were on our way. Well, this time, we had a different problem: the brakes were not very good and so the driver avoided using them. Again we were not driving on the road, we were flying. Certainly, the horn was constantly beeping in order to prevent surprises. “Yea, right, a large piece of rock in the middle of the road will hear us coming, and clear out of the way!” I thought “Or another bus like ours coming up the hill would move out of the way or stop for us!” The most likely scenario was a head-on collision. In the meantime, I convinced myself that if I could see the crash coming, I might do something to avoid getting killed, so I held on to the handle in front and closely scrutinized the driver’s every move. I had time to finish my prayer to Durga in French and even tried it in Russian and Sanskrit, and there was still time left to repeat it a few times in Hindi, English and Bulgarian. Well, it must have worked, at least in some language, because we arrived at our destination in one piece. When I got off the bus, my hands were numb from squeezing the bar too hard in front of my seat and my legs were cramping because of how tense and scared I was during the trip. The next day I had muscle pain in my entire body.
I admit that there exists a much more philosophical approach to dealing with such an experience. Every time I recall the episode, I always remember that Durga is also called also Maya. Maia is a concept that gradually evolved as one of the central ones in Indian religions and philosophies. Its meaning varies, depending on the text or the school of thought; maia is magic power, illusion, deceit, unreality, falsehood, material world, ignorance. We need to realize through meditation and worship that Brahman or God has the power of illusion and that he creates the whole world, in which everything else is confined according to the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (4.9-10) 2. We shouldn’t bind ourselves to this world because it is unstable, ephemeral and deceiving. In any single moment so many changes simultaneously occur within it: new souls enter, others leave it; friends become enemies, enemies turn into friends; winds blow, rivers flow, currents in the ocean change directions, the sun and moon constantly move through space and time. Nature is perceived by the sages as maia that forces us, through our senses, to apprehend everything around us and in us as reality, yet it is only a projection of the indivisible universal reality – brahman. Our inability to understand the truth that ultimate reality is permanent and that people and objects are transitory leads us to intellectual and spiritual confinement. Thus we are released of all restrictions, all of which are due to ignorance3. In Plato’s Republic, analogous reasoning can be found regarding the restricted knowledge of the experienced external world and the clearer knowledge we have of the conceptual world, which we experience through the intellect. This most notably appears in Plato’s metaphor of the cave.
But then, up high in the mountain, none of these ideas even crossed my mind, even for a second. Unfortunately, I had become a victim of the primitive human fear of death, so typical of my western upbringing. But despite everything I thanked God that the bus in which I was traveling did not end up on the pages of the local newspapers as part of a report of yet another accident in the Himalayas.
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2 Upanishads. Trans. Olivelle, Patrick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 260
3 See for more Doniger, Wendy. Dreams, Illusion and Other Realities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. 81-122, 260-297 and Ranade, R.D.. A Constructive Survey Of Upanishadic Philosophy: Being An Introduction To The Thought Of The Upanishads. Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1986. 163-165