The Trip From Bundi To Jaipur

Evil

The two-lane road from Bundi to Jaipur is unremarkable. It's paved, but not well-maintained so it makes for a bumpy ride. I got an early start yesterday for the 180 km bus ride. It's not a particularly long distance but I was told it would take about 5 hours. The lanes of this road are narrow, especially considering that it's mostly used by buses and transport trucks. The buses generally go faster than the trucks. There's a lot of passing, which of course means cutting over the the lane of oncoming traffic. I've seen many close class so far in India, but no actual accidents. Until yesterday, on the trip from Bundi to Jaipur.

First was an overturned public bus on the side of the road. It had already been evacuated, but I imagine the accident couldnt be more than 24 hours old. Next was the wreckage of a head-on collision between a truck and a public bus. The damage was pretty bad. The front ends of both vehicles were smashed. Next was a dead camel, apparently hit by a car. And after that, two more truck wrecks on the side of the road.

I was starting to feel uneasy and wondering if my bus might be next. (If I die, XTIAN can have my baseball card collection, but he has to promise to go to my apartment and delete the porn from my laptop before my parents get there.)

When I was about 60km outside of Jaipur, I came across a man, fully prostrate, on the ground. The bus stopped. I watched the man as he got up to his feet. He took a single step forward. He was a lanky man of average height. He wore a small backpack, with a red pennant flag sticking up from the top. His clothes were worn, but not tattered. He got on his knees and then prostrated himself again. The bus -- any bus -- could have easily run him over if the bus driver were not alert. I watched him repeat this movement over and over... taking one step and prostrating.

One of the passengers got off the bus to get his story. Turns out that the man is from a small village in central India. He's making his way to a temple in the north of India, prostrating with every step. He talked about how his mother fell ill some time ago. They were from a family of means, relatively. But despite spending all of their family's money on medical treatments, the mother's health showed no signs of improvement. So the man, in desperation, prayed for his mother's health. He promised that if his mother could somehow return to health, he would make a pilgrimage from his home to a far away temple. The day after his prayer, his mother began to feel better. A month passed and his mother was back to perfect health.

He said that he's on month 3 of his pilgramage. He estimates he has 5 more months to go. He carries a change of clothes in his small backpack. And he survives on the kindness of strangers. He says that restaurants will recognize that he's on a pilgramage and bring food out to him. He says that hotels will sometimes invite him to stay for free. Otherwise, he sleeps on the roadside, covered by a thin blanket, which he also keeps in his backpack. He says that the journey has been long, but he hasn't been fallen by fatigue or ill health.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, which I consider good news.