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  ‘I bring you, direct from England,’ Mike continued, sounding a bit hoarse now, ‘a bevy of bouncing beauties, the gorgeous, the wonderful, the aptly-named Heaven’s Blessings!’

  ‘You know he used to call bingo?’ said Sharon.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Cindy.

  ‘It’s a great honour,’ continued Mike lowering his voice, ‘to introduce the star of show, representing Legend’s Lingerie, the award-winning Queen of the Screen…’

  ‘That’s how he started. Up in Scarborough,’ said Martina.

  ‘Come a long way,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘You reckon?’ scoffed Sharon.

  ‘I mean this is a long way from Scarborough,’ said Hendrix, wistfully.

  Mike was glancing round, gesturing urgently with his hand. ‘Voted Gorgeous Girl of the year in Gorgeous Girl Magazine not just once, not twice but three times, the unbelievable, the stupendous…’

  ‘Go boogie,’ said Cindy, giving Martina a quick kiss.

  ‘Martina Marvellous!’ shouted Mike.

  Martina breathed in, lifted her head, pushed her shoulders back and stepped through the door.

  The crowd surged forward. Mike jumped back. The Buddhist Cook sent Mr Bophal sideways with a clatter of enamelled coasters. Several traders attempted to retreat as others pushed their way up, but the porch was now so slippery with squashed vegetables that they all slid into each other and tumbled collectively down the steps. Tradespeople at the back, meanwhile, started flinging their goods at the door. Mike ducked as a watermelon thudded against the wall beside him. The chai seller threw tea over the people in front of him for which he received a finely made shoe in the face.

  ‘Was that a watermelon?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Makes a change from underpants,’ said Sharon.

  In all this commotion the only person, it seemed to me, who stood unruffled was Martina, her head slightly tilted, one hand resting delicately on her hip, the other caressing the nape of her neck as a number of men, tripping over the top step, prostrated themselves at her feet. As if gradually beginning to notice the mildly perplexing enigma of time and space, along with some of the people in it, she smiled down at them, a ripple of light streaming through the rich, brown tresses of her hair. The men stared upwards, like monks whose relentless austerities have finally yielded a glimpse of the divinity to which they had devoted their lives – in spite of the wives, aunties and grandmothers grabbing frantically at their feet in an effort to haul them back.

  ‘And a big round of applause, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mike, keeping a wary eye out for more fruit. ‘Give it up now, for the slinky, sexy, stunning, delectable, delicious Cindy Swish. Let’s hear it for Cin by name, Sin by nature!’

  ‘Wish me luck,’ said Cindy giving Pol’s hand a little squeeze before striding out, hips flicking, arms wide as if to hug the whole of Pushkara, mouthing the words ‘I love you’ to anyone who cared to lip-read.

  Scuffles were beginning to break out. Some of the young men, while fending off their wives had accidentally struck the people around them who, searching for the culprit, lashed out randomly causing yet more victims to thrash around in search of an adversary.

  ‘And last but not least…’ said Mike.

  ‘So if I’m not least,’ said Sharon, ‘how come I’m always last? Hey?’

  But as it was unclear whom she was addressing, it was equally unclear who should reply.

  ‘The fabulous, fantabulous, stupendous…’

  ‘He’s used that already,’ said Sharon.

  ‘The indescribably beautifluous Sharon Shiver!’

  ‘Oh right,’ said Sharon, ‘they get a shopping list, and I get, what, four measly words.’

  She smoothed her t-shirt, pressed her gum under the rim of Mrs Dong’s Rools, licked her lips and glided forward, nudging Martina aside as she swept her hands across the crowd in holy benediction, pinching the Buddhist Cook on his bottom, turning elegantly on her toes and strolling back to Martina, smiling.

  ‘You ever pull that again…’ snarled Martina.

  ‘Maybe we should go back inside,’ said Mike picking tomato pips from his lapel and flinching as a sandalwood biro bounced off his shoulder.

  ‘No, hang on,’ said Sharon pointing at the far edge of the crowd. ‘What’s that?’

  As in a miracle, or by some tidal phenomenon, the villagers were parting slowly down the middle as a long bamboo cane twirled in the air above them. After a moment I could make out the brightly-feathered parade hat of Sergeant Shrinivasan as he strode purposefully forward, thwacking at anyone who didn’t move quickly enough and sometimes at those who did. At last the Sergeant, medals glistening, presented himself at the top of the stairs.

  ‘The Pushkara Police Force at your service,’ he said with a bow.

  ‘Alright,’ said Mike. ‘Let’s go. Where’s Brendan?’

  ‘Who?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Mike. ‘How much have you taken? Okay, everyone, stay close.’

  Cindy looked round. ‘Where’s Pol?’ she said. ‘I’m not going anywhere without my little spice boy.’

  Pol grabbed my hand and dragged me, protesting, through the door. The Sergeant was beating his way back through the villagers, Mike close behind him, stepping gingerly over lost shoes and broken merchandise. Cindy squealed when she saw Pol, seizing his free hand and skipping daintily down the steps. I followed on, keeping my face down though I could hear the mutterings around me. Martina was smiling beneficently at the people while Sharon, it seemed to me, scowled, though she might have been pouting. Hendrix kept stopping to ask various villagers if there was any chance of ‘scoring a little something around here’ before Sharon pushed him brusquely on.

  Malek was standing next to his car beckoning vigorously for the Sergeant to hurry up. But the Sergeant knew how to march and was taking his time, red feathers swaying to the rhythm of his gait. Next to Malek’s car was a rusty blue jeep which, along with its original inscription of ‘Pushkara Police Force’ bore various slogans of the Sergeant’s own invention such as, ‘The Law is the Law and Don’t you Forget it, Mister’ and ‘There is No Escape from my Very Long Arm’.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ said Malek, pointing at me.

  ‘Tour Medic,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Well, you’d better make sure your low-born shadow doesn’t accidentally fall across his high-born bloody foot.’

  ‘Where’s the limos?’ asked Sharon, looking around.

  ‘Stuck in traffic,’ said Mike glancing at his shoes. ‘Guess we’ll have to use these.’

  Behind us, the villagers were regrouping. ‘Please take your seats,’ said Sergeant Shrinivasan, poking viciously at Mrs Geegli who had stepped forward with some hand-pressed funeral briquettes.

  ‘I’m not getting in that thing,’ said Sharon.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Mike sliding hastily into Malek’s car and rolling up the window as Mrs Mahmoud hurried towards us with a trolley of coconuts.

  Sergeant Shrinivasan opened the door for Martina, saluting as she climbed in. Cindy blew a last kiss to the crowds and jumped in with Mike and Pol. I found myself sitting next to Martina as the Sergeant switched on his blue lights and tooted the horn. Hendrix clambered into the front, wiped his forehead and said, ‘Hit it, Sarge!’ in the tone of one who has always wanted to. The jeep jolted forwards with a squeal of tyres and cloud of smog, pressing us back into our seats.

  ‘I must apologise for these ruffians,’ said the Sergeant, swerving with a slight thud into Mrs Mahmoud. ‘What a carry on! And have you ever heard such nonsense? The best saris in Pushkara! In fact, they are very poor quality. Mr Bister, on the other hand, has good saris but somewhat expensive. I can get you the same quality for half the price. Perhaps after you have seen the hall we can visit the police station to try some on.’

  ‘I’m okay fo
r the moment,’ said Martina.

  ‘When have you seen what you are missing, then you will not think that you are “okay”,’ chuckled the Sergeant.

  ‘No offence, mate,’ said Hendrix, ‘but put a sock in it?’

  The Sergeant chuckled again. ‘You bargain well, my friend. I can indeed put a sock in it. And not just one sock but two, thus providing a complete pair.’

  ‘Brendan,’ said Martina, ‘did Mike say anything about Bombay?’

  ‘Like what?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Those dicks,’ said Martina.

  ‘What dicks?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Two pairs,’ said the Sergeant, accelerating at a group of dogs.

  ‘The sponsors,’ said Martina.

  ‘What about them?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Did Mike say anything?’

  ‘Um, I dunno,’ said Hendrix. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Alright,’ chuckled the Sergeant. ‘You are clearly adept at the rumpty tumpty of retail discourse. So let us say, three pairs of socks and one set of lady’s undergarments at no extra charge with two saris.’

  When she had stood on the hotel steps I thought I had never seen a woman so adamantine, impermeable and resolute, as if the tumultuous crowds were an ephemera she could shrug off with a mere flick of her head. But she seemed fragile now, somehow vulnerable, and I wanted to seize the hand that lay so limp on the cracked leather seat between us.

  ‘And what was that about something having its head chopped off?’ she said. ‘Do you think he’s alright?’

  ‘That’s just Mike stuff,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘I expect he was referring to The Turtle,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he’d heard about it from Mrs Dong. It is our great legend. In fact, it is our only legend but it is very great and famous, therefore, throughout Pushkara, and possibly even some of the villages further down the mountain.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said.

  ‘And it is in honour of the Turtle’s demise,’ remarked Sergeant Shrinivasan, ‘that I am able, on this occasion only, to offer socks, undergarments, saris and necklaces, did I mention the necklaces, at such unbelievable prices.’

  ‘I didn’t think you get turtles up mountains,’ said Hendrix, turning round from the front seat.

  ‘How it came to be here,’ I said, ‘is part of the legend. You see, once upon a time…’

  ‘Dig it,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘… there was a pious sage,’ I continued, ‘who lived in an ants’ nest…’

  ‘Respect,’ interjected Hendrix.

  ‘… eating nothing but dust, dried twigs and sometimes not even that. In winter he slept in the snow. In summer he wore heavy goat-skins and sat motionless in the noonday sun. There was no pain he would not endure, no suffering he could not enhance by ingenious means. All he wanted was for Shiva to reward his austerities with a visit. Some say he was also hoping to be raised heavenwards on a pillow of light, though scholars are divided on this point.’

  ‘So what happened?’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Well, one day it seemed that his efforts had been recognised when Shiva appeared before him in all his glory. The Sage leapt out of the icy stream in which he was meditating and shouted, ‘Great Lord, by my sufferings have I won your praise.’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘However, to the Sage’s disappointment, all Shiva said was, “Who are you?” To which the Sage replied, “Who am I? Who the hell do you think I am? I have roasted in summer, frozen in winter, lived in the company of biting insects resisting the urge to squash the buggers…”’

  ‘He said that?’ said Martina.

  ‘According to some interpretations,’ I mumbled, realising that I’d picked up this embellishment from Mr Bister whose reverence for the legend was notoriously fickle.

  ‘And then?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘The Sage fell to the ground, kissing Shiva’s feet, and cried, “Blessed Lord, I am your most devoted supplicant.”’

  ‘Your biggest fan, yeah?’ said Hendrix, smiling.

  ‘Possibly he said that too. It would not surprise me.’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of Gods pissed off by that,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Shiva was a little more phlegmatic. He said, “Thank you but I just happened to be passing through. Your presence here is incidental.” And off he went.’

  ‘Sage goes mental,’ anticipated Hendrix.

  ‘You are correct,’ I said. ‘He ran around like a crazed thing, stamping on ants, cursing the heavens, cursing the gods and vowing eternal vengeance on Shiva himself. It is said that he howled for three hundred years demanding that Shiva come down and fight him.’

  ‘Gotta salute him for that,’ said Hendrix. ‘So what did Shiva do?’

  ‘Shiva is not much perturbed by such things. He just carried on with his duties, keeping the universe in order, collecting the dead, that kind of thing. But the Sage was immutable, and for many lives thereafter contemplated only the destruction of Shiva by ever more horrible means. In time, so single-minded was he, that his back grew a crusty shell, his head became heavy with scales, his jaws sharpened into solid bones with two holes for a nose, while his arms and legs shrunk into the stubby limbs with which he scurried about in search of his enemy.’

  ‘A turtle, right?’ said Hendrix.

  I smiled. ‘He wandered the hills and valleys, the deserts and forests for several thousand years until, one day, he found himself back in Pushkara. He decided that if Shiva had happened by once, he might do so again. So The Sage Who Was Now A Turtle settled down to wait, which was not good news for the village, since The Sage Who Was Now A Turtle…’

  ‘Just call him The Turtle,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘… ate the goats on the upper pasture, the yaks on the lower slopes, trampled the tea trees and sometimes tore the roofs off houses to consume the people inside. After several millennia, during which the villagers had grown accustomed to bolting their doors at night only to find their grandmothers devoured anyway, Shiva passed through once more on an errand for Rama. Weary from travelling, he stopped to rest among the sweet breezes and snowy peaks for which the village is so admired. He took off his armour, set down his weapons and laid back to enjoy a little sunshine when, with a blood-curdling scream, the Turtle jumped out from behind a rock and snapped at his head. Shiva leaped up, skipping nimbly away as the Sage rolled, turned and sprung again.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Shiva, batting him aside. ‘You look like some kind of hideous turtle.’

  ‘Who am I?’ cried the sage. ‘Ha, ha. Well, that’s the question isn’t it? Who the hell am I? Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha…’

  ‘We get the laugh,’ said Hendrix.

  ‘Who else spends countless lives meditating on nothing but your demise? Who else is so fixated on vengeance that they mutate inexorably into what you call “some kind of hideous turtle”? I am the one you scorned. The one who deserved praise and didn’t get it. I am your death.’

  ‘I take it you’re looking for a fight,’ said Shiva.

  ‘Yo!’ said Hendrix.

  ‘And with that they did battle. For days and nights they raged across the heavens. Their mighty steps carved out the craggy passes. The Turtle’s tears of fury fell as snow. The sparks from Shiva’s arrows, glancing off the Turtle’s shell, became stars. The blood drawn from the Turtle’s tail in one ferocious swoop of Shiva’s lance turned the morning sky crimson, while a retaliatory slash to Shiva’s arm so graced the dusk. The curses of the Turtle congealed into the black oozy stuff that comes out of the ground in certain places when you dig it, while the sweat from Shiva’s brows fell as flowers. The breath from their exertions became the morning mist while Shiva’s resolve to fight and fight became the winter cold that chills our bones.’

  ‘Is this out on video?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘And then The Turtle did something terrible. He
had requested a momentary truce in which to take refreshments, and Shiva had been kind enough to agree, setting aside his arms as The Turtle sipped from the mountain stream. But when Shiva knelt in turn to quench his thirst, The Turtle leapt at his back, jaws open for one terrible snap. Luckily Shiva saw him reflected in the cupped waters of his hands and stepped aside. The Turtle crashed into the stream where Shiva held him, choking and spluttering until he struggled no more. Then Shiva cut his head off and put it on a rock to remind the whole world of the day that Virtue conquered Spiritual Greed which, according to one of our visiting holy men, is the most heinous vice of all. And there it remains to this day, a welcome source of shade for penitents and picnickers.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘On the far edge of the hills. We call it Shiva Rock.’

  ‘Why not Turtle Rock?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘Because that would honour The Turtle,’ I said. ‘Which is beside the point.’

  ‘And that is why,’ chipped in the Sergeant, ‘our village is named “Pushkara” which is another name of Shiva, the Great Lord.’

  ‘What did it used to be called?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘This is now lost to us,’ muttered the Sergeant. ‘And, to be frank, is largely irrelevant. However, it is no co-incidence that the official musical instrument of this august domain is the Rudra Veena. Rudra being yet another name of Shiva, and the Veena his instrument of choice which, as I trust you will discover, I have performed to great acclaim through many lifetimes though less so in this one.’

  ‘You play?’ said Hendrix, looking impressed.

  ‘Not at all. It is the god who plays. I merely wait for him to guide my fingers.’

  ‘Man!’ said Hendrix, shaking his head.

  ‘It is the same with saris and socks,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I do not look for these things. But if the gods bring them to me at incredibly low prices then it is my duty to pass them on with only a small mark-up to cover overheads and expenses. This is not commerce. This is the sharing of gifts. To buy a sari or indeed two saris with matching socks and a beautifully crafted necklace, at prices that will make you laugh, from Sergeant Shrinivasan is to participate in the divinity of creation.’