Eat, Pray, Love

Thumbs-Up is an Indian soft drink, sort of like Coca-Cola, but with about nine times the
corn syrup and triple that of caffeine. I think it might have methamphetamines in it, too. It
makes me see double. A few times a week, Richard and I wander into town and share one
small bottle of Thumbs-Up—a radical experience after the purity of vegetarian Ashram
food—always being careful not to actually touch the bottle with our lips. Richard’s rule about
traveling in India is a sound one: “Don’t touch anything but yourself.” (And, yes, that was also
a tentative title for this book.)
We have our favorite visits in town, always stopping to pay respects to the temple, and to
say hello to Mr. Panicar, the tailor, who shakes our hands and says, “Congratulations to meet
you!” every time. We watch the cows mill about enjoying their sacred status (I think they actu-
ally abuse the privilege, lying right in the middle of the road just to drive home the point that
they are holy), and we watch the dogs scratch themselves like they’re wondering how the
heck they ever ended up here. We watch the women doing road work, busting up rocks under
the sweltering sun, swinging sledgehammers, barefoot, looking so strangely beautiful in their
jewel-colored saris and their necklaces and bracelets. They give us dazzling smiles which I
can’t begin to understand—how can they be happy doing this rough work under such terrible
conditions? Why don’t they all faint and die after fifteen minutes in the boiling heat with those
sledgehammers? I ask Mr. Panicar the tailor about it and he says it’s like this with the villa-
gers, that people in this part of the world were born to this kind of hard labor and work is all
they are used to.
“Also,” he adds casually, “we don’t live very long around here.”
It is a poor village, of course, but not desperate by the standards of India; the presence
(and charity) of the Ashram and some Western currency floating around makes a significant
difference. Not that there’s so much to buy here, though Richard and I like to look around in
all the shops that sell the beads and the little statues. There are some Kashmiri guys—very
shrewd salesmen, indeed—who are always trying to unload their wares on us. One of them
really came after me today, asking if madam would perhaps like to buy a fine Kashmiri rug for
her home?
This made Richard laugh. He enjoys, among other sports, making fun of me for being
homeless.
“Save your breath, brother,” he said to the rug salesman. “This old girl ain’t got any floors
to put a rug on.”
Undaunted, the Kashmiri salesman suggested, “Then perhaps madam would like to hang
a rug on her wall?”
“See, now,” said Richard, “that’s the thing—she’s a little short on walls these days, too.”