MUSIC MEMOIR

Suzanne: That Time I Travelled to the Rajasthani Desert With Leonard Cohen

Memories of toilet music, monkeys, fake priests and chai

Pushkar, Rajasthan. January 1998

The mini tape recorder that I had first bought to record lectures at university, three-and-a-half years earlier, had proven to come in very handy on this trip to India. Much more so, I dare say, than in a lecture hall.

I played Leonard Cohen on it repeatedly, having found a cassette in a shop in Kathmandu. I had bought a couple of other cassettes too — not too many since I was travelling light. But they rarely made it into the cassette player; I was more than happy with this one on repeat.

I also used it to record the sounds of India on another cassette. Sounds of everyday life as I wandered through the streets. They were wonderful and I had plans to do something with these sounds of India but that never happened…and then I lost the tape.

It was years before I had a decent device to record sound on again — an iPhone. But I have never returned to India since I have owned one.

I had just finished a three-month period of voluntary work, combined with a bit of trekking in Nepal, and now I was on a mission to have a big stash of clothes stitched in block-print designs, all to sell on a market stall when I returned to England. I had headed for Pushkar, on the edge of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, since I knew it would be a nice place to hang out and have fun while working with a tailor to oversee the work.

Leonard Cohen was accompanying me on this trip overland from Kathmandu. His misery dripped out of his words and was reflected in the January chill of the early mornings and late evenings of winter in North India, while a sense of poetic hope and mystery sprung from his lyrics and gave me a new sense of purpose and adventure.

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her And you know that she’s half-crazy but that’s why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover.

The days were punctuated by cups of tea, or chai — mostly the hot, sweet, milky variety, and sometimes a refreshing cup of lemon tea. Chai shops that became regular haunts, populated by smiling, chatty locals, were my stops for a pick-me-up and blather with fellow tea-drinkers.

I ate a lot of oranges too. They came from India itself and so did the tea. It was only I who came from a long way away to be united with the tea and oranges.

The lyrics of Suzanne pierced my mind and danced an adventure along with me wherever I went in Pushkar. The many oranges I feasted on, along with the many cups of hot chai, made me think of her, whoever she was, with each and every sweet assault on my taste buds.

And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone.

My days started early.

I would get up and see the monkeys doing their early rounds across the roofs of all of the houses. Each morning they took the same route, stopping on the same wall, at the same time, to pick fleas out of each other’s fur. It was adorable in a strange and unsophisticated way!

It would be really early when I was first awoken. The room I was renting was built onto the roof of a family house where, every morning, they would play a certain song that would go on for hours. It came loudly through a window to blast me awake. I had no clue what this music was and longed to find out.

Initially an unpleasant awakening, I soon began to love it, for it was mesmerising and intrigued me. But it became stuck so fast in my head that the only person who could get it out was Leonard — with Suzanne’s help. Yet, for much of the time I was there, it remained a mystery to me.

I just called it “The Toilet Music” because it appeared the loudest when I would take my early morning trip to the toilet near my room. The acoustics are always better in a toilet or bathroom, wouldn’t you agree?

I had no idea at the time that I was insulting a piece of religious chanting — I genuinely thought it could be some unusual Bollywood tune until I discovered that it was actually the Gayatri Mantra, a hymn from the Vedic texts.

Suzanne, pray tell, was it really Jesus singing to me in the toilet each morning?

Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbour And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever While Suzanne holds the mirror.

There is a big lake in Pushkar, surrounded by over 500 temples. The lake is believed to be sacred and is said to cleanse sins and heal skin wounds. Many pilgrims come daily to bathe in the water, and to perform puja, a ceremony and ritual to purify and please the gods.

There are also many so-called Brahmin priests who grab unsuspecting tourists and call them down to ghats on the lakeside, throw prasad in their hands, smudge a little sandalwood paste on their forehead, chant a few sacred lines, and then demand fifty rupees for the puja they just performed for them without their knowledge of what the heck they were doing.

And when they walked away refusing to pay, they shouted insults after them as them went.

That was me. On more than one occasion, I got duped. Actually, the second time I was practically grabbed and forced into this puja. Of course he wasn’t getting my money after that — and, boy, was he mad!

Hmmm, perhaps he wasn’t such a pure, priestly being after all.

There is something about travelling in India that is so unique, I cannot put words to it.

But Leonard could. His words said it all.

And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And then you know that you can trust her For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.

There is nowhere else I have been in this world (and I have travelled a lot) where you can simply arrive somewhere and feel instantly at home.

You are welcomed into the community, and, while you can never be given the status of a local, you are treated with warmth, kindness, and everything that you could need is on offer. All that is required is that you offer your enjoyment of the community as much as they offer their welcome to you.

During that stay, I didn’t only commission a tailor to stitch some clothes for my business, I became part of his circle. I spent an afternoon watching cricket with him and his employees while they sewed away on their treadle sewing machines surrounding a large TV, and chai and halwa were brought for us to snack on.

Every shopkeeper grew to know me as I wandered past each day, and chai would be offered every few metres until my belly was swishing with the stuff.

It seemed each of my trips to far-flung places was illustrated by a certain musical artist or band that was my obsession of the time.

Leonard Cohen had his moment. Suzanne infiltrated my mind and left a mark to be remembered forever.

But she was left in Pushkar to commune with the Goddess Gayatri and her mantra, to find Jesus in the lake, and to indulge in tea and oranges, while I moved onward to other places and other things. And undertook other journeys that moved to a different melody and rhythm.

Glossary

Ghat — a flight of steps leading to a body of water. Prasad — religious offering, usually food of some kind. Rupee — unit of currency in India. Halwa — a word for many different types of confectionary, used in several Asian countries.

Check out this great article from my dear friend, Gaurav Jain, who may or may not appreciate me referring to The Gayatri Mantra as “toilet music”.

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