Rouge autour du monde / Red around the world

A 7h je vais a l'office de tourisme. Tout le monde dort encore a meme le sol, derriere les comptoirs. Je reserve un taxi a un vendeur decoiffe, le taxi arrive, a 7h30 me voila partie.
Les grottes sont loin de la ville et tandis que je somnole le chauffeur se donne beaucoup de mal pour m'encourager a m'arreter dans une boutique de tapis, un restaurant, une autre boutique... Non non non. Les grottes, c'est tout. Et pour commencer: Ajanta.

Des moines bouddhistes se sont installes la du 2e au 7e siecle, dans une falaise arride percee de grottes fraiches. Ils ont peint les paroies de delicates fresques et sculpte la pierre. Le resultat est magnifique. Des salles en enfilades menent a de petites alcoves ou les moines se retiraient pour mediter ou a d'immenses bouddhas souriants. Je m'installe contre la pierre usee pour dessiner. Une odeur etrange de terre et d'humidite penetre jusque dans mes sinus et les premiers bus de touristes indiens dans les grottes. "what is your name!" hurlent des adolescentes. "what are you doing?" "where are you from?"... Je dois repondre aux memes questions dans chaque grotte et entre chaque grotte sur les petits chemins creuses dans la falaise, les escaliers raides et ecrases de soleil. Je bois sans me desalterer. Je pose pour les photos avec les familles.
Un groupe de jeunes hommes se moquent clairement de moi, regards a la derobade, sourires entendus, rires sans equivoque. A la troisieme grotte de ce manege je m'adresse a eux en francais, tres calmement: "Ah. Alors la on fait moins le malin, hein! Et oui c'est desagreable de ne pas comprendre ce que l'autre dit, n'est ce pas?" Les rires s'arretent net. Cette petite arme est toujours d'une efficacite redoutable... Utiliser ou subir une langue etrangere rend toujours fragile et maladroit, mais de SA langue, meme incomprise, surtout si elle est incomprise, on gagne une force inouie qui destabilise l'autre, pris de court et inquiet. L'inconnu est un pouvoir.

Mais bien sur, malgre mon impatience grandissante, je n'ai aucune raison d'etre desagreable avec les dizaines de touristes qui me posent inlassablement les memes questions. J'essaye de repondre calmement, de continuer de me concentrer sur mon dessin meme quand ils posent leurs mains sur la feuille ou tente de tourner les pages pour voir les dessins precedents... j'essaye... mais c'est difficile. Des qu'on sort des grottes c'est la fournaise et il y a... 28 caves. Je suis la seule etrangere ici et j'ai parfois l'impression d'etre une attraction bien plus amusante pour les indiens que ces grottes sublimes. A la fin de l'apres-midi, je titube presque jusqu'au bus qui nous ramene au parking. Nuee de vendeurs de cartes postales floues, de livres et de Bouddhas. Je claque la porte du taxi. Ellora est pour le lendemain. Non je ne veux pas de tapis, non je ne veux pas aller dans ce restaurant sur la route, non, je n'ai besoin de rien, juste d'etre SEULE et sous une DOUCHE.
Apres m'etre enfin rafraichie je trouve un petit restaurant sur la route principale, a 100 metres de l'hotel moderne et tres laid ou j'ai trouve une chambre. Je dois lutter un peu pour que le receptionniste me laisse sortir car il a peur pour moi: "vous allez y aller toute seule?".
Et bien sur, une fois sur place, j'ai droit a l'eternel gars qui tente sa chance: je suis assise a ma table, j'attends mon plat de paneer (fromage frais), je lis le journal. "You look like you are searching for a guide" et il s'assoit en face de moi. Envie de boxer... mais les mots sont plus adaptes vu mon gabarit: "Qu'est ce que vous faites? Vous etes excessivement impoli de vous asseoir a ma table sans y etre invite. Je suis en train de lire le journal et je ne vois pas du tout ce qui pourrait vous donner le sentiment que je "cherche un guide". Votre attitude est insupportable". La fiere assurance du gars se metaphorse sous mes yeux. Il se releve brusquement, balbutie des excuses et disparait dans la nuit. C'est fatigant l'Inde...
Je vais enfin me coucher mais ma nuit est courte: je veux etre a Ellora avant la trop grosse chaleur.

A Ellora il y a 34 grottes... et des centaines de touristes. Je respire un bon coup avant de commencer. Je respire encore plus fort avant de sortir mon carnet. Sortir mon carnet me fait passer de "touriste-femelle-blanche-seule" - statut provocant deja un interet vif chez les indiens - a "touriste-femelle-blanche-seule-qui-dessine" et cela me donne pas moins de public que si j'avais sonne trompette pour annoncer un show. On se presse, on m'agrippe... il fait tres tres tres chaud.
Les grottes neenmoins sont tres belles. Des dieux dansent, malicieux et sensuels, dans les grottes hindouistes, des amoureux flottent et s'enlacent dans les temples jains et me donnent du vague-a-l'ame, des Bouddhas somptueux dorment ou veillent, sourires apaisants, dans les grottes bouddhistes... Le lieu appelle au silence, a la reverie... mais les nuees de visiteurs ne sont pas de cet avis. Les flashs crepitent, les sonneries de telephones resonnent inlassablement...

Il y a des moments pendant ce voyage ou je me demande vraiment ce que je fais la, pourquoi je m'inflige d'etre la, en pleine fournaise, de ne pas seulement prendre le temps de tout voir mais prendre le double de temps, de me mettre au coeur des foules, sous leurs regards curieux et entre leurs mains... tout ca pour un dessin? "Et il n'y a meme pas de rouge ici" soupire une petite voix fatiguee a l'interieur de ma tete. Mais la, dans le temple Kailash, le plus fini et le plus complexe de tous, tout a la fin de ma journee... voila du rouge. Derriere un dieux qui danse, sur le mur, un peu de peinture laissee par le temps. Je suis donc a ma place apres tout...

Apres la derniere grotte je suis heureuse de prendre la direction de la gare.
Le train a du retard. Je mange mon butter chicken sur le quai ou sont assis les voyageurs. Je ne sais pas a quelle heure nous arrivons a Mumbay mais c'est le terminus, je vais pouvoir dormir un peu... mais non. Memes arrets toutes les heures, meme poussiere noire qui rentre par les fenetres, meme cris, meme bruit, meme effervescence, meme chaleur si intense que meme juste sous le ventilateur je n'en sens pas la fraicheur.

Je sors du train au matin avec
- une fatigue intense
- une angine
- des poux

Some stages of my trip turn out to be real physical challenges... This is what happens when I decide to go see the caves of Ajanta and Ellora which are said to be extraordinary. To go to Aurangabad, in the Maharashtra, one has to take a night train from Mumbay, dusty and full to the brim. Therefore here I am on the platform of the bustling train station, stepping over bodies, avoiding packages and looking for my compartment. There is fat lady laying down on my berth and she refuses to move as I am patiently showing her my ticket. The husband comes, they talk together, look at their tickets... yes, she was mistaken. She goes to her place. Slowly.

"Does anyone knows at what time we arrive in Aurangabad?" The time is not specified on the ticket... Enquiries is made. One says 3.00 in the morning. Another says 6.00. I decide to wait for the controller. He comes at last and announces, as if giving me an extremely precise information: "Between 4.00 AM and 6.00 AM". All right. The train shakes itself. Usual sellers pass. Lockers, flash lights, tea... "chai chai chai!".
I try to sleep... but the light is on, the train stops every hour and travelers get it and out in the usual frenzy.
I try not to sleep. Each stop, if I succeded to doze off a bit I jolt and, my head down from the top bunk, I try to read the name of the train station.
At five in the morning here I am on the sleepy platform of Aurangabad. It still dark. I am exhausted. In the first class waiting room (I am a tourist so nobody dares to ask to check my ticket) I collapse on a plastic chair and wait for dawn.
At 7.00 I go to the tourism office. Everybody still sleeps right on the floor, behind the counter. I make a reservation for a taxi to a dishevelled seller, the cab arrives, at 7.30 I am gone.
The caves are far away from the city and while I am dozing the driver tries really hard to to encourage me to stop in a carpet store, a restaurant, an other shop... No no no. The caves, that's all. And to start with: Ajanta.
Buddhist monks settled here from the second to the seventh century, in an arid cliff pierced with cool caves. They painted the walls with delicate frescos and sculpted the stone. The result is magnificent. Strings of rooms lead to small alcoves where monks were retiring to meditate or to hudge smiling buddhas. I settle in against the time-worn stone to draw. A strange smell of dirt and dampness enters my sines and the first buses of Indian tourists enters the caves. "What is your name?" scream teenage girls. "What are you doing?" "Where are you from?"... I must answer the same questions over and over in each cave I go to and in between cave as well, in the narrow pathes dug in the cliff, the stiff staircases smashed with the sun. I drink without my thirst being quenched. I pose for pictures with entire famillies.
A group of young men is clearly making fun of me, discret gazes, meaningfull smiles, strong laughts. After the third cave with this going on, I adress to them in French, calmly. "So. There you don't look so smart anymore, right! Yeah, it's annoying not to understand what the other is saying, isn't it?" The laughts stop right away. This little trick always works... Using, or undergoing a foreign langage always makes you fragile and clumsy. But in YOUR own langage, even if not understood, especially if not understood, you gain an incredible strength which destabilizes the other, puzzled and worried. The unknown is a power.
But of course, despite my growing impatience, I have no reason to be desagreable with the dozens of tourists who endlessly ask me the same questions. I try to answer calmly, to keep on concentrating on my drawing even when they put their hands on the paper or try to turn the pages to see the other drawings... I try... but it's hard. I am the only foreigner here and I sometimes feel like I am a much more fun attraction that those sublime caves. At the end of the afternoon I almost bumble back to the bus which takes us back to the parking lot. Swarming crowd of sellers of blurry postcards, books and Buddhas. I slam the door of the cab. Ellora is for tomorrow. No I don't want a carpet, no I don't want to go to this restaurant on the road, no, I don't need anything, just to be ALONE and under a SHOWER.
After freshen up I go to a little restaurant on the main road, 100 meters from the very modern and very ugly hotel where I have found a room. I have to fight a little my way out since the desk clerk is scared for me: "you are going to go on your own?".

And of course, once I am there, I get the usual guy who gives it a try: I am at my table, waiting for my paneer dish (fesh cheese), I am reading the newspaper. "You look like you are searching for a guide" and he sits down in front of me. Great desire to box. But words are far more adapted to my build: "What are you doing? You are extremely rude to sit down at my table without being invited to do so. I am reading the newspaper and I really don't see what could possibly give you the idea that I am "searching for a guide". Your attitude is unacceptable". The proud confidence of the guy is metamorphosing in front of my eyes. He gets up promptly, he stammers an apologie and vanishes in the night. India is exhausting...
I finally go to bed but my night is short: I want to be in Ellora before it gets too hot.
In Ellora there are 34 caves... and hundreds of tourists. I breath really deep before starting. I breath even deeper before pulling out my skechbook. Pulling out my sketchbook makes me pass from "tourist-female-white-alone" - status already drawing a strong interest from Indians - to "tourist-female-white-alone-who-draws" and this does not give me less of a public that if I had blown a trompet to announce a show. Squeezing, grabing... it's really really hot.
Nevertheless the caves are gorgeous. Gods are dancing, malicious and sensual, in the Hindu caves, lovers float and cuddle in the Jain temples and give me the spleen, somptuous Buddhas sleep or wait up, soothing smiles, in the Buddhist caves... The place calls for silence, daydreaming... but the crowds of visitors don't see it that way. Flashes are bursting, phone rings endlessly echoing...
There are times during this trip when I really wonder what I am doing here, why do I inflict myself to be here, right in the furnace, to not only take the time to see everything but to take double of the time, to put myself in the middle of crowds, under their curious gaze and between their hands... all this for a drawing? "And there is not even any red here" sighs a tired little voice inside of my head. But there, in the Kailash temple, the most finished and complexe of all, at the very end of my day... here is some red. Behind a dancing god, on the wall, a little bit of paint left by time. I am where I am supposed to be after all....
After the last cave I am happy to head for the train station.
The train is late. I eat my butter chicken on the platform where all the travellers are sitting. I don't know at what time we will arrive in Mumbay but it's the last station so I will be able to sleep a little... well no. Same stops every hours, same black dust coming from outside, same hit so strong that even right under the fan I don't even feel it's coolness.
In the morning I get out of the train with
- a extrem fatigue
- an angina
- headlouses