I'm standing alone on a muddy riverbank, studying the boat that will take me across the Tungabhadra River to Hampi Bazaar. What my guidebook optimistically calls a "ferry" is actually a tiny wooden dinghy captained by a teenage boy sporting slickly oiled hair, polyester slacks, and no shoes. His co-worker is an authoritative child who collects the passengers’ fares in a dusty canvas shoulder bag: five rupees for locals, 10 for white people, and 15 for backpacker know-it-alls who insist on haggling.
These boys will not drive across the river to meet me until they deem it worth their while. In other words, not until they’ve gathered enough passengers to effectively sink the boat.
"Scoot down! Scoot down!"
I can hear the child yelling from all the way across the river. Adults four times his age stumble over rotted holes in the boat’s floorboards in their haste to obtain a seat. When the passengers are seated thigh to thigh; when a mound of rucksacks, vegetables, livestock and children fills the middle of the boat; when the creaking craft rides so low in the water that passing fish could hitch a ride; the child signals a man with a motorcycle to ride his hog onto the prow and balance there like Evil Knievel, pre-stunt. Then he yells at his teenage skipper, who yanks the cord on the boat’s aging outboard motor. The whole show inches away from the riverbank in a cloud of two-stroke engine oil.
The river is no wider than a Los Angeles freeway, but the overloaded ferry drags slower than rush hour traffic. I sit down on the bank to wait. I’m hunting in my tote bag for my sunglasses, when a family of Indian women and children surrounds me on all sides like a clutch of paparazzi who’ve forgotten their cameras. They wear bright clothes, gleaming bracelets, and identical crescent-moon grins.
"Hi!" they say in unison.
"Hi!" I say, equally charmed and alarmed. When Indians approach me in tourist areas like this one, it’s often to sell me something or to demand an explanation for George W. Bush’s entire administration. I’ve grown accustomed to disappointing people.
"Hindi?" a teenaged girl asks.
"No, only English," I say.
"Only English," she repeats, visibly disappointed.
We've exhausted our entire common vocabulary. We are silent.
A toddler wobbles forward. She stares down my shyness with bottomless kohl-rimmed eyes, before extending one bangled wrist and saying, "Hi!"
"Hi!" I say again, shaking her hand.
Now everyone wants a handshake.
"Hi!" "Hi! "Hi!"
We are all laughing.
"Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!"
Young mothers put their infants' hands in mine. "Hiiiiii...." I coo at tiny babies. I shake everyone's hand, more than once. Eventually, it becomes obvious to all of us–even the babies—that we've greeted each other as much as any group of sane people waiting for an impossibly slow ferry ever could. Silence descends again.
We look for the ferry. It's nowhere near the bank. We stare downriver. We stare at our sandals. We stare at each other. The teenaged girl gets an idea.
"Song!" she says, pointing at me.
Faces light up. A chant begins.
"Song! Song! Song!" they say.
"No, no, no," I say.
"Song! Song! Song!" they say.
"Nehi, nehi, nehi," I say in fledgling Hindi, shaking my head with the exaggerated movements of a woman desperate to be understood.
"Song! Song! Song!"
They are relentless. I am Judy Garland on the third encore of the last show of my career. Their cheering attracts more onlookers—rickshaw drivers, chai wallahs, women with baskets on their heads—all of whom quickly take up the chant.
"Song! Song! Song!"
I look frantically toward the river. The ferry is practically moving backwards at this point. Perhaps it will sink, I think, just like my dignity. I have only two options: run and hide in the hills or stand up and sing.
"OK!" I say.
They silence immediately and look at me expectantly. My mind fails. It is as if I have never heard music in my life. Song? What's a song?
"Song!" the toddler says.
"Song! Song! Song!" they say.
I close my eyes. I open my mouth. These words come out:
"Wise men say
only fools rush in,
but I can't help
falling in love with you..."
It's Elvis, ladies and gentleman. Always alive where you least expect him.
When I finish the chorus, there are cheers. The ferry arrives. I am escorted down the bank like royalty and delicately handed into the decaying rowboat. As we slowly sputter towards the opposite shore, children compete to hold my hand and touch my feet.
It is way too much. It is unbearably embarrassing, and it is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me.
May we all be so appreciated for our stumbling endeavors.
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