Alfred, upon hearing this, felt his jaw drop in both dismay and shock. Of course, he knew Indian women wore bindis on their foreheads and saris over their gowns, but it didn't occur to him until Bandhu told the group. Everyone gasped in shock, but Alfred was even more shocked than his group—they were supposed to be at an excavation site in China, not a destitute village in India.
"Wait a minute!" the American said. "We are supposed to be in China! How will we get there now?"
"China? Why?" Bandhu asked curiously.
"Alright, dude, get ready for an earful of words! So, I am from America and—"
"America?" the tall, dark man wondered, smiling to show the few teeth he had. "You are all from America?"
"No, I am from England," Arthur said primly.
"I am from America, too," Matthew added.
"I'm from France, monsieur," Francis told him.
"I'm from Russia," Ivan said finally.
"Why are you all different?" Bandhu questioned, looking at the men curiously. "Have you come to…cause harm to our…village?"
"No, no, no! Sir! We are actually supposed to be in China," Alfred said excitedly with a friendly smile. "We are all part of an international archaeology program for colleges and universities around the world, and we were all chosen to go to China in order to study artifacts excavated near the Yangtze River!"
"College? Oh my," the tall, dark man said, face-palming himself gently with subtle humiliation—he knew that higher education was something the people in his village could not afford. "You must be all very rich. Perhaps the palace at Delhi would satisfy you much better than here?"
"No, I…well…oh wait! A palace! Sweet!" Alfred exclaimed. "Is there a king here in India?"
"Yes, His Royal Highness Maharaja Ravi Adhiraj," Bandhu said with a smile. "We all love him. He is a good man."
"What kind of good has he done for your people?" Arthur questioned politely, realizing that their village may have been composed of dilapidated houses and starving individuals. Bandhu walked away and gestured the men to come back to his village with him.
"Come to my village. I welcome you," he said cordially with a smile. "I will answer to you in a moment."
Past the trees blocking their view and the bugs that flew by them, Alfred, Arthur, Francis, Ivan and Matthew followed the path of the man who was the supposed leader of the village. Once they reached a certain point, they could see small houses with thatched straw roofs and walls made of small stones mixed with mud that was left to dry and harden. Everybody who was out of their homes looked at the strange, white men who had fallen from a wayward airplane to safety, and in a lifeboat travelled down a snowy slope, a straight cliff in midair, raging rapids, and a peaceful river before being discovered by a few women and children collecting water. Bandhu led them into his house, where he bade them to sit down. The villagers outside gathered around the home of the village leader, peering to take a look at the fair-haired men.
"The Maharaja cannot do anything for our status because we are put here by karma, but he has done a lot of good things for our country," Bandhu said with broken English.
"Karma?" Alfred said. "What goes around comes around." The young man laughed, and Bandhu sat there staring at him with his great black eyes.
"Karma is whatever you do in a lifetime, boy," he said, using his hands to make gestures in case they couldn't understand him. "We live any lives until we reach spiritual purity, and if we do badly in a life, we go to something lower."
"If a rich man is greedy in his life, then he becomes poor in the next," Arthur said. "I know exactly what you mean. We studied Hinduism at King's College in London."
"London?"
"Yes, it is in England. I am English," Arthur said.
"Hey, sir?" Alfred finally said. "Do you have…planes here, so we can go to China?"
"Planes?" Bandhu asked. "You will have to see someone like the Prime Minister in order to get one. They are a lot of money."
"I know that," Alfred replied.
Then, a woman came in, and she looked about as old as Bandhu, and she wore a beige sari wrapped over her head and a simple, dark green dress. She had great black eyes like Bandhu, and with her came a young boy no older than ten who resembled the village leader. He was very skinny, and he wore a similar kilt-like wrap to his grandfather's. He had short black hair cut close to his head and his darting black eyes scanned the men with the same kind of skeptical curiosity as his grandfather had.
"Hello," Arthur said. The woman looked at him, putting her hands together as if in prayer and bowing her head.
"This is my wife, Lochana, and our grandson Oorjit," he said.
"Hello," Arthur said, smiling at the woman and boy in a friendly manner.
"Maybe you will stay the night?" Bandhu offered. "You all look very wet and tired."
"Thank you," Alfred said with a smile.
"Ah! We are staying here? But it is so—"
"Francis! Shut up!" Arthur snapped at the Frenchman. "Don't you dare say anything about these people! Can't you see they are not as advantaged as we are?"
Francis rolled his eyes while Arthur and the rest accepted his hospitable offer. Bandhu opened his home to the strangers, and there they slept for the entire evening. Once the sun rose, the villager leader woke up to see them lying there, sleeping like babies on the hard, soil floor of his small dried-mud house. Ivan was the first to wake up, and once he did, he was startled upon seeing Bandhu sit there with his mushy food on a leaf, eating slowly as he kept his eyes on him perceptively. Ivan smiled and waved to him.
"Good morning," he said in his thick Russian accent. "I bet it is a beautiful day."
"The sun is up," Bandhu said. "It is morning now. Will you eat breakfast?"
Recalling what Lochana had served him and his group the night before, he knew he had to reconsider the thought of eating the same thing for breakfast. They had eaten a kind of mushy meal made of dark grain that was served on nothing but large leaves plucked from trees. Ivan smiled, but declined his offer politely.
"No, thank you," he said politely. "I'm still full from last night."
"Oh," the man said, looking down at his food to take another handful of it to put in his mouth. "Won't you be hungry on your trip to Delhi?"
"Trip?" Alfred said, waking up to this word as he jerked up from him slumber. "Delhi? Where is that?"
"It is a small journey from here, my friend," Bandhu said cordially.
"We need a guide! We can't go alone! We'll be lost!" Alfred exclaimed with worry.
"Do not fear. I will send you with my grandson Oorjit and my younger brother, Kumar; they have been to Delhi at least once," Bandhu told him, trying to reassure him and calm him down.
"Oh, alright. It shouldn't be so bad, then," Alfred said. "When are we going to go?"
"Whenever you are ready," Bandhu replied.
It took about an hour for the rest of the men to wake up, and once they did, they were offered the same grain mush for breakfast, but everybody, especially Francis, declined their offer simply because the look of it repulsed them. Eh, this disgusting Indian food, the Frenchman thought, I don't know how they live like this. Then, it took about a half hour for them to get elephants to bring the group, Oorjit, and Kumar to the city. Alfred smiled at the sight of seven elephants coming for them, and laughed when they made sounds, raising their trunks in the air.
"HAHA! Look! They're so cute! And big, too!" Matthew said as the group walked toward them. He rubbed the leathery, dark grey skin of the elephant he was riding, and suddenly, Oorjit came toward him and gestured toward the elephant, placing a wooden bucket faced down in front of him.
"Do you need help?" he asked in broken English. Matthew nodded and smiled at the young, dark-skinned boy.
"Yes, thank you," he said, taking the young boy's hand as he stepped on the inverted, sturdy bucket as he climbed onto the elephant's back. The animal smelled as thought it had dirty water dried to its skin, but the men, once they got on their elephants, sucked it up as the elephants began taking Alfred, Arthur, Francis, Ivan and Matthew to Delhi. Bandhu and his wife Lochana wished them luck on their journey, as did several other villagers. The trip seemed like forever, but once they reached Delhi, Oorjit and Kumar wished them luck, taking the bunch of elephants with them back to their village.
Alfred looked around the city streets, seeing women in colorful saris with painted or jeweled bindis on their foreheads, children running around and playing games, and men dressed in loose-fitting clothes. Vendors sold food and other goods at stands, and stores were open and thriving. This place isn't so bad after all, the young man thought as he marveled at the sights, sounds and smells of Delhi. It was like a place from his dreams.