A Fine Day in Jhansi...
The rhythm of the train slowed perceptibly. It was followed a few moments later by the squeal of metal on metal. We lurched forward in fits and starts.
Shit! Jhansi!
I had miscalculated the length of time it would take to get here from Delhi.
I rose to my feet unsteadily, a sensation partly caused by the train's staccato movements. But mostly it was the effect of the pellet of hashish I had just finished smoking.
I had bought the hashish in Kandahar about eight weeks before. Well, traded, really. The proprietor of our hotel had been taken with the motley collection of tapes I had with me, a mixture of "SONNY" brand rock album rip-offs from Tehran and cassettes I'd been sent from England. All the usual suspects were represented - Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne, The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Airplane - about a dozen in all.
We'd spent about a week at Ahmad's hotel, wandering around Kandahar in the early autumn sun, then retiring to the communal room as the sun went down and the temperature dropped. We sat around the stove on cushions, a Korean cassette player endlessly repeating the same twelve tapes, desultorily swapping travelers' tales with the half-dozen or so other Westerners, chain-smoking Iranian Rothmans, Pakistani K-2s and joints interchangeably.
The night before we left, Ahmad asked me if he could buy the tapes. Having Western rock'n'roll tapes would, he thought, make his hotel more attractive to travelers. I mulled it over. The tapes were becoming a drag. And I didn't see too many opportunities to play them on my journey.
How much?
Nime kilo.
I tipped my head back and tutted, the Irani/Afghan sign of contempt.
Doh kilo.
He laughed.
We smiled at each other.
Yek kilo. We shook hands.
And so I obtained eight flattish pieces of fine Afghani hashish the consistency of Plasticene, each about the size and shape of the sole of a size 10 (British) man's shoe, each weighing in at about 125 grams.
There were two borders between me and my stash and Goa. And Jhansi.