Indian story

Finding the Right Way

Traveling you may find different local attractions. But the real historic labyrinth you may found only in Indian city Lucknow. One would expect it is underground, but in fact it’s on the first floor of the mausoleum in large palace. Moreover, this labyrinth is seemingly very simply and transparent, laid out in straight lines. You can predict what’s coming. Its passages lead around the circumference of the palace’s main hall and offer scenic views into the hall and to the outside. The only confusing element are the changing levels in the passages; from time to time you had to walk up a few stairs and then back down. The local guide didn’t forget to start this part of our journey with a painful joke about another guide getting lost. It underestimated our intelligence more than I could tolerate, so at the next crossover I left the group. Alone, I felt triumphant elevation for a moment. I could hear the screaming voice of the guide dissipating into the hidden corners of the labyrinth. Finally I could walk freely, look into the little scenic views, try out some passages, think about my world -- and get lost.
When I realized that I was lost, I wasn’t completely upset. I assumed that the labyrinth was so small that I could simply walk until I reached an exit. But the more I walked the more I understood that the only way out was the way we had come in. And that had completely disappeared from my mental map. I could only find the stairs connecting the floors of the labyrinth. I went up them and found an empty terrace on the top of palace. As the sun went down, I was intrigued by the ordinary view down in the dirty yard behind the palace. In the place that wasn’t designed to impress tourists was a shantytown and mounds of garbage. In front of these dwellings stood a woman in black and around her, amid the rubbish, children played. The woman stood quietly, watching the children with the fatal look of resolve that you can also find anywhere else that poverty is so near, so real, and that any vision of a dignified life is obscured. The children shrieked loudly, carefree, like children the world over, but their game had some strange pattern. Although they seemed at first glance irresponsible, mischievous, buoyant, they were careful not to step across an imaginary circle as they jumped and ran about. Full of energy, hope and unknown self-confidence they intertwined through a network of passages without any exit like me in my labyrinth. I felt surprisingly near to them, physically intimate, as if I was one of them.
I was helped by the fact that I was above them in a terrace, barefooted, just like them. You cannot enter the labyrinth with shoes on. I left my shoes and socks in front of the palace and now, up to my ankles in dust, I felt uncertain and unpleasantly naked. I was certain that there couldn’t be another expedition of tourists at this point in the evening. And our guide could hardly remember me and recognize that I am not within group. Further more we were such a big group of the scientists of different nationalities that we didn’t know each other. I realized, unwillingly, that within the next twelve hours no one was going to miss me. For a moment I froze, feeling that for some absurd reason I would never be able to leave the Lucknow labyrinth -- except to descend to join the woman and the children below and stay forever in the labyrinth of their poverty without any hope of escape.
For a long time I look down on human beings among the rubbish. They didn’t choose to enter their labyrinth as I had chosen to enter mine, for a casual adventure. And I could still get out of mine. Then, with a new resolve to find my way out, I went quickly down the stairs. Soon I heard familiar, carefree voices and the stentorian tones of our guide and saw the group at the end of a long passage. As they descended the main stairs in front of the palace, I joyously added myself to their ranks.