To anybody still listening… it’s been approximately 45 days since my last confession. A shocking figure, I’m sure you’ll agree. Believe me, the idea has haunted me that one day I would have to drag myself to a computer and heave all this out, battling against a craving for sunshine and an internet connection made of treacle. Writing a blog entry is both a joy and a chore, like getting out of bed, going to a concert or, at times, like travelling.
So I’ve got to go back to… Chitradurga, Karnataka. This is what can be scraped together from the notes I sort of made at the time:
Hampi to Chitradurga on bus with an obnoxiously loud horn. Chatted to an informed bloke who had many things to say about the British impact on the Indian national mentality. I wish I could remember them. Simon, actually, he was called, this first of many Christians I’ve met in the south, with their incongruous, prosaic-sounding names. I staggered to a hotel, pursued by rickshaw drivers with their heads wiggling ominously. Almost nobody in the place spoke any English, so the room debate involved a hard-fought haggle in Hindi, using every trick in the (small yellow phrase-) book. Relations warmed somewhat after money was produced, and within half-an-hour we were all dancing to Hindi songs. Have expanded my repertoire to include the ‘stroking the ceiling while kicking away an imaginary rat’ manoeuvre.
And out, to the only site in Chitradurga that might be considered worthy of either ‘tourist’ or ‘attraction’. An old fort, then, coiled upon a great hill in the centre of town. I was quickly collared by a smiling security guard, who insisted upon showing me the back way up to the top – namely, a breathless scamper up a mountain-side, using footholds chiselled in the cliff-face. Every so often, my guide would half-turn round and rasp ‘confidence’. Or ‘competence’. With his accent, I couldn’t be sure, and couldn’t help reflecting that to some in India they probably mean the same thing anyway.
Through various temples, along the stinking banks of their holy water tanks. Rubbish caught in the reeds, a priest taking a piss. Interestingly, saw for probably the first time the language-barrier raised between fellow Indian nationals. The security guard who took me climbing knew more English than he did of the local language, Kannada (a beautiful, almost Italian-sounding speech). He was from Uttar Pradesh in the North, the state of Varanasi, and a Hindi-speaker. I heard several of these conversations, initiated by Indian tourists to the fort:
They: Question in Kannada.
He: Hindi bolta? (You speak Hindi?)
They: Kannada nahi? (You don’t speak Kannada?)
He: Thora thora Kannada (Only a little bit)
All accompanied by many a furious head-wiggle – so they understood each other in some way, at least.
Bus to Bangalore, local train to Mysore. Local train means ‘usually late and absolutely rammed’. A 4 hour journey took 8 hours, for most of which I was sitting practically on another man’s knee. Occasionally I'd bat away the legs dangling in my face to watch three guys playing cards for 100 Ruperts (about 1 pound twenty). It got pretty heated towards the end. On the way, we went past a monumental heap of rubbish – so large that the river flowed around it. It was almost beautiful, a huge cliff rising out of nowhere, a man-made wonder.
In Mysore I got scammed – it still happens. Cheerfully munching a brekky biryani with two Muslim brothers – Rahul and Rambo (probably not his real name) – I was invited back to their uncle’s shop where
“…between the glasses, row on row…”
there stood the jar of sandalwood oil destined to switch places with my hard-earned cash. Apply it on your skin twice a day, he said, scoffing at the petroleum jelly mixture I usually have to use to help my eczema. And he had a point – it was nice to think of applying something more natural for a change, something less… radioactive. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and a few weeks later the bloody thing burst in my bag. So, please, take 200 rupees. At least I’ll smell nice when I’m scratching myself to death, battling through the clouds of mosquitoes to find a rickshaw.
Piqued, I thought I’d face Mysore proper after that, prove I wasn’t no stupid, dupe-d tourist. This plan failed only minutes later when I couldn’t resist taking a ride on an elephant. Actually it was pretty uninspiring, not the bouncy Disney fun-a-long I’d been on some level expecting. I visited the wonderful Mysore palace. Built in seventeen something or other by someone, it really looks just like something out of 1001 Nights. Vast domed ceiling supported by marble pillars, gold, finery. One end of the great hall was completely open to the elements, like a giant, impossibly ornate grandstand facing onto the yard, where the military would parade and elephants joust. In the courtyard, two fabulously lifelike tigers, mirror-images, throw their heads towards each other, faces twisted in a timeless snarl. Actually now they’re a bit frilly around the edges, looking a bit disillusioned by their centuries-long hate, but the air of exoticism they lent to things was unmistakable. I felt a tingle in my spine: is this the India I was imagining all those months ago?
On my way back from a bus-ride to Srirangapattanam, I was forcefed sugar-cane by a very strange man named Daniel. On the next seat, two old men got into a fight and he sashayed his way in to stir things up, under the guise of calming it down. I realized what the deal was when I offered him water and he revealed that he had some ‘water’ of his own (ie. whisky). Immediately, he pointed out four or five people on the bus who had also been ‘rehydrating’, including the two scuffling men, and suddenly I could see them, swaying slightly more than all the rest at every turn. It was approximately 4 o’clock in the afternoon. This was the first idea I had of the alcoholism rampant in India, something I’ve done my utmost to research in a purely journalistic sense in the weeks since.
At about 9pm that evening managed to prise myself away from Daniel, who was slumped, salivating softly, atop his fourteen hundredth whisky. We were at the back of a shady wine-shop, where periodically men would come in and quaff half a litre of their chosen poison without pausing, and stump off into the evening. Drinking is less of a social activity here than a shame that must be hidden. A tipple with Daniel, married with four kids, had that clandestine and guilt-ridden feeling of children smoking. Pensive, I went home to (s)oil myself.
Next stop Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu. I was excited to be discovering this new place, apparently home to a completely different breed of people and a different culture altogether. This is where the original Indians live now, see, pushed south by Aryan and Moghul infiltrations. Siva himself, arguably the biggest Hindu deity, is a southern god. I was determined to pick up their language (they are even more opposed to Hindi than English, refusing to allow their northern neighbours to dilute their identity by conquering their speech) and utilise that famous caste-resentment to bitch about all the Brahmins, or temple priests (the ones who take my money). The Hindu caste-system is arguably based on race, and high-caste Brahmins are from the north. As I clattered out of Karnataka on the night train, a blind man came along the carriage, singing religious songs for small change.
Tamil Nadu and the USA: perhaps the only places on the globe where actors can become democratically-elected governers. The vast majority of Tamil Nadu’s governers since the 1970s have come from the ranks of the ‘heroes’ of Tamil cinema. And the devotion to these stars goes beyond mere political support. When ‘MGR’ (they love their abbreviations), already a vegetable following a stroke, finally slipped away in 1983, 31 people committed ritual suicide in his honour. Along with the usual suspects like Siva, Ganesh and Durga, there are road-side shrines dedicated to him throughout Tamil Nadu. Like the gods, he receives at these points daily offerings of food, oil, flowers and prayers. This despite the fact that his period of political tenure is now recognized by observers as a ‘dark age’ in the area’s recent history, when corruption and scandal were rife. With his energetic, ill-though-out policies, ‘MGR’ actually disempowered and denied the very ‘backward caste’ communities that chanted his name and relied upon his support. Even so, when he suffered his debilitating stroke in 1978, over 100 people hacked off their own limbs in order to placate the gods and ensure his recovery.
For a southern tourist, the most observable differences are at the temple. Where in the north, a central tower dominated the temple complex, drawing worshippers into the central hub, in the south the temple gateways (or gopura) are just as prized, and even objects of worship in themselves. And how they differ in design, making the simple stone carvings of the north appear ancient and confused. On the southern gopuram, finely carved in stucco and vibrantly-coloured, there wriggles and capers an astonishing assortment of gods and goddesses, minor deities and figures from legend, striking impressive poses and gazing challengingly down on the temple yard. Some of the sculptures are so lifelike as to be almost frightening, and at the same time it’s almost like a comic-strip. Durga in one of her many hands holds aloft the dripping head of an enemy. Vishnu peacefully doodles on his pipe. Murugan, son of Siva, flexes his muscles holding up a corner of the gateway, like some squat Atlas with a bushy moustache.
Why does a god always look like his worshippers? Why is Jesus so white, being from Judea? The observation is nowhere more pertinent than in Tamil Nadu. These guys look like they’ve climbed onto the temple from the nearest rickshaw, shedding beedi cigarette, sandals and clothing on the way. It’s interesting to see these people with their heroes, just like those from the cinema, who look right, walk right, do things, make pronouncements and exact punishments, in exactly the right way, in the way that makes cultural sense. Because the average Tamil person does look like this – stocky, dark, well-bearded. In fact I’ve heard say that they bear more of a genetic resemblance to Africans than to north Indians. From their dark skin, snub noses, round faces and strong limbs, in combination with the Aryan stream which is taller, more sharp-featured and slender, comes the full range of Indian colour and shape you can see today. In fact, the people are actually quite different down here, more reticent, less goofy with delight at seeing a foreigner. I’ve walked among people who’ve never left their own village surroundings and some don’t even bat an eyelid. This is, of course, not a blanket description. You still get your giggling schoolchildren, who sometimes run off in fright when you wave. They just seem a little… cooler. Actually, it was strange, and can be a little upsetting, now you are accustomed to it, to walk down streets where your presence doesn’t immediately brighten faces. But like everything else it becomes normal – all the more gratifying when someone would just love to shake your hand – and you find yourself surprised and delighted just like the first time.
On the first day in Chennai, I was lucky enough to meet Qais, Ahmed and Youssuf, all from Muscat, in Oman, in the Gulf. We became very good friends pretty quickly and even ventured out to a Chennai nightclub, me flopping around in borrowed shoes and pants (the less said the better – only couples were allowed to dance!). These guys had been studying in Chennai for three years, and had pretty much reached the end of their tethers when it came to all things Indian. They told me tales of classmates begging them for money, teachers refusing to teach in English, as promised, and showed me few amusing ways of getting what you wanted, in Tamil. They were also hospitable to the point of infuriating. In all the nights I stayed with them, they refused to let me sleep anywhere but the one bed in the house. I had forcibly to conk out on the floor and feign a comatose state just to give Qais his bed back. Every day they apologized profusely for the taps, which produced only saltwater (it was a bad house). I should have seen it coming when, on the first day, Qais swapped my half-drunk Pepsi for his full one when I was in the toilet, and pretended nothing had happened, making do with half himself. Lovely blokes, truly good guys.
A few more beery nights, and then the time was drawing near when I was due to start volunteer work in a small place near Trichy, a city in central Tamil Nadu. I’d sent an email weeks earlier on the offchance to the first organization that matched my search criteria on Google (‘Volunteering, poor people, Tamil Nadu’) – and thus began my association with “Society for Poor People Development”, a group of extraordinarily nice people led by a nice man named Raju.
I really was extravagantly lucky. With the SPPD, I landed on all four of my feet. In fact it was only one month after I arrived that I really left the SPPD behind, as my good friend Arul disappeared on the bus back to Trichy from Kodaikanal in the Ghat mountains, where we went for a two-day stay. Through this organization I think I've made my closest Indian friends to date. Not enough space here to go into much depth about what the SPPD actually does. It works in a particularly poor area of the south, where farming is nigh-on impossible for much of the year due to the exceptionally dry climate. They work to combat, among other things, the spread of aids and domestic abuse. They work for female emancipation, to establish economic independence for poor communities, and to implement advanced farming techniques in a region where most of the people migrate to hotel jobs in the cities, fed up with the tough farming life. Also, they work to assist the education of local children.
This simple wish gave rise, a few years ago, to the SPPD Children’s Home, where I spent most of my time. Twenty one kids currently in residence, in improvised quarters in a section of the SPPD offices. They had been taken as boarders, for the most part, because parents were unable or unwilling to provide for their education, needing or wishing them to work in the fields, or with cattle, to supplement family income. Not every case was this straightforward, however. Some had been rescued from a life of grime in mechanics shops or as hotel boys (sleeping in kitchens, washing dishes, covered in dirt from head to toe. Unfortunately, you see their less fortunate brethren everywhere). A small number of the children had been orphaned, and three or four had witnessed the horrific deaths of parents. (In this part of Tamil Nadu, and throughout rural India, the commonest form of wifely protest suicide is burning oneself to death).
My answer to ‘How can you help?’ was vague – teach, I think. Actually I taught, played, worked in fields, took part in discussions, and was involved in every part of the organizational work, before being politely asked to write their English website! Good to be useful, anyway. It took me a week, you can (probably) look it over for yourself in the next few days or so, watch this space for new web address.
First day. I'd arrived at night, and seen the children only at breakfast. When they returned from school (about 5pm), it was games time, and I nervously hung around the edges of the backyard. Before long, I was positively forced to join in a game called 'Go', which basically involves running and saying 'Go', just like the American army. Their akka (elder sister), or minder, Manonmani, took enthusiastic part in everything, saree hitched up, a huge smile on her face. You could see she was right back in the village square of twenty years ago, playing the games as a child herself - something she confessed to me later. My every move was met with a chorus of 'oo' and 'super running' ('super' is probably the highest accolade in Tamil) - though it certainly wasn't either of those things. It was all part of the procedure to make me feel welcome, and came straight from the heart. When in the game of 'Nundi' (basically like chase but hopping), I overreached myself a bit and came crashing down in the dirt like a tit, the group moved as one, with a great 'aa' of anguish and concern, to pick me up and dust me off. Ten minutes later, as a waited my go again, the children were still at my side, trying not to be noticed, picking the last bits of dirt from my clothes.
I made a good friend in Arul. Arul was, as he called it, 'black' (slightly darker brown), and evidently had a great hang-up about his skin-colour. He was often mistaken for a dalit, or untouchable, and forced to sit in certain places in public or drink chai at the stalls from a certain, lesser kind of recepticle. Actually, he was Christian, but the caste-system runs far deeper than religion - as does the custom of arranging marriage. The marriage of Raju, the leader of the organisation, and Santhhi had been arranged, and, though they also were Christian, they came from exactly the same subcaste. It was easy for me to compliment Arul's skin and tell him stories, which he couldn't believe, about English people rushing out into any available sunshine in order to be more like him. But was also painful to see him avoid photos because he didn't like how dark he turned out in them. Actually, that's quite common when you go south - people don't like looking at pics of themselves. It seems some brahminical values are harder to shake than others - the link between blackness and dirt.
I made some great friends among the kids. It really only took a few invented 'secret handshakes' - which after ten minutes weren't so secret, and a troupe of them come barrelling up and demand to try it out. On the second day, I introduced thumb wars - and must have conducted about ten thousand battles in the two weeks that followed. That was fun. I could converse pretty well in English (mainly about cricket) with a few of the older boys - the ages of the twenty-one kids ranged from 9 to 15 - and had to rely on all my repertoire of classroom tricks to keep them entertained. Taught them how to do kick-ups. They taught me lots of games involving a stick and a stone. They'd tell me about the jokes they played (they kept undressing one lad in his sleep), their skill at building 'human pyramids' (something that I thought went out in the 1950s but apparently still an acceptable mode of impressing dignitaries here), they picked the local plants that were good to eat, I ate them, and in the evenings Arul and I would sleep on the rooftop or under the porch, in the cool night air.
Usually after a discreet whisky. My room, actually, devoid of a sleeper, became a bit of a den of iniquity - the secret, men's place where we stored our tipples so we could share them with the nightwatchmen when the children had gone to bed.
I wish I could convey, or even remember, a decent number of the lessons I learned from them. First, eating. I was determined to everything 'Tamil'. Eating, Tamil-tyle, is with hands - or, more precisely, the right hand, since the left is reserved for 'unclean tasks'. I can proudly say that I've mastered it, but at times it was more difficult than others. Since they got up at 6 and I did not, breakfast (at 8) basically consisted of bleary me being laughed at by a roomful of Indian children (and their teachers), shoveling fingerfuls of spicy rice dish number 4 down my gob, trying not to think of that plate of hot buttered English toast which has haunted me all these months. ‘Is this a sausage I see before me?’ Nope, it’s a massive chilli, and it’ll dissolve your sinuses if you so much as look at it.
What else can I remember? This is all so hopelessly out of order. There was a traffic jam for about 6 hours once outside the office. This in the middle of the countryside. Bit of fun for us guys, anyway, who hadn't left the compound for days. Arul and I went out and tutted and squinted with them, as they manouevred the stuck trucks around the holes in the road like vast, spluttering chess pieces. I swear all the men were really enjoying it. A bit of a practical puzzle, a chance to assert authority and scratch one's chin. The world over, we're all the same.
The language: Tamil is a classical language, ancient. The written form, though convoluted, is graspable. The problem is that spoken Tamil bears little to no resemblance to it. I could have spent a year learning my phrasebook cover to cover and still elicited the same kind of puzzled frowns as when I stumbled through Jaipur 5 days into my trip looking for the Elephants' quarter excitedly asking ‘Haathi ka’haang hay? (‘Elephants where have you been?’ - it was a phrasebook problem). And my troubles didn’t stop when I’d decided to put my book away and note down instead their versions of things – they obstinately refused to stick to one pronunciation (or slow down enough for me to hear it), and any words they did manage to settle on obstinately refused to stick in my mind. My first attempts to initiate conversation myself were abortive. Dixie consoled me that this was because they are unused to hearing people speaking their language badly – an essential stepping stone for a foreigner to begin speaking it well – due to the lack of foreign attempts to learn it. I was like a man towing a cart meant for a horse – or maybe a rickshaw. Three weeks on, I'd hardly made any progress, though I did manage to one-syllable my way through a full, three or four-minute conversation. It helped that Tamil, like all Indian languages, is littered in everyday speech with English terms, and anyway I was mostly bluffing.
I'm giving up the order completely. Observations.
Things I like about Indian people:
1) People are strong here, wily. They’re used to games of strength and self-reliance, and to giving respect to those of superior force. There is nothing PC here – one child has, according to his classmates and himself, a ‘weak body’, while another distinguishes himself as the ‘hero’, the ultimate playground accolade – very like the ‘hero’ of Tamil cinema, who is violent and an excellent dancer. A bad-boy, respectable rather than loveable. There is something cruel but edifying in this straightforward physical categorization. These are hard people, and life more than anything is for them a physical endeavour.
One example: a snake came into the SPPD compound – a baby. It has slipped into the water tank and was hiding in the lilies. Karthik, one older lad and probably the ‘hero’, dark and strong like a horse, grabbed a rusty metal spike and disabled it with a smack. There was no attempt to shuttle the children away from the danger – when it arose, the women simply retreated, with their hands to their mouths (schoolteacher included), while the 'men' did their business. Karthik had been skilling snakes for years. Likewise, there was nothing PC in the disposal of the snake. Having knocked it out, Karthik lifted it skillfully out of the pool and drove its head into the earth. Cue the usual games of ‘chase the girls with the thing that will make them scream’. But there was no ghostbuster-snake-lover to call to rehouse the animal – snakes are an old enemy here, and a danger. In the evening time the the watchman, Subramani, took care of any snake (or pambu) coming out to hunt in the cool evening air. In the time I was there he killed three, and buried them all before dawn in a corner of the garden.
2) Their ability to use simple things well - like soap and water, wood and matches. Washing one's clothes with a small bar of detergent, in the sunshine, on a wet flat rock. Cooking rice on a woodfire. Water is still their element, and so important, holy even. You see them queueing up at burst pipes, brown skin shining in the sun. Even the pavement-dwellers are scrupulously clean. Something to think about when I can't be bothered walking upstairs to use the shower.
3) An add-on. Personal neatness. The feet and fingernails of your average Indian person will always be clean, the hair washed and combed with coconut oil, the moustache trimmed, no matter how dirty the surroundings. It's how they rise above the chaos.
4) The reliance on personal skill. The Indians are a skilful people, nimble with feet and hands, well-coordinated. The ability of a bus-driver to pass through a crowded street at 40mph without flattening a single banana is banked upon without thinking. In England, drive as if everyone else is an idiot - in India, cross the road safe in the knowledge that whoever's coming would probably pass every reactions-test NASA could set. If anything, they'll avoid you because they don't want to damage their vehicle. Safety-consciousness and procedure have stripped us of our ability to properly handle our equipment and ourselves. Personal skill - in walking, moving, living - is foisted upon them from an early age. When Joel (pronounced Joy-ell), the two year-old son of Raju and Santhhi, otherwise spoiled rotten, is climbing a wall, his mother will most probably be chatting and looking the other way, breezily unconcerned. These are the skills essential to survive what would otherwise be a shockingly dangerous tumult of uneven footpaths, jagged corners, sudden obstacles and hazards. "Come down off that wall" would be uttered from annoyance or embarrassment, never from a concern for his safety.
Their feet, unused and unsuited to shoes, are more capable of gripping, climbing, walking over sharp objects. I am embarrassed at my English feet, prone and vulnerable without their coverings. You can see that, already, we have evolved away from our surroundings. How many of us could cross a field barefooted? I think of the average Indian businessmen, slipping out of his shoes at the first chance, walking in his garden.
Nobody ever trips over here. Personal clumsiness is really very rare. Nobody really knocks anything over, drops anything, spills anything. They really were puzzled, I think, at how little I was master of my immediate environment. I think of England with its yellow lines and warnings.
5) The fact that, across the country, north and south, a few select mannerism must be shared by a billion people. Take, for instance, the lighting of a match. Hold the matchbox at either end with third finger and thumb of left hand. Strike downwards, away from self, and immediately cup the sparking match in the protective chamber between matchbox and palm, created by the aforesaid method of holding the matchbox. I have seen five hundred men, of all shapes and sizes, perform this simple act in exactly the same manner, invariably managing to light their cigarette or beedi with just the one match. I have seen a rickshaw driver light his beedi (NOT an easy thing to light), using this method, while we were travelling at forty miles an hour along a windy coast road (he was steering with his knees). This was in winds so full I could barely open my mouth, let alone offer him my congratulations. My eyes were watering from the g-force. One match.
Some other shared mannerisms. The head-wiggle. The method of applying coconut oil. Deposit a small amount in palm of left hand, used as store. Apply with fingers of right hand to face. At the death, rub both hands over face and then together in a warming motion. They bloody all do it. Rich, poor, old, young. There is simply a correct way of doing certain things, universally acknowledged.
They all wear shirts. Even the guys in the fields, when I went to work there (haven't got time to talk about that now) Cigarettes and small change in top-pockets. All of them.
5) They just get by.
6) They are natural people. Coconut oil. Every single one of them, every morning, after 'taking bath' (bucket shower). They are puzzled by my eczema. Since I arrived in India, approximately 120 million people have decreed that I should rub just 'little, little' coconut oil into my skin, and the whole thing would go away. Unfortunately, I have a different brand of itchiness to them. But the concept of a minor skin ailment incurable without medical help, indeed incurable without 'little, little' coconut oil is foreign to most of them, more so than to most English people. Eczema and asthma, it has to be said, are probably 'bourgeois' diseases, brought about by the over-use of synthetic (cleaning) products and inflicted on people who spend too long indoors. They are side-effects of the body's being forced to live in an unnatural environment, performing unnatural processes such as working out in a gym (the very idea of a gym has begun to seem ridiculous amid all this space and the physical demands here). Most are horrified, as my money-making Mysore mate was, that I spread petroleum jelly in the form of hydrocortisone ointment on my sores twice daily, but I'm a child of synthetics, and there's no other way. Throughout India, at least in the open places, I've met nobody with asthma (it would probably be the same in England). They all have beautiful, well-balanced complexions.
7) The habit of squatting on haunches, comfortable for them. It saves a lot of backs. I've seen very few bent-over old people, and many walking upright (some even carrying loads on their heads).
8) The seventies fashions. I've said about the shirts. Even the poorest. Add to this (when they aren't wearing lungi) flared trousers, accentuating the classic Indian body-shape - impossibly tiny waist (think around twenty-six inches, and this in large, fully-grown men), wide shoulders, and large, boat-like feet sailing along unhurriedly in flip-flops (chappel) underneath. On top place a beaming, moustachioed visage, some oiled hair. A 'gold' watch (they're big here). I've seen and spoken to countless chaps like this. Sometimes I think they're all brothers or that I'm hopelessly mad.
9) Brothers, eh? I love the habit they have of calling each other 'brother', 'father', sister', 'mother', 'uncle', 'grandfather', 'son'. This to complete strangers - taxi-drivers, waiters, people you pass in the street to ask directions from. The practice translates across all the regions I've visited, it is a central part of interacting in all the languages I've heard. This is India: possibly diverse (but are they diverse? Watch him strike that match), possibly a continent masquerading as a country, and possibly the largest family in the world. You've heard about the men, holding hands, embracing, on each other's laps. You can see the rickshaw-drivers, involved in a dispute, examining their small change, their heads so close together you'd swear they were lovers, or that they came from the same egg. On a bus, most Indians have the crumpled, buffeted but not-entirely-discontent expression of the puppy who is climbed over, at the bottom of the pile, in the fight for the mother's milk. Submissive, belonging. They don't care if their personal space is invaded - they don't have any - not when it comes to other Indians, at least (some would rather strike their match in an unaccustomed way - god forbid - than sit next to a foreigner). If they are smacked on the head by the conductor by accident, they don't even turn around. It's all part of living together, in this cramped, whirling chaos, where at each moment you have the potential to be lost, and you stick together organically because it is how you thrive.
On a bus in Tamil Nadu, I had a brief conversation with a man who was interested in my phone (I've since dropped it in a toilet). I fell asleep (did I tell you I've perfected Indian sleep? I can now sleep anywhere, vertical, in a nightclub, in the shower, upside down in a tornado), and when I woke up, he was sat beside me cradling a girl in his arms, sat on his lap. Both of them were gazing up at the bus TV screen, showing a Tamil movie, rapt. They had the exact same expression on their faces. Soon she dozed off, resting her head against his chest, and he soon joined her. In sleep, too, they did exactly the same things, chewing the air and half-waking every few minutes.
The bus was crowded. The girl's mother was squatting in front of our chairs with her baby (don't ask about me giving up my seat - she had a basket and wouldn't have let it out of her sight), trying to get some shuteye of her own in that impossible position. Happily, we jiggled along for another few minutes, before the family - mother, girl-child and boy-baby, discmounted, she carrying a huge basket full of fruit on her head, and one child in each arm. It wasn't until we'd travelled for another two hours, and my friend got down too, that I realised the significance of this. The family and the man had been complete strangers to each other. And yet this mother had entrusted the girl to the man - her anne, or elder brother - without a qualm, and quite happily they had both bounced off to sleep. The little girl didn't raise a hint of a fuss.
10) The lack of certain hypocrisies. There is nothing of the hypocrisy of self-sacrifice, for instance, after you, after you. If you want to sit, you sit. If you give up your seat or offer to carry someone's something, you'll be thought silly, not noble, and not thanked. They'll get by without you. Here, you can reap none of the smug rewards you can in England with such behaviour - the belief that you're a good person. That said, sometimes it's hard to see, and sometimes downright puzzling. I've seen pregnant women cradling newborn children, swaying in the aisle, while a young and strapping lad on a mobile phone makes himself comfortable on the seat next to her. I've seen guru-babas - the holiest of holy men, deserving of all respect - slumped against the poles, while devout and seated hindus look on unconcernedly. I've seen a family consisting of mother with child, grandmother and young chap my age boarding a bus, and into the one remaining seat leaps the lad.
Equally, here it's thought childish to say thank you all the time, and although the habit dies hard, this much I agree. Think how many times your average shopkeeper performs the perfunctory ritual of 'thank you/ you're welcome' in a day, ask yourself how many times its really heartfelt and whether this overuse degrades the term for when it is finally needed, and you might agree. I still say it all the time anyway, or, even more bizarrely, 'cheers', which is a trade off between saying thank you and saying nothing but which absolutely nobody understands and so is even more useless.
Bear up, guys, nearly finished.
Things I think I will miss (work-in-progress – I reserve the right to extend this list and also to not miss any of the things below when the time comes to leave):
1) The trains: huge, hooting rustbuckets barrelling through the countryside, or lowing like great cattle in the night.
2) The sudden, ammonial reek of piss on corners. Strange, but I’ll miss it. Mght even have to recreate it on Old Smithy Lane…
3) Pedestrians clubbing together to conquer the traffic. When a sufficient number have gathered (sufficient enough to do damage to a car if it hit them all), they edge out towards the middle of the road. More often than not they break and scurry back to the kerb, but sometimes the oncoming vehicle subsides with a greasy, defeated honk. Pedestrian power!
Whew. This hasn't reeeallly been a proper catch-up regarding what I've been doing I know, more a rant. In brief, from Tamil Nadu to Mumbai, to heat-rash, to Delhi, to Nepal. Yes that's right, I'm in Nepal, Kathmandu. If you want to know what's happened since Mumbai, please see Dixie's excellent account at dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com. Tomorrow we go on a trek into the mountains. It should be cool.
Last thing: to anyone who's seen the Beatles film Help! Hannah and Rosie. When the members of that obscure eastern cult who want to sacrifice Ringo go into battle, they shout 'Kailiii' or Kah-eeeeleeeee' or however it is you might spell it. 'Kaili' is the Indian word for lungi, those sarong-like skirts that men wear. So it's pretty much the equivalent of shouting 'troouuserrs!, or even 'pants!'. I thought that was really funny. If it's not, I'm sorry.
Thursday, 5 April 2007
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
First days
First days of travelling in the beautiful south…
Before that, though, an episode I need to recount from the time in Goa.
For any of you who ever wondered what the swinging sixties were really like (this does not include Dad, Uncle Neil or Fari, who were there hooting and waving their shirts in the air), I think I found the closest modern equivalent at a beach party in Arambol. We took a taxi (a very un-cool think, I know) from south Goa to north, Paul, Gaz and I, along with some English girls we’d met. We arrived about four in the afternoon, and having quaffed a bottle of wine en route I was already waning. We sat and groaned in a café for half an hour, trying to remember the kind of energy that young people are supposed to have. Then we made towards the sea.
Halfway down the beach, we could see a muddy, undulating mass. Everybody we could pick out seemed to be moving to some internal rhythm (i.e. one that nobody else shared). We drew nearer, fascinated, aghast. There on the sand, accompanied by bongos, was the bizarrest fancy-dress parade I had ever seen. Bunny-girls went alongside people dressed as cats, one guy was dressed as a sumo with a papier mache dumbell marked ‘Very Heavy’. Several people were dressed as trees, while one guy sported trousers so tight they must have genuinely come from the seventies, and been through a few hot washes since. Yes, we had found it, ‘the scene’, and it was utterly hilarious.
As sunset drew on, we subsided onto the sand, utterly speechless. It seemed that every cliché in the book was there, every ageing hippy and failed seeker we had ever been promised by a hundred smug guidebooks. They had come out of the woodwork, reeling, a woodwork which itself was laced with LSD. What could we do but follow?
(Sweat, by the way, was the scent a la mode. Is this how the sixties smelled?)
The parade staggered to a halt at one end of the beach. Here, speakers and rough walls had been set up, masquerading optimistically as a venue. The drums continued, and the dancing grew more ridiculous, and, the more we consumed, logical. Leaving behind our cynicism, we joined in the fray. At about ten thirty, when the curfew for loud music is observed in all Goa, we were curled on the sand, happily chatting rubbish, and around 3, we heaved ourselves back to the town to commence the long haul home.
So there it is, then, I think I found it, what Goa is all about. Part of the joy of the place, for those who enjoy it, is that parties are often random, spontaneous. We ourselves received a tip-off from a British chap we met, and were quite prepared to hire a car and make a road trip of it, before we realized that none of we five were willing or able to take on the Indian highways. So taxi it was. A small cheat in a genuine night, and good fun to curl up in as we rocked home at 5.
It wasn’t long after that I left my friends, contemplating a 15 hour train ride to Kerala. I myself headed directly east, to another traveller’s ‘enclave’ (a word I have grown to dread) called Hampi. Hampi town modern is set among the ruins of a Hindu kingdom, dating from 1500, though parts of the place are much older. I would like to dedicate the majority of this blog, indeed, to the 24 hours I spent in Hampi, and everything I did there.
First, the night bus. I was itching to get back to traveling proper, after Goa and all its indulgences (a bit of an easy place, where not much happened). Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed once more, I had shiny visions of real conversations with small-town Indian people, of drinking chai while sitting on floors, of falling back on all my resources of Hindi and anything I could pick up of the local languages. And it came, in due course, but first, the night bus. Awash with optimism, I reached the bus-stop, and India responded with a flick of its tail. 1) The bus was 2 hours late, and 2) I couldn’t hold down the steak I had eaten as a farewell to beef-eating Goa, and had to stagger behind a local house to be sick. I couldn’t help exchanging a chuckle with myself/the night at large, but wouldn’t be put off so easily.
When it arrived, there were complications. The bus company (which had charged an exhorbitant 600/- Rs. for the ticket) kept trying to thrust us alongside random strangers in the sleeper compartments. I was almost top-and-toe with an American girl, before I kicked up a fuss, threw my bag at the guy and turned over to go to sleep. He was trying to make space for extra passengers, so he could make a little bit of pocket along the way – but somebody had deep enough pockets for everyone on board, and this particular westerner wouldn’t be cowed.
Besides a few cracks on the head from particularly lively bumps, which dented my sleep but did not destroy it, I reached Hampi with fairly few complaints after that. Found a guy at the bus stand with a 90/- Rs. room – I’d made it a personal vow not to go above 100 for the rest of the trip (you’ll see how long that lasted). Nandi Guesthouse, it was called, named after the cow ‘vehicle’ of Shiva, the Destroyer god, an apt name in that it resembled a both a bombsite and a farmyard. Jagdish, named after another god, was the typically wriggly owner.
Commence probably the best day of my solo travels so far. I’m still chuffed with what I accomplished. After breakfast, I meandered towards the temple in the Main Bazaar – parts of it surviving from 1000 years ago. An astonishing figure, sometimes you have to stop and think what that means. The British dark ages. (Or Middle-Ages. Or something) What makes the fact all the more impressive is that the Virupaksha temple is still living – that is, it still attracts worshippers and has its Brahmin and workers, it still has a freshly-dressed Shiva lingam every day, just as it has done for many hundreds of years. With a rupee in my hand, I stepped forward to be blessed by Lakshmi, the temple elephant (basically a smack on the head with her snout). After falling into conversation with Guru (an unusual name meaning ‘teacher’, usually conferred upon the elderly and wise, but this lad was 21), I was given a brief tour of the shrines and curios of the temple. The real experience began, however, when the temple closed for the afternoon. Lakshmi, exhausted after all that holy violence, lay down for a nap. The people departed. And I was led up a ladder at the back of the place (which Guru drew up after us) to venture where, apparently, few foreigners ever do.
As we stepped smartly around the temple roof (in the midday sun the stones had grown very hot), I asked Guru why he kept to the edges. He said it was because there were shrines underneath – we were literally walking on top of the gods. He led me around to the southern tower where we climbed some long-since-rotten stairs to sit among the bats and monkeys, and gaze out over the temple forecourt, and the landscape of Hampi beyond. It was heartening, exhilarating, to think that I was sitting where only a number of tourists had been, where, more importantly, generations of temple lads had been coming to sit and contemplate. How many arranged marriages had been bemoaned in that place? How many games of cricket discussed?
I left Guru with a promise to return the next morning, to see Lakshmi bathed in the river, and went out into the town. Actually, I had to tiptoe around the temple to the main gate to collect my shoes - ‘went’ is probably too heroic a word.
Phase two of my day in Hampi – investigating the rock formations. Again I’d like to call on our friend Google, because the rock formations around the village are so bizarre they almost beggar description. Almost. They’re…big. Weird-y. Big-on-top-of-small-y. Round. There, I hope I’ve given you a good idea of what they're like.
The horizon, in the first instance, is punctuated by a series of mountains which look like piles of boulders. It’s only when you look closer that you realize these boulders are piled in a very strange way. Huge stones, huge, are propped upon mere pebbles (comparatively), in such an apparently precarious way that any attempt to scale a hill will contain a fair few flinches, as you gain the crest of a great, smooth boulder, only to look up and see another louring ahead of you, apparently about to fall. Wishing for solitude (Hampi has a lot of tourists), I edged along a thin ledge, and sat looking out across the river. On the way back, I spotted some footholes carved into the rock face, and couldn’t resist these age-old attempts at providing a route. At the top, another staggering hunk of stone, perched on two others, made for a cave and a lovely bit of shade. Images of Vishnu, Shiva and other deities had been diligently printed inside, by a chisel and pair of hands long since fallen into disuse.
It was hot. I staggered along to the famous Vittala temple but baulked at the entrance fee, and wandering around the back discovered it was possible to climb over the wall. I’m glad I didn’t pay, no great shakes. I felt good about that, though I probably didn’t go far enough into the compound to indicate fearlessness.
It was time for some proper daring. All around Goa I’d been pestering my friends to hire mopeds, but in the end we didn’t get time. Hampi seemed like the next best bet – quiet country roads, relaxed feel. The guys at the shop chortled when I told them I’d never ridden before, and made me solemnly swear responsibility for any accidents of bike malfunctions. A cursory turn around the Main Bazaar seemed to convince them of something or other. They went inside to drink chai. An expert, then, I pootled out of town, pausing only at the gate which was closed for no apparent reason, and to swear at some laughing Indians.
Three things concerned me at my point of embarkation on the long, winding, shitty, potholed Indian road. One was that I didn’t have a helmet. More chortling when I asked for that. I suppose you might find it difficult to wiggle your head in any kind of expressive way while wearing one. Two, the fact that my scooter was crap. I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing that an inability to conquer your average speedbump is not the sign of a good engine. Three, the beep. Ah, the beep. I knew I would have to perfect the use of the horn in order to be respected on the Indian road.
Beeping the horn, I surmised, is in fact very much like the Indian head-wiggle. The protocol roughly goes: one for yes, one for no, one for stop/go, one for thankyou, one for two sugars please, one for sorrow, two for joy. At the completely unnecessary gate, I practiced asserting my authority by beeping the horn. After hammering it three or four times, an apathetic guard sauntered out, scratching his arse. Success, maybe.
Still, I tried to keep my wits about me, and not to overdo it. I had a particular mental image I did not want to live out: that is, of myself conscientiously beeping the horn as I sailed off the road into the nearest bush/river/living room. So the other problem, admittedly, was my driving, but with nary a petrol pump in sight to reverse into, I thought I was home free.
The less I talk about the first few minutes, the fewer nightmares I’ll have. Suffice to say that, by the time I reached the heart of the southern complex of ruins (entirely by accident), I was posing wholeheartedly. Parked my bike smack in the middle of the sunshine, because I liked its green glint in the light, and was halfway to the old barracks before I remembered something about overheating. I hurried back. All the other vehicles were huddled in the shade at the opposite end of the car park. Tit, it screamed, my bike.
By the end of the ride to the underground Shiva temple (which was half underwater too), I was suitably gung-ho and dangerous, taking on buses in games of chicken. When in Rome… On the way to Anegonda village, I met something that could match my new found arrogance: a herd of cows, who didn’t flinch at all when I hurtled into their midst doing a good thirty. This close to peteburger, and I decided to take the back roads home…only to meet a herd of goats on a narrow lane between paddy fields. You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve got the video.
(A big thankyou please to the lovely Indian bloke who walked past my bike when, key in ignition, bag containing camera and passport on the seat, I’d parked it on a country lane to follow the sound of drums. I winced from a shocking distance, perhaps 50 yards or more, but he didn’t even look at the pot of gold. What a guy.)
So my scooter and I managed to cough and fart our way back to Hampi Main Bazaar, back along the backroads. Evening now. I can describe neither the bizarreness of the rock formations across the paddy-fields, nor the beauty of that half-lit half-hour. 5 miles though fields of thick-leaved x-plants, and always with a magnificent vista just around the bend. The swamps steamed. I was driving through a prehistoric land.
And had I mastered it? The guard levered himself up to open the gate once again, and it seemed there was a hint of deference in the way he scratched his arse this time. Peter Beech, moped-rider extraordinaire. I thought I saw a guy on an Enfield nodding in brotherly recognition. It was only when I got back to the shop that I realized I’d had my indicator on for more or less the entire journey, since I’d misfingered the horn going into that herd of cows.
And the day wasn’t over. Scampered up to the nearest hill for one of the most magnificent sunsets I’ve ever seen. The earth itself was panting smoke, from fires in the distance. Families of boulders perched in silhouette. Actually I went up the wrong side of the hill first, and had to scramble through the temple to meet the sun full-on just as it dropped behind the distant crags. It was a strange moment, as otherworldly as the terrain.
In the morning, I hauled myself out of bed as promised. I think I’m starting to become a day-person. Tripped to the river where all had gone to wash: rickshaw-wallahs, shopowners, respectable men, all screaming like teenage girls as they dived into the current, then crawled out to dry on the warm, flat rocks.
The whole village was there. Classes full of kids, brought by their teachers, were given a perfunctory splashing, and at 8:05, Lakshmi ambled down from the temple grounds. Being a lady, of course, she went right into the middle of the women washing, and fell over. This is the way they do it. The keeper sighed and began to spoon water over her back with his hands.
And then, unable to top that, I left Hampi behind. Took a local bus to Hospet, and a local bus to Chitadurga. I’m now in Mysore, and I haven’t really seen many westerners since. But anyway, I think that’s enough to be going on with, I’ll try and blog again soon.
Before that, though, an episode I need to recount from the time in Goa.
For any of you who ever wondered what the swinging sixties were really like (this does not include Dad, Uncle Neil or Fari, who were there hooting and waving their shirts in the air), I think I found the closest modern equivalent at a beach party in Arambol. We took a taxi (a very un-cool think, I know) from south Goa to north, Paul, Gaz and I, along with some English girls we’d met. We arrived about four in the afternoon, and having quaffed a bottle of wine en route I was already waning. We sat and groaned in a café for half an hour, trying to remember the kind of energy that young people are supposed to have. Then we made towards the sea.
Halfway down the beach, we could see a muddy, undulating mass. Everybody we could pick out seemed to be moving to some internal rhythm (i.e. one that nobody else shared). We drew nearer, fascinated, aghast. There on the sand, accompanied by bongos, was the bizarrest fancy-dress parade I had ever seen. Bunny-girls went alongside people dressed as cats, one guy was dressed as a sumo with a papier mache dumbell marked ‘Very Heavy’. Several people were dressed as trees, while one guy sported trousers so tight they must have genuinely come from the seventies, and been through a few hot washes since. Yes, we had found it, ‘the scene’, and it was utterly hilarious.
As sunset drew on, we subsided onto the sand, utterly speechless. It seemed that every cliché in the book was there, every ageing hippy and failed seeker we had ever been promised by a hundred smug guidebooks. They had come out of the woodwork, reeling, a woodwork which itself was laced with LSD. What could we do but follow?
(Sweat, by the way, was the scent a la mode. Is this how the sixties smelled?)
The parade staggered to a halt at one end of the beach. Here, speakers and rough walls had been set up, masquerading optimistically as a venue. The drums continued, and the dancing grew more ridiculous, and, the more we consumed, logical. Leaving behind our cynicism, we joined in the fray. At about ten thirty, when the curfew for loud music is observed in all Goa, we were curled on the sand, happily chatting rubbish, and around 3, we heaved ourselves back to the town to commence the long haul home.
So there it is, then, I think I found it, what Goa is all about. Part of the joy of the place, for those who enjoy it, is that parties are often random, spontaneous. We ourselves received a tip-off from a British chap we met, and were quite prepared to hire a car and make a road trip of it, before we realized that none of we five were willing or able to take on the Indian highways. So taxi it was. A small cheat in a genuine night, and good fun to curl up in as we rocked home at 5.
It wasn’t long after that I left my friends, contemplating a 15 hour train ride to Kerala. I myself headed directly east, to another traveller’s ‘enclave’ (a word I have grown to dread) called Hampi. Hampi town modern is set among the ruins of a Hindu kingdom, dating from 1500, though parts of the place are much older. I would like to dedicate the majority of this blog, indeed, to the 24 hours I spent in Hampi, and everything I did there.
First, the night bus. I was itching to get back to traveling proper, after Goa and all its indulgences (a bit of an easy place, where not much happened). Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed once more, I had shiny visions of real conversations with small-town Indian people, of drinking chai while sitting on floors, of falling back on all my resources of Hindi and anything I could pick up of the local languages. And it came, in due course, but first, the night bus. Awash with optimism, I reached the bus-stop, and India responded with a flick of its tail. 1) The bus was 2 hours late, and 2) I couldn’t hold down the steak I had eaten as a farewell to beef-eating Goa, and had to stagger behind a local house to be sick. I couldn’t help exchanging a chuckle with myself/the night at large, but wouldn’t be put off so easily.
When it arrived, there were complications. The bus company (which had charged an exhorbitant 600/- Rs. for the ticket) kept trying to thrust us alongside random strangers in the sleeper compartments. I was almost top-and-toe with an American girl, before I kicked up a fuss, threw my bag at the guy and turned over to go to sleep. He was trying to make space for extra passengers, so he could make a little bit of pocket along the way – but somebody had deep enough pockets for everyone on board, and this particular westerner wouldn’t be cowed.
Besides a few cracks on the head from particularly lively bumps, which dented my sleep but did not destroy it, I reached Hampi with fairly few complaints after that. Found a guy at the bus stand with a 90/- Rs. room – I’d made it a personal vow not to go above 100 for the rest of the trip (you’ll see how long that lasted). Nandi Guesthouse, it was called, named after the cow ‘vehicle’ of Shiva, the Destroyer god, an apt name in that it resembled a both a bombsite and a farmyard. Jagdish, named after another god, was the typically wriggly owner.
Commence probably the best day of my solo travels so far. I’m still chuffed with what I accomplished. After breakfast, I meandered towards the temple in the Main Bazaar – parts of it surviving from 1000 years ago. An astonishing figure, sometimes you have to stop and think what that means. The British dark ages. (Or Middle-Ages. Or something) What makes the fact all the more impressive is that the Virupaksha temple is still living – that is, it still attracts worshippers and has its Brahmin and workers, it still has a freshly-dressed Shiva lingam every day, just as it has done for many hundreds of years. With a rupee in my hand, I stepped forward to be blessed by Lakshmi, the temple elephant (basically a smack on the head with her snout). After falling into conversation with Guru (an unusual name meaning ‘teacher’, usually conferred upon the elderly and wise, but this lad was 21), I was given a brief tour of the shrines and curios of the temple. The real experience began, however, when the temple closed for the afternoon. Lakshmi, exhausted after all that holy violence, lay down for a nap. The people departed. And I was led up a ladder at the back of the place (which Guru drew up after us) to venture where, apparently, few foreigners ever do.
As we stepped smartly around the temple roof (in the midday sun the stones had grown very hot), I asked Guru why he kept to the edges. He said it was because there were shrines underneath – we were literally walking on top of the gods. He led me around to the southern tower where we climbed some long-since-rotten stairs to sit among the bats and monkeys, and gaze out over the temple forecourt, and the landscape of Hampi beyond. It was heartening, exhilarating, to think that I was sitting where only a number of tourists had been, where, more importantly, generations of temple lads had been coming to sit and contemplate. How many arranged marriages had been bemoaned in that place? How many games of cricket discussed?
I left Guru with a promise to return the next morning, to see Lakshmi bathed in the river, and went out into the town. Actually, I had to tiptoe around the temple to the main gate to collect my shoes - ‘went’ is probably too heroic a word.
Phase two of my day in Hampi – investigating the rock formations. Again I’d like to call on our friend Google, because the rock formations around the village are so bizarre they almost beggar description. Almost. They’re…big. Weird-y. Big-on-top-of-small-y. Round. There, I hope I’ve given you a good idea of what they're like.
The horizon, in the first instance, is punctuated by a series of mountains which look like piles of boulders. It’s only when you look closer that you realize these boulders are piled in a very strange way. Huge stones, huge, are propped upon mere pebbles (comparatively), in such an apparently precarious way that any attempt to scale a hill will contain a fair few flinches, as you gain the crest of a great, smooth boulder, only to look up and see another louring ahead of you, apparently about to fall. Wishing for solitude (Hampi has a lot of tourists), I edged along a thin ledge, and sat looking out across the river. On the way back, I spotted some footholes carved into the rock face, and couldn’t resist these age-old attempts at providing a route. At the top, another staggering hunk of stone, perched on two others, made for a cave and a lovely bit of shade. Images of Vishnu, Shiva and other deities had been diligently printed inside, by a chisel and pair of hands long since fallen into disuse.
It was hot. I staggered along to the famous Vittala temple but baulked at the entrance fee, and wandering around the back discovered it was possible to climb over the wall. I’m glad I didn’t pay, no great shakes. I felt good about that, though I probably didn’t go far enough into the compound to indicate fearlessness.
It was time for some proper daring. All around Goa I’d been pestering my friends to hire mopeds, but in the end we didn’t get time. Hampi seemed like the next best bet – quiet country roads, relaxed feel. The guys at the shop chortled when I told them I’d never ridden before, and made me solemnly swear responsibility for any accidents of bike malfunctions. A cursory turn around the Main Bazaar seemed to convince them of something or other. They went inside to drink chai. An expert, then, I pootled out of town, pausing only at the gate which was closed for no apparent reason, and to swear at some laughing Indians.
Three things concerned me at my point of embarkation on the long, winding, shitty, potholed Indian road. One was that I didn’t have a helmet. More chortling when I asked for that. I suppose you might find it difficult to wiggle your head in any kind of expressive way while wearing one. Two, the fact that my scooter was crap. I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing that an inability to conquer your average speedbump is not the sign of a good engine. Three, the beep. Ah, the beep. I knew I would have to perfect the use of the horn in order to be respected on the Indian road.
Beeping the horn, I surmised, is in fact very much like the Indian head-wiggle. The protocol roughly goes: one for yes, one for no, one for stop/go, one for thankyou, one for two sugars please, one for sorrow, two for joy. At the completely unnecessary gate, I practiced asserting my authority by beeping the horn. After hammering it three or four times, an apathetic guard sauntered out, scratching his arse. Success, maybe.
Still, I tried to keep my wits about me, and not to overdo it. I had a particular mental image I did not want to live out: that is, of myself conscientiously beeping the horn as I sailed off the road into the nearest bush/river/living room. So the other problem, admittedly, was my driving, but with nary a petrol pump in sight to reverse into, I thought I was home free.
The less I talk about the first few minutes, the fewer nightmares I’ll have. Suffice to say that, by the time I reached the heart of the southern complex of ruins (entirely by accident), I was posing wholeheartedly. Parked my bike smack in the middle of the sunshine, because I liked its green glint in the light, and was halfway to the old barracks before I remembered something about overheating. I hurried back. All the other vehicles were huddled in the shade at the opposite end of the car park. Tit, it screamed, my bike.
By the end of the ride to the underground Shiva temple (which was half underwater too), I was suitably gung-ho and dangerous, taking on buses in games of chicken. When in Rome… On the way to Anegonda village, I met something that could match my new found arrogance: a herd of cows, who didn’t flinch at all when I hurtled into their midst doing a good thirty. This close to peteburger, and I decided to take the back roads home…only to meet a herd of goats on a narrow lane between paddy fields. You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve got the video.
(A big thankyou please to the lovely Indian bloke who walked past my bike when, key in ignition, bag containing camera and passport on the seat, I’d parked it on a country lane to follow the sound of drums. I winced from a shocking distance, perhaps 50 yards or more, but he didn’t even look at the pot of gold. What a guy.)
So my scooter and I managed to cough and fart our way back to Hampi Main Bazaar, back along the backroads. Evening now. I can describe neither the bizarreness of the rock formations across the paddy-fields, nor the beauty of that half-lit half-hour. 5 miles though fields of thick-leaved x-plants, and always with a magnificent vista just around the bend. The swamps steamed. I was driving through a prehistoric land.
And had I mastered it? The guard levered himself up to open the gate once again, and it seemed there was a hint of deference in the way he scratched his arse this time. Peter Beech, moped-rider extraordinaire. I thought I saw a guy on an Enfield nodding in brotherly recognition. It was only when I got back to the shop that I realized I’d had my indicator on for more or less the entire journey, since I’d misfingered the horn going into that herd of cows.
And the day wasn’t over. Scampered up to the nearest hill for one of the most magnificent sunsets I’ve ever seen. The earth itself was panting smoke, from fires in the distance. Families of boulders perched in silhouette. Actually I went up the wrong side of the hill first, and had to scramble through the temple to meet the sun full-on just as it dropped behind the distant crags. It was a strange moment, as otherworldly as the terrain.
In the morning, I hauled myself out of bed as promised. I think I’m starting to become a day-person. Tripped to the river where all had gone to wash: rickshaw-wallahs, shopowners, respectable men, all screaming like teenage girls as they dived into the current, then crawled out to dry on the warm, flat rocks.
The whole village was there. Classes full of kids, brought by their teachers, were given a perfunctory splashing, and at 8:05, Lakshmi ambled down from the temple grounds. Being a lady, of course, she went right into the middle of the women washing, and fell over. This is the way they do it. The keeper sighed and began to spoon water over her back with his hands.
And then, unable to top that, I left Hampi behind. Took a local bus to Hospet, and a local bus to Chitadurga. I’m now in Mysore, and I haven’t really seen many westerners since. But anyway, I think that’s enough to be going on with, I’ll try and blog again soon.
Sunday, 18 February 2007
Goan' native
Ok, let's make this quick. I've managed to crawl from out the lap of luxury and I estimate that I have about an hour before I start suffering serious withdrawal. Twenty yards away down a tarmac strip (perhaps the only one in town) a glittering sea beckons, shuttling playfully between golden sands and the fishing boats beyond...
There is one reason why this startling act of bravery and self-denial on my part is necessary - namely, to wrest this blog of mine back from a certain hijacker we all know and occasionally talk to and perhaps sometimes borrow money from: my father! It's my opinion that he got perhaps a little too comfortable in the driver's seat and so, first and foremost, I'd like to stamp my personality on things once again. Here, then, are a list of my favourite things: marmite, arguing, grumpy old people, wishy-washy theoretical debates, doing as little as possible on a beach in western India...
That's right, blog 17 or 18 or whichever number we're on finds this particular intrepid traveller fearlessly paddling his feet under a clear blue sky, clinging for dear life to an immensely dangerous bottle of beer. I'm in Goa, known variously as the Ibiza of India, the Mediterranean of the East, the Big Beach and the Which Part of England Are You From? Let me say this right out: Goa is utterly unlike the rest of India. For a start, it's Portuguese. While the rest of the nation was wading to freedom in Gandhi's salt march, this little enclave was fighting separately to rid itself of seventeenth-century conquerors, though probably in a much more easy-going way involving lilos and marijuana. Divided from British India by a range of forest-covered mountains called the Sahyadri (though only twelve hours by train today from British Bombay), Goa essentially houses a different culture, with an entirely different set of influences. Take, for instance, the local fascination with football. While the average Indian might, if pushed, meekly eject "Manchester United" or even "David Beckham", the Goans live and breathe football. I've given up explaining that, though I'm from near Manchester, I don't support man United, because it's quite obvious that the concept of anybody at all not supporting Man United is completely alien to them. Another thing: the place is full of churches. The majority of the Goan population proper, indeed, is Christian, but what with the influx of traders from all over India keen to work the tourists Christians now only number one third or so of all living in this tiny state.
So I've gone from one beach full of ageing hippies to another. Puri, where, as Dad can testify, the oddballs roamed free, to Goa, to where they run the bars and restaurants. En route I went to see another, prettier oddball named Dixie, where I had the chance to sample some lovely cuisine and even take a ten mile hike around the housing development estates of Raipur! Sadly, Goa isn't the kind of place that you get the glimpses into village life we got while walking home from the Hotel Babylon, where kids offered us a bitter fruit and the adults stared with obvious fascination on their faces. Your average Goan is jaded and underappreciative of your attempts to speak Hindi - and this, more than anything, is why I'm not in favour of the place. The rickshaws and taxis charge silly prices, because they're used to receiving silly money from silly people, here for their two weeks' worth of boozing. Although occasionally the natural Indian propensity for immediate, intimate conversation shines through - take Raj, for instance, cleaner at out group of huts, who is obsessed with any kind of woman and takes every opportunity to make inappropriate and highly personal remarks.
In general, with the exception of Raj, the Indians who work in the resorts are less childish in their attitudes to sex than others I have encountered elsewhere. Innured, maybe. Because that's right, Goa is of course a place where the bikini is king - a far cry from Puri, in British India, where the poor Indian women had to bathe in saris while their menfolk cavorted around in comfortable swimshorts. The Indian men from outside Goa stand out a bit more here. In fact, this is just another place where western and British-Indian attitudes towards the female body clash uncomfortably - the number of rape cases is reportedly rising in commercialised Goa. Hilariously, disgustingly, I've discovered that travel agents actually run coach tours from other parts of India for male Indians to see the western women on the beach. You see them everywhere, parties of men in suit trousers tottering along, sheepishly agog. It's certainly one of the sadder sides of cultural interchange.
In terms of monuments and landmarks, I hoped that Goa, being so different, might offer a fascinating glimpse of a civilisation to rival the British-built cities of Kolkata and Mumbai. It was a disappointment to discover that this isn't the case. Believe me, I entered Goa with every intention of gorging myself on cathedrals and old, cobbled towns, but our one day trip to Old Goa (the former capital) ended in disappointment with only a few half-hearted town halls and semi-dilapidated churches to add to our picture collections. It seems that conservation has been poor, and most of the religious finery is long since stolen.
Little left to do, then, but worship the sun instead. I met up with my uni buddies Gaz and Paul in Vagator, North Goa, a name synonymous with all-night parties. We found little to justify this reputation. Granted, there were a few fat white people with names like 'Kevin', but I'm sure that their ideas of a scene were different to ours. In fact, this brings me to the major downside of Goa - there are just too many bloody Brits. I'm all for meeting English abroad, indeed it can make for some quite pleasant conversations as you wryly compare notes on the culture gap. But when you've heard the fortieth barked request for 'three more beers', I'm telling you, you could quite easily go for the rest of your life without ever going home.
Vagator and surrounds, then, weren't really to our taste, but a few days ago we hopped down the coast to Palolem. If anything, this place is busier, but it lacks the loud bars and those clubs which look so depressing half-empty. The advantage of this place is that everything - literally, everything - is on the beach. Hotels, cafes, restaurants, shops, internet cafes. The three of us are staying in a hut about 100 yards from the sea - every morning/afternoon we wake up, stretch and walk out onto our little bamboo terrace, trying (not) to kick in the head whichever of us is sleeping on the floor. We go for breakfast, and gaze out to the where the surf tickles the shoreline. Days are spent on the beach, playing football or cricket. Yesterday, we caught a motorboat out to a tiny, deserted bay called Butterfly Beach. Nobody really around (except a chancer selling overpriced beer...India!) and for three hours we sported and sizzled. Been eating plenty of freshly-caught fish. All along the beach, at the better establishments, the catch is displayed and individually-priced. A suave waiter runs his hands over the fish, or picks them up and hefts them...300, 350 rupees.... Having selected, you choose your preferred method of preparation. The other day, i had a beautiful grilled silver mullet (must have been two feet long), while Paul plumped for tiger prawns from the tandoor. Tiger prawns large enough to choke a whale, that is.
Tomorrow, I think, we'll hire mopeds. As little as I trust myself on any road, anywhere, i've been observing these Indian drivers for three months now and I think I could just about hold my own (this is one thing that doesn't change as you cross the Sahyadri mountains - the driving!). At 300 ruperts a day it's a pretty expensive way of killing yourself, but by Goan prices this is probably quite reasonable and anyway, as I keep telling myself, it's a holiday. As in, it's a holiday-within-a-holiday. I've had a week now and I'm starting to itch a little for another of those chaotic Indian metropoles. Next, we're planning to head south to Kerala, the region of jungles and elephants and boat-rides into the heart of darkness, and then, who knows? I have the whole of southern India to explore. Better get my strength up first.
There is one reason why this startling act of bravery and self-denial on my part is necessary - namely, to wrest this blog of mine back from a certain hijacker we all know and occasionally talk to and perhaps sometimes borrow money from: my father! It's my opinion that he got perhaps a little too comfortable in the driver's seat and so, first and foremost, I'd like to stamp my personality on things once again. Here, then, are a list of my favourite things: marmite, arguing, grumpy old people, wishy-washy theoretical debates, doing as little as possible on a beach in western India...
That's right, blog 17 or 18 or whichever number we're on finds this particular intrepid traveller fearlessly paddling his feet under a clear blue sky, clinging for dear life to an immensely dangerous bottle of beer. I'm in Goa, known variously as the Ibiza of India, the Mediterranean of the East, the Big Beach and the Which Part of England Are You From? Let me say this right out: Goa is utterly unlike the rest of India. For a start, it's Portuguese. While the rest of the nation was wading to freedom in Gandhi's salt march, this little enclave was fighting separately to rid itself of seventeenth-century conquerors, though probably in a much more easy-going way involving lilos and marijuana. Divided from British India by a range of forest-covered mountains called the Sahyadri (though only twelve hours by train today from British Bombay), Goa essentially houses a different culture, with an entirely different set of influences. Take, for instance, the local fascination with football. While the average Indian might, if pushed, meekly eject "Manchester United" or even "David Beckham", the Goans live and breathe football. I've given up explaining that, though I'm from near Manchester, I don't support man United, because it's quite obvious that the concept of anybody at all not supporting Man United is completely alien to them. Another thing: the place is full of churches. The majority of the Goan population proper, indeed, is Christian, but what with the influx of traders from all over India keen to work the tourists Christians now only number one third or so of all living in this tiny state.
So I've gone from one beach full of ageing hippies to another. Puri, where, as Dad can testify, the oddballs roamed free, to Goa, to where they run the bars and restaurants. En route I went to see another, prettier oddball named Dixie, where I had the chance to sample some lovely cuisine and even take a ten mile hike around the housing development estates of Raipur! Sadly, Goa isn't the kind of place that you get the glimpses into village life we got while walking home from the Hotel Babylon, where kids offered us a bitter fruit and the adults stared with obvious fascination on their faces. Your average Goan is jaded and underappreciative of your attempts to speak Hindi - and this, more than anything, is why I'm not in favour of the place. The rickshaws and taxis charge silly prices, because they're used to receiving silly money from silly people, here for their two weeks' worth of boozing. Although occasionally the natural Indian propensity for immediate, intimate conversation shines through - take Raj, for instance, cleaner at out group of huts, who is obsessed with any kind of woman and takes every opportunity to make inappropriate and highly personal remarks.
In general, with the exception of Raj, the Indians who work in the resorts are less childish in their attitudes to sex than others I have encountered elsewhere. Innured, maybe. Because that's right, Goa is of course a place where the bikini is king - a far cry from Puri, in British India, where the poor Indian women had to bathe in saris while their menfolk cavorted around in comfortable swimshorts. The Indian men from outside Goa stand out a bit more here. In fact, this is just another place where western and British-Indian attitudes towards the female body clash uncomfortably - the number of rape cases is reportedly rising in commercialised Goa. Hilariously, disgustingly, I've discovered that travel agents actually run coach tours from other parts of India for male Indians to see the western women on the beach. You see them everywhere, parties of men in suit trousers tottering along, sheepishly agog. It's certainly one of the sadder sides of cultural interchange.
In terms of monuments and landmarks, I hoped that Goa, being so different, might offer a fascinating glimpse of a civilisation to rival the British-built cities of Kolkata and Mumbai. It was a disappointment to discover that this isn't the case. Believe me, I entered Goa with every intention of gorging myself on cathedrals and old, cobbled towns, but our one day trip to Old Goa (the former capital) ended in disappointment with only a few half-hearted town halls and semi-dilapidated churches to add to our picture collections. It seems that conservation has been poor, and most of the religious finery is long since stolen.
Little left to do, then, but worship the sun instead. I met up with my uni buddies Gaz and Paul in Vagator, North Goa, a name synonymous with all-night parties. We found little to justify this reputation. Granted, there were a few fat white people with names like 'Kevin', but I'm sure that their ideas of a scene were different to ours. In fact, this brings me to the major downside of Goa - there are just too many bloody Brits. I'm all for meeting English abroad, indeed it can make for some quite pleasant conversations as you wryly compare notes on the culture gap. But when you've heard the fortieth barked request for 'three more beers', I'm telling you, you could quite easily go for the rest of your life without ever going home.
Vagator and surrounds, then, weren't really to our taste, but a few days ago we hopped down the coast to Palolem. If anything, this place is busier, but it lacks the loud bars and those clubs which look so depressing half-empty. The advantage of this place is that everything - literally, everything - is on the beach. Hotels, cafes, restaurants, shops, internet cafes. The three of us are staying in a hut about 100 yards from the sea - every morning/afternoon we wake up, stretch and walk out onto our little bamboo terrace, trying (not) to kick in the head whichever of us is sleeping on the floor. We go for breakfast, and gaze out to the where the surf tickles the shoreline. Days are spent on the beach, playing football or cricket. Yesterday, we caught a motorboat out to a tiny, deserted bay called Butterfly Beach. Nobody really around (except a chancer selling overpriced beer...India!) and for three hours we sported and sizzled. Been eating plenty of freshly-caught fish. All along the beach, at the better establishments, the catch is displayed and individually-priced. A suave waiter runs his hands over the fish, or picks them up and hefts them...300, 350 rupees.... Having selected, you choose your preferred method of preparation. The other day, i had a beautiful grilled silver mullet (must have been two feet long), while Paul plumped for tiger prawns from the tandoor. Tiger prawns large enough to choke a whale, that is.
Tomorrow, I think, we'll hire mopeds. As little as I trust myself on any road, anywhere, i've been observing these Indian drivers for three months now and I think I could just about hold my own (this is one thing that doesn't change as you cross the Sahyadri mountains - the driving!). At 300 ruperts a day it's a pretty expensive way of killing yourself, but by Goan prices this is probably quite reasonable and anyway, as I keep telling myself, it's a holiday. As in, it's a holiday-within-a-holiday. I've had a week now and I'm starting to itch a little for another of those chaotic Indian metropoles. Next, we're planning to head south to Kerala, the region of jungles and elephants and boat-rides into the heart of darkness, and then, who knows? I have the whole of southern India to explore. Better get my strength up first.
Saturday, 3 February 2007
And Now For Something Completely Different....
Or should I say 'someone', as it's Beech Senior finally reporting in by kind permission. Put aside, for the moment, the poetic, structured ramblings of Beech Junior on these pages and join (and hopefully stay) with me even though it will soon become obvious that, in the literary stakes (as probably in most other things as well), I have a great future behind me. If you're still with me, read on.....
Don't expect a, 'We went there, did this and saw that', type of reportage or you'll be disappointed (?) (for the moment, you can take it as read that I've seen and visited some tremendous places both in Kalkota and in the countryside). No, I'm saving that for the poor suffering friends back home who will have to sit through the digital photo show being planned (in my head). There will be no escape so get the ProPlus ready. No excuses will be accepted even for those who have already visited India - you know who you are !
Instead, what follows is just a selection of my personal thoughts and observations, hopefully tied together with a thread of logic (however fine). I'll then leave you to draw your own conclusions about this chaotic, crazy, but fascinating place! And what a place. I may have only been here seven days so far, but that's probably longer that some so-called foreign correspondents for the 'lower' order papers and TV channels spend each year. That's my excuse anyway for these outpourings.
It's now just over a week since I arrived: and it's just as Pete said: the inefficiency; the noise; the smells; the filth; the abject poverty; the begging; the hassle; the (seeming) chaos - all experienced during the time it took to get from Kolkata airport at 2 am to my hotel (where Pete was already installed). I really thought during that time that I would either be asphyxiated by diesel fumes on the journey in by taxi (and therefore achieve the dubious honour of probably being the only westerner to visit India and die before the food and sanitation had had a fair crack of the whip), or that I would be sleeping out in the street (fear not, however, I would not have been alone). The latter came about because the hotel was all locked up and it took a good quarter of an hour to make someone hear and let me in.
Neither will I ever forget my first impressions of Kalkota that first day after about four hours' sleep. Walking out through the hotel's noise-insulated doors, I thought I had stepped out onto a Buster Keaton movie set with projectiles of all types: people, animals, vommit, bikes, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, taxis, motorcycles - all appearing to be aimed at me alone. I felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. The whole scene was to the accompaniment of a continuous chorus of human voices and motor vehicle horns to give me that much needed adrenalin kick for that first day. [I no longer jump out of my skin to the sound of blaring horns now - I can now walk down the road in darkness with the best of them , confident in the knowledge that all manner of vehicles will avoid me provided I don't make any sudden deviations! That's the situation out here in the country, let's see if I make it back home in one piece after I get back to the city]
I think they could 'smell' the newness of me in India that first morning and I must have looked like fresh Rupee-laden meat (but not beef) just arrived for their delectation. Pete to the rescue: shielding me effortlessly from the circling buzzards , we made reasonable progress to the part of town he had called home for about three weeks. I won't go into details of the area (read Pete's outpourings for those), but suffice to say that it was an area of the city frequented by travellers where it would be very easy to spend the rest of your life there, meeting new people of all nationalities, living on next to nothing, talking over the world's problems, sharing experiences and letting time drift by. Meeting some of Pete's very entertaining and intelligent friends he had become close to it was easy to see that the days and weeks spent there could very easily turn into months (and possibly years). It's a bit of an easy existence. You really can get, and are offered, anything within a relatively small area.
So what are the things I can't get my head around over here ? No real surprises. Well for starters, in Kolkata it was the grinding filth and poverty and the scale of it - even though, I'm sad to say you do get immune very quickly. How can a country that the world, and itself , sees as a burgeoning major economic player - I read yesterday that an India company has now bought out the UK steelmaker Corus which is a first for India- still cannot feed or house the poorest even its major cities where although the numbers are highest, the logistics are easiest? In Kolkata, Pete encouraged me to eat 'on the street' from the start (more about the 'belly' later) and it's possible to get something substantial to eat for about 20p. Clearly there's a lot of people who can't even afford this. Hence the begging. OK there's a lot of organised, well-dressed beggars (with borrowed kids in tow for example) but still the economic 'miracle' thing just doesn't add up. With inflation running around 6% things are only going to get worse for the lower orders. It's also sad to listen to the (many) very bright young Indians who come over to (and sometimes surround) us in order to practise their English, often in front of beaming, proud parents. The number of them who seemingly want to go overseas (for their career) also seems at odds with the new vision. Software engineering and 'business' seem to be the things to do at the moment......where the money is. Where are the doctors ? There is a lot of new money being thrown around and flaunted (happens everywhere I know), but we were particularly surprised to be charged almost two pounds for a bottle of Indian Lager while listening to an Indian rock band not a stone's throw from what I've been describing. That's more than some daily wages. What is going to happen when the gap widens and envy takes over I don't know. But then again, all this new money could filter down so everyone gets the benefit - we'll see. Mobile phones are also seemingly everywhere amongst the young, although Pete has the theory that they can't all afford to run them and use them for imaginary, fun-filled conversations to show their friends what a good time they're having! In terms of how far down the phones have spread, I didn't see anyone below 'auto rickshaw driver' level with one.
I also saw enough maimed and infirm people living and dying in the gutter to believe some of what I've been told about the inaccessibility of their welfare state. We saw some horror stories in the late Mother T's first hospice in Kolkata - people who (only if they want to be) are literally picked up from the gutter and given treatment and some dignity in death. For the fortunate (?) who get better, it's not a long term stay solution so I don't know what happens after. There's no getting away from it over here, the value of life is cheap for the lower orders in this society.
And yet, the strange (and sad) thing to say that it all seems to work in a peverse way. There is an order about the place, probably enforced by the caste system, and an acceptance of their lot. There has to be some order or the place would implode.
Nothing is easy here: life itself, travel, getting things done. In terms of the number of people around, India reminds me of Japan - but that's where the comparison ends. In a lot of other ways the country reminds me of Russia, 30 years ago, which I visited as part of a cultural exchange with the British Council (pre Gorbachev). At times, it's a frustrating over-manned, inefficient, form-filling nightmare of a place where everything has its price - the only trouble is generally finding out what that real price is. We have just had to move hotels from a once magnificent colonial-style former railway hotel because the place is falling apart (literally but mainly in the sense of trying to get things done). Every request, apart from breakfast, was made at least four times and yet whenever we went down to reception the office was full of men filling in forms and chatting. Elsewhere several old staff were dotted around the establishment doing very little. The point is, there were very few guests and it was obvious that the place is going down the pan: even the cycle rickshaw drivers told us (too late) about its inefficient reputation amongst the locals.
The pace of life in Orissa (in Bhubaneshwar and now by the sea in Puri) is a lot slower, the air cleaner, and altogether very pleasant. Whilst foreigners are still seen as very fair game by 99% of the people for the extraction of Rupees (or any currency) at tourist sites, temples etc by whatever means possible, the chase is at a less frenzied pace. Some of the most blatant culprits in hassling for money anywhere are the holy men of the Hindu temples. On the second day in Kalkota, at the famous Kali Temple, the holy man (high Brahmin caste) took me aside away from Pete so that he could get us to donate money individually, forcing the odds up by showing 'pledges' for fictitious amounts. Before I had the chance to say "on your bike" , Pete was around the corner telling the poor man he was an insult to his caste and standing as a holy man. The falsification of pledges is a very common practice. It happens even where, as non- Hindus, we are not allowed to visit the temples but are directed to a viewing platform where they try to get anything up to about Rs1500 (about 18 pounds) out of you. Pete is very good at arguing it out (and we all know about that at home don't we girls!) and they usually end up with about 60p. They always give in. Ruins and monuments which charge admission fees are the most relaxing to visit, where, unhassled, it's a pleasure to meet real Indian people: friendly, inquisitve, openly smiling and always willing to help. Personally, it's also nice to be shown a bit of 'respect' due to my being Pete's father. I could get quite used to this!
Interestingly, I've picked up nothing other than open friendliness from people I've talked to (or who have approached me/us). No 'Big Brother' effect here, although there was a letter today in the local broadsheet for the region of Orissa - one of the country's poorest - population 26 Million. Although it's clearly a fall-out from 'Big Brother', we are seen as "culturally backward, crude and narrow-minded people". So there any of you gloaters !
In a few days, I'll be leaving Peter to taken an internal flight to Delhi where I'll be staying for two days (to visit the Taj etc) before flying home. I think I've picked up enough from Pete to see through the scams which are undoubtedly going to come my way when I'm on my own. From Pete, I know, from experience, the standard price of water to the Rupee so that when they try to overcharge me Rs 2 or Rs 5 (less than 2p) I'll be prepared to argue and walk away as I've seen Pete do many times. It's the principle that counts, not the amount!!! The same goes for taxis rickshaws etc. Let's see how I get on..
Nearly forgot. As an engineer, I must mention one of the things I really love about India: their reluctance to join the throw away society (yet). Everywhere you go there are people, businesses fixing things- specialists for reparing this and that. Shops in Kalkota are devoted to spares and widgets. It warms the heart to see things actually being repaired rather than thrown away. Judging by some of the ages of the bikes, cars and other things, they must be rather good at it too.
Before I sign off for good, yes, I have had the 'belly' . About five days into the trip (not bad for me) I was waylaid and I had a 'lost' day when I was good for absolutely nothing. This was exacerbated by a bad bout of dehydration which did me no favours at all. It really is hot here and it's not even summer yet! I'm fine now and ready to put weight back on!
Many thanks to Peter for his company, for the laughs we've had and also for the benefit of his hard-won travelling experience. And above all for looking after me so well. That's what good sons are for!
India: what a place. Would I come back again ? Like a shot!
Back to you Pete..
Don't expect a, 'We went there, did this and saw that', type of reportage or you'll be disappointed (?) (for the moment, you can take it as read that I've seen and visited some tremendous places both in Kalkota and in the countryside). No, I'm saving that for the poor suffering friends back home who will have to sit through the digital photo show being planned (in my head). There will be no escape so get the ProPlus ready. No excuses will be accepted even for those who have already visited India - you know who you are !
Instead, what follows is just a selection of my personal thoughts and observations, hopefully tied together with a thread of logic (however fine). I'll then leave you to draw your own conclusions about this chaotic, crazy, but fascinating place! And what a place. I may have only been here seven days so far, but that's probably longer that some so-called foreign correspondents for the 'lower' order papers and TV channels spend each year. That's my excuse anyway for these outpourings.
It's now just over a week since I arrived: and it's just as Pete said: the inefficiency; the noise; the smells; the filth; the abject poverty; the begging; the hassle; the (seeming) chaos - all experienced during the time it took to get from Kolkata airport at 2 am to my hotel (where Pete was already installed). I really thought during that time that I would either be asphyxiated by diesel fumes on the journey in by taxi (and therefore achieve the dubious honour of probably being the only westerner to visit India and die before the food and sanitation had had a fair crack of the whip), or that I would be sleeping out in the street (fear not, however, I would not have been alone). The latter came about because the hotel was all locked up and it took a good quarter of an hour to make someone hear and let me in.
Neither will I ever forget my first impressions of Kalkota that first day after about four hours' sleep. Walking out through the hotel's noise-insulated doors, I thought I had stepped out onto a Buster Keaton movie set with projectiles of all types: people, animals, vommit, bikes, cycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, taxis, motorcycles - all appearing to be aimed at me alone. I felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights. The whole scene was to the accompaniment of a continuous chorus of human voices and motor vehicle horns to give me that much needed adrenalin kick for that first day. [I no longer jump out of my skin to the sound of blaring horns now - I can now walk down the road in darkness with the best of them , confident in the knowledge that all manner of vehicles will avoid me provided I don't make any sudden deviations! That's the situation out here in the country, let's see if I make it back home in one piece after I get back to the city]
I think they could 'smell' the newness of me in India that first morning and I must have looked like fresh Rupee-laden meat (but not beef) just arrived for their delectation. Pete to the rescue: shielding me effortlessly from the circling buzzards , we made reasonable progress to the part of town he had called home for about three weeks. I won't go into details of the area (read Pete's outpourings for those), but suffice to say that it was an area of the city frequented by travellers where it would be very easy to spend the rest of your life there, meeting new people of all nationalities, living on next to nothing, talking over the world's problems, sharing experiences and letting time drift by. Meeting some of Pete's very entertaining and intelligent friends he had become close to it was easy to see that the days and weeks spent there could very easily turn into months (and possibly years). It's a bit of an easy existence. You really can get, and are offered, anything within a relatively small area.
So what are the things I can't get my head around over here ? No real surprises. Well for starters, in Kolkata it was the grinding filth and poverty and the scale of it - even though, I'm sad to say you do get immune very quickly. How can a country that the world, and itself , sees as a burgeoning major economic player - I read yesterday that an India company has now bought out the UK steelmaker Corus which is a first for India- still cannot feed or house the poorest even its major cities where although the numbers are highest, the logistics are easiest? In Kolkata, Pete encouraged me to eat 'on the street' from the start (more about the 'belly' later) and it's possible to get something substantial to eat for about 20p. Clearly there's a lot of people who can't even afford this. Hence the begging. OK there's a lot of organised, well-dressed beggars (with borrowed kids in tow for example) but still the economic 'miracle' thing just doesn't add up. With inflation running around 6% things are only going to get worse for the lower orders. It's also sad to listen to the (many) very bright young Indians who come over to (and sometimes surround) us in order to practise their English, often in front of beaming, proud parents. The number of them who seemingly want to go overseas (for their career) also seems at odds with the new vision. Software engineering and 'business' seem to be the things to do at the moment......where the money is. Where are the doctors ? There is a lot of new money being thrown around and flaunted (happens everywhere I know), but we were particularly surprised to be charged almost two pounds for a bottle of Indian Lager while listening to an Indian rock band not a stone's throw from what I've been describing. That's more than some daily wages. What is going to happen when the gap widens and envy takes over I don't know. But then again, all this new money could filter down so everyone gets the benefit - we'll see. Mobile phones are also seemingly everywhere amongst the young, although Pete has the theory that they can't all afford to run them and use them for imaginary, fun-filled conversations to show their friends what a good time they're having! In terms of how far down the phones have spread, I didn't see anyone below 'auto rickshaw driver' level with one.
I also saw enough maimed and infirm people living and dying in the gutter to believe some of what I've been told about the inaccessibility of their welfare state. We saw some horror stories in the late Mother T's first hospice in Kolkata - people who (only if they want to be) are literally picked up from the gutter and given treatment and some dignity in death. For the fortunate (?) who get better, it's not a long term stay solution so I don't know what happens after. There's no getting away from it over here, the value of life is cheap for the lower orders in this society.
And yet, the strange (and sad) thing to say that it all seems to work in a peverse way. There is an order about the place, probably enforced by the caste system, and an acceptance of their lot. There has to be some order or the place would implode.
Nothing is easy here: life itself, travel, getting things done. In terms of the number of people around, India reminds me of Japan - but that's where the comparison ends. In a lot of other ways the country reminds me of Russia, 30 years ago, which I visited as part of a cultural exchange with the British Council (pre Gorbachev). At times, it's a frustrating over-manned, inefficient, form-filling nightmare of a place where everything has its price - the only trouble is generally finding out what that real price is. We have just had to move hotels from a once magnificent colonial-style former railway hotel because the place is falling apart (literally but mainly in the sense of trying to get things done). Every request, apart from breakfast, was made at least four times and yet whenever we went down to reception the office was full of men filling in forms and chatting. Elsewhere several old staff were dotted around the establishment doing very little. The point is, there were very few guests and it was obvious that the place is going down the pan: even the cycle rickshaw drivers told us (too late) about its inefficient reputation amongst the locals.
The pace of life in Orissa (in Bhubaneshwar and now by the sea in Puri) is a lot slower, the air cleaner, and altogether very pleasant. Whilst foreigners are still seen as very fair game by 99% of the people for the extraction of Rupees (or any currency) at tourist sites, temples etc by whatever means possible, the chase is at a less frenzied pace. Some of the most blatant culprits in hassling for money anywhere are the holy men of the Hindu temples. On the second day in Kalkota, at the famous Kali Temple, the holy man (high Brahmin caste) took me aside away from Pete so that he could get us to donate money individually, forcing the odds up by showing 'pledges' for fictitious amounts. Before I had the chance to say "on your bike" , Pete was around the corner telling the poor man he was an insult to his caste and standing as a holy man. The falsification of pledges is a very common practice. It happens even where, as non- Hindus, we are not allowed to visit the temples but are directed to a viewing platform where they try to get anything up to about Rs1500 (about 18 pounds) out of you. Pete is very good at arguing it out (and we all know about that at home don't we girls!) and they usually end up with about 60p. They always give in. Ruins and monuments which charge admission fees are the most relaxing to visit, where, unhassled, it's a pleasure to meet real Indian people: friendly, inquisitve, openly smiling and always willing to help. Personally, it's also nice to be shown a bit of 'respect' due to my being Pete's father. I could get quite used to this!
Interestingly, I've picked up nothing other than open friendliness from people I've talked to (or who have approached me/us). No 'Big Brother' effect here, although there was a letter today in the local broadsheet for the region of Orissa - one of the country's poorest - population 26 Million. Although it's clearly a fall-out from 'Big Brother', we are seen as "culturally backward, crude and narrow-minded people". So there any of you gloaters !
In a few days, I'll be leaving Peter to taken an internal flight to Delhi where I'll be staying for two days (to visit the Taj etc) before flying home. I think I've picked up enough from Pete to see through the scams which are undoubtedly going to come my way when I'm on my own. From Pete, I know, from experience, the standard price of water to the Rupee so that when they try to overcharge me Rs 2 or Rs 5 (less than 2p) I'll be prepared to argue and walk away as I've seen Pete do many times. It's the principle that counts, not the amount!!! The same goes for taxis rickshaws etc. Let's see how I get on..
Nearly forgot. As an engineer, I must mention one of the things I really love about India: their reluctance to join the throw away society (yet). Everywhere you go there are people, businesses fixing things- specialists for reparing this and that. Shops in Kalkota are devoted to spares and widgets. It warms the heart to see things actually being repaired rather than thrown away. Judging by some of the ages of the bikes, cars and other things, they must be rather good at it too.
Before I sign off for good, yes, I have had the 'belly' . About five days into the trip (not bad for me) I was waylaid and I had a 'lost' day when I was good for absolutely nothing. This was exacerbated by a bad bout of dehydration which did me no favours at all. It really is hot here and it's not even summer yet! I'm fine now and ready to put weight back on!
Many thanks to Peter for his company, for the laughs we've had and also for the benefit of his hard-won travelling experience. And above all for looking after me so well. That's what good sons are for!
India: what a place. Would I come back again ? Like a shot!
Back to you Pete..
Friday, 26 January 2007
T minus 5 hours...
It's a widely-accepted and readily verifiable fact that most things in India make no sense at all. The roads. The fondness among males for dying their hair orange. Most television adverts. I woke this morning - on Republic Day, a celebration of the nation and its beginnings as a proper democracy, a commemoration of emancipation from enslavement which gives rise every year to demonstrations of patriotism all over the subcontinent - to the sound of 'The Last Post', issuing mournfully from a bugle in the road outside. Yes, that's right, the people of India had thought it best to celebrate their ideological freedom and rebirth with a rendition the Remembrance Day - Remembrance Day - standard from the country they used to call king. Wrong, surely, on more than a million counts. Raising my eyebrows for the umpteenth time this week, I turned over and went back to sleep. India!
Seriously, I needn't give those eyebrows such a regular workout, because irony is almost entirely lost on a normal Indian. Or maybe they've just perfected the deadpan. You try outlasting the nearest taxi driver in a sarcasm contest after he has quoted your five times the going price for a trip to the station and you'll quickly realise he is utterly, tragically in earnest. Even the most convoluted bureaucratic procedures are treated with absolute seriousness. Every night, we've made it a ritual to meet up and exchange horror stories about the incomprehensible mess that is your average transaction with any Indian behind a desk. Getting small things done - even finding the place where one can get small things done - can take all day. Stephen, an Irish friend of mine who is also a freelance zoologist, has had more than his fair share of Indian bureaucracy. It took him a week after he arrived in the city, and countless letters and forms, to gain access to the Zoological Survey of India, where he will be performing vital working putting in order some of the enormous stock of specimens the museum has accrued. Apparently, in their average levels of organisation in this field, India is approximately 100 years behind the rest of the world. In one day, he informs me, shoved in a jar and presumed to be identical, he found eight different species of ghecko, four of which were completely new to science. Stories of this sort are usually met with the popular travellers' response, an expression of wonder, disbelief or exasperation...India!
He's been 'working with' these guys for about two weeks now. Every day at 10:30am, with commendable levels of optimism/frightening levels of delusion, Stephen saunters gaily down the street to the Zoological Survey. Ah ha, what is that I hear you huff so Britishly? Is 10:30 am the time to be starting an average working day, especially such vital work, attempting to restore India's international credibility in the field of zoology? Well, ideally, yes. Actually, I think Stephen would quickly skewer any opportunity to start work at 10:30am with a flick of his scalpel, to prevent it squirming away. He provides the conservative estimate, nightly, that in his whole time in Kolkata, the office workers have never appeared before 11:30am. The working day, typically, ends at 4:30.
But hold! An unlikely figure is hurrying down the road at the ungodly hour of 10, to single-handedly restore our faith in Indian dedication to the task. It is the security guard, never missed a mornin' in twenty years, guv'nor. Surely, then, this figure can redeem our beleaugered hero from his misery, and give him a much needed boost in his attempts to tackle the immense backlog of work which the Zoological Survey, through general laziness and incompetence, have carefully accrued over many years. Surely, there is hope! Actually, no, there is no hope whatsoever. It turns out that the manager of the Survey must arrive and sign out the key to the security guard, who can then unlock the door, before science can proceed on its trailblazing course. Every night, as Stevo drinks his whisky, his hands tremble more and more.
Laziness, indeed, isn't totally to blame, though it is endemic. The problem is that there are so many people to employ that most of them, once employed, just sit around doing nothing for the day, at least at street level. Three men do the work one would do in Britain. When you walk into a restaurant, there will be 3, maybe 4 waiters, sitting and staring, and it is an effort to recall even one of them back from whichever imaginative regions they were roaming for long enough to order a chai. Nobody even reads a book. No doubt in the info-commerce scrummages of Bangalore and Hyderabad, people are beavering away with admirable dedication, but I'm sorry, I just haven't seen enough of it so far. Perhaps this indifference to one's job has seeped up the system into the scientific laboratories. The laziness, though, wasn't my point. The upshot of having so many people to employ is that huge paper-chains of bureaucracy have been created - merely see the account of my visit to the Asiatic Society in the previous blog entry for an example - in which everybody knows their step, and possibly the one above and below, but nobody at all can tell you anything about the complete picture. Some guys must have been receiving people at their desks for years, filing and issuing the appropriate bits of paper, without really having a clue what, for instance, the name of the company they work for is, or what it is that this company actually does. If all the man-hours were correctly employed in, for instance, putting in place a system of waste-disposal more sophisticated than 'the cows will eat it', India would be cleaner than, I don't know, our back room (the one that is locked until visitors come).
It seems that a position and its powers are everything. In these paper chains, those above are called 'Sir', and those below call you 'Sir'. Phil, a clever American chap and my very English friend Roger distilled the Indian methods of powerplay into one basic tenet - ritual humiliation. If anyone can make you look small, they hold the upper hand. The blow could be as petty as insulting your cooking - something I witnessed in an Indian house very recently where the housekeeper was treated like dirt - but they all count. A man behind a comparatively big desk will lose his rag very quickly with an attendant, who is sent scurrying off down gloomy corridors on another pointless errand, perhaps to fetch some bloody pride. I'm sorry, I'm typing this out for the second time after the local internet crashed, so if I seem slightly exasperated, you'll know why.
You have to understand that the mood of the foreign traveller fluctuates wildly over here. At best, you are merely bemused, revelling in the freedom of living in a place where a smile or a shove will get you so far; at worst, you are cursing the day you ever set foot inside the Foreigner's Registration Office, attempting the inoffensive task of obtaining a pass for the north-east. This means that, probably, for negative point I've outlined above, India has a great and unique pro. It is, for instance, possibly the only place in the world where you can watch jazz legend Herbie Hancock perform for three hours with Wayne Shorter for the equivalent of about one quid fifty. This I did, with a Norwegian friend of mine and his English girlfriend. What else have I done? I woke up at 8am one day, on the spur of the moment, to go and find someone to play football with on the Maidan. I came across one game, consisting of about 30 middle-aged Indians haring around a pitch with apparently no touchline. Someone would just boot it and off they'd go. The quality of the play was utterly appalling and I quite fancied my chances. Only problem was that I was wearing sandals - they were the most solid shoes I had, an improvement on flip-flops. I put on some socks to complete the illusion, which fooled no-one. Got into a scuffle with a fat old Sikh who decided to give the foreigner some of the John Terry treatment - it was quite liberating to scream some of the foulest things you know at somebody, knowing they have utterly no comprehension of what you're saying. We made it up and they invited me back the next day, but, alas, the urge to wake up before 10am had deserted me.
What then? I've been staying in dorms at the Paragon, a local hotel which has been popular with travellers for thirty years, and made some really good friends. Got to know a load of the Koreans, and was very sad to say goodbye to them. Buying a guitar was the best decision I've made so far out here, it's very good for building bridges. Only problem is it's bust again. A few days ago, I ventured to Raipur to visit Dixie at her NGO offices. I'll let her tell you about what the place is like in her blog, but suffice to say that on the way back I had another train-related mishap (kicked the guitar off the bunk in my sleep). Actually I had a lovely few days, good to get out of this city, which is comfy and tends to sap your time. Dixie is staying in the region of India with possibly the fewest tourists - we amassed crowds when we went for a stroll, and were given free chai. Dixie's housekeeper, a certain Saros, is a living legend, and her employer and his silent cousin are also very nice. We sat on the roof one night and played the guitar, and everyone had a sing - you see what I mean?
Back in Cal, I went to visit the College Street market, which houses apparently the biggest collection of books in Asia. It's quite a surreal experience to debate the relative literary merits of George Eliot and Shakespeare with an Indian shopowner as part of a haggle. India! Won't say too much about that because I'm planning to take Dad there...
That's right, in approximately three hours now, Beech Senior will touch down at Dum Dum airport, Kolkata. I've a rough itinerary to take up the first few days, but to be honest I want to keep it loose, give him a flavour of what travelling is really like over here. Might even let him say a few words in the blog. We'll be heading down to Orissa, a predominantly tribal region of India, possibly the location of the elusive 'Old India' so many tourists seem to be seeking. I'll let you know. Until then, Indians beware, the Beech boys may be utterly lost in a street near you...
Seriously, I needn't give those eyebrows such a regular workout, because irony is almost entirely lost on a normal Indian. Or maybe they've just perfected the deadpan. You try outlasting the nearest taxi driver in a sarcasm contest after he has quoted your five times the going price for a trip to the station and you'll quickly realise he is utterly, tragically in earnest. Even the most convoluted bureaucratic procedures are treated with absolute seriousness. Every night, we've made it a ritual to meet up and exchange horror stories about the incomprehensible mess that is your average transaction with any Indian behind a desk. Getting small things done - even finding the place where one can get small things done - can take all day. Stephen, an Irish friend of mine who is also a freelance zoologist, has had more than his fair share of Indian bureaucracy. It took him a week after he arrived in the city, and countless letters and forms, to gain access to the Zoological Survey of India, where he will be performing vital working putting in order some of the enormous stock of specimens the museum has accrued. Apparently, in their average levels of organisation in this field, India is approximately 100 years behind the rest of the world. In one day, he informs me, shoved in a jar and presumed to be identical, he found eight different species of ghecko, four of which were completely new to science. Stories of this sort are usually met with the popular travellers' response, an expression of wonder, disbelief or exasperation...India!
He's been 'working with' these guys for about two weeks now. Every day at 10:30am, with commendable levels of optimism/frightening levels of delusion, Stephen saunters gaily down the street to the Zoological Survey. Ah ha, what is that I hear you huff so Britishly? Is 10:30 am the time to be starting an average working day, especially such vital work, attempting to restore India's international credibility in the field of zoology? Well, ideally, yes. Actually, I think Stephen would quickly skewer any opportunity to start work at 10:30am with a flick of his scalpel, to prevent it squirming away. He provides the conservative estimate, nightly, that in his whole time in Kolkata, the office workers have never appeared before 11:30am. The working day, typically, ends at 4:30.
But hold! An unlikely figure is hurrying down the road at the ungodly hour of 10, to single-handedly restore our faith in Indian dedication to the task. It is the security guard, never missed a mornin' in twenty years, guv'nor. Surely, then, this figure can redeem our beleaugered hero from his misery, and give him a much needed boost in his attempts to tackle the immense backlog of work which the Zoological Survey, through general laziness and incompetence, have carefully accrued over many years. Surely, there is hope! Actually, no, there is no hope whatsoever. It turns out that the manager of the Survey must arrive and sign out the key to the security guard, who can then unlock the door, before science can proceed on its trailblazing course. Every night, as Stevo drinks his whisky, his hands tremble more and more.
Laziness, indeed, isn't totally to blame, though it is endemic. The problem is that there are so many people to employ that most of them, once employed, just sit around doing nothing for the day, at least at street level. Three men do the work one would do in Britain. When you walk into a restaurant, there will be 3, maybe 4 waiters, sitting and staring, and it is an effort to recall even one of them back from whichever imaginative regions they were roaming for long enough to order a chai. Nobody even reads a book. No doubt in the info-commerce scrummages of Bangalore and Hyderabad, people are beavering away with admirable dedication, but I'm sorry, I just haven't seen enough of it so far. Perhaps this indifference to one's job has seeped up the system into the scientific laboratories. The laziness, though, wasn't my point. The upshot of having so many people to employ is that huge paper-chains of bureaucracy have been created - merely see the account of my visit to the Asiatic Society in the previous blog entry for an example - in which everybody knows their step, and possibly the one above and below, but nobody at all can tell you anything about the complete picture. Some guys must have been receiving people at their desks for years, filing and issuing the appropriate bits of paper, without really having a clue what, for instance, the name of the company they work for is, or what it is that this company actually does. If all the man-hours were correctly employed in, for instance, putting in place a system of waste-disposal more sophisticated than 'the cows will eat it', India would be cleaner than, I don't know, our back room (the one that is locked until visitors come).
It seems that a position and its powers are everything. In these paper chains, those above are called 'Sir', and those below call you 'Sir'. Phil, a clever American chap and my very English friend Roger distilled the Indian methods of powerplay into one basic tenet - ritual humiliation. If anyone can make you look small, they hold the upper hand. The blow could be as petty as insulting your cooking - something I witnessed in an Indian house very recently where the housekeeper was treated like dirt - but they all count. A man behind a comparatively big desk will lose his rag very quickly with an attendant, who is sent scurrying off down gloomy corridors on another pointless errand, perhaps to fetch some bloody pride. I'm sorry, I'm typing this out for the second time after the local internet crashed, so if I seem slightly exasperated, you'll know why.
You have to understand that the mood of the foreign traveller fluctuates wildly over here. At best, you are merely bemused, revelling in the freedom of living in a place where a smile or a shove will get you so far; at worst, you are cursing the day you ever set foot inside the Foreigner's Registration Office, attempting the inoffensive task of obtaining a pass for the north-east. This means that, probably, for negative point I've outlined above, India has a great and unique pro. It is, for instance, possibly the only place in the world where you can watch jazz legend Herbie Hancock perform for three hours with Wayne Shorter for the equivalent of about one quid fifty. This I did, with a Norwegian friend of mine and his English girlfriend. What else have I done? I woke up at 8am one day, on the spur of the moment, to go and find someone to play football with on the Maidan. I came across one game, consisting of about 30 middle-aged Indians haring around a pitch with apparently no touchline. Someone would just boot it and off they'd go. The quality of the play was utterly appalling and I quite fancied my chances. Only problem was that I was wearing sandals - they were the most solid shoes I had, an improvement on flip-flops. I put on some socks to complete the illusion, which fooled no-one. Got into a scuffle with a fat old Sikh who decided to give the foreigner some of the John Terry treatment - it was quite liberating to scream some of the foulest things you know at somebody, knowing they have utterly no comprehension of what you're saying. We made it up and they invited me back the next day, but, alas, the urge to wake up before 10am had deserted me.
What then? I've been staying in dorms at the Paragon, a local hotel which has been popular with travellers for thirty years, and made some really good friends. Got to know a load of the Koreans, and was very sad to say goodbye to them. Buying a guitar was the best decision I've made so far out here, it's very good for building bridges. Only problem is it's bust again. A few days ago, I ventured to Raipur to visit Dixie at her NGO offices. I'll let her tell you about what the place is like in her blog, but suffice to say that on the way back I had another train-related mishap (kicked the guitar off the bunk in my sleep). Actually I had a lovely few days, good to get out of this city, which is comfy and tends to sap your time. Dixie is staying in the region of India with possibly the fewest tourists - we amassed crowds when we went for a stroll, and were given free chai. Dixie's housekeeper, a certain Saros, is a living legend, and her employer and his silent cousin are also very nice. We sat on the roof one night and played the guitar, and everyone had a sing - you see what I mean?
Back in Cal, I went to visit the College Street market, which houses apparently the biggest collection of books in Asia. It's quite a surreal experience to debate the relative literary merits of George Eliot and Shakespeare with an Indian shopowner as part of a haggle. India! Won't say too much about that because I'm planning to take Dad there...
That's right, in approximately three hours now, Beech Senior will touch down at Dum Dum airport, Kolkata. I've a rough itinerary to take up the first few days, but to be honest I want to keep it loose, give him a flavour of what travelling is really like over here. Might even let him say a few words in the blog. We'll be heading down to Orissa, a predominantly tribal region of India, possibly the location of the elusive 'Old India' so many tourists seem to be seeking. I'll let you know. Until then, Indians beware, the Beech boys may be utterly lost in a street near you...
Friday, 12 January 2007
Back to business
Right, time to fill in some gaps.
First things first: if you want to hear amusing and graphic descriptions of burping waiters and marauding goats, please visit Dixie's blog, dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com. She's funnier than I am, and besides, she has a much better memory for the specifics of bodily functions.
It's the fifth of January. Our two protagonists are (sob) soon to be separated: Dixie is going south tomorrow, to work in Chattisgarh for three months. And how did we celebrate our last day together? By visiting a graveyard. Actually it was a lovely spot, with row upon row of tombs belonging to British officers or their 'virtuous' and 'artless' spouses and daughters - Hindus, of course, cremate their dead, so a graveyard is quite a rarity in India, especially one so calm and sad. Struck by a particularly beautiful epitaph, I had whipped out my journal to take it down when, very suddenly, something else became much more important. The nearest toilet was a desperate five-minute mince down the road.
Ha ha! Dignity (fully) restored, I rejoined Dixie in the graveyard and we briefly doubted the moral correctness of playing cards over somebody's eternal resting place, and did anyway. Then, continuing our attempts to forego the comforts of the West, we perused a Borders-style bookshop and took Assam tea and lattes in the upstairs cafe. Dinner that evening featured no burping waiters but a wealth of undercooked chicken instead.
And, on the 6th, the time came for us to say goodbye! Please, stay strong, everyone. We got up late, for old times' sake, and packed with heavy hearts. The day's excursion was to Dalhousie Square (renamed, wickedly, after the three renegades executed for attempting to assassinate Williams Dalhousie). Bizarrely refused a picture of the place, we dodged the trams and taxis to a local lake/cesspool. After sulking our way back downtown to pick up our bags, and then sulking our way to the station, it was time to leave. I saw her off at Platform 19, where we kissed publicly a lot more than we were respectfully and even legally supposed to. In honour of
mum I ran alongside the train as it took off, and endured the bemused gazes of a platformful of Indians on the long trudge back.
Sudder Street has quite a few characters. Besides the profusion of three-legged animals there's a blind man who sings like an angel around town every night, a couple of deaf lads who make jokes to each other about you in sign as you sit eating at their stall, and your usual share of burned out hippies. In my dorm there lives an weird old American woman called Maggie. She might seriously be anything from an incredibly wrinkled 40 to an incredibly wrinkled 90. As far as I know she's as old as time itself. This decrepitude unfortunately doesn't extend to her flirting - she keeps pinching our cheeks, me and Roger, and calling us 'lovely lads' in her croaky, undead Californian twang. You have to be very careful if she mentions her foot - there is a story that goes along with how she injured it, but it's not worth the effort of listening, not even the first time round. I think I will hear the terrifying sound of her snoring in the night for a long, long time.
That night, I was staying in the Hotel Maria - in a dorm, for a paltry 70 Rs. a night. I've since moved down the road to the Hotel Paragon, which is ten ruperts more but has a nice roof where you can sit and read a book/escape Maggie. I've made some great friends, English, Irish, French, Belgian, and am on nodding terms with about a million Koreans - a big volunteer party. Last night one of the Frenchies was leaving. Rafael his name, and he's so bloody French he should have accordion music accompanying him wherever he goes. We all had celebratory chai on the roof, before the Koreans took over.
And that, I suppose, is it. There was the advert, which was a lot of waiting around and a few moments of pure Indian farce, in organisational terms. They made the classic mistake of employing shepherds and their flock to make up the backshot (this is on the Maidan, in the very centre of Kolkata city), and I'll never forget the irate director screaming 'Will somebody move those fucking sheep?' down the microphone. Yesterday, I finally managed, after several days of trying, to get into the Asiatic Society, after several days of trying - it seems they open when they feel like it. It consists of a huge library and musuem, an endless corridors and dark offices and clerks sitting around covered in dust and reams and reams of paper. As a visitor to that library, I personally used up two or three acres of rainforest. I entered the building, signed a ledger, was sent upstairs to the library, then sent up to the third floor to get permission to enter the library and sign a ledger, then back down to the first floor to deposit my bag and sign another ledger, then into the library and into the office of the chief librarian who issued me a temporary pass in order that I might actually be able to read a book after I had, yes, signed a ledger. It was like something out of a Kafka novel, a nightmare vision of bureaucracy gone mad. And getting a book was no mean feat. You must browse the catalogue, fill out two forms indicating title, author's name, catalogue number, time of requisition, your name and your pass number. Anything from ten minutes to two hours later, a librarian will shuffle up to you with an old, wood-worm riddled tome. By this time, you have already gone mad and are chewing on your shoes.
There has been civil strife in 'Cal'. Something to do with land assignation. Whatever it is, some people are very unhappy, and on Monday a mob marched through the streets forcing shop and restaurant owners to close or be trashed. In other parts of the city, there are riots and violent demonstrations, even a few lynchings. In the newspaper yesterday, I read the testimony of one little boy, who watched his father pleading for mercy before a mob kicked him to death and threw him on a fire. It seems he had criticised the action of tearing up the roads, taken in order to stop government troops from entering the suburb. Chastening stuff, anyway.
But life on peaceful Sudder Street ambles on. I am in one of the three internet cafes, soon to be at work once more on my application for MA funding. I get the feeling I may be guilt-tripped into doing charity work while I'm here, but for the moment I can be lazy and selfish and use Shakespeare as an excuse to hide behind - he really is a writer for all occasions.
First things first: if you want to hear amusing and graphic descriptions of burping waiters and marauding goats, please visit Dixie's blog, dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com. She's funnier than I am, and besides, she has a much better memory for the specifics of bodily functions.
It's the fifth of January. Our two protagonists are (sob) soon to be separated: Dixie is going south tomorrow, to work in Chattisgarh for three months. And how did we celebrate our last day together? By visiting a graveyard. Actually it was a lovely spot, with row upon row of tombs belonging to British officers or their 'virtuous' and 'artless' spouses and daughters - Hindus, of course, cremate their dead, so a graveyard is quite a rarity in India, especially one so calm and sad. Struck by a particularly beautiful epitaph, I had whipped out my journal to take it down when, very suddenly, something else became much more important. The nearest toilet was a desperate five-minute mince down the road.
Ha ha! Dignity (fully) restored, I rejoined Dixie in the graveyard and we briefly doubted the moral correctness of playing cards over somebody's eternal resting place, and did anyway. Then, continuing our attempts to forego the comforts of the West, we perused a Borders-style bookshop and took Assam tea and lattes in the upstairs cafe. Dinner that evening featured no burping waiters but a wealth of undercooked chicken instead.
And, on the 6th, the time came for us to say goodbye! Please, stay strong, everyone. We got up late, for old times' sake, and packed with heavy hearts. The day's excursion was to Dalhousie Square (renamed, wickedly, after the three renegades executed for attempting to assassinate Williams Dalhousie). Bizarrely refused a picture of the place, we dodged the trams and taxis to a local lake/cesspool. After sulking our way back downtown to pick up our bags, and then sulking our way to the station, it was time to leave. I saw her off at Platform 19, where we kissed publicly a lot more than we were respectfully and even legally supposed to. In honour of
mum I ran alongside the train as it took off, and endured the bemused gazes of a platformful of Indians on the long trudge back.
Sudder Street has quite a few characters. Besides the profusion of three-legged animals there's a blind man who sings like an angel around town every night, a couple of deaf lads who make jokes to each other about you in sign as you sit eating at their stall, and your usual share of burned out hippies. In my dorm there lives an weird old American woman called Maggie. She might seriously be anything from an incredibly wrinkled 40 to an incredibly wrinkled 90. As far as I know she's as old as time itself. This decrepitude unfortunately doesn't extend to her flirting - she keeps pinching our cheeks, me and Roger, and calling us 'lovely lads' in her croaky, undead Californian twang. You have to be very careful if she mentions her foot - there is a story that goes along with how she injured it, but it's not worth the effort of listening, not even the first time round. I think I will hear the terrifying sound of her snoring in the night for a long, long time.
That night, I was staying in the Hotel Maria - in a dorm, for a paltry 70 Rs. a night. I've since moved down the road to the Hotel Paragon, which is ten ruperts more but has a nice roof where you can sit and read a book/escape Maggie. I've made some great friends, English, Irish, French, Belgian, and am on nodding terms with about a million Koreans - a big volunteer party. Last night one of the Frenchies was leaving. Rafael his name, and he's so bloody French he should have accordion music accompanying him wherever he goes. We all had celebratory chai on the roof, before the Koreans took over.
And that, I suppose, is it. There was the advert, which was a lot of waiting around and a few moments of pure Indian farce, in organisational terms. They made the classic mistake of employing shepherds and their flock to make up the backshot (this is on the Maidan, in the very centre of Kolkata city), and I'll never forget the irate director screaming 'Will somebody move those fucking sheep?' down the microphone. Yesterday, I finally managed, after several days of trying, to get into the Asiatic Society, after several days of trying - it seems they open when they feel like it. It consists of a huge library and musuem, an endless corridors and dark offices and clerks sitting around covered in dust and reams and reams of paper. As a visitor to that library, I personally used up two or three acres of rainforest. I entered the building, signed a ledger, was sent upstairs to the library, then sent up to the third floor to get permission to enter the library and sign a ledger, then back down to the first floor to deposit my bag and sign another ledger, then into the library and into the office of the chief librarian who issued me a temporary pass in order that I might actually be able to read a book after I had, yes, signed a ledger. It was like something out of a Kafka novel, a nightmare vision of bureaucracy gone mad. And getting a book was no mean feat. You must browse the catalogue, fill out two forms indicating title, author's name, catalogue number, time of requisition, your name and your pass number. Anything from ten minutes to two hours later, a librarian will shuffle up to you with an old, wood-worm riddled tome. By this time, you have already gone mad and are chewing on your shoes.
There has been civil strife in 'Cal'. Something to do with land assignation. Whatever it is, some people are very unhappy, and on Monday a mob marched through the streets forcing shop and restaurant owners to close or be trashed. In other parts of the city, there are riots and violent demonstrations, even a few lynchings. In the newspaper yesterday, I read the testimony of one little boy, who watched his father pleading for mercy before a mob kicked him to death and threw him on a fire. It seems he had criticised the action of tearing up the roads, taken in order to stop government troops from entering the suburb. Chastening stuff, anyway.
But life on peaceful Sudder Street ambles on. I am in one of the three internet cafes, soon to be at work once more on my application for MA funding. I get the feeling I may be guilt-tripped into doing charity work while I'm here, but for the moment I can be lazy and selfish and use Shakespeare as an excuse to hide behind - he really is a writer for all occasions.
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
For me and my Cal
Hey guys, quick post. Spent my first week as a twenty-two year old in 'Cal', as the hip young things around here call it. Been working on my Shakespeare funding application, sleeping, drinking, writing, altogether having a pretty good time. I've discovered a whole new way of living, incredibly cheaply, by eating on the street. Today, I've spent about 28 Rs. on breakfast and dinner. That's about 35p.
Met some cool people - lots of English here, actually, and, regrettably, some Welsh. Yesterday I was in a TV commercial, lots of rich folk from Mumbai ordering us around, but paid us 500 Rs. each! That's Hollywood, baby.
Hope everyone's well.
Met some cool people - lots of English here, actually, and, regrettably, some Welsh. Yesterday I was in a TV commercial, lots of rich folk from Mumbai ordering us around, but paid us 500 Rs. each! That's Hollywood, baby.
Hope everyone's well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)