How to Outdrink the INDIANS

Editor's note: Again, click on the photo to see it in proper size.


There's not much of a boozer culture in India, which is normal, considering the country is so poor. Those who do make it into the drinking arena are worth a word or two, because there's quite a few of them in England nowadays. I became acquainted with my first Indian friends before I actually went to their country, and the cultural connection between them and the English already made itself evident. They're more used to getting stoned than drunk, but when they do drink, they adopt the same boisterous attitude as the Brits.

And yet, while the English have had thousands of years to develop a refined drinking culture, the Indians have only stumbled into the Westernised drinking ways as of very late. Consequently, they have little or no idea of how to handle things. Indians are very easy to outdrink not because they are bad drinkers, per se. It's just that they're such suckers. I once challenged an Indian to a vodka competition and proceeded to substitute the contents of my own bottle with water, then downing triple and quadruple shots while he struggled to follow. He went down like the walls of Constantinople.

I'm not saying you necessarily have to cheat, to beat an Indian. I only did that because I'd legitimately beaten the daylights out of that same guy on a previous drinking competition, one which ended with me and three other people carrying the fatso to his room over four flights of stairs, and instead of acknowledging defeat, he insisted that he'd *won* it. Like the purpose of the game was to be the first to wipe the floor with your lips. So he was calling for punishment, that guy.

But in general, Indians usually destroy themselves with their own hands by choosing the worst possible conditions to drink. They drink in the wrong order, they can't pace themselves, they never know what they're drinking, and they can't recognise a trap or a feint from a mile away. Hell, I remember on one occasion I got drunk in India, I went around the bar telling people I was a medium who'd come to Mumbai in search of a ghost, and I started 'reading minds' and shit. People actually believed that. I predicted the future of a married couple and they were taking me so seriously that I had to stop. Indians are great fun to drink with, and they're among the most hospitable people in the world, you should only be aware that they're highly polemical. If you beat one (and I don't see how the fuck you could fail to do that), you'll probably hear no end of it for weeks. They'll rave ad infinitum on how they were drinking more than you were, how that night they were having a stomach-ache, how they could kick your ass from here to Neptune and back on a Rikshaw, and so on. The solution to this is not that hard, thankfully. Just challenge them and beat them again. Eventually they'll learn to shut the fuck up.

Besides, showing a little wisdom really is in your best interest, because you could hurt yourself if you just play by their rules. I remember on another occasion in Goa we almost fucking killed ourselves by diluting a bottle of whisky into plastic glasses of water, then getting stoned and finally going to sleep in a room with the air-conditioning on. I almost went into hybernation when the temperature outside was 42 degrees Celsius in the shade, if I hadn't woken up twice for an impelling need to vomit, I probably wouldn't be here writing these lines now.

There is no strategy required to beating an Indian. Just start drinking, and watch them stumble on their own idiocies. In a few hundred years they may be proper challengers.

Journal of India: Jaipur, Agra, and last call at Delhi

Here's the last two entries. I made my way back North on a plane, reaching Jaipur first, then Agra, then back to Delhi - the Golden Triangle, as it is known. Jaipur and Agra are popular tourist destinations, and I'm glad I saved Agra for last. Oh yeah, the Lariam (mentioned in the Jaipur entry) is a pill I was taking every week to protect myself from malaria. There's no vaccination against this particular disease, alas.

City Palace

16.
Agra.

I reached Jaipur late at night and left it early in the morning, which allowed me for only one full day of exploration.

Jaipur is lovely, though the Pink City should be renamed Orange City (either that or I need a test to figure out whether I’m colour-blind). This was a real tourist town, with camels and elephants everywhere. I went to the City Palace, which was nice, and then to the Amber Fort, which was much more remarkable. No photo can ever do justice to that place. It is a huge complex of walls and buildings, red or white, climbing up and down the hills. I tried to walk to the nearby forts as well, but eventually decided the enormous distance was not worth the effort.

I went shopping instead. I purchased a pasmina for my mother and a silver ring for myself. Now I have to find something for my father.

I went to bed early, given that my train was at 06:10 the next morning. Even so, I got little sleep. The Lariam, for the first time in a few weeks, gave me such a strong nausea that I had trouble drifting away. The price to pay to protect oneself from malaria. Amen.

Taj Mahal

17.
Delhi.

I cannot think of a monument which left me as breathless as the Taj Mahal. A truly astounding work of architecture. The three-dimensional effect which it produces upon walking towards it is hypnotic. The appearance of the monument itself, white like a bride, is a highly unusual combination of straight-angled shapes and domes, and the harmony of scales between these figures is something quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. But I see that I am already slipping into rhetoric. It is hard to impress me with buildings, because I know little of architecture and, also, because I have seen so many. The Taj must go down in memory as one of the most outstanding. More than that cannot be said.

Similarly, little can be said about the rest of Agra, though in this case the legitimisation lies in the fact that there’s fuck-all to do in the city. The Taj Nature Walk is a waste of time – a handful of flowers arranged around a path, then you can climb over the fence and keep walking into a wasteland of dirt and bushes. I went to the Agra Fort, but by then I was really starting to run low on money (the Taj costs an insane 750 rupees to visit, about three times as much as most other monuments). I saw the Fort from the outside and it was really beautiful, but it also looked identical to all the other forts I’ve seen from Delhi to Hyderabad, so I chose to save my money and get back to Delhi in tranquillity. This I did, after a few hours reading Twilight at the train stations. Thank God for books. Journeys of this kind would really be impossible without them.

It looks like I am at the end. Tonight I have a dinner with Ashwini, Callie and Winnie. I spent the whole day resting. Tonight my plane is at 03:00 a.m.

Journal of India: Sunlight in Goa (Part 2)

Second entry on Goa, straight on from that monstrous first night.



15.

I did wake up, and though I didn’t eat anything until nightfall, I found the strength to drag myself to the beach. There, I took unexpected pleasure in the local water rides – basically balloons on which you sit as a boat tugs you over the waves for two minutes. A modest roller-coaster on water. One of them was called ‘the banana boat’, and you’re supposed to let go of your grip when it capsizes on the waves, so as to enjoy a dive in the sea. I did this, and my head was slammed against the water with such violence that, when combined with the hangover, it gave me the most epic migraine you can imagine.

At night we went to a music bar called Curlie’s. The music was excellent – powerful techno/house stuff – but no-one was dancing. The only exception was this bald, bare-chested, heavily tattooed, Tibetan-looking guy who was obviously out of it like a balcony. When Ashwini started going frantic again because we didn’t have any weed, I asked the Tibetan and he duly supplied us with some hash. I talked Ashwini out of his suicidal aspirations (the guy wanted to smoke there and then, but we’d come on a rented bike, and I told him that riding back in the dark, without helmets, a double load, in unfamiliar roads and furthermore high was not my idea of how best to reach old age), then we went home and smoked: on the roof of our house and, later, on the beach, watching the stars. At my insistence, we sat on a sort of natural step made of sand, which the sea had sculpted as a natural confine between dry and wet land, and where, I declaimed, ‘no wave could surely reach us.’ When the first surge of water rocketed onto our ridge at forty miles an hour as we happened to be holding our necks craned backwards to look at Orion, I barely managed to leap away like a puma, but Ashwini was not quite so fortunate, and he ended up soaked. He was slightly incensed thereafter.

As in Mumbai, I was taken off-guard by how strong the stuff was. Maybe it was just a variety that my body is not accustomed to, but after two joints I couldn’t hold up a conversation with my partner. It felt as though every word he said to me came with a time-lag of twelve seconds.

The next day was much a repeat of the first, with air-borne parachutes taking the place of balloons to be tugged by boats. As the sun went down we smoked, and Ashwini wanted to go to Curlie’s. I was uncomfortable with the idea of riding on the newly-rented scooter when high (I even took it around a bit myself during that day, proving what I have always argued: that even though I don’t possess a licence, I am perfectly capable of driving), so I suggested we let our heads clear on the beach for half an hour. There, we took two beds and started ordering beers, and that was the end of it. By the end of the night we’d imbibed so many Kingfishers and played so many drinking games that A. started feeling ill, couldn’t eat the food he’d just ordered, and we went home, where we collapsed without even smoking the second joint. The next day I was kind of sick again, though not nearly as bad as two days previous.

My impression of Goa has little of original, if anything at all. It is a land of dirt tracks and low houses, heavily oriented towards the outsiders, full of palm-trees and sunlight, and with a robust sea, thick and Indian, giving away the Caribbean garbs for what they are: camouflage.

Journal of India: Sunlight in Goa

Next stop after Mumbai were the beaches of Goa, which - I'd been told - were the best beaches within a thousand miles as well as a stoner's heaven. I'd planned it with Ashwini to get to this place during a weekend so he could join me for it, and we made this a proper time to relax. For once I didn't spend six hours a day roaming about, instead I just sat on the beach for three days straight, bathing, sunbathing, reading, getting massages, playing around and partying at night. I was so chilled for three days, in fact, that I didn't even update my journal - that's why the current entry was written in Jaipur.

It wasn't very culturally edifying, but it was probably the best three days of my three weeks in India (in fact I came back saying that next time I'd just spend all three weeks in Goa). I wrote two entries about Goa because I had to retrospectively sum up three full days, this is the first one, the next will be up tomorrow.

This is what a gas station looks like in Goa. Yeah, the bottles hold fuel.

14.
Jaipur

So long without updating!

After an extensive walk through Mumbai, at a rate rather ponderous due to the fact that I was carrying my luggage on my back, and inclusive of a brief visit to the Bazaar (larger in its presentation but otherwise not very different from the other markets in India), I hopped on my train and headed to Goa. Or, Magdaon, as the station is called.

Goa is a tropical paradise. I felt as though I’d returned to the Caribbean, but with a more picturesque setting and a less crystalline sea. It was also full of Westerners – apparently February is a good time to visit Goa, just after the peak season of Dec/Jan. On the bus to Calangute Beach I met some tourists (Indians in this case, from Mumbai) and asked for their assistance in finding a place to sleep, seen how they were looking for one too. It turns out to be an easy task; a man is waiting for us practically the moment we step off the bus.

Once I have the place, I take a walk to learn how to orient myself. Then I purchase a swimming suit, get changed at home and plunge in the sea. It is lovely. At home, I wait for Ashwini as the evening deepens, reading. He arrives, and immediately gets into an argument with the owner because he deems the price is too high. We decide to stay there two nights (as I’ve already paid) rather than the full three.

Ashwini is very eager to get hold of some weed, but the stuff they try to sell us in town looks bad. He suggests that we get drunk instead, and I acquiesce – something I’d come to regret, later. We purchase a bottle of whisky (‘One hundred pipers’) and walk home. By the beach, where the view of the stars is grandiose and pristine, I tell him stuff about the constellations, though in this sky I can only find Orion. Cassiopeia and the Great Bear make but brief apparitions to the North.

We do get drunk that night, mixing the whisky with water. We walk back to town, meet some drunkards on the beach, chat for a bit, go home and get to sleep. What a hellish night that was. I slept three hours, then woke up in pangs of stomach pain, went to vomit, went back to bed, slept fitfully, woke up to vomit again, froze under the covers due to the air-conditioning, and repeatedly woke up again to take a shit – I had, at last, contracted a real diarrhoea. The next day, I felt like I didn’t even want to wake up.

Esoterically holding a silvered beer bottle with a rose coming out of it, and a candle. I'm sure there's some symbolic meaning to that.

Journal of India: And now, Mumbai

The Gate of India, at the dock

I cannot discuss Mumbai without first sending out a huge thank you to Ratul Chakraborty, who hosted me for two nights while I was there. You made my permanence in that city immensely easier and more enjoyable. Said it once, I'll say it again: I owe you one, bro.

My entry for this city closes kind of in medias res. I was at a beach when I wrote it and after that I spent hours walking around the city (carrying my bag AND with the sprained ankle - bloody hell). I would have written something about that walk, which was wonderful despite the fatigue, but after Mumbai I ended up in Goa and I had a four/five-day break from my diary, so I kind of flew over that. I also give a very rough account of that night out in the city, which was pretty crazy (once I was drunk I pretended I was a medium here to exorcise a ghost, and I gave a spiritual reading to a recently-wed couple who were sold on it so completely that I began wondering if I didn't really possess occult powers). But it wasn't much different from many a fun night I've had back in old Europe, so I liquidated it with a couple of lines and concentrated on the day journeys instead. I still think that's very much for the best, given I must have tens of thousands of words in other entries on this blog about times in which I get tanked.

The central station. As British/Victorian as you can get

13.
Mumbai.

Mumbai is the most beautiful of the cities I have seen so far, or at least so it seems to me. It is certainly the most Western. I felt very comfortable in this city, and even the food was excellent. Upon my arrival at Ratul’s offices (an impressive rectangular curving building made of dark glass and steel), he took me to a restaurant at a nearby hotel. Increasingly I get the impression that hotels here serve a purpose similar to that of commercial malls in Europe. The restaurant was a classy and expensive self-service and the food was delicious, and Ratul took the bill – as he did that of the taxi, and, later, that of the beers. His kindness was mind-boggling, and also exceedingly welcome – I am running low on money and his contributions did a great deal to help me.

The next day I purchased some food in the streets. Some kind of a bread-ball with spicy mashed potato as filling – a small, fist-shaped sandwich, basically. Absolutely fantastic. I had two and then some sugar-cane juice.

On the first day I chilled out with Ratul and we went out that night for some beers with a few friends of his. I almost got carried off by an American and his own group of Indians to spend the whole night drinking, but when the guy lost his wallet and the night seemed to lose impetus (at the same rate as I sobered up, just about), I chose to take a taxi and go home.

On my second day, I took the local overground – even more cramped and combative than the tube in Delhi, it’s like a war-zone over here – down to Churchgate Station, whereupon I walked towards the docks, surprised at how Western everything looked. Even the traffic seemed slightly more urbane.

I saw the Gate of India and the gigantic Taj Mahal Hotel, then took a boat to the Elephanta caves. I landed on an island full of monkes, goats, dogs, some cows, and an infinity of tourist-stands. Climbing the island, I could visit the famous caves, where effigies from more than 1300 years ago had been carved in stone. The place was beautiful and felt very primal.

It took me two hours and a half to get home. Very boring. Ratul suggested we watch the Arsenal – Liverpool game, which was on at one a.m. local time, and he offered me some dope in the meantime. His friends had monopolized the laptop and were putting bland Pink Floyd or death metal videos. I’m not sure what to make of the local grass. I smoked half the joint on my own and I could barely feel it at first, but a few hours later I was so fucked that the air-waves from the fan on the ceiling were freaking me out because I couldn’t understand what they were when they brushed on my skin.

Eventually I passed out before the end of the match.

Today I woke up and watched the American tournaments of ice-skating while having breakfast. How graceful the girls were.

I left after that, picked up my bag at Ratul’s office, and now I’m here, in Chowpatty beach. The view is beautiful, as the beach is ringed by the city’s skyscrapers, but the sea looks horrendous to bathe in. It is brown and muddy.

My train tonight is at 11 p.m. I’ll spend the rest of this day walking around in the general direction of the station, as I usually do.

Sent some postcards today. They should get home about the same time as myself.

A picture of the first night out in Mumbai. Just for good measure. That's one lovely lovely glass.

Journal of India. The heart of the country: Hyderabad

The entry on Hyderabad is a bit thin - I didn't have much time since I was tending to the foot injury (see below), but I felt that a more accurate representation would be no more than a report of the various monuments/museums I saw, and that seemed a bit arid. The text was written on the train taking me to Mumbai, called the Mumbai express - hence the title. For the record, this was the most central point of arrival in my journeys, geographically speaking. Hyderabad is one of the largest and most ancient cities in India, and it bore some similarities with Delhi and Mumbai - huge, bustling, and not really oriented towards tourism (which is exactly what made it so beautiful).

Charminar

12.
Mumbai Express.

As for Hyderabad, the city was beautiful. The Charmindar, the Chambawalla palace and the Golconda Fort were all phenomenal. The Salaar Jung Museum and the Buddha statue were a little less memorable, but overall the city was definitely worth the visit.

It also proved rather unlucky. On my first day, while hopping down the final steps of the Charmindar, I twisted my ankle. Very painful. The people working at the monument helped me treat the injury, and were exceedingly kind. Furthermore they would not take any money, something which impressed and surprised me – I thought I was in their bad books because they’d offered me a guided tour for 250 rupees and I’d argued it down to 100. I purchased some medication at a pharmacy and went back to the hotel.

I’d booked a tour with a driver for the next day. Walking the extense of the Golconda Fort with the strain was a bitch, but I took frequent pauses and managed to limp my way through most everything, including the hill.

As in Delhi and Chennai, I was often stopped by groups of local young men who asked me to take a photo with them. What an odd thing – are we Europeans really so rare here? When walking down the steps of the Fort, I crossed a school-trip. Literally hundreds of girls in their little blue uniforms. I paused and sat on a boulder to rest my sore foot, and as the procession streamed by, they repeatedly asked me my name and country of origin. A group of them grew bolder and stopped to make further enquiries. Soon I was surrounded by these twelve-year-old girls eager to speak with the local attraction. It was one of the most amusing conversations in a while. They taught me a few words in their language and squeaked collectively whenever I pronounced one of them correctly. They asked me what I thought of India too, and suggested a local dish which I should try – the Biriani, if I’m spelling this right. In the end their teacher succeeded in her breathless effort to wrench them from me, and they walked away upwards with me still laughing.

In Hyderabad I slept at a real hotel. Needless to say, the moment that I step into a place with a Western toilet, my metabolism – which in the guest houses and sleeper trains had been going at a rate of three turds a day – declares itself on strike and for 48 hours I don’t need to use the toilet. I should have known.

Mumbai is a few hours away. Next stop is with Ratul, a reader of my blog and articles online who offered me a place to stay. Who says that Internet writing doesn’t pay off?

I'm so damn pretty everyone in town wants a photo with me.

Journal of India: The big leap South to Chennai

Marina Beach

On my first night out in Delhi, I met this guy called Cartak who lived in Chennai and was going down there in a couple of days. Since I still didn't have a trajectory ready to go through India, and since the guy said I should go visit him so that we could go out again (the advantages of my personal charm!), I decided to make it my next stop after coming back from Haridwar. I booked a plane for a massive change in location (from far North-center to far South-East), but first I had things to attend to near Delhi...

Gurgaon

9.

Chennai.

I was hoping to make it an early night yesterday in view of my morning flight to Chennai, but it was Callie’s birthday, and we took her and Winnie out to celebrate. Ashwini brought his driver, so we chanced an evening of binge drinking in Gurgaon, a small town outside of Delhi, notable for being highly ‘commercial’, as my friends put it. Essentially this meant that it was full of large office buildings. We went inside some kind of hotel or commercial centre and it felt like being in New York, but with Indians.

On our way home, we dropped Winnie and then Callie, and on this second instance I went to stand by a tree, stuck two fingers into my mouth and vomited whatever alcohol was left in my stomach. I really wanted to sober up quickly: I had decided to go home, pick my bag and go straight for the airport, without pausing for the flimsy single hour of sleep I was going to get. I managed to sleep an hour and a half at the airport and almost three on the plane.

I landed in a lush tropical scenario. Chennai is mightily warmer than Delhi, more verdant and clearer in the air. I took a room in a guest house which had been suggested to me by a friend. 400 rupees a night and a rat-hole of a place which legitimated the cheap expense (cheap in European terms, at least – the one in Haridwar had been free of charge).

I chilled out for a half hour and then walked outside. The beginning was disorienting. We are already in the centre of the city and people seem uncertain as to what’s worth seeing here. As a way of giving myself an objective, I am now seeking a tourist office for some info. I am also seeking a cap and a pair of sandals, as an alternative to being cooked alive by the local sun.


10.

Chennai.

Superficially, Chennai strikes me as the most Christian of the cities I’ve seen in India. Several churches announced the rhetoric of Jesus, which resonated oddly in this place. Apparently one of their central monuments is a cathedral, that of Santhome (which I have not seen). There must have been a different emphasis in terms of colonization, here.

Sleeper class coach, from the inside


11.

Hyderabad Express.

On a train as I write these lines, in what is known as Sleeper Class. The cheapest of them all. There is nothing in these blue carriages other than sleeping benches sticking out of the walls, three tiers per wall, no sheets. It is fine by me. As long as the temperature stays clement, as it is now (much due to the tissues of wind that whip into the coach through the blue metal bars at the windows), I will call myself content. I call in at Hyderabad at 5:45 in the morning, discounting delays, and I’ll need to find myself an hotel.

Yesterday Cartak invited me to his place for lunch – there was a housewarming function and I joined them after the prayers. I sat on the floor by Cartak and a broad leaf was spread on the pavement before me. We sprinkled it with water, rubbed it clean, and food was poured upon it.

I will not deny that it was very trying. Eating with my hands was laborious as the food was more liquid than solid. Mostly it was rice mixed with vegetables and creamy stuff until it became some kind of porridge. The food at Ashwini’s place had been spicy to the event horizon, but it was always good. Here, the taste was unwelcome to my tongue and eating proved more of a chore than it was a pleasure. I finished the meal to avoid insulting my hosts.

One of the local uncles gave me a ride home on his bike, and I subsequently went to Marina Beach, where I sat reading for a few hours. More than a hundred metres of sand, then a green and troubled sea. It felt strangely foreign, as though even these waters spoke a different language than mine, in contrast with the ripples of the Mediterranean, so dear and close to me in memory. Cartak later called and we joined some friends of his cousin’s at the local university hostel. It is superfluous to specify that the conditions were not even remotely comparable to what we get in Europe (though they bear a vague resemblance to what I saw in the Caribbean). We all went on the roof, twelve of us, on a night of few stars. We were all men. The point of the gathering, as I understood it, was that of sitting in a circle and getting drunk together while sharing cigarettes. Not an unfamiliar experience. I wonder to what extent we may speak of contamination from the Western ways, or if instead this is no more than a universal drive towards state-of-consciousness alteration in the young.

Stealing the scene was as easy as it gets. I was aided by the fact that their transgression, as such, was just a case of ‘been there, done that’ for me. Also I had the sexual seniority – I was stunned to find that only two of these eleven kids were not virgin. One of them was Cartak, who was the only one aged 25 rather than 21, the other had fucked a prostitute. After a few hours my friends found me an auto and Cartak and his cousin escorted me home on their bike (rigorously without helmet, and with alcohol in their bodies, as seems to be the custom over here).

It took a while to fall asleep – the room in this guest house becomes an oven in the night, and it’s a good thing I don’t suffer mosquitoes (nonetheless, more than fifteen bites on the right arm alone).

I was allowed to sleep until late hours. The train on which I’m on departed at 16:45, and the guest house was no great distance from the station.

The sun is declining and a fat man is sleeping at my right, his soft hair brushing on my elbow. The Indian countryside, which seems immense, is tranquil and flat. The sight of human settlements, however, is desolating. Images of lacerating poverty, and mountains of garbage with encampments flourishing over them, and polluted rivers with cows and Indian buffalo wading through them, are set against a backdrop of ponderous Industrial development. Everywhere there seem to be factories or cities in construction.

The man on my right has begun to snore. My fellow travelers look rather bristled by the fact, and this gives me the quirky impression that there is a comical side to this situation, one which I can’t identify.

PS. I should add that the bats which soar over the local campus at night are the biggest flying objects I’ve ever seen short of aeroplanes. If it weren’t for the wings, I would have thought I was finally seeing the elephants.

Out in the streets of Chennai!

Journal of India: North towards the Himalayas

After Delhi, I took a train North to Haridwar, which is just below the Himalayas. Regrettably the mountains were too distant to really absorb much of them, but the city was beautiful, since I ended up there in the middle of a religious festival. The next day I went back to Delhi for a brief pit-stop before my plane, which would take me to Chennai.

Click on the photos to see them in full size!


6.
Haridwar

The train took me to this small river town across curtains of grey mist. It appears that Delhi is not the only place where transparent air makes for an uncommon good.

I took my first Rikshaw to find my guest house. A delightfully refreshing ride, but a single hole in the road will make these things swing like a rolling bell.

As soon as I was free, I walked out into the city, and I spent the best part of the next six hours walking. I occasionally sat down with some local gurus, mostly old men with long rasta hair. They didn’t strike me as particularly illuminated, more like a bunch of people who have smoked way too much weed over their lives. One of them offered me food, which I thought very kind (though I put my brake to my appetite due to the dubious hygiene). I made some efforts at communication after that, but he did not respond. He seemed more interested in attempting to seduce this local lady of thirty-odd-something, who in fact did possess some beauty. I excused myself, and as I left he ‘blessed’ me by printing a thumb of paint onto my forehead.

There were a great deal of these figures around because today the Kumbh was taking place, a festival involving the holy Gunga river. It is not unlike baptism in that you plunge in the current and are washed out of all your sins. Ashwini, on the phone, told me that I should jump in the river, and I suggested that he throw himself in the lake. Interested as I am in these religious rituals, I had a whole day of walking ahead of me and the logistics of bathing were very much in the way. I guess it’s going to be hell, after all.

At one stage I took a funicular up to a temple. The view was stupendous, the temple on the other hand was not. A couple of statues surrounded by a clusterfuck of souvenir shops. I was blessed (again), and this time they asked me money for it. Dream on, Siddharta.

One thing that impressed me greatly about this place was the fauna. After the cows, dogs, goats and pigs, this time it was the turn of the monkeys. Small grey apes that roamed all over the place and climbed on just about anything. They were even at the station. I also saw the usual eagles, and – amid the assortment of birds – a number of beautiful green parrots. Didn’t know they belonged in this place.

I walked down the temple by the steps, all the while thanking God that I hadn’t found this track upwards when looking for it (it was one of those legendary temples with an infinity of vertical steps climbing over the mountain, and the way down was enough to dehydrate me like a camel).

I then went to the house and ate (a meal based on six Kit Kats, such was my level of exhaustion). I walked out again later for a breath of fresh air before going to sleep. En passant, I popped into a temple where this group of a dozen kids and a crone were sitting cross-legged and chanting. One of them motioned to me and I walked in. The temple was small and clearly quite poor, yet it felt ever so much more sincere and appeasing than the one at the top of the mountain. I left early though – I was tired, the singing was getting repetitive, and I was anxious someone would steal my shoes, which I had left outside in the haste.

It is barely nine o’ clock, but I shall get myself ready for bed. My train is at 6.10 a.m. tomorrow and I feel exhausted. I am going to need a holiday when I come back from the holiday.

The funicular, with my glossy new glasses...

7.
Delhi (briefly)

I wonder why in Delhi taking the metro feels like going to the airport. Scanners, bag-checking and soldiers with machine-guns.


8.
About those ‘gurus’ with long hair, I wonder what I was expecting. Probably nothing, which is why I’m not feeling disappointed. They were the guys who coined the term ‘illumination’ (whatever the original word may have signified), one which I find much more appropriate to indicate a wo/man’s goal in life than ‘happiness’ (the European telos).

So perhaps I was wondering what it would feel like to come in touch with other ‘illuminated’ people. But of course I felt nothing, other than the simple pleasure of sitting in peace with other people (and that doesn’t require illuminated companions). After all, if illumination is no more than realising that you don’t need illumination, what could these people possibly give me – other than their company – or tell me?

...and the view from it.

Journey through India: Walking through Delhi

My trip through India was officially inaugurated with a couple of days spent in Delhi, at the house of a friend of mine called Ashwini. The first five entries were written at that time, including the two which I am omitting from this blog.



3.
Delhi.

A bit more considered, now. I left from Kanhaiya Nagar and took a stop at Chandni Chow. Very impressive. A crowded, old part of Delhi, all markets and hustle. I took a glance at the Red Fort, chose against visiting it inside for questions of time, repelled the onslaught of paraphernalia merchants, and got back on the metro for Connaught Place. Decidedly less impressive – an open circle of grass surrounded by rings of traffic. The place was empty and dispersive, and for some reason Indians find it superfluous to put up signs with the names of roads, so the map was as good as useless. A bird shat on my shoe (perhaps some other animal – if it was a bird, it must have been a real juggernaut to leave a plop that size), so I had it cleaned and was charged 1500 rupies. I only paid 1000, but it’s still obvious that I let myself be swindled. Never without a blooper, the first day in a foreign country.

From there I walked to India Gate, despite multiple warnings (including Ashwini’s earlier that day) that it would take 40-60 minutes. I did it in 25, and with breaks for photos and road-crossing. I regret not contributing to the local private transport business, but I reckoned I’d done enough for that of shoe hygiene.
India Gate was good. I felt I should have taken someone with me to take pictures. But of course the most altering sights were those which could not be put on camera. Two children, a boy and a girl under the age of ten, came to sell me trinkets. They were dressed in the most gorgeous robes and they were heartbreaking. I purchased nothing from them – it’s not a business I want to encourage – and obviously I didn’t take a photo.

After a brief detour around the stadium, stopping at a park of ruins for my first journal entry, I came to the Muslim monuments of Indra Prastha and Pirana Qila (the Owl Fort), assuming that I’m reading this map correctly, which were set in rather solitary parks. Nice, but run-of-the-mill. When deprived of its people (and the constant fresco of power which they project), the sceneries of India become ever so much more bland. Besides, ‘monuments’ are not exactly the kind of items we are lacking in Europe.

Local metro is efficient but crowded. Have never seen anything like the shove-fest that took place to get on the trains after six. Not in a violent way – the men there seemed to be amusing themselves, and in truth so was I.

Taking the tube in India generally involves more controls than taking a plane. You can just see the metal detectors in there. Just after I took this photo, a soldier came up and told me pictures weren't allowed. (why?)

4.
Delhi.

Woke up late (as per schedule), enjoyed a tasty breakfast, then set off. Ashwini was free today, so I wandered about with him. We picked up Callie with the car, then went to the ruins of Qutub Minar. Lovely, despite my status as ‘veteran of monuments.’ Perhaps it was yesterday’s fort which was kind of unremarkable.

The temperature was sweltering. Once finished with the stone relics, we went to the temple of Iskcon, dedicated to the worship of Krishna. As per yesterday, the best part of the trip was that which eschewed the camera. The inside of the temple, with its worshippers and esoteric art, was very moving (soothing, as all religious places). Its art seemed centered around a sweet, lovely and ambiguous smile which immediately made me think of the Mona Lisa (I don’t know whether this stuff is representative of truly Hindu art or not).

Outside the temple was a small altar surrounded by an open space. On the marble floor were painted flowers – red, then blue, then yellow – which drew a spiral and led from the outside of the altar. A spiritual ritual involved stepping on each of the flowers, reciting a formula with each step, until reaching Krishna in the centre. I walked the path of flowers and stood before his enigmatic smile. Every step felt like a metaphor, charged with meaning and events (being overtaken unlawfully by a little girl, receiving advice from Ashwini, seeing the seemingly mocking smiles of two youths by the terrace). When I reached Krishna, I spontaneously knelt before him. Then I stood and left him to his silence. I did all this with a garland of flowers around my neck. I hadn’t sought after it, but when the local priest started distributing flowers, one of the guards smiled at me (not without some irony) and tossed me a garland. Real flowers, mostly white with a few red and yellow islands, sweetly scented. Perhaps it’s not hard to move the heart of an outsider, but I was touched.

We later went for a meal from a street kitchen. Momos, which are a kind of chicken tortellini, Panipuri and Golgappas, the latter being sort of crunchy balls with a hole filled with spices, dunked in sauce. All lovely, and obviously all spicy. We closed with some pretty bland ice-cream.

Currently got home, finished booking flight to Chennai, working on how to get to Haridwar.

5.
Delhi – Chawni Bazar.

Here’s everything that India is supposed to be. An agglomeration of street commerce, housing, education and transport, each street a scarf of chaos that runs through, across, below and around the buildings. Nothing is taller than three storeys. There’s so much stuff around that the eye struggles to embrace it all. Boxes, tyres, sacks of all varieties, building material, sand, scooters, sleeping dogs, cows and calves, and all kinds of goods to be sold, from food and clothes to jewellery, tools, vehicles and raw materials. Bikes, scooters and pedal-propelled carriages dart across the concrete, beeping their way through the crowds and the carts. Above, cables hang across every building and from thick poles, often limply, often tied together to form a single fat rope of electrical wire. The sky is hazed here in Delhi, even in this temperate season. The air is dense and quickly makes you feel like your mouth is full of chalk.

People frequently gaze at me, especially when I’m writing. As I jot these lines down, the eyes of almost all passers-by turn to me before looking down at my notebook. It appears that I’m the greatest tourist attraction. From hunter to hunted, if you will.

The Red Fort, from the outside

Journal of India - A prologue

So I came back from India with a notebook full of writing about the things I saw, and for a few weeks I wondered what to do with it. I was originally a bit too shaken to share (and very much exhausted after the long journey), and I needed to let things sediment in my mind. Yesterday I felt that I was at a relatively safe distance and I went back to my original booklet, seeing whether some of this material was worth putting here. I re-read the whole thing and I decided it was.

The diaries are actually rather irregular. The first two entries I'm not going to transcribe, because they're frankly too chaotic - I was still adapting myself to the new situation and I couldn't write cogently for the life of me. A brief sample:

The initial euphoria of exploring a new setting is ebbing, and now the multitude of signs and histories with which I have brushed flanks – perceiving a little of the local reality and a great deal of my own stupor – is pressing in my skull. There is so much to learn, and so little time and energy to do so. The resulting sentiment is one of a drowsy indifference, a certain affability when faced with the surroundings’ unfailing tendency to make you wonder.

The wall of the ruin is mottled, dug into by time and tourist gazes. History’s own version of acne (or that of stones). No doubt the sentiment of ‘indifference’ will prove as passing as the euphoria. It is so hard to put order in one’s thoughts when one is presented with such an array of experiences (all variations of the same one – a sight that screams ‘remember me’).

The rest of the entry consists in a few lines on local traffic and the eagles that fly over the sky of Delhi, but it's not particularly insightful. So my chronicle is going to start from the third entry, throwing in two or three entries a day, depending on what city they're describing. I've tried to edit and cut the least possible, though the odd word here and there has been added or changed when clarifying the text seemed really necessary.

So from tomorrow, and for a few days, the Rant Machine is going to be touring India. Hope you enjoy it. Peace out.

I have returned / My warriors come with me now

...faaaaarking hell.

I haven't felt so tired since... well, practically since I was born. My journey to India was unbelievable, but it was also unbelievably challenging. I didn't want to go in with a plan, much less buy a tour or shit like that, so I reached New Delhi with nothing other than my money and a contact. The rest I improvised it all. It engaged me mentally, physically, financially, logistically, theoretically, practically. It was total. It was, I think, the most challenging thing I have ever done in my life. And it's going to stay with me forever.

The image above gives an idea of the trajectory I took. From Delhi to Haridwar, brief stop by Gurgaon, then to Chennai, to Hyderabad, to Mumbai, to Goa, to Jaipur, to Agra, and back to Delhi for the plane home. Most of it was done by train (Sleeper class, it rocked!), the two longest journeys by flight. And if you're wondering, yes, of course the idea of drawing an 'A' over India was intentional. Couldn't leave without leaving my signature. :D

The very least I can do, before I do anything else, is give a GIGANTIC thank you to Ashwini Sinhal and Ratul Chakraborty for their help and assistance in New Delhi and Mumbai respectively. Thanks, guys. You gave me more support than I can tell, and spared me more trouble than I can imagine. Any time you come to Europe, give a call, and if I'm in your vicinity, I'll try and be by your side.

I was originally planning on filling up a couple of posts with the narration of my frog-leaping from one side of the most crowded nation on the planet to the other. But now that I'm back, I feel like I need to clear my head before I start formulating everything that I saw. I did keep a journal, and it's got sixteen entries, but it was not written with a view for publication, and I don't think it would make for good material were I to transcribe it on here. So for now, at least, this entry will be all that the Rant Machine will say about India.

Wondering what to discuss next, there's actually quite a few things to go. Someone dubbed me a "silly tart" and asked me to go back to writing funny posts, and I'm tempted to do a bit of that. Fred asked that I elaborate my thoughts on Avatar, and to be fair I've been wanting to do that for a while. Then there's Twilight, which I recently killed off on the trains in India, and that deserves some discussion (because anything that at least a hundred million people discuss, I need to discuss as well. I *am* a critic, dammit!!). And in the meantime, I have my work as sports journalist to pick up and an engagement with a poetry magazine to produce a few articles on poetic matters. So plenty to do.

I'm going to close this entry here. There was some wise shit that I almost took off on saying, but I really don't want to. I think the Rant Machine is really not the right place for me to get all aphoristic and existential. The wisdom shall remain interior. And may the force be with you, of course.

There is no adventure without improvisation, fellas. Peace out.