A WET WEEKEND

And how! It has (and there is simply no other word as appropriate I’m afraid) PISSED down for the last 60 hours. This is of course excellent news for the huge majority of Mumbaikers as the severe water shortages have already meant rationing (still no water in my apartment and it’s been three weeks now, however that is for a different reason, a broken pump at a local reservoir). Going out on foot is pretty nearly impossible due to the shear heaviness of the rain, however as one cant see more than about 30 meters and there’s nowt to see anyway as the wildlife hunkers down to escape the drenching deluge, there’s really very little point. But it’s a drag for yours truly as it means being confined to the apartment with the hopeless TV choice and its associated astonishing density of commercials which drives me absolutely fucking MAD! I tried watching The Nat Geo Channel (what a load of purest shite that is and what a sad demise of what was once such a respected name) pathetic, factually incorrect, short attention span drivel it may be but it’s the ads that defeat me. Having nothing better to do and being a right contrary bastard I decided, just for your edification dear reader, to note down some facts and figures. Ads on Indian satellite channels maybe divided in to several equally annoying types: Firstly there’s your actual commercials, now the problem here is that on each channel there’s a very limited number of commercials available and so they have to show each one multiple times, its not uncommon to see the same ad three times a single commercial break and with three breaks every half hour one somewhat rapidly tires of them – an understatement actually, I find my blood starting to boil and the urge to throw something heavy becoming almost uncontrollable. Then there’s the ‘sponsored by’ or ‘bought to you by’ messages, which are nothing more than a list of the advertisers that have already driven me perilously close to the edge of sanity. That however, is only the half of it, for those nice people at Nat Geo like to enrich my life still further by advertising future attractions and this will be done at the beginning and again at the end of the break (sometimes several times) just in case I missed it the last twenty times that it was bought to my attention during the last half hour…So mindless is the programming that it is not uncommon to see a trailer for the program that is currently running inserted several times into that program. Then they run a brief resume of where we had got up to in the last brief section of the program followed by perhaps three or four minutes of content before – its another commercial break! On top of this they do so like to run advertising over the top of the actual program as if the breaks were not sufficiently compelling. I am sure that people have been driven to acts of horrendous violence through less provocation than this……It amounts to nothing more than a cruel and unusual punishment, I may yet write to the UN.
Reading, writing or rain watching are the other alternatives and It’s the latter that actually won out. I’m not currently really in a reading or writing mood and so joined Driver and HB on the balcony from time to time, staring moodily at the never ending sheets of rain. It’s been quite amazing watching the water flow in the nullahs outside my apartment complex. There’s a small stream outside the back of the apartment that runs along the base of the hillside, a couple of weeks ago I walked across it and didn’t get my feet wet, by Saturday evening it was a roaring torrent that to wade across without ropes would almost certainly prove suicidal. This stream empties into our local nullah which is outside the front of the complex and which for most of the year is simply a wide and deep litter and weed filled dry ditch. Now it is a river of foaming and surging brown water about ten meters across carrying tree trunks and the odd dead dog past with remarkable rapidity. This dear reader is the real monsoon, albeit rather late. Of course with so much water in the air and the temperature an even 30C it means that the air is saturated with water vapour and so everything is sticky and wet even indoors., In particular we have a cream leatherette settee, tacky eh? - Particularly to any exposed flesh – not nice!
So what did I do with my wet weekend apart from being listless and lethargic? Well, I went to the newest biggest flashiest Mall in the area to find some Eeengish food items. There’s a teeny Waitrose there which is surreally expensive even by UK standards, I have never seen anybody in there ( apart from me ) But even I draw the line at small packets of Alpen at almost a tenner or small jars of French preserves at around six quid a throw. But I did buy a small piece of mature cheddar and a packet of biscuits which I later savoured with a couple of glasses of red.
Then I went and got myself a Kurta – one of those long shirt thingies – a nice plain cotton one in a natty shade of orange, cost less than a jar of Waitrose jam as well.. Have been meaning to avail myself of one of these as , ahem, leisurewear. Now I can drift languidly around the apartment in a Kurta, (much to the amusement of the staff), I should really have a cigarette holder and an old typewriter to complete the image…. I then took Driver and HB out for a slap up lunch at my favorite restaurant, Aloo Muttar, Mixed veg Jalfresi and unlimited Rotis and Chai, all for less than two quid ( put the Waitrose prices even more into perspective ).
Made Tagliatelli a la Pomadoro as previously outlined, drank a bottle of red and slept. I had hoped that Sunday would be fine enough for at least a drive and a walk in the local mountains but not a bit of it, constant fucking torrential rain kept me indoors yet again going slowly and yet somehow stylishly, indolently, mad. Read, wrote, dozed. And today the rain continues, at least I have work today, which I really should be getting on with…….