A fun weekend

Had a visitor this weekend; a certain young Gary Rudd late of Lincoln City and allegedly Freddy and the Dreamers, freshly arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday, joined us on Friday evening at the ‘Golden Punjab’ in Vashi for a slap-up chilli prawn dinner after an ‘interesting’ and, I suspect ‘educational’ taxi ride up from South Mumbai where he had been enjoying the cream of Mumbai’s Café society for the last couple of days.
Back at the apartment, a late night ensued, fueled by Kingfisher and Golden Virginia and much setting the world to rights.
Saturday morning saw Gary, John, Vivek, Ashok and myself depart Kharghar for all points south and after pausing at the wonderful Sai Krupa for a hearty breakfast of Vada Pav and Chai and also to meet up with the other members of our group, Alix and Caroline from Hong Kong, Ramesh from Bangalore and My mate Parag. We were soon replete with victuals and heading South along the coast moving ever further away from the metropolitan influence of Mumbai and into the lovely Lonkan coastal region with its swaying palm trees and sandy beaches. First Stop Achsi beach for gulls , terms and waders but the tide was halfway to the horizon and the waders and gulls distant specks however, with scopes we were able so scan the distant flocks and were pleased to see one or two Great Knot through the rippling heat haze.
Then it was onwards to Murud for lunch and beers on the beach in the shelter of gracefully sloping coconut palms. Mr Rudd seemed to be impressed! After a long lunch of Paneer Chilli, Prawns Fry, Masala Papad and some ice cold kingfishers, and after persuading Ashok, our driver to have a go at Parascending on the huge white beach the group split up with Ramesh coming with us to investigate reports of some rare pelagics on a beach south of Murud and the others driving up into the mountains to establish base camp at Phansad. The looked for pelagics were absent but it gave Gary a chance to have a paddle in the warm clear waters of the Arabian sea and for us all to get some sand between our toes. After another stop to wander round the ruins of an ancient mosque and mausoleum half hidden in the jungle edge like some Indiana Jones film set we followed the others up the mountain and into the jungle proper…..
It is dusk when we drive along the forest tracks and pretty much dark when we arrive at a clearing to listen for Nightjars and owls. With the vehicle engines switched off and everybody quiet we squat by the track and listen in to the sounds of the jungle at night. It immediately becomes apparent how difficult it is to completely escape anthropophony these days, here, up in the mountains, deep in the jungle, in a sparsely populated area of the world, on a very still evening, one of the most prevalent sounds is the persistent distant drone of jet engines. And indeed the sky even here is rarely free of the winking lights of some aircraft plying its way across the heavens. Jerdons nightjars are calling around us and we locate one in a nearby tree by homing in on the reflections in its eyes with our torches. Mosquitoes also prove to be a constant, only held at bay by a fragrant stream of GV smoke so generously provided by Gary…… Then its back to Murud for a full on , gen-u-ine Malvani veg Thali washed down by beer and wine. Back up on the mountain, half of our party depart for the night to a high watchtower in the forest with the forlorn hope of seeing a leopard, the rest of us settle down on the veranda for discussions on, well, just about everything of importance with Gary providing entertainment with his Euke. Listening to George Formby and David Bowie covers played on a euke in the middle of the jungle is, needless to say, a rather wonderful and unique experience!
Next morning a dawn birding walk in the cool mountain air and then back down to the coast for more Vada Pav, Missal Pav and Chai before heading north back to Mumbai, cold beer and hot showers.

Whats got into J?

The saga continues: Have been prescribed Viatmin E and B in high doses as well as dietary supplements. These have had no effect save to make my skin burn and my feet swell up like balloons. Have had tests for thyroid, blood sugar, cholesterol and a few other things that I don’t understand, as on the form it says something like T4F – within normal range..?  Then I got prescribed more different vitamin supplements and a paracetamol /muscle relaxant which, thanks be to ( insert personal deity) works, in that If I take one an hour before going to bed then I can sleep through the night, unfortunately when it wears off the muscle spasms just come back. Then I threaten to fly home and am sent to a ‘top doctor’ in South Mumbai. He tells me that if I keep taking the vitamins It will get better. Whilst in his office my attention is drawn to a book on the shelf behind him. ‘The Orgasm’. He has asked for more tests and so yesterday I gave more blood, a urine sample and have my chest shaved for an ECG which I do on a treadmill. My BP starts at 130/88 and ends at 170/90, the machine spews out reams of graphs but what they mean I know not. Today I saw my doctor again who tells me that all the new tests show that there is no problem. I am told that if I keep taking the tablets it will go away. I ask the doctor what is it that I have got, what is causing the PMNP? He told me ’Your nerves have been slightly over exerted’. Gee thanks, now I understand.

So, condition still exactly the same, painkiller/muscle relaxant provides temporary relief, am told ‘it will get better’ give it time.

And now: The first Jeaunsetalk film review!

As an 'entertainment experience' 2012, on a big screen is undeniably a winner. Who could not fail to be entertained by this piece of full-on special effects hokum? So spectacular is this piece of cinematic crap that the complely rubbish story, icky sweet sentiment, cloying - faux philosophising, unscientific and generally hillarious unattention to detail that one is left with a feeling of having been, well, entertained. To be frank, the storyline is so clumsy in its attempt to hold the series of cgi set pieces together that its best not even to think about it. However, the special effects are truly unbelievably amazing on a big screen. The engineers who created this should be congratulated for achieving hitherto undreamed of levels of realism in thier depictions, in particular, of tsunamis and very large buildings collapsing. Remarkable and definitely worth experiencing.
Seen as a 'film' this is a piece of dog dirt, as an experince though, brilliant!
That I saw this in my local multiplex in Kharghar, New Bombay I think only added to the experience. The cinema was clean, had amazingly comfortable reclining seats and sported very high quality sound and display clarity. From the initial 'please all stand for the national anthem' when one is treated to a jittery low res loop of the Indian flag waving, intercut with two elderly Indian divas wailing, to the twenty minute intermission half way through the film, the seat service, where trays of fast food and colas are bought to your seat, the whole experience was satisfying and  for me educational and at less than two quid, value for money. Avatar opens here soon and so I may being going again before too long.

Cramps - Now it has a name!

Been to another doctor: Its a 'Peripheral myoneuropathy' apparently. Blood tests tomorrow to try to determine the cause, diabetes is most likely possibility I am informed.

Cramps the story continues....

Finally got to see a doctor who repeated everything I have read on the net viz:

Can be caused by lack of salt due to excessive sweating. But as I spend my days in over air conditioned spaces, shivering rather than sweating, and as a lot of the food here is very salty this is unlikely.

Thyroid imbalance. I would feel lethargic and may put on weight. I am loosing weight (through dieting I hasten to add) and do not feel in any way lethargic.

Statins: As I have stopped taking them and the cramps continue, these are ruled out.

I’m going to a clinic this afternoon for ‘blood tests’ and to see a ‘specialist’ but will have to wait a few days for the results, in the meantime I have been prescribed Vitamin E capsules, am eating bananas to boost my potassium, drinking lots of water and attempting to locate a source of Tonic Water so that I may self medicate with quinine. Strangely all enquiries about Tonic Water or even Indian Tonic Water have been met with a complete blank. ‘Never heard of it’ is the response and have not been able to find it in shops or supermarkets. I was confidently told that Tonic water ‘is simply lime juice’ by two people here and my HB said that he had been offered 50 ml bottles of ‘Special Tonic’ by a pharmacist. The search continues as do my nightly cramps which are slowly driving me nuts.

Statins - Warning!

I’m ill, or at least, I feel like shit. I have developed a tendency for my calf muscles to cramp when I lie down and its getting worse and worse. My legs twitch and ache all the time and the combination of these two delightful symptoms means that I can’t sleep and so am turning into a zombie during the day.
Having discovered that a significant minority of people who take statins get these symptoms I immediately stopped taking them. The sympotoms have not diminished in fact they have worsened and now, to my delight, I have discovered that it is apparently dangerous to stop taking statins abruptly….
I’m due to see a doctor but my confidence is low and being 4000 miles from my family doctor at home makes me feel a bit helpless. What do I do? Resume taking the things that may have caused this reaction in the first place?? Wait? I really dunno but I’m slowly going mad! I’m drinking tonic water ( quinine helps with cramps) I’ve upped my intake of bananas for the potassium, I’m drinking several litres of water a day but all to no avail. Now I am getting muscular spasms in my arms as well.
Oh shit.

A weekend away....

Back to the Jungle reserve at Phansad this weekend despite prognostications of a post cyclone deluge, nobody else staying at the bungalow and so we have it too ourselves. Arrived in Murud and straight to my favorite beach side bar for beers and snacks before decamping to a restaurant for a totally authentic Malvani veg thali. Although not licenced they turn a blind eye to our under the table decanting of wine into the stainless steel mugs they provide. Back up to the bungalow at midnight and then an hour session photographing cricket, mantids and spiders in the garden. Next morning dawns bright albeit it misty and we face two severe disappointments; firstly we are told there’s no milk for the Cha’ha which necessitates us jumping in the car and driving down the mountain to the first village that has a tea shop. With our craving for tea sated we then go back up for breakfast only to be told on our arrival that ‘there is no breakfast as the man who prepares it ‘did not come’.  So we drive down ( again) to the coast where we have a breakfast in the beach bar and more tea before driving back up ( again) to go birding in the paddy fields. Climbing down the steep slopes into the valley we find that the rice has just been harvested and is spread out across all the little dykes between the fields which means that we cannot walk on them.

Back down the mountain again and this time we decide to stroll along the beach looking for gulls, terns and waders. Having exhausted that possibility we then drive slowly south along the coast, past the furthest limits of our previous explorings and discover a magical world of small sandy palm fringed bays, old forts and crumbling temples like something out of an Indiana Jones adventure. This area seems to be the first point south along the coast that is finally free of the metropolitan influence of Mumbai 200 km to the north. The coast road here is a pock marked single track affair traversed mostly by ox carts, around each headland is another little sandy bay where Oystercatchers, curlew and sand plovers feed completely undisturbed by humans. A few miles away, across the board bay there is a distant rumble and what looks like an open cast iron ore mine and dock but it hardly encroaches on the seaside idyll we are enjoying. Here there is a large Moslem temple and mausoleum that is being restored and we are able to wander in and around it completely unhindered by anybody, the guys working on it greet us with smiles bid us ‘welcome’. I even walk inside where there are a series of carved stone tombs, carvings and ancient wood workings lay around and we are completely trusted just to explore. Fantastic! Down the road there is a small sandy bay fringed by a number of huge baobabs, a tree that I have never seen outside of Africa and we puzzle over their origins which, judging by their size must be hundreds of years ago.

Then its back to Murud for lunch the skies that have been darkening all morning finally produce the rain and it wastes no time in becoming torrential so we drive back up to Phansad again for a rest and to await the end of the rain. When it does clear and the sun comes out the jungle steams and I take a solitary walk through it I the sauna like humidity, a time for some reflection on my luck at being in such a magical place! Before dusk we drive deep inside the jungle to a water hole where a Sri Lankan Frogmouth, often considered to be the worlds ugliest bird has been seen and quite well twitched. The waterhole is alive with tree frogs and mosquitoes and while we wait to hear its distinctive call we are eaten alive despite a liberal coating of ‘Expedition Strength’ deet.

Having drawn a blank on the SLFM we go back to Murud for dinner on the seafront under the leaning palms where we bump into a crowd from work, it’s the purchasing department picnic, I’m not sure who is more surprised……

After another nocturnal photographic session I retire to bed to find my shoes are full of blood, I’ve been well and truly leeched.

During the night I am awoken by more rain hammering on the tin roof of the bungalow and decide to pop outside for a pee. I emerge onto the veranda dressed in nothing more than my shorts, torch in hand and wonder if there is any wildlife about, looking down, about a meter from my bare feet is a forest scorpion of quite gigantic proportions! A grab my camera and fire off some shots before retiring. At six we are up and off to the coast again where we spend a happy morning at a favorite spot watching many different guls, terns and waders including what we think may be a Saunders tern.

Saunders or Little Tern?

We arrive home, hot sweaty, dirty and covered in bites but agree that’s its been an absolutely exellent weekend. In the evening we sit on the balcony sipping icy cold Sauvignon Blanc and watching a thunderstorm build and die with the fading light of the day. Werk tomorrow…..Sigh.

A rather soggy squib...

Never has a potentially serious weather event fizzled out so quickly or completely! One moment we were being inundated by biblically heavy rain, the next, the rain stopped as though a tap had been turned off. A strange calm descended which, we were assured, meant that we were in the eye of the storm and the rain and wind would return with even greater force during the late evening. In fact, that was the end of the ‘cyclone’, the calm dry weather persisted through the night and this morning, although the mountains are shrouded in cloud the sun is shining and the puddles are steaming and will doubtless soon be dry.

Getting hold of a weather forecast here is difficult, the daily forecasts on the telly are hopeless, seeming to bear no resemblance to reality and the ones in the Times of India border on farcical, in particular I find the amazing accuracy that is always so confidently asserted very amusing with statements like ‘Temperature today at midday 31.27 C’ or ‘Rainfall 14.65 mm’. This coupled with the fact that for a given forecast the actual temperature was in fact nearer 26 and the rainfall absent does rather sap the confidence. Indeed the weather forecast in the paper this morning or yesterday  made no mention of a cyclone. Of course, half of the reason for this is that there is relatively little need for a big spend on meteorology when for 99% of the time the weather is just so damn predictable, with rain for three months and hot sunshine for nine months.

Following the massive loss of life in the storm of July ’07 here, there were calls for increased spending on modern kit and a Doppler radar was purchased at considerable expense by the local government. People were therefore shocked and horrified a few months later to be told by the media that Doppler radar could not predict the weather but only tell what was happening in the present. Earlier, its acquisition had been accompanied by claims in the Times that now Mumbai would be able to give accurate weather forecasts days or even weeks ahead. I read recently that this facility has never been successfully commissioned and is currently rusting in a government compound whilst various departments argue about who is to blame for this huge waste of money. The thing is, it is impossible to tell if this whole story is true, partially true or even a complete bunch of crap!

So, looking on the TV, the newspapers, the net, or listening to the various self appointed weather pundits in the office, this coming weekend will be hot/cold, wet and dry making it a tad difficult to plan….

Latest update at 1.30pm: Weather fine , settled and sunny, still cloudy around the mountain peaks and the amount of water in the ground combining with the hot sunshine makes it highly probable that we may experience convectional storms this evening.

Tropical Cyclone Phyan – As it happens….

Your roving reporter is on the spot as Phyan comes ashore at Mumbai. Current time 2.45pm and the rain has eased a little, but only a little. Is this the ‘the eye’ I wonder? Its dark outside or almost so and the shear intensity of the rain is amazing, its not hugely windy (yet) but it is eerily cold. The weather forecast says its 30C but I don’t think so, more like 15C. Now this is a low temperature even for the middle of a cold night in winter here so you may imagine how spooked the locals are. Currently forecast to come directly overhead at between 7 an 11 this evening, so the next few hours will be interesting.
I have experienced some really heavy rain in my time, tropical thunderstorms in Malaysia, Monsoon storms in India but the shear intensity of the rain that we have experienced in the last four hours eclipses anything I have experienced previously, god only knows what it must be like in a real Hurricane / Typhoon.
We’re shutting the factory and preparing to go home early and I’m wondering just how I am going to get from my office to my car about a hundred meters away without being drenched to the skin! I have to say that its all rather exiting at the moment, big weather always turns me on, its not very photogenic though with next to no light and a fug of rain and cloud. Hopefully we’ll get some thunder and lightening action before to long to spice things up a bit.
Just heard that although we are supposed to be leaving early but the roads are ‘jammed up’ so I don’t quite know what we ill end up doing or when exactly I will be home….
More later.

When weather turns bad....

It’s a first for me, and it provides an explanation as to the sudden and drastic change in the weather, it’s only a flipping tropical storm! Normal November weather in Mumbai is hot and clear in fact one would normally be happy to bet a months wages on the fact but clearly, nobody told the weather gods as I woke on Monday morning to overcast skies and yesterday morning it started to rain, by the evening it was like the monsoon again and continued so throughout the night, this morning its more of the same, dark grey skies emptying a more or less continual deluge of warm rain. The red dust has already reverted back to gloopy brown mud and people here are in general feeling very happy about it. By the monsoon end we were 15% down on the water required to get through until next monsoon and water rationing had already started, this then is a very welcome top up.
Not so for the migrant birds freshly arrived, exhausted and looking for the abundant food that is normally to be expected, the insect eaters will be especially affected.

The cyclone approaches! It will be directly over Mumbai at around midnight tonight and we are told to expect very heavy rains, high winds and a storm surge causing flooding. It’s a complete sod as was hoping to get away at the weekend however the forecast is for the rains to continue through until next week. Agghhh! Wherever I go this year it bleedin well rains….

Bonus post! Not avaialable on email!

I’m really getting into Flickr. It is a really well designed site with hidden depths that I’m constantly uncovering, it has already put me in touch with some new folk both in India and the UK and it’s a really great resource for the provision of a little creative stimulation. Everybody seems very polite and a minor criticism is that there is little or no negative comment: ‘What a pile of utter SHITE mate’ or ‘Lets face it, you are not a natural photographer’ would be nice once in a while instead of the endless ‘Coo’s and ‘wow’s that seem to be the stock in trade of the average flickr commenter. I fancy trying it (‘Call that an image? Fuck off and die you fucking wanker’ might be fun) but am scared that I might be drummed off the site, in fact I’m sure I would if I gave free vent to my dislike of some of the stuff that’s uploaded. But the majority of the content that I’ve seen has actually been of a disturbingly high standard, so much superior to my own efforts that I am spurred on to greater creative heights, well that’s the theory anyway. I just wish more of you posted stuff on Flickr, it’s a great way to share pics.
Oh dear, today the weather is completely overcast, there’s even flecks of drizzle on my office window, this is NOT what I flew five thousand miles to experience and makes even mediocre photography difficult. Come to that my apartment doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of subject matter once the view from the balcony has been snapped, nevertheless, I have a theory that a really good photographer could take a good picture in a completely white or for that matter, black, cell and am setting myself a challenge of producing a really good image taken in the apartment. Have been plagued by leg cramps in the night of late and its getting worse, its just soo painful as well, I am suspecting that it’s the Statins I’m taking ( thanks Figrat) and am going to stop taking them from today following a night of torture.
Did I say drizzle? Well in the last hour or so it has metamorphosed into a biblical deluge, there will be tears before bedtime I fear. But as it’s a weekday and I am ‘at work’ I don’t really mind, however, come the weekend I’m off to Phansad and the weather had better have cleared up. I can honestly say that I have never known rain like this ( or even just ‘rain’ come to that) in Mumbai in November, its odd, very odd.
So I’ll hunker down in front of the box tonight, BBC entertainment is surprisingly good, a veritable oasis of intelligence and culture in a sea of lowest common denominator, short attention span shite. Its always fun to sit with my Indian staff and watch them trying to figure out something like Blackadder or The Office, I’m rolling around creased up with laughter and they sit with completely straight faces, of course the tables are turned when its an Indian comedy, which are all, without fail, the most childish slapsick imaginable and which they, in common with many Indians seem to find utterly hilarious. Maybe one day I’ll learn to love it or will finally discern the deeper subtleties amongst the fat men falling over, and over, and over…….

Chris

Back to Bombay!

Well well well, here I am once again…….

Flawless trip from all the way from Surrenden Close to Regency Gardens, not one single issue (this is, I think, a first). Woke to a warm (30C) and sunny Saturday morning and could not suppress the feeling of being, somehow, on holiday. In fact, so strong was this feeling that I was transported back forty five years to walking down to the newsagents in Cromer with my dad to collect the morning paper and buy some bacon, even the smell of that shop came back to me, a unique and redolent combination of suncream and short chain monomers from the cheap post war plastics used in the buckets, ( not spades though because they were still made of metal) beach balls and rubber rings that festooned the walls of the shop. I can see it all now so clearly and can feel that excitement at being on holiday and the prospect of a long day on the beach, rockpooling, building sandcastles and sea defences.
But I am alas, most definitely not on holiday and Navi Mumbai is so not like Cromer that it is difficult to conceive of both places actually being on the same planet…… And of course, the Cromer of my childhood is indeed on another planet, one called ‘the past’.

Whatever, I’m ‘Back in Bomb’ as Salman Rushdie says, until 11th Dec, five weeks of work punctuated thankfully by four weekends of fun ( if all goes according to plan). The apartment is full, with John from Leeds and Roman from Wiesbaden both in residence. Spent Sunday morning birding with friends ( Hen Harrier, Wryneck, Bluethroat) and Sunday afto exploring some of the back streets of Khargar with Roman and ( as if you didn’t already know) putting some of the photos from the weekend up on my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/

I’m such a shameless self promoter and the most troubling thing is – I don’t even care! Get me huh?

Anyway, have just about readjusted my internal clock by the liberal internal application of ethanol in the form of the really excellent Sula Vinyards Sauvignon Blanc and now feel ready to take on the world ( god, what a transparent lie).

I have been questioning some of you during my recent visit to the UK regarding the personal email sent to your inbox versus the Blog approach to staying in contact and , perhaps not surprisingly, many of you have come down firmly on the side of the personal mail and therefore I plan to take a duplex approach and to send you individually and yes, lovingly, hand crafted emails, as well as using a generic version of the text on my Blog,

http://jeaunsetalk.blogspot.com/

I’m hoping that this will please all of the people all of the time (who said it couldn’t be done eh?).

I’m really loving the weather here at the mo’, its hot at midday but mornings and evenings are cool at around 20C, the sky is a clear blue and any wind very light. The winter migrants are back and the countryside is now simply vibrating with avian life, I reckon the number of species of birds easily doubles in the winter which is another bonus of the Indian climate. This trip I have bought a big bag of Tagliatelli, two large tubs of Parmesan cheese, Lady Grey teabags and Dorset cereals Muesli. I am intending to add to my Indian diet with an Italian one following last trips successful manufacture of a passable Tagliatelli a la Pomordoro. Forgot to bring dried yeast however and so will have to wait until next trip to start making my own bread…..



Nostrovia!