ITS BEEN A WHILE……….

Gosh yes, I’m thinking back to the heady days when I would blog regularly, fired up with the latest thing to stimulate the ‘muse within’, a newspaper report or conversation with an Indian friend maybe, some small roadside tableaux observed on the way home from work etc. These days however, the muse is sadly silent and this has helped me to understand how difficult it must be for people like newspaper correspondents who simply have to deliver the goods week after week. I take my hat off to them.

Having said all that, it’s the monsoon, I’m stuck indoors with only the World Cup on the telly and so I turn to writing to keep me from going mad…………

So where, exactly is the focus of my attention these days eh? Being in India it is probably not that surprising that it’s work, with all the manifold frustrations and trials that working with people who speak English but don’t understand my version of it ( here, ‘Yes’ really can mean ‘No’), in an economic environment where reducing margins and increasing competition fuel a single minded ‘cost saving’ culture and where the combined monsters of truly pathetic  infrastructure and massively overbearing bureaucracy make everything soooo slooooow that sometimes I want to scream ( Hey, maybe I should, maybe it would do me good).  But we’ve been here before huh? And that particular lode is pretty much mined out, so I’ll move on.

Being in India in the Monsoon, and in the Western Ghats during the strongest monsoon for eight years means that rain intrudes ( quite literally) into one’s life on a daily basis, rain and a myriad other forms of moisture related hassles. Mud, for example, is fairly high up on the list as the roads turn to rivers of mud spiced with pot holes , actually pot chasms would be more apt as whole lorries can disappear into some of them. Leave something lying around for more than a few minutes and it tends to become green and furry, clothes become damp whilst hanging in the wardrobe and one never feels completely ‘dry’.The effect of the lowering dark grey clouds on the already-not-particularly-picturesque Mumbai landscape is to turn everything into a grim post apocalyptic monotone broken only by the dazzling colours of ladies clothing and the green carpet that is appearing wherever there is a patch of exposed ground. Grimy buildings with rusting fitments and streaked by black mould loom over piles of rotting garbage and old plastic waste to create a truly depressing view pretty much wherever one looks. I know, its my pathetic over sensitive western eyes that pick up on this but by ‘eck, it’s awful! People love the monsoon for its cleansing effect, by which they mean that the rains either stimulate plant growth which conveniently covers up the litter or washes it down to the sea where it is deposited in massive unlovely strands along the otherwise sandy beaches.

Mumbai is surely the fly-tipping capital of the world and I’m not talking about the occasional load of builder’s rubbish and a broken fridge or two behind a hedge on a quiet lane, despicable as that is, no, I’m talking about an organized ( laughably illegal) business that sees queues of lorries dumping anything from bio-medical waste to old chemical drums on pristine mangrove or straight into rivers. This is one of the businesses run by the mafia/politico axis that is omnipresent in India. These are serious dudes as well, you don’t mess with them, the police are in their pocket and any interference merits a bullet in the head so people just look the other way, the environment’s pants already anyway and so what harm does a few more thousand tonnes of crap matter?  The results though, are the ‘iconic’ pyramids of rubbish that line the sides of roads everywhere here, in towns it is the pavements that are often used, with any sign of paving long since buried under broken sheets of  plasterboard lovingly entwined with old syringes and decaying plastic bags. All this is then garnished by a pretty dusting of old fag packets and the small empty plastic bottles of cheap hooch so guiltily drunk by many Indian men.

And this brings me to India’s love/ hate relationship with Ethanol:  Almost universally consumed ( by men at any rate) and yet universally condemned, it is widely advertised in the most gross manner, the usual, nineteen seventies approach being used with virtual guarantees of women, wealth and power emanating from these nasty little bottles of cheap whiskey and rum. The ghost of Ghandi stands impotent above everybody, as a reminder that alcohol consumption is bad, naughty, unethical, anti-religious, frowned upon, unhealthy, technically illegal and an all round Bad Thing, which makes its consumption associated with an almost catholic guilt , with surreptitious behavior, with ‘secrets’ and with a general condemnation by ‘right thinking, god fearing, upright citizens, whoever they may be and wherever they may be hiding. Bars are considered ‘bad’ places that nobody would like to be seen in, particularly women, and so are tucked away, but almost always heaving with men going about the serious business of getting drunk. After the glitzy advertising hoardings the most common face of alcohol consumption in India are the rag clothed drunks collapsed in the streets and the drifts of small plastic liquor bottles that gather in gutters. It is a ‘hidden vice’ here and in complete contrast with China where the consumption of alcohol is done in an open and celebratory manner. Drink in India is not generally drunk for pleasure, for the taste or for the enjoyment of social situations, it is done in an almost furtive manner and it is done with the sole aim of becoming intoxicated.

The only chink of light is the growing appreciation of wine by the moneyed middle classes, it’s somehow not seen as ‘Bad’ like beer and spirits but a rather refined behavior to be cultivated given sufficient disposable income. Interestingly, despite wine being made in India for several thousands of years, it is surprisingly not well understood. Perhaps it’s because of the difficulty of matching wines with Indian cuisine. One regularly sees hilarious articles in the ‘lifestyle’ sections of the newspapers on ‘how to drink wine’ and, just occasionally I observe people in restaurants trying to display these new found skills to rather amusing effect…. I have offered wine to a number of middle class friends who ask ‘how’ it should be drunk, can it be mixed with soda? Should it be ‘knocked back’ like a spirit? Quaffed like a beer? What sort of glass should it be drunk from? Interestingly most of them say ‘I like this very much’ on first tasting, but that maybe because I’m offering them ‘the good stuff’! My feeling is that in India the view is that  its not as effective for getting drunk as spirits and is not thirst quenching like beer so what’s the point of it?

There are things I quite admire about the Indians approach to the law. Its seen as just another set of made to be ignored rules that are occasionally wheeled out to pursue some politician’s agenda or to garner a bribe. And if just about everybody flouts the law on a daily basis then the attitudes to it become, well ‘relaxed’ at the very least. We in the UK are pretty uptight about the law in may respects, and we obey it blindly the majority of the time. The Indian attitude tends to look at the law as a minor inconvenience in getting on with life. The result? Well, a kind of anarchy where the rich get away , quite literally with murder and everybody suffers from corporate greed, carnage on the roads, lazy and irresponsible service providers, advertisers telling the most enormous porkies, a lazy, incompetent and corrupt police force etc etc, but life goes on…. And many people think it is us who are the stupid ones, stupid for blind adherence to rules, stupid for not acting independently etc etc. Personally every visit to India makes me appreciate the fine judicial system and polite, hard working police force that we enjoy at home!

Why I'm no longer blogging

Painfully aware of my non blogging status at the moment and thought I’d at least blog why that may be:


Firstly, it’s simply down to the fact that I haven’t been moved to do so, or, put more bluntly, I can’t be arsed. In mitigation I would say that on the odd occasions when I’ve blogged even though I have nothing to say, I’ve always been embarrassed at the resulting prose and have therefore come to the conclusion that if I’m not moved to Blog then I shouldn’t bother.

Drilling down a little further and examining the possible reasons why the muse has not come upon me lately and I find there are a number of possible explanations:

I’ve spent so much time in India that I no longer get the ‘charge’ of mental activity, the desire to tell all and sundry about my experiences and I have a sneaking feeling that my readers may have begun to feel the same.

I’m happily engaged in many other activities these days such as photography/uploading files to my flickr site, facebook, skype, getting pissed with friends etc.

Negative comments from some quarters. ( ‘Too effervescent’ – you know who you are!)

Lack of security after comments I made about A****t**s, my sons band were lifted from this site and broadcast across the net without my permission. A good job they were positive ! Made me think twice about spouting off about anything even slightly controversial and where’s the fun in not being able to be a bit provocative?

The fact that only about two people ever read what I wrote in the first place and nobody ever commented.

Sending emails to peoples inboxes is more effective than putting stuff on a blog, and more personal.

So there you have it, seems like a convincing list of reasons to me. Perhaps you’d like to comment??? Someone? Anyone?

It aint 'arf 'ot etc

I like hot weather, I hate cold weather, but being in Mumbai, at the warmest time of year, in a heatwave, really tests ones resolve. Over 40 most days at midday and not dropping much below 35 at night, high humidity and scant air movement combine to product a climate that is not really ideal for Homo sapiens. I'm also a miserable luddite when it comes to air conditioning, but when the weathers like this, I reluctantly admit that its an essential. Still, rather than than the bone biting chill that seems to be England in May. Watching the election coverage ( and by the way the vast majority of people here have no idea that theres an election in the UK) I note with satisfaction the warm clothing and scarves that are much in evidence. Sitting here in my shorts and tee shirt, feeling hot seems to me to be a far preferable state of affairs.
Spare a thought though for those poor sods and soddesses who have to work, outside in this sort of weather, I trip from one AC space to another during my working day but there are planty of people labouring outside, building workers, road builders, agricultural workers etc. It is inconcievable to me how they manage, but of course, they dont have a choice.....

Of news I have little, been out and about in South Mumbai, patronised Cafe Leopold, a must for any reader of Shantaram, goy offered Hash, weed, Opium, Girls, Boys etc at the gateway to India, did some street photography but thats about it. Apart from that its been werk, werk, werk. Still with the climate as it is, the thought of trekking through the jungle is not a massively attractive one!

Boys now in LA, staying in ahotel that they say is mainly frequented by prostitutes and meth heads, stsrting on the new album and working with the semi - legendary Steve Evetts. If his work with Dillinger Escape Plan is anything to go by, the new album should be beyond amazing! I'm 'Counting The Days' until I here the distinctive Architects Inharmonic sonic signiature.

iMac

Well its been a week or so now and what are my comments? Mainly that its absolutely dead simple. The learning curve is extremely shallow, everything works, its all extremely elegant, intuitive and straightforwards. The GUI is dead sexy, fun and very useful. Software and periferals install in moments, I've added a USB hub ( one pence from Amazon) and a Hitachi 1 TB external drive which I'm using with Time Machine.
The 21.5 inch screen, from two to three feet away appears simply huge so no real regrets about buying the smaller screen.  For me, the most amazing thing is the shear power of the beast however. Opening programs, performing processor heavy tasks, just take a second or so. Making HDRs with Photomatix Pro takes, what? five seconds? My old PC used to take over a minute. Enough said I think.... Now to persuade work that I need a MacBook!

iMac

Still learning. And let me say that, thus far there's been no real head scratchers, its all been plain sailing. There's a huge amount of depth to OSX but the average user doesnt need half of it. Stuff like Expose and Spaces is useful if you are going to have twenty windows open at once but I don't see myself being in that situation. Nevertheless, the power of the machine and its ability to run loads of open applications at once could eventually lead to me needing to investigate these options. Whatever, its all fun and interesting.

Unboxed and set up.

One of my sons remarked to me how easy he found setting up his iMac and its true! An unbelievably smooth and easy experience. As soon as up and running I downloaded Firefox 3.6.2, Lightroom 3 beta and Skype. A bit puzzled about the final stages of the download but it all worked out in the end.
The first impressions? WOW is probably number one. Its like a computer from the future or from some parallel universe where things are really nicely designed and all work well. Its absolutely amazingly fast and runs lightroom 3 like lightening. All in all a very positive experience thus far, No negatives. OSX is pretty damn intuitive but I'll clearly have to read my Rough Guide to Mac and OSX very carefully to ensure I'm in the groove. Was agonising over 21.5 vs 27 inch. Sitting here looking at the 21.5 inch screen it seems VAST to me and so I am more than happy with the decision I made.

The Big Switch!

Hi, my new iMac arrives today according to UPS packaging tracking and I have been reading all I can about making the switch from Windows to OSX or Windows XP to OSX Snow Leopard to be precise. Unfortunately I find virtually all of the resources on the net ( and there are many) assume a level of geekiness or intelligence that I dont have and am therefore viewing the fast approaching learning curve with a a small degree of trepidation ameliorated only by the exitement of having a shiny new and hopefully fast machine to play with. I have to say I love the look of the GUI on Macs and am assuming that over the next days and weeks I will come to love it. I have to say that I, seemingly alone, find iTunes very un-intuitive, it must be my age. Whatever, I'm going to post my feelings and impressions on converting to OSX over the next days and weeks, heres to it being a positive experience!

My name is Chris and I come from England

I’m attempting to learn Marathi, the language of Mahrasthra and I have to say that over the last few weeks I have actually enjoyed some small degree of success! The principle reason for this is that , outside of work, pretty much everybody I interact with are Marathis and I can thus get instant feedback on the quality of my attempts.
Hindi defeated me because of its many versions and subtleties, it’s a ‘poetic’ language – and full of ‘silent’ n’s and h’s and these guttural sounds that frankly all sound the same to me although slight changes change the meaning of a word or sentence completely, enough said I think.
So Marathi is the way to go and let me tell you it seems to gain me instant kudos (something I’m in desperate need of, let me freely admit). Of course |I’m only learning the spoken language, the script? Ha! Forget it, it aint gonna happen! My first words were Maza now Chris, me England la ratau (see the title of this piece). No sooner had I learned it than I was presented with an opportunity to use it. I was in a small seaside town South of Mumbai and was taking a photograph of a restaurant, as I pressed the shutter a large family group came out and the man immediately came towards me, I thought ‘shit’ and decided to try and disarm him with my command of his language so I said ‘Maza now Chris, me England la ratau’ and the effect was electric! He smiled and grasped my hand, called his family over and introduced me, asked me to pose for a photograph with them! Ashok, my driver told me that I have been lucky as he was a Senna guy, a right wing firebrand type and I had managed to reverse a potently difficult situation with a few words of his native tongue. Let me say that there are relatively few European Marathi speakers! Great, so I was off to a good start. I try and learn a couple of useful words a day on the way to work and Ashok is diligent in making me practice. Yesterday I was able to completely rid myself of hawkers on the beach by explaining that I lived in New Mumbai and was not a tourist, that I did not want to buy there wares, what was their name?, mine was Chris. I’d surely see them again soon! Again a few sentences worked wonders, they smile and say OK, fair enough! See you! Bye! This is really first class confidence building feedback, and the feeling that I can make myself understood is really thrilling and satisfying, unlike my attempts at Hindi which have always been met by stares of blank incomprehension! The major issue now is being able to recognize Marathis. Out in the countryside it’s easy – it’s everybody! In town the issue is more complex as I can’t tell from looking what language they will speak, whereas ‘the locals’ can. Anyway, I’m currently enjoying the experience, not that it will be of much use in the UK! Whatever – ‘ Chal y a tomi!

The Internet huh?

Interested to see comments that I made in this blog earlier about the new architects material being reproduced on the 'fuckyeaharchitects' tumblr site. I mean? How the hell? Its fascinating.. I wonder who, of the handful of people who ctually read my ramblings would 'leak' the comments, or, has somebody got some super sensitive search software that can sniff out comments on Architects even buried in some inconsequential blog?
Therefore I thought I'd make some more comments and see how quickly they are spotted and used!

So, here goes..........

Its absolutely wonderful being an Architects(uk) Dad! One of the many things I have to thank Tom and Dan for is keeping me up to date with all the latest sounds, theres so much amazing stuff out there that I'd never be able to on my own and most of my old mates, no matter how into music, seem to have got stuck somewhere in the 80's, 90's or 00's; dont get me wrong, i love dance and electronica, I love indie , but without Tom and Dans influence I would never have got into metalcore etc. My favorite band is currently Dillinger Escape Plan and I search in vain for friends of my age who also dig that sound. Why should this be? DEP are utterly awesome, they rock, they're inventive as hell, they're original, whats not to like?! One comment that I have heard from several people is 'its the shouting/screaming that I can't take' . Get over it! Give it a chance, any half decent music takes a while to get into but once you suss it theres a shitload to enjoy...
So anyway, Architects and thier progression: The new album will be very distinctly Architects, that is, my friends won't like it! However, Tom's songwriting is definitely maturing. The thing that really exites me about the new stuff is that it has a distinctly euphoric edge, there's builds and breaks like good euphoric trance but it's still heavy as fuck, fast, tight and experimental.....
Of course the final sound will be vastly different from the demos on my ipod, I'm hoping that some of the wonderful, delicate and tasteful drum and guitar work will not be lost but with the new album being producted by *************** ( not sure if this is public domain info yet) I can guarantee that it will be unbefuckinlievable.

Magic weekend

Friday evening and off to Phansad. This time of year is soo nice in Maharasthra, hot sun in the day, cool evenings, low humidity and light breezes make for what, to me, is a near ideal climate. As the end of winter approaches many of the forest trees are flowering and this makes, not only for delicious scents and wonderful sights but also a magnet for wildlife. We arrive late and find the forest lodge full and Sadha the caretaker nowhere to be found, I end up sleeping under canvas on a concrete floor. Not a fantastic night I have to say! As soon as the sun was up we were off for a walk down to the local village to check out the birding. Good but not fantastic, all the usual suspects but nothing else. Whilst walking I learned that there was another ‘foreigner’ staying along with a guide from the BNHS, this man, an Australian apparently, has written The field guide to the birds of East Africa. Wow, an uber birder, staying at Phansad! I was extremely interested to meet him and, arriving back at base there is indeed a ‘foreigner’ eating a bowl of breakfast Poha. I say hello and he replies in an extremely unOzzie voice. Turns out he’s from London although now lives in Canberra, and yes he’s written the aforementioned field guide but - it’s a novel! It's title is ‘A guide to the birds of East Africa – A Novel’ . His name is Nick Drayson and he’s a naturalist/novelist and it turns out an extremely agreeable fellow.
After breakfast we jump in my car and head down to a favorite water hole, Nick is wandering about turning stones and, (beginners luck?) finds a beautiful but unbelievably aggressive little Wolf Snake. Then we drive down to Murud for the usual beery lunch where Nick and I discuss the wonder that is 'A good pint of English wallop'and swap increasing outrageous birding stories before heading back up the mountain and more birding. We visit an area of jungle that we have never been to before and, barely out of the car, we see a Blue Faced Malcoa, a lifer for me! High fives all around but within half an hour we have also clocked up Humes and Large billed Leaf Warblers, two more lifers ending a looong dry spell for me. Excellent!
After a short siesta we’re back to the water hole, we’ve been hearing about this ‘ere Sri Lankan Frogmouth for months now but never seen or heard beak nor feather of it and so we sit in silence and watch the dusk fade to night, its a wonderful experience with certain caveats...the birds settle down and the bats and moths come out. We’re smothered in deet but the mossies seem to take no notice and we are surrounded by a hungry and persistent swarm of them. Twice we heard, indeed I recorded, the screeching cry of the Frogmouth but in the end we are forced out of the jungle by the shear number of bitey things.
The next morning the extent of the damage is clear, not only a zillion mossie bites but I have at least a dozen bites from the Argasid soft tick which I know are going to drive me crazy with itching over the next three to four weeks, they are already swollen and weeping. It seems that nothing can keep these little horrors at bay and all my compatriots are suffering equally. Nick tells us that he has suffered equally in Australia with Argasid bites and recommends a scrubbing brush to relieve the itching! We try to forget about the long list of nasty tick borne diseases.....
Sunday morning say our goodbyes and head down to the local beaches but apart from Turnsones and Sand Plovers there is little about and so we decide to tackle Kankeshwar.
I have often been birding around the bottom of this large and forbidding hill and once started the climb up the x hundred steps to the temple complex at the top but on that occasion was driven back by the sun and fear of sunstroke. This time I have a hat and some water and we decide to ‘go for the summit’ as the top is an excellent spot for raptor watching. It’s a hard and hot plod up the steps and for the most part there is no shade, our hearts are soon pounding and the sweat gushing. This is one of those climbs with many false summits which you make an effort for only to find yet another steep section ahead. At one point we see a Cobra hastily retreating into the bushes. Eventually , exhausted and dehydrated and sun scorched we reach the top and are able to admire the temples of Hanuman, Shiva and Ganesh and settle down on the edge of a cliff with a view across twenty kilometers or so to the coast. Spotted eagles, Common buzzard, Oriental Honey Buzzard glide past at intervals concluding a fab weekends birding. Walking back down ( in flip flops) turns out to be more painful than the walk up and my leg muscles are still hurting as I write this, four days later……

Jungle Story - 2

By the light of a cigarette lighter, Henri consulted his watch, it was well past midnight if indeed his G-shock was working correctly,its built-in light was not working but he could nevertheless make out numerals, he and Jenny had been standing together in the pitch dark for almost an hour and in fact it seemed longer, they were desperate to sit down but an examination of the ground beneath them had quickly persuaded them that this was not a good plan given the numbers of anys swarming over the path and Henri had found that his trousers already bore the sticky red evidence of leech bites, plus they seemed to be standing in the centre of a cloud of mosquitoes. Clearly they were going to have to make a decision, waiting until the morning light was out of the question, their cell phones were malfunctioning, the display flickering and dying as soon as they tried them. As they waited their eyes had become accustomed to the scant starlight filtering through the trees above, however this was only sufficient for them to be able to make out vague shapes and the more they strained to make out the path the more they became aware of the static and floaters that drifted in and out of their vision. The jungle around them pulsed with the noises of crickets and tree frogs, nightjars and the sudden noises of falling twigs and jungle fruits. Every now and again there came the crack of a breaking piece of wood or the crunch of a dried teak leaf indicating the passage of some animal, usually this was tens of meters away but every so often the sound came from something disconcertingly close. ‘OK’ said Henri after a particularly unnerving invisible close encouter, ‘lets move, I’m certain the path lead in this direction, as long as we climb, we must be going in the right direction and the village can only be a couple of kilometers away ?’
And so, with Jenny holding onto his arm, Henri took a tentative step in what they fervently hoped was the right direction. Progress was painfully slow as each step had to be taken very deliberately.
They had barely taken three steps when the disk reappeared, or rather, disks because there seemed to be a number of them. This time they were really close by or at least appeared to be as there was something about them that made them difficult to focus on, the size of them was therefore hard to estimate and there was something in the way that they moved which seemed to produce a motion sickness-like nausea that both of them felt. The disks were bright and yet did not illuminate the jungle around them and they appeared to be connected in some way, as though they were multiple kaleidoscopic images of one object.

Neither Jenny or Henri moved or spoke, it was as though they were paralyzed, although not with fear as they both felt strongly calm, simply suspended in time, awaiting the next development. As one they abruptly turned, they had both felt a sensation of there being something behind them, something watching them, the turn was in fact absolutely involuntary as though they had been commanded. Barely two meters from them stood a woman, brilliantly illuminated by the disks, she appeared to be clad in a dark cloak but it was the face and the eyes in particular that grabbed and held their attention. The face was not Indian but rather, faintly oriental and with pale skin, it possessed a harsh angular beauty accented by bright glistering green eyes. Again they stood mute and still, again they experienced an amazing degree of calmness given the situation they found themselves in. The disk light, illuminating the apparition only and not the surrounding foliage gave it the impression of floating in space.

Back in the village, Chu, Ashwin and Rajesh were now extremely worried, they had just returned from a walkback along the forest path and had encountered no sign of Jenny and Henri , they had shouted themselves horse and had now assumed that they had wandered off the path and become lost. They had experienced a fright when thier torches all winked of simultaneously, however they had all come back on after a few seconds. There really was nothing to do until dawn but the worry that thier frinds had fallen down one of the steep rocky gullies that wound through the jungle was very real. Poachers were a concern as well but the possibility of real harm coming from one of the locals and their ancient inaccurate rifles had to be a distant one. Such was the level of anxiety that they could not sleep and so they sat in silence chain smoking and trying to think of something that they could do. The villagers showed a degree of concern but when asked for assistance simply shrugged and retired to bed. Around them the jungle hummed and chattered with life, seemingly oblivious to the small drama unfolding within it.

The figure took a step towards them and from within the dark cloak-like garment came two thin arms ending in skeletal, talon-like hands, the wrists were laden with bands and thin metallic chains from which were suspended a myriad of glittering objects. The hands suddenly shot forward and grabbed Henri by the right forearm and Jenny by the left. She wanted to scream , to cry out as the strong bony fingers tightened around her arm but the scream would not come, she was mute as in a dream or nightmare. There was a fierce tugging and before they knew it they were borne aloft, up through the upper tier of the jungle vegetation and out over the mountains. The tugging eased of and apart from the vice-like grip of those hands they felt as though they were floating, thousands of feet below, the jungle-clad mountains went on and on and… on until the very horizon, no lights nor any other sign of human habitation could be seen under the starlight-illuminated landscape. Between them was the apparition, a black shape, head facing forward, fixed, the garment flowing smoothly in the stream of air without disturbance. Henri had decided that this was either a dream or he was dead, Jenny concluded that she must have some illness, a fever perhaps, that was causing these wild distortions in reality. Both felt altogether unreasonably calm.
At last there were lights down below and they abruptly started a steep spiraling descent towards the source of illumination. They alighted gently on a large moss covered slab of rock, it too was brightly illuminated by a number of gently vibrating ethereal disks of light. The figure moved away from them and off the slab of rock, however their arms remained locked in the apparent grip of those bony talons which forced them to stand as though one arm was fixed to some immovable object. Looking at her arm, Jenny could quite clearly see the depressions in her forearm where the grip was maintained.
A disk came towards them, or at least it grew in size, they both stared at it, it was utterly hypnotic, its surface danced and vibrated, the colour yellowish-white at times, bluish-white at others, indistinct patterns swarmed and writhed on its surface, and while they watched spellbound they saw faces start to appear in the patterns, some ancient archetypes, some clearly modern Indian, they saw far eastern, Japanese faces, Indonesian, Amerindian, then friends and family, they saw their parents faces, old and young, friends, lovers all come and go in a long flowing series, and then they saw themselves as in a fierce mirror, the outlines and features were crystal clear although constantly changing with a strange vibration. They saw themselves in agony, in ecstasy, in fear and in calm as children and in ancient old age, they were fascinated beyond their experience, rapt and did not even notice that they were now sitting, their arms released as the show in front of their faces continued to unfold.

At dawn, they had at first phoned and then driven to the little town at the bottom of the mountain. The local forest officer was not best pleased to have been roused so early, especially after a late night drinking Todi with friends. He blinked at them as they told their story and appeared utterly uninterested, however he made a few calls in the local dialect, finally announcing that they should go back and begin a search while he waited for some local police to arrive, it would be a matter of ‘a few minutes’ which they all knew could mean hours. Nevertheless, it was all they could do and actually getting out and searching did seem to be the most practical thing that could be done.
Back at the village they all assembled and followed the path down into the valley they had visited the previous evening. Down in the valley the jungle was quiet, eerily so in fact, not only was there no bird song but no insects were to be heard. Once at the bottom, the place they all agreed they had been the night before, they slowly started to make their way back up along the path, scanning the ground to try to find anything that may give them a clue as to the fate of their friends. Every fifty meters or so they stopped and yelled and then stood silently hoping for some response, nothing answered back however, nothing whatsoever. The group finally reached a place that they all agreed was approximately where they had stopped and listened to the Sri Lankan Frogmouth only a few hours earlier. ‘There must be something here’ whispered Rajesh, ‘Amit, you’re a guide, can you see any sign that they were here or that something happened?’ Amit merely shook his head slowly. ‘The jungle spirit took them’, was his explanation. After a few minutes of standing helplessly they decided to go back to the village, as they went to move off, a shadow passed briefly over the sun, a large bird of some sort, a vulture perhaps but they shivered collectively for some unknown reason and glanced at each other exchanging unreadable looks while Amit smiled to himself.

Bullshit!

I have heard it said that the first casualty of war is truth and I’m sure that this statement has a high degree of validity. It is not just in war that truth suffers however: These days, in business and commerce, lies and hypocrisy are as rampant as they are in most religions. A really nice example that manages to combine a blatant lie with an unashamed dose of hypocrisy is: ‘We are an ethical and transparent organisation’. I just love that one and I hear it trotted out by some many company executives these days that I have become desensitized to it.
This issue has risen to the fore in my mind recently because I’m in India and in India, because of a combination of poverty, wealth, deprivation, exploitation, religious, and cultural conflict, truth, real truth has become desperately hard to find. The statements of politicians, businessmen, journalists, community leaders, authority figures, salesmen et al, are almost always, if not blatant lies; at best half truths, nonsense, bizspeak and marketing bullshit (MB). Here in India we are adrift in a mass of misinformation, ignorance, vested interests and just plain damn lies.
Whilst this is undoubtedly a serious matter for many reasons and on many levels, it does have its ironies; I have been amused to observe that many companies are focused in ensuring that their customers and suppliers are as thoroughly deceived as possible are at the same time the very people who fall most heavily for other companies MB. In short they have become so entangled in their own web of deception that they have lost the ability to tell when others are deceiving them. I contend that in India this mire of crap has so inveigled its way into the general culture that it is actually hampering the development that is used to justify it in the first place.
The richness and diversity of the bullshit ecosystem in India really warrants a ‘Field guide to Common Indian Bollocks’. My work commitments do not alas permit me to take this great and thoroughly worthwhile project forwards and so it, along with so many others, such as my ‘Good Cream Tea Guide’ will doubtless never see the light of day, however, I’ll try, as much for my own understanding as yours, to at least tease out the main categories of bullshit that are commonly encountered here.

1) Plain factual inaccuracies.

These are nearly always caused by simple ignorance. I have been told several times that next week, Mars will come so close to the Earth that it will be larger than the moon. I have read it in the paper and been told about it by senior science graduates. It’s printed in the paper so it must be true. Nobody actually sits and thinks about these things.
I read today in the Times Of India that Richard Branson’s new submarine will cruise at a depth of 37,000 feet under the ocean…..

2) Internet scams.

As I stated above, it amazes me that a people so surrounded by and used to lies are taken in, hook line and sinker by the most pathetically obvious internet scams. I have been told repeatedly that Chinese eat human babies and that you can buy tinned and bottled human babies in many Chinese shops. I regularly receive virals from colleagues, some who even doctor them to sound like they are coming from a personal acquaintance. This is bullshit unknowingly perpetrated by bullshitters! Lovely!

3) Marketing and advertising bullshit.

So far I have only described lies that are perpetrated out of ignorance. It’s forgivable, especially in a country where the educational system is in terminal disrepair, where science graduates ( and I’ve interviewed quite a few) have virtually no knowledge of general science, hell, I’ve interviewed chemistry graduates who do not know what a hydrocarbon is, so the above comes as no surprise, except perhaps the level of gullibility that many so-called educated people have.
When it comes to marketing and advertising, especially in a country that has no trades descriptions act, the lies become all encompassing and everyday. This stuff ranges from ultra blatant lying to half truths, smoke and mirrors. Indeed there is a certain stratum of business executive that exists simply to invent and perpetrate clever lies designed to fool suppliers, customers and legal authorities extant throughout the business and political communities. Everybody is at it in some form or another.
‘Now’, I hear you saying, ‘this is the same the world over surely?’ And indeed it is, in India however, I contend that it is less subtle, and more deeply engrained into the very fabric of organizations than anywhere else I have ever been and what is more, has become such a part of everyday life that many people have lost the basic concept of ‘truth’. Many of the people who are engaged in this activity are not bad people in themselves, indeed, often the opposite, they are often religious, moral, kind, unselfish people in themselves but when questioned have an attitude that the dissemination of lies and half truths is a simple everyday necessity, and who the hell am I to say they are wrong?

4) Corruption.

Now we enter a dark and murky realm. When it comes to corruption, India is an old hand, who knows? Perhaps the oldest…. Whatever, corruption intrudes into every single layer of society and touches every person living in India, it is such a common and normal thing that it is accepted simply as a part of life b pretty much everybody. Enough said I think.

I could go on…… but I won’t cos I have made my point and pretty obvious it is an’ all, its been cathartic for me anyway and that was the point of my ran I expect. Now then, I really must get down to the continuation of my Jungle Story.

Ta ra for now peeps.

My Goa Hell

Lunchtime on Friday found me in the domestic terminal of Mumbai airport waiting to board a flight bound for Goa. In twenty-one years of visiting the subcontinent, Goa is one state I had never visited so when my mate Gary invited me to come and stay in his little bungalow five minutes from Anjuna beach I decided the time had come. The 40 minute flight over I emerged blinking into the bright Goan afternoon sunlight to find Rupesh, the taxi driver, general Mr fix it and all round cool guy waiting to whisk me to Anjuna, just over an hour away. Barely ten minutes into the trip I realized that Goa is not just another small India coastal state but, in effect, a different country; India Lite if you will… Firstly there’s the infrastructure and the way that it has been developed: Compared to the whole of the rest of India it is more European; wide, well surfaced roads lead through neat little towns devoid of litter, there is a strong Portuguese influence in the architecture and the countryside appears green and lush. Arriving at Gary’s charming old bungalow complete with a peacock living in the little walled garden, I was already in thrall to the places’ charms; however I had not even begun to scratch the surface.
After unpacking and having a welcome cold beer I jumped on the back of Gary’s scooter and we zoomed off towards the beach. The drive was delightful, through winding country lanes draped with bougainvillea, woodland alternating with tranquil country vistas, coconut palms and paddy fields until we veered of the tarmac and onto a narrow red dust path finally ending up at a small bike park with a lane leading off towards the beach. We approached the beach through the back of a large bamboo beach bar, a blonde dreadlocked guy was DJing a very mellow Goa trance set and in front of the rows of recliners was the Arabian sea, lapping gently onto one of the most perfect beaches I have ever seen. Immaculate soft white sand with not a stone or piece of litter, sweeping along a bay with beach bars dotted at random along its length. I was blown away. Blown Away.
Now this all sounds a bit ‘travel brochure’, however it does seem to me that there is an extra something here that no photograph or description can fully communicate, however, I’ll try:
Anjuna beach seems to me to have a certain uber- tasteful cool. The pace is slow, the music groovy , its volume not sufficient to disturb, the huge speakers point straight out to sea, fifty meters along the beach you can hardly hear the music. There’s an air of friendliness and tolerance, it is utterly cosmopolitan and the locals seem to take part and enjoy the scene as much as the visitors. It is Glastonbury by the sea on a perfect summers day, or maybe Amsterdam on Sea. At this time of year the weather is totally predictable, clear blue skies and clear starry nights, perhaps 30C at midday and 15C at midnight, light sea breezes are cooling and carry subtle perfumes from the many flowering trees and plants. If this all sounds rather amazing well all I can say is that that is how it seems to me. Stepping onto that beach was an almost consciousness changing event. The beach was far from crowded and a few meters long from the beach bars, almost deserted. We strolled along to a headland only to discover another similar bay with its assorted seaside bars and small restaurants. We spotted a deserted bar comprising tent like structures containing huge luxurious sofas arranged either side of a massive bronze Buddah with giant earthenware bowls of floating flowers scattered around. Steps lead up from the beach into a place that I can only describe as a combination antique shop and chill out room with huge antique double beds giving a view straight out to sea. We chose a sofa and were immediately given a menu of the food and drinks available. Fab service, very low prices, the best seat on the entire beach. We watched the sunset eating Indian snacks, drinking ice cold beers and smoking to our hearts content!

Saturday and we set of on Gary’s Scooter to explore the beaches further north. I have read that this area is hippie central for Goa and I can believe it, this has to be one of the largest concentrations of old hippies anywhere! Lots of dreadlocks, tattoos, chains, bells and quite probably ‘books of Indian lore’. I could be extremely cynical and scathing about the place but I simply don’t have the heart because it’s simply so beautiful and it so clearly ‘works’.
Stopped for a rest and a drink at a clifftop bar, dropped in at a wonderful café in one of the many villages for breakfast where Indian and European food of equally high quality was being provided. A fantastic place for people watching, with bronzed bare torsos driving past on chopped Royal Enfields, dreadlocks flying and ankle bells ringing and everywhere smiles, laughter and a backdrop of Goa trance….
Then onto ( dur, forgotten the name) a village that has what must be one of the longest streets of ( for want of a better word) headshops in the world. We browsed, Gary bought a guitar and I bought a lantern and a scarf. We sat and ate Tapas and had a few beers in an organic holistic vegetarian bar whilst watching the world go by ( or the absolutely coolest part of it anyway).
Back to Anjuna for the sunset and then onto the local Italian restaurant for what was a very fine Italian meal complete with Italian red wine and all the other usual ‘Goa’ accompaniments. Service was a tad slow but frankly, in Goa, who really cares?
Sunday after a lie in we breakfasted at Six Pack, Gary’s ‘local’ where I met up with Rupesh once again and let breakfast turn slowly into lunch before I had to depart once again for the airport and the flight back to (sob)Mumbai.

As I said above, I could , if I really wanted, nit pick or more, I could talk about the way that the Europeans flaunt maybe rather to much bare flesh for the locals happiness, however Goa is a Christian state and I don’t think that anybody was particularly upset. Or maybe about the obscenity of the difference in life styles between the hippies of Anjuna and the Sum dwellers of Daravi, but the difference between the lifestyles of Indian Businessmen living a stones throw from Daravi are an even greater obscenity. I could make dry remarks about old hippies, about the aimlessness and emptiness of the hedonistic lifestyle but at the end of the day these comments would be trite and shallow because the thing that amazed me about the north Goa coast experience most of all is simply how indescribably chilled, cool and lovely it actually is. 11/10!

JungleStory Pt One

It was Jungle. ‘Real’ jungle at that as the locally available maps, for what they were worth, had the words ‘moist deciduous jungle’ emblazoned across the area of thickly wooded mountains where the small group was staying. This type of jungle, commonly encountered across the hills and mountains of the Western Ghats comprises for the most part, a dense entanglement of smallish trees and thorny shrubs bound together by a matrix of lianas and other woody twining creepers to produce a dense tangle of vegetation through which only small and lithe or arboreal animals may move freely. A maze of animal paths that constantly split and recombine allow the larger denizens of the forest to penetrate the otherwise difficult undergrowth. For human beings, particularly those not used to it, the only way through is to follow the dirt tracks that connect the small villages dotted about the hillsides and around the small bridges over the seasonal streams at the bottoms of the many valleys.
The ground is rough and stony and the branches of the trees festooned with the webs of huge and sinister looking wood spiders, holes in the tree trucks and in the ground at their bases hold massive tarantulas and a variety of very poisonous snakes, green vine snakes and pit vipers drape themselves over the branches and the air is thick with biting flies. A forbidding place for many a European, indeed a forbidding place for anybody except those born to it or to those who find such places exiting or beautiful even; botanists, ornithologists, herpetologists, entomologists and their ilk find these places full of fascination and are prepared to put up with the bites, stings and scratches that penetrating this domain inevitably bring.
The group comprised an eclectic assortment of individuals from several continents: Amit, the local guide with his antique binoculars held around his neck by a frayed piece of twine, Henri, a French Canadian birder and aspirant travel writer, Chu, a Malaysian photographer weighed down with professional camera gear, Prakash, Ashwin and Rajesh, high caste passionate naturalists from Mumbai dressed in the latest ‘outdoor’ gear and Jenny, a post graduate researcher from Bath visiting the Ghats looking for scorpions to ‘milk’ for their poison.
A long weekend away, with no particular agenda, the plan had formed at the last minute and the loosely connected group; known to each other principally by social networking had traveled up to the little village from the sprawl of greater Mumbai in two groups the night before. The locals had been only too glad to provide beds and food for the group in return for a few hundred Rupees and several villagers had been turned out of their homes by the village chief to provide accommodation in two adjacent earthen floored huts. If the villagers were shocked by an apparently single woman sleeping in the same room as a number of different and obviously unrelated men they made no sign of it. Arriving late the group had sat on the beaten dung floor of one of the huts by the light of a candle and smoked imported cigarettes whilst exchanging news and catching up with each other, all had met previously except for Jenny and Henri and all got on very well, assisted by their mutual love for the jungle and its inhabitants and a couple of bottles of the local red wine. The jungle rang with the calls of owls and nightjars, crickets and tree frogs as the group drifted off to sleep.
A cool clear dawn was announced by the crowing of domestic cockerels in the village and also from wild junglefowl in the surrounding woods. Outside, in the village women busied themselves with lighting fires and preparing Chai and Poha for breakfast. Soon, the few pinkish clouds had dispersed, the sun was up and the heat rapidly started to build, birdsong and then cicadas started to produce the familiar jungle soundtrack that they all knew and loved. The birders were soon picking out local specialties amongst the apparent cacophony. Babblers, Barbets, Flycatchers, Thrushes, Orioles, Sunbirds, Drongos and Bulbuls competed to make themselves heard whilst the myriad flying insects warmed up for a day of hunting for nectar or blood….

That first day was memorable for all the right reasons, the party trekked through the jungle to a small stream and then followed it to a series of interconnected waterholes, where they hunkered down to take photographs, watch for birds and reptiles or simply take in the pristine environment that seemed to vibrate with life. Jenny wandered off methodically turning the large stones that littered the forest floor, occasionally uttering a grunt of satisfaction as yet another scorpion was placed in a glass tube. By ten thirty the group decided to head back to the village to sit out the heat of the day which was already bathing them in sweat. In the comparative cool of the huts, Jenny milked her scorpions into carefully labeled tubes, the photographers and birders compared their captures or poured over field guides, smoked and drank chai, reminisced or dozed until sometime after four when a pile of hot and savory spicy fried snacks appeared to quell their appetites until the evening meal. After food and drink the group split into two: Jenny needed to release her freshly milked captures, Henri and Prakash elected to accompany her back into the woods. The rest of the group decided to hang around the village margins looking out for the birds that are so often found living commensally with man and maybe sneaking a few photos of the village people as they went about their tasks. By six the light had faded and the group reassembled to congratulate themselves on a good day. The birders had got themselves some excellent views of Ultramarine flycatcher and Bar winged flycatcher-shrike, Jenny had venom samples from six different species of scorpion including one she felt sure had not been previously recorded from this part of the ghats. A bottle of wine was opened and they settled down to await dinner, the smells of cooking making their stomachs rumble as evening darkened into night. After dinner a night time excursion was planned to a large clearing a few kilometers along a track leading out of the village and down into a particularly densely vegetated valley. Amit had got the birders in the party worked up with tales of Sri Lankan Frogmouths sometimes being heard there and a walk in the jungle at night is always an exiting prospect… And so a little after nine o’clock the group set out with Amit leading the way, everybody had head torches set to wide beam as the ground underfoot was treacherous with loose rubble and it is always a good idea to keep half an eye on where you are planting your feet… Eventually they all arrived at the bottom of the valley , where a trickle of water formed the occasional small pool and the air was thick with mosquitoes, a thousand small toads croaked loudly as they settled down to wait in the darkness for the tell tale screech of the Frogmouth or hoot of a Brown fish owl. Despite frantic puffing on cigarettes the attacks of the mosquitoes rapidly became unbearable and the discovery of a few leeches on people’s trousers precipitated the unanimous decision to decamp. The thought of some more wine in the comparative comfort of the village huts had become just too tempting and, very much earlier than their original plan the team started the trek back to the village.
The night was oppressively hot in the bottom of the valley, and the absence of any breeze coupled with the effort of climbing back up and out of the valley rapidly had them all soaked with sweat and slapping away in vain at the clouds of biting flies that surrounded them, the jungle seemed intent on hampering their progress with barbed creepers catching at their legs and arms and loose rubble underfoot causing them to slip and slide every few steps.
Jenny and Henri in particular were struggling to keep up and the Indians in the contingent seemed to be floating effortlessly up ahead, Amit in his much repaired flip flops seemed to never loose his footing, or even break sweat for that matter. Even so, they told each other that it was worth the effort and that they would soon be sitting down in the relative cool of the huts. Off to the left a blood curdling scream suddenly pierced the air, so loud it seemed to vibrate inside their heads, everybody stood rooted to the spot ‘SLF!’ shouted Amit and everybody strained to see something, anything, in the darkness that surrounded them, darkness that seemed to suck the very light from their torches. Again the scream came and the birders were making high fives and dancing little jigs of delight. After another five minutes or so, they restarted the climb, and on turning away from the source of the cry and refocusing on the steeply rising path ahead, Henri caught the impression of a light faintly shining off in the jungle where they had been straining to spot the Frogmouth. ‘Look, there!’ he whispered to Jenny. ‘What? Where?’ she replied. ‘There was something, I’m not sure, a light of some sort…’ They stood and scanned the woods suddenly they both saw it, a faint disk of light in the trees, two or three meters off the ground, maybe fifty meters away. ‘What on earth…?’ said Jenny. ‘It’s a poacher, it must be.’ Replied Henri and at this they both felt slightly nervous. A poacher, a man with a gun, looking for some game and likely to shoot at the noise made by people walking through the forest at night, or, more likely, who would shoot at what he felt may be forest guards. But hey, they had their head torches, this would surely distinguish them as both humans and visitors so no need to worry. ‘Look, look!’ hissed Jenny and she found to her surprise and consternation she was holding onto Henri’s arm, for the disk of light had darted in a most un-human manner closer to them and now they could see, there was certainly no human attached to it. It looked somehow like a gibbous moon reflected in a pool of water, it was never fully still, constantly moving, sometimes slowly and sometimes making rapid darting movements. What to do? Henri and Jenny were enraptured with this strange but doubtless easily explained phenomenon. A large luminous insect perhaps? That would be something unknown, Jenny realized. Some sort of.. what? A trick being played on them? Some kind of ritual? The pair of them stood gazing at the glowing disk when suddenly it winked out, disappearing completely. It took them both a few seconds to realize that the darkness that enveloped them was caused, not just by the absence of the strange glowing disk, but also by the absence of light from their head torches, as one, their hands went to the switches on the battery packs but nothing, not a ficker. Not only was it now pitch black but they also realized that they were alone, whilst watching the glowing disk their companions had continued their climb and were now out of sight. ‘Hey!’ Henri shouted. ‘Hey! Hey!’ he shouted again but the night seemed to simply swallow up the sound of his voice.
‘We should stay here’ He said. They’ll quickly realize we’re not with them and are sure to come back and look for us.’
‘You’re right’ said Jenny, I don’t think I could walk far in this without illumination anyway.

By the time the rest of the group got back to the village they were strung out in a long line perhaps two hundred meters long, nobody was talking, everybody silently trudging and looking forwards to sitting down, having a wash and a drink. Last in the line was Prakash who declared that he was going straight to sleep. It took a while; maybe twenty minutes before Amit realized that they were not all back. ‘Anybody see Henri and Jenny?’ he enquired. ‘In other hut’ pronounced Chu. ‘No, Prakash is sleeping in there’.
‘Hey…Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Maybe they’ve, you know…stopped off for a little, you know..’ He touched the side of his nose, an Indian gesture that suggests… possible intimacy. ‘I doubt it’ said Rajesh, they hardly know each other, they’re not a couple, I think they both have partners at home. ‘Well where else are they then?’ ‘Probably found something interesting.’ They’ll be along in a few minutes’.

Namaskar!

An Eeenglish person or for that matter a Jahman person drives along a deserted road and comes across a traffic light on red. He slows down, he stops and waits. Only if the light does not change for a few minutes will he look around furtively and, provided there are not signs of any authority figures around,  drive slowly past the red light feeling rather naughty.

An Indian drives along a deserted road and comes across a traffic light on red, he does not even slow down but sails past as though it was not there.

Now: The English person is alarmed at the Indians behavior, The light is clearly there for a good reason after all, it’s a matter of safety isn’t it?  The slight inconvenience of stopping is far outweighed in his mind by the possibility of an accident and maybe injuries to himself of other people if the light’s command is ignored.

The Indian thinks the English persons behavior is stupid, crazy even; why waste time stopping when there is nobody about?

Of course both are right in their own way and this example serves to illustrate a fundamental difference in the thought processes of Indian and North Western Europeans.

Another driving based example: An Englishperson is in a slow moving queue of traffic and sees somebody trying to turn into the queue from a side road. Many people ( BMW drivers and white van man excepted) will signal or flash and slow down a bit allowing that person to filter in in front of them. This action they reason has slowed thier journey by a couple of seconds at most and has given both themselves and the driver they have allowed in a nice warm feeling.

This simply, never, ever, happens in India. To allow somebody in is to acknowledge ones inferiority to that person. The person allowed in would never acknowledge the small act of courtesy as that would also signal an inferiority.

I’m constantly told not to say ‘Danyawad’ (thank you) to waiters as they are ‘only waiters and I am a Sahib’. When I do say it, the look of extreme puzzlement on the recipients face is not, I am assured, because they do not understand my accent but because they cannot understand why a sahib is thanking a waiter.

Again, one would only ever say ‘please’ ( Lie Ee Ay) to somebody who is deemed to be ‘above you’ In a restaurant one says ‘Bring  water now!’ ( Ek pani la!), never Ek pani lie ee aye!

These cultural differences underlie virtually all interactions with Indian people and need to be fully understood before those people can be understood. It’s so easy to end up thinking ‘What a rude bastard’ when a person is simply behaving in the normally accepted manner.

Nevertheless, I’m always finding myself thinking ‘WARB’ !

Then there’s the old time keeping issue…….. Arriving on time signifies that you are inferior to the person you are meeting and the length of time that you keep people waiting indicate the degree of superiority you have or feel capable of wielding. A shopkeeper has to be really desperate for business to deal with a customer immediately! If in his shop, you are on his turf and he is therefore in control.

There an oft used phrase here: ‘Eck minute, eck minute!’ ( literally ‘One minute’) this will mean anything between five minutes and one hour.

Drives me ( and all the other Eeengleeesh ex pats I know) mad.

OK ( Teigh – hei:  pron -  teekay) Enough of this, its off my chest now , I just need to redress the balance of this missive ( and maybe my karma)  finishing off by stating that yer average Indian type person is about ten times as charming and hospitable as yer average English and I’m constantly bowled over by the thoughtfulness of the people I meet and interact with, even complete strangers.

Off up into the Ghats tomorrow for an overnight stay, it’s the time of year when the forest trees are flowering, not only is this a beautiful sight but also provides a great opportunity for birding as many normally furtive species  like Scimitar Bablers will come to feed on the rich sources of nectar or on the insects that come to the flowers.

Chaloo!

Getting better....

Yesterday I had a revelation: Absence from pain is an unbeliveably wonderful thing! After the episodic pain of my kidney infection, each time it dissapeared it left me feeling 'high',  genuinely high, in fact it was a real super quality high and all achieved by ....erm...'natural' means! Maybe my bloodstream was flooded with endorphins. If thats the case... where can I score me some?

But 'seriously folks' it really did make me appreciate that every waking moment free from pain is something to be savoured, but... how to hang onto this impression? I've been free from pain for over 36 hours now and almost every minute I have had at least a fleeting thought as to how marvellous this is! I know that sadly, this feeling will fade...

What a fab example of the ying/yang principle though, no pleasure without pain etc etc....

I have just reviewed some of the new Architects material and I have to say that I'm totally blown away by it. Its funny cos they've made no secret of their admiration for Coldplay and other stuff that is ( seemingly, at first listen anyway) a gazillion miles away from the 'racket' that they churn out. Well, I suspect quite a lot of people are going to be in for a serious shock, not least a significant proportion of thier fanbase, cos the new stuff is such a progression, delving deeply into the realms of melody and conventional song structure that they are bound to attract some criticism from the hardcore meatalcore folk but I am convinced that this new album will see thier entry into a new and higher stratum of recognition. I can really feel it, I'll be interested to see if this prediction actually comes true because despite trying hard its ultra difficult to be 100% objective when talking about ones offsprings efforts. What can I say! The new album will be FUCKING AMAZING!

Not quite sure where it comes from tho' me Mum was quite musical and my sister , heather can knock out a chune on the piano, guitar, etc etc but this is something else, the ability to create a 'new' tune, seemingly from thin air!

Whatever.

More soon.

My support for the Indian Pharma Industry

Woke up in the middle of the night in my Delhi hotel room with a horrible intense toothache type pain in my left kidney and the inability to pee. Bummer. It lasted a couple of hours and then abruptly disappeared. Flew back to Mumbai and on arriving back at the apartment had another ‘episode’. Saw the doctor on Saturday morning and he prescribed some tablets:

Cyclopam: Dicyclomine Hydrochloride and Paracetamol - An antispasmodic analgesic
Rabeprazole: ???

….. And told me to drink  a minimum of four litres of water per day. All was fine for the rest of Saturday and Sunday and I was hopeful but alas early Monday morning the pain was back together with the inability to wee. Monday morning and the doctor was back. This time he took a urine sample for analysis. Analysis found puss and so I was then prescribed:

Citro-Soda: Urinary alkalizer
Norflox-200:  Norfloxin and lactic bacillus tablet

I’ve also got some Spasmo-Proxyvon pain killer caps only for use if the pain becomes unbearable.

Now: Add this to the:

Coversyl Arginine tablets for my blood pressure and
Ezetimibe tablets for chloesterol control

…and I’m beginning to feel like I should be rattling.

Its Republic day  today  and I was woken this morning by the Indian national anthem blaring out of what must be many PA  systems around the town, with the many uncoordinated sources and the echos from the high rises it’s a garbled mishmash of voices and strings that is barely recognisable. There’s going to be parades, concerts, dancing on the streets etc. Its all a bit self congratulatory  and I feel, rather self deceiving, the newspapers this morning being full of ‘aren’t we great?’ type stories in the face of  crumbing infrastructure, hopeless health and education systems, massive corruption, wholesale environmental destruction etc etc. Nevertheless the blossoming of the Indian middleclass continues at what seems to me to be an ever increasing rate and the burgeoning demand for ‘goods’, the consumerism that everybody seems to think is so wonderful flies so much in the face of the Ghandian ideals that its beyond irony. I was stunned to see widely advertised, a massively expensive pen manufactured by Mont Blanc, the ‘Ghandi’ edition and to see Ghandijis face on huge advertising billboards rising about the slums, presenting a 200 pound biro absolutely amazes me. He would, I am certain turn in his grave.
The lie that material goods make you happy and fulfilled is perhaps more widely purveyed in India than anywhere else I have ever been and this from a nation who’s culture tells us that  that material goods are a trap.
I dunno, its beyond me and its time for me to drink yet another litre of water.

FD

Gor lummy gov its bleedin parky in Delhi and I did not come to India to be 'parky', oh no siree. Thick fog 'n'all, by midday theres a feeble sun which warms the air to about 20C by five its almost dark and we're back to 'parky'  once again. Really looking forward to my return to Bombay and lots more of that real bone warming heat that I so crave staying in a bit of a third rate hotel, well put it thi way, its not 5* . Staff dont have much Eeengleesh but even so how can I go wrong ordering food? Very easily as it turns out - this is the room service conversation that I've just enjoyed:

'Hello Room sevice?'
' Hello?'
'Hello room service?'
'Hello'?
'Can - You Hear Me'
'Yes sir'
Can I order some food?
'yes sir'
'I'd like a vegetable biryani please'
'An egg Jalfrezi?'
'No an vegetable biryani'
 'An egg Jalfrezi?'
'No! A Veg Et Able Bi-Ry-An-I '
'Sorry sir' - a pause.

New voice

'Room service'
'Ah!  Can I have a Vegetable Biryani please?'
'Sorry sir?'
'A Veg Et Able Bi-Ry-An-I '
'You want one egg what sir?'

'Tell you what I'll come down to reception'

Oh yes, the telly dont work and theres no heating - And the beer that I ordered half an hour ago has yet to arrive...

This would not happen in sunny Bombay.....

Back

Yes folks, I'm back in Inja for a couple of months. An exceptionally smooth flight with absolutely no issues save for my unreasonable irritation at the entirely predictable behavior of my fellow passengers:

1) Loosing all sense of politeness when boarding, being seeming desperate to get to thier seats.
2) The person in front of me immediately putting thier seat into full recline AND then stretching thier arms up and back over thier headrest such that they actually interfere with my view of the screen.
3) Being even more desperate to get off the flight pushing and shoving etc.
4) Having rushed to get off the plane then dawdling in the corridors and standing on elevators.
Actually 4 is good cos it means that I can wait until the plane is virtually empty and then by walking briskly and taking the stairs I can beat 95% of them to immigration.

Other points of note were that my baggage was forth and sixth piece off the carosel respectively. There was a slight hiccup at incoming baggage screening in Mumbai when I thought I was going to have to go through the experience of being detained for questioning (again) about the dutiable status of my camera equipment and I did have to report to the customs office where a rather nice young Indian lady in a very smart white customs uniform asked to look in my bag. When she saw my binoculars she asked if she could have a go and spent a couple of minutes looking through them and giggling whereupon I was told I could go.

Birding this morning in Karnala, and pre-dawn the temperature must have been as low as 15C! Karnala was good with some good birds seen including the best views I have ever had of Large brown Barbet. Then we went to take a look at the Uran wetlands and was pretty devastated to find that the whole bleedin lot has been filled in. Gone, under countless tonnes of hardcore, square miles of marshland that was incredibly species rich, unbelievable. Progress I guess. Even so spirits were lifted by a great view of a female Pallid Harrier. Back here for a late morning doze ( only got three hours sleep last night). Delhi tomorrow and back to the cold, it has been as low as 4C there these last few days....
Still cant quite shake off the usual feeling of unreality caused, I'm guessing by a combination of jet lag and the extreme difference in culture, climate etc etc....
A few film recommendations: 'Moon' is quite entertaining as is 'Surrogates' and have just watched a film called 'Traitor' whis is a halfway intelligent look at Islamic extremeism. What is it with all these single word film titles? Saw 'Avatar' (in 3D natch) back in Brighton, probably the best film I have ever seen that I have absolutely no desire to sit through ever again. A strange combination of amazing and boring.....
Anyway, hope to get these blog updates back on track now that I'm back in the subcontinent and the muse is upto strength.