Tomorrow morning at about 4am, a taxi will leave the Hotel Outram in central Mumbai and head for the airport. It's going to be a bit of a wrench to leave, but she who pays the piper calls the tune, and I have to be at work on Friday morning.
So to finish off (and with not a word about our glorious Test victory (or, more accurately, India's capitulation)) here are some things, in no particular order, that I didn't know 16 days ago:
Everyone in India is just really lovely
Why can't people in the West be so friendly? Would it really hurt to talk to a stranger occasionally?
Crossing the road really shouldn't be this difficult
I've got into the habit, whenever approaching a road, of trying to work out whether I might have sinned in a previous life, as this would appear to be the key determining factor in whether you live or die. Instant karma is, indeed, gonna get you.
"Our neighbours shake their heads
And take their valuables inside
While my countrymen piss in their fountains
To express our national pride"
There was a time, only 10-15 years ago, when cheering on England abroad meant drunkenness, racism and violence. The self-styled Barmy Army have changed all that: voluble in support but respectful towards the opposition, courteous to their hosts and open-minded about their countries, they're a group you're proud to join. This morning's Mumbai paper had a big photo of three English women, cheering a boundary - and dressed in saris. Fantastic.
It's disturbing how quickly you find yourself getting used to extreme poverty
Because you shouldn't really. It's only the norm because the human race has failed so pathetically to organise itself in a way that doesn't condemn hundreds of millions to misery.
Beautiful sun-kissed palm tree-strewn beaches are very nice for a few hours
Then they get a bit boring. And no, I do not want a fucking sarong.
Nobody outside Europe understands cheese
Sure, they have cheese, but they don't really understand it, not conceptually, not philosophically. Perhaps it's a post-Enlightenment thing, but then the rest of the world seems pretty civilised in every other respect. They just don't appreciate the importance of good cheese.
In fifty years' time, India will be the world's leading country
The sheer vibrancy of this place convinces you that it's preparing to take the world by storm. They combine immense charm with the sort of work-ethic that makes me rather ashamed of my dedication to my timesheet. And Mumbai, already India's throbbing heartbeat, will depose both Tokyo and New York to become the world's number one city. Mark my words. You heard it here first.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Hawker with a difference
After a couple of weeks in this country, you get used to people stopping you in the street. Usually, they're trying to sell you something, either a taxi ('Yes sir, taxi!' is probably the one phrase I've heard more than any other in the last fortnight), or something off their stall, be it clothes, books, computer games or tourist pap. Sometimes, however, they're just being friendly and saying hello, so you can't just ignore everyone. If someone says hello, you say hello back.
So it would have been rude to dismiss instantly the approach of a young man last night as i perused the book stalls along Coloba Causeway, looking for some reading matter for my journey home. After all, he started with a friendly 'Hello', and then commenced chatting.
It was only after a minute or so that I realised he was selling something after all: himself. What's more, he wouldn't take no for an answer, perhaps reasoning that a persistent approach might convince me that what I really wanted to go to bed with wasn't just a good book. And that I might be willing to unveil some of my good hard currency for the pleasure.
Now I didn't really mind as such - he has to earn a living somehow, I suppose. But the episode did trouble me a little.
Do I look like I have to resort to paying?
Thesaurus Insufficient
After three compelling days, we had six and a half hours of the most stultifyingly dull cricket today, as England played about eight million forward defensives to creep towards a winning position. The game is well-poised now for the final day, so the team will claim their tactics were justified; but you can't help feeling that a little more positive intent could have yielded a lead that would have made the game safe, and thus enabled Flintoff to set more attacking fields tomorrow.
But worst of all, it was just a truly horrible batting performance from England, and even thesaurus.com can't help me in my hour of need. Abject? Pathetic? Ignominious? Squalid? Odious? Pusillanimous? No, none of these will quite do. There's only one way I can really describe it: England's batting today was a bag of arse.
But with Jimmy looking lively, hope springs eternal. (Hint: try singing "Whoa, Jimmy Jimmy / Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson" to the tune of 'Son of My Father' by Chicory Tip. Then get a thousand other mildly sunburnt English people to join you. It's immensely satisfying).
So it would have been rude to dismiss instantly the approach of a young man last night as i perused the book stalls along Coloba Causeway, looking for some reading matter for my journey home. After all, he started with a friendly 'Hello', and then commenced chatting.
It was only after a minute or so that I realised he was selling something after all: himself. What's more, he wouldn't take no for an answer, perhaps reasoning that a persistent approach might convince me that what I really wanted to go to bed with wasn't just a good book. And that I might be willing to unveil some of my good hard currency for the pleasure.
Now I didn't really mind as such - he has to earn a living somehow, I suppose. But the episode did trouble me a little.
Do I look like I have to resort to paying?
Thesaurus Insufficient
After three compelling days, we had six and a half hours of the most stultifyingly dull cricket today, as England played about eight million forward defensives to creep towards a winning position. The game is well-poised now for the final day, so the team will claim their tactics were justified; but you can't help feeling that a little more positive intent could have yielded a lead that would have made the game safe, and thus enabled Flintoff to set more attacking fields tomorrow.
But worst of all, it was just a truly horrible batting performance from England, and even thesaurus.com can't help me in my hour of need. Abject? Pathetic? Ignominious? Squalid? Odious? Pusillanimous? No, none of these will quite do. There's only one way I can really describe it: England's batting today was a bag of arse.
But with Jimmy looking lively, hope springs eternal. (Hint: try singing "Whoa, Jimmy Jimmy / Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Anderson" to the tune of 'Son of My Father' by Chicory Tip. Then get a thousand other mildly sunburnt English people to join you. It's immensely satisfying).
Monday, March 20, 2006
India is just like a Cotswold B&B, really
There's an utterly charming sense of hospitality about this otherwise bewildering country. In the Vijay Merchant Enclosure (which admittedly costs four times as much as many of the Indian fans pay) there's an army of young people in starched white shirts serving out mineral water on demand, and distributing the free lunchboxes of mysteriously cross-cultural food.
Today they started passing round a Visitors' Book, a proper red bound one like you'd get in a small Cotswold B&B. Everyone dutifully signed and offered helpfully bland comments (including television's own Nick Hancock, a few rows in front, who had commented that it was 'warm').
Last summer, within the space of a month, both Mumbai and New Orleans were hit by catastrophic floods, and over a thousand people died in each city. In New Orleans, the tragedy prompted looting, muggings and a police shoot-to-kill policy (as well as blanket media coverage in the UK). In Mumbai, so I'm told, the flooding was the catalyst only for countless random acts of kindness from complete strangers (and almost no media coverage in the UK).
After a fortnight in this country, where I feel perfectly safe walking alone at night, there's a palpable sense that people feel to be welcoming and warm-hearted to a stranger is in the natural order of things. It's really quite refreshing.
The return of Little Jimmy
Three years ago, as a foreign tour (that time in Australia) disintegrated in a blizzard of injuries and bad cricket, a young man was plucked out of his short trousers and thrust into the limelight, where he outbowled all his more experienced cohorts: moving the ball both ways, in the air and off the pitch, and finding a consistently good length at considerable pace, young Jimmy Anderson seemed set to be the all-conquering pin-up boy of English cricket. Then it all went wrong, apparently mostly in the mind. He seemed to lose all confidence in his own abilities.
Today, fourteen months after his (disastrous) last Test appearance, we witnessed the second coming: with four wickets and a brilliant run-out, he's propelled England to what could be a winning position, in a Test where England were merely supposed to be making up the numbers. Throughout the day, he was England's best bowler, and nobody - not even the saintly Dravid - was ever comfortable facing him.
Last summer, England's Ashes victory was rightly attributed to our four-pronged pace attack, with Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard and Jones each offering something special. But Jimmy Anderson's still only 23: if can get his head straight, he might have the talent to be the best of the lot.
Today they started passing round a Visitors' Book, a proper red bound one like you'd get in a small Cotswold B&B. Everyone dutifully signed and offered helpfully bland comments (including television's own Nick Hancock, a few rows in front, who had commented that it was 'warm').
Last summer, within the space of a month, both Mumbai and New Orleans were hit by catastrophic floods, and over a thousand people died in each city. In New Orleans, the tragedy prompted looting, muggings and a police shoot-to-kill policy (as well as blanket media coverage in the UK). In Mumbai, so I'm told, the flooding was the catalyst only for countless random acts of kindness from complete strangers (and almost no media coverage in the UK).
After a fortnight in this country, where I feel perfectly safe walking alone at night, there's a palpable sense that people feel to be welcoming and warm-hearted to a stranger is in the natural order of things. It's really quite refreshing.
The return of Little Jimmy
Three years ago, as a foreign tour (that time in Australia) disintegrated in a blizzard of injuries and bad cricket, a young man was plucked out of his short trousers and thrust into the limelight, where he outbowled all his more experienced cohorts: moving the ball both ways, in the air and off the pitch, and finding a consistently good length at considerable pace, young Jimmy Anderson seemed set to be the all-conquering pin-up boy of English cricket. Then it all went wrong, apparently mostly in the mind. He seemed to lose all confidence in his own abilities.
Today, fourteen months after his (disastrous) last Test appearance, we witnessed the second coming: with four wickets and a brilliant run-out, he's propelled England to what could be a winning position, in a Test where England were merely supposed to be making up the numbers. Throughout the day, he was England's best bowler, and nobody - not even the saintly Dravid - was ever comfortable facing him.
Last summer, England's Ashes victory was rightly attributed to our four-pronged pace attack, with Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard and Jones each offering something special. But Jimmy Anderson's still only 23: if can get his head straight, he might have the talent to be the best of the lot.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Look out, look out, the English are coming!
At least four thousand England cricket fans are in Mumbai, and the city is almost unrecognizable from last week’s slightly daunting prospect. In spite of the lack of alcohol, the atmosphere inside the ground is jovial and the second-loudest English cheer of the day – after the acclamation for Strauss’s superb century – comes in mid-afternoon, when a lone trumpeter issues a glorious fanfare. The familiar songs follow (Jerusalem, the Great Escape theme, ‘super, super Fred’) and soon all is well with the world.
Poor little rich boy
Whenever Sachin Tendulkar so much as wanders within twenty yards of the boundary, there’s pandemonium in the crowds. He may have been superceded by Rahul Dravid as India’s premier batsman, but the ‘Little Master’ remains the nation’s only cricketing deity. He’s been coping with this sort of lunacy since the age of 16, and I simply don’t know how he does it.
One for the future
The England debutant Owais Shah played beautifully for his unbeaten fifty today, taking to Test cricket like a duck to a 1990s English scorecard. Our players are usually described as ‘compact’, ‘powerful’, ‘elegant’ or ‘clinical’. But Shah seems to be something rather different: on first sight, he appears to fit that most alien of adjectives, ‘flamboyant’. He should be back for more on day two, and it’s a mouthwatering prospect.
Poor little rich boy
Whenever Sachin Tendulkar so much as wanders within twenty yards of the boundary, there’s pandemonium in the crowds. He may have been superceded by Rahul Dravid as India’s premier batsman, but the ‘Little Master’ remains the nation’s only cricketing deity. He’s been coping with this sort of lunacy since the age of 16, and I simply don’t know how he does it.
One for the future
The England debutant Owais Shah played beautifully for his unbeaten fifty today, taking to Test cricket like a duck to a 1990s English scorecard. Our players are usually described as ‘compact’, ‘powerful’, ‘elegant’ or ‘clinical’. But Shah seems to be something rather different: on first sight, he appears to fit that most alien of adjectives, ‘flamboyant’. He should be back for more on day two, and it’s a mouthwatering prospect.
Friday, March 17, 2006
This chai is bostin!
The chai-wallah on the train back from Goa came through selling his wares (in Hindi), and i just cracked up. The seven other people preparing to bed down in our cramped little compartment thought i was mad, but his accent sounded like broad old-fashioned Brummie. Not Black Country, more the east side of the city.
How did this come about? Has the Stechford dole office been sending people off to work on the Indian trains? Is there an old community of Alum Rockers that's been here for decades? Maybe Ward End is twinned with Mangalore? I think we should be told.
How did this come about? Has the Stechford dole office been sending people off to work on the Indian trains? Is there an old community of Alum Rockers that's been here for decades? Maybe Ward End is twinned with Mangalore? I think we should be told.
A dignified retreat
All motor vehicles are banned in Matheran (as are plastic bags, encouragingly). But that doesn't mean that the incessant pestering of the taxi-wallahs you get elsewhere is absent... "Yes sir, you want horse? Nice horse. Track long way. You have horse. Hundred rupees, very good price". They still don't take no for an answer.
The British built up the hill-stations as a pleasant retreat from the noise, dust, heat and 'distinctive aromas' of the cities: and while the most famous are in the Himalayas, it seems that every big city has its own middle-class bolthole. The Mumbai middle-classes head to Matheran, and while it's pleasant enough, it's still pretty hot and still quite definitely India. The clay-coloured tracks lead to handsome views over the plains below, but the woodland is nothing special: it bizarrely reminds me of Cannock Chase, only with monkeys, and without the dogging.
I did meet a couple of small snakes: not being an expert on snakes, I wasn't sure whether they were of the harmless British variety or the instantly fatal type you see in old movies. I looked at them, they looked at me, we all decided to avoid each other. Best decision all round, I think.
The British built up the hill-stations as a pleasant retreat from the noise, dust, heat and 'distinctive aromas' of the cities: and while the most famous are in the Himalayas, it seems that every big city has its own middle-class bolthole. The Mumbai middle-classes head to Matheran, and while it's pleasant enough, it's still pretty hot and still quite definitely India. The clay-coloured tracks lead to handsome views over the plains below, but the woodland is nothing special: it bizarrely reminds me of Cannock Chase, only with monkeys, and without the dogging.
I did meet a couple of small snakes: not being an expert on snakes, I wasn't sure whether they were of the harmless British variety or the instantly fatal type you see in old movies. I looked at them, they looked at me, we all decided to avoid each other. Best decision all round, I think.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Hooray, hooray, it's a holi-holiday
Today is Holi, the day when Hindus celebrate the onset of summer by throwing coloured powder at each other. It's a public holiday, and as a result Mumbai is feeling a bit strange: the streets are quiet, the subways are deserted, and i just wandered up to the Mumbai Cricket Association office to collect my tickets and found Rahul Dravid - the man with arguably the highest-pressure job in world sport - supping a cup of chai and chatting on the phone nineteen to the dozen. This crazy, manic city is having a day off.
In fact, the only activity is from small groups of children trying to attack you with their coloured powder. No one seems to be quite sure whether it comes out in the wash.
Tomorrow, all being well, i'm off the hill-station at Matheran, although apparently the toy train up the hill is not running because of the rain last week (wrong kind of mud on the line), so we have to go up by taxi instead. Humph. Not fair.
In fact, the only activity is from small groups of children trying to attack you with their coloured powder. No one seems to be quite sure whether it comes out in the wash.
Tomorrow, all being well, i'm off the hill-station at Matheran, although apparently the toy train up the hill is not running because of the rain last week (wrong kind of mud on the line), so we have to go up by taxi instead. Humph. Not fair.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
A bit of a goa
Two women carry a giant black wooden cross: the weight is on the shoulders of the one in front, whose black and white speckled sari sets it off perfectly. Behind them trail a line of thirty or so believers, stretching across the road, down a track and away to the doors of a pristine white chapel. My taxi driver beeps his born for all he's worth, but it's futile: they'll move in their own time. After all, when you believe that fervently, the pearly gates hold few fears.
A couple of days earlier, on the only really unbearably hot day so far, I caught the end of a service in Old Goa, which four hundred years ago was a city said to rival Lisbon. Now it just consists of five or six magnificent cathedrals, the rest having long fallen. No choirs of snotty-nosed trebles here: they prefer to use what sounds like three or four young girls to sing the Mass in Portuguese, then turn the amp up to eleven, a la Spinal Tap, to energise the converted with beautiful if imperfect harmonies. (No Dad, that's not a cadence pun.)
Goa has definitely got a laidback vibe by comparison with Mumbai (but where hasn't?): in fact, I've seen long shadows on cricket fields, and I've seen old maids bicycling to Holy Communion. It's not far off being a Major paradise. Except that you can't walk ten yards without being offered a taxi, a sarong, a coconut, or some 'very nice good price' fishbone bracelets. It kind of ruins the effect.
A couple of days earlier, on the only really unbearably hot day so far, I caught the end of a service in Old Goa, which four hundred years ago was a city said to rival Lisbon. Now it just consists of five or six magnificent cathedrals, the rest having long fallen. No choirs of snotty-nosed trebles here: they prefer to use what sounds like three or four young girls to sing the Mass in Portuguese, then turn the amp up to eleven, a la Spinal Tap, to energise the converted with beautiful if imperfect harmonies. (No Dad, that's not a cadence pun.)
Goa has definitely got a laidback vibe by comparison with Mumbai (but where hasn't?): in fact, I've seen long shadows on cricket fields, and I've seen old maids bicycling to Holy Communion. It's not far off being a Major paradise. Except that you can't walk ten yards without being offered a taxi, a sarong, a coconut, or some 'very nice good price' fishbone bracelets. It kind of ruins the effect.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Tongue twisters
One of the most endearing features of the Indian middle-classes is their use of language. Most of the better-educated people here seem to speak Hindi, English and usually a regional language too (in Maharashtra, it's Marathi). But the language they actually use in day to day conversation is something different again: it's Hinglish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish
I was vaguely aware of this phenomenon, and it confused the hell out of me in Monsoon Wedding, but it's wonderfully bizarre to hear it in action. My boat back from Elephanta Island to Mumbai the other day was shared with twenty or so art students, and in the pouring rain and choppy sea (not one of them could remember it raining in March in Mumbai before), their mixture of shock and awe at the elements was rendered in both languages in every sentence.
Similarly, i caught ten minutes of round-table TV discussion about the cricket today from a panel of hasbeens (the Gary, Alan and Mark of Indian cricket, I suppose) and every one of them used Hinglish as a matter of course. Not only do they know full well that each other understands it, they know that hundreds of millions of Indians are perfectly comfortable with it too.
I remember when I was a kid people used to go on about Franglais, but it never worked outside of Pink Panther movies, probably because fundamentally both the English and the French are too stuck-up ever to consider such a degree of cultural exchange. Indians don't seem to be quite so worried. Maybe deep down, it's because they don't need to rely on their language to provide a sense of identity: they're confident that their glory days still lie ahead. Can England or France really say the same?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinglish
I was vaguely aware of this phenomenon, and it confused the hell out of me in Monsoon Wedding, but it's wonderfully bizarre to hear it in action. My boat back from Elephanta Island to Mumbai the other day was shared with twenty or so art students, and in the pouring rain and choppy sea (not one of them could remember it raining in March in Mumbai before), their mixture of shock and awe at the elements was rendered in both languages in every sentence.
Similarly, i caught ten minutes of round-table TV discussion about the cricket today from a panel of hasbeens (the Gary, Alan and Mark of Indian cricket, I suppose) and every one of them used Hinglish as a matter of course. Not only do they know full well that each other understands it, they know that hundreds of millions of Indians are perfectly comfortable with it too.
I remember when I was a kid people used to go on about Franglais, but it never worked outside of Pink Panther movies, probably because fundamentally both the English and the French are too stuck-up ever to consider such a degree of cultural exchange. Indians don't seem to be quite so worried. Maybe deep down, it's because they don't need to rely on their language to provide a sense of identity: they're confident that their glory days still lie ahead. Can England or France really say the same?
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Dicky tummy
First dicky tummy of the trip, and it's sudden and violent: calm and peaceful one moment, uncontrollable vomiting the next. Lovely. I can't have done much for the reputation of the English abroad. But it seems to have more or less passed now, touch wood, after a heroic quantity of sleep.
The annoying thing is it takes away the appetite for spicy food. I was just perfecting my thali technique, using only the fingers (of the right hand, of course); now the mere smell of it gets me all a-queasy again. For very different reasons, I feel like the guy in Goodness Gracious Me's only fine moment, the "going for an English" sketch:
"Waiter, waiter... Give me the blandest thing on the menu!"
The annoying thing is it takes away the appetite for spicy food. I was just perfecting my thali technique, using only the fingers (of the right hand, of course); now the mere smell of it gets me all a-queasy again. For very different reasons, I feel like the guy in Goodness Gracious Me's only fine moment, the "going for an English" sketch:
"Waiter, waiter... Give me the blandest thing on the menu!"
Friday, March 10, 2006
Vivek and his women
Ashish is going to be a footballer, he assures me. But just in case he's not able single-handedly to transform the fortunes of the Indian national side (in probably the only area of world affairs where this country's still not a major player), he's revising his college mathematics as well. He claims to have seven girlfriends: I'm impressed, until Vivek - two years his junior at just 15 - beats him with a score of eight.
He calls Priya - not one of the eight, I'm assured - and puts me on: "Hi, Priya, it's Adam. I've got a message from Vivek. He's too shy to say it himself, but he's in love with you". Well, Ashish finds it funny.
Vivek forgives me, offers me a puff at the hookah pipe, and teaches me the Hindi for motherfucker, and even better, sisterfucker. Doubt i'll remember them for long, though.
He calls Priya - not one of the eight, I'm assured - and puts me on: "Hi, Priya, it's Adam. I've got a message from Vivek. He's too shy to say it himself, but he's in love with you". Well, Ashish finds it funny.
Vivek forgives me, offers me a puff at the hookah pipe, and teaches me the Hindi for motherfucker, and even better, sisterfucker. Doubt i'll remember them for long, though.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Bloody hell
Every year in Britain, nestling there amongst Ms Rowling and her ilk, one of the top ten best-selling books is the ever-popular Highway Code. It's quite a hefty tome, too, with a squillion obscure rules that everyone diligently memorises in case they ever come into conflict with a member of the local constabulary.
In Mumbai, after a few hours in the city, one taxi journey and lots of wandering amidst the traffic, I can be fairly certain that the rules of the road are as follows:
In other news, buying tickets is also fun. I did two whole circuits of the Wankhede Stadium before finding the ticket office, who decided to place me in the Vijay Merchant stand (there was another English guy there, but he looked older and richer than me so he got the Sunil Gavaskar Stand for an extra 1,000 rupees. I reckon he got ripped off though: yeah Sunil may have got 34 Test centuries, but Vijay ended up with a first-class average of 71, which I think wins under Top Trumps cricket rules). Best of all, although i handed over my money today, all i got was a receipt: i have to go back next week to get the actual tickets. Genius. Now i see what Nehru got for all those close ties with the Soviet Union.
A chap who claimed to work for the railways buttonholed me in the vast teeming madhouse of CST station (I was the confused, white boy - it wasn't difficult to spot me) and ordered several other guys to go and sort out my ticket. I let them go off with my money on condition that he stuck to me like a limpet - for the next 40 minutes, as it turned out. He claimed that this was the quick way of doing it. Still, i have my ticket and on Saturday morning I will wake up with the dawn, on a train hurtling down the coast at speeds in excess of 10mph. Should be fun.
In Mumbai, after a few hours in the city, one taxi journey and lots of wandering amidst the traffic, I can be fairly certain that the rules of the road are as follows:
In other news, buying tickets is also fun. I did two whole circuits of the Wankhede Stadium before finding the ticket office, who decided to place me in the Vijay Merchant stand (there was another English guy there, but he looked older and richer than me so he got the Sunil Gavaskar Stand for an extra 1,000 rupees. I reckon he got ripped off though: yeah Sunil may have got 34 Test centuries, but Vijay ended up with a first-class average of 71, which I think wins under Top Trumps cricket rules). Best of all, although i handed over my money today, all i got was a receipt: i have to go back next week to get the actual tickets. Genius. Now i see what Nehru got for all those close ties with the Soviet Union.
A chap who claimed to work for the railways buttonholed me in the vast teeming madhouse of CST station (I was the confused, white boy - it wasn't difficult to spot me) and ordered several other guys to go and sort out my ticket. I let them go off with my money on condition that he stuck to me like a limpet - for the next 40 minutes, as it turned out. He claimed that this was the quick way of doing it. Still, i have my ticket and on Saturday morning I will wake up with the dawn, on a train hurtling down the coast at speeds in excess of 10mph. Should be fun.
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