Beats International

Beat box

In Jaipur last weekend there’s about two or three thousand people in a big field, watching what’s basically a folk variety show. All sorts of marvellously colourful, bonkers acts, like the woman dancing with a grinning child sat on a tray on her head, or the men dressed as women doing whirling dervishy things. There’s even a male and female hosting duo emceeing the whole night, pretending to flirt with each other like on the Eurovision Song Contest.

A splendid collaboration between local musicians and a British beatboxer gets the kids really jumping: Rajasthani folk with a kick. Since there are only about five white people in the entire audience, I become an instant source of fascination, and the kids implore me to join in their crazy bouncing. I offer a brief half-hearted uncoordinated shake of an arm, at which point some official with a multicoloured rosette and a scowl comes over and rants at me in Hindi for causing trouble.

I try my old ‘but sir it wasn’t me they started it sir’ routine, but that hasn’t really worked since infant school. Still it’s not a problem: one conspiratorial wink to the youngsters later, and they’re back on my side.


Beat up

Back in Bombay on Sunday, and there’s a strange assembly under the flyover. About 200 young kids are sat in neat rows in school uniform, listening to a gaggle of grown ups on a stage. Some noble education cause, I presume – until I spot the billboard backdrop: a political poster with the familiar face of Bal Thackeray in the corner.

Old Bal, in case you’re not au fait with Bombay politics, is the founder of Shiv Sena, the thuggish hard-right Marathi nationalists who like to beat up immigrants – not actual foreigners, that is, but people from North India who come over here, take our jobs and our women, etc etc. They’re also the guys responsible for naming virtually everything in the city after Chhatrapati Shivaji and issuing random barely-disguised threats of violence against whoever annoys them this week.

My part of town is full of lovely, friendly people, so I was always surprised to hear from those in the know that it’s a Shiv Sena stronghold. But I guess if you give them the child at seven, they’ll give you the man.


Beat poet

Lovely literature tonight with Anne Waldman, a survivor from the Beat Poets, bezzy mate of Ginsberg no less, and fellow committed Buddhist and pricker of political pomposity. She’s magnificent, hilarious, astute, poignant at times, and mad as a chameleon who just discovered the kaleidoscope.

People try to put her generation down, but since mine has all the radical energy of a two-toed sloth doing work experience for an accountancy firm, it looks like we’re going to need them for a bit longer.

Tache in fashion

Anyone who knows me will attest that I’m a great student of beauty. Well, after ten months in India, the findings of my survey are in: and I’m pleased to be able to report that the men and women of this fine country are no more or less attractive than people anywhere else. (No shit, sherlock, thanks for the reseach grant, etc).

But there’s one aspect of Indian masculinity that’s frankly a little troubling. What’s with all the moustaches? They’re everywhere! (Especially on the men, boom boom). Is there a war on or something? Did Peter Mandelson come here in the 1980s and start a trend? Maybe there’s a national shortage of privet hedges and it’s all part of a cunning government scheme to replace them.

In the smash-hit Bollywood caper comedy 3 Idiots, featuring eternal cheeky chappy Aamir Khan, the beleaguered college principal finally reaches breaking point when – horror! – the scamsters shave off his moustache. Obviously this is the worst fate that can befall a man.

I don’t mind your proper honest Keith Flett–approved full-on face fuzz, à la Father Christmas or my new favourite, the splendid Hashim Amla. But I’ve never been able to understand moustaches, combining as they do (a) annoying hair on your face, and (b) still having to shave. The only decent reason for facial hair, as every student knows, is good old-fashioned idleness.

In which Ainsley Harriott grows an elephant's trunk

It was the first day in our new office today. There are bits of wire still coming out of the wall and I can’t fathom out how the taps in the bathroom work (though to be fair, those are still the case in my flat and I’ve been there eight months). But there are phones, computers, and comfy seats that aren’t that comfy so you don’t stay in them too long, so we’re ready for action.

We had a holy man come in to perform a puja. Ganesha was honoured, and there was a colourful offering featuring a pomegranate, a coconut, an apple and an onion. That would be a nightmare on Ready, Steady, Cook, but it’s a dream for the gods and it keeps you in their good books.

Then there was a Catholic prayer, a Muslim recitation, a sprinkling of Zoroastrianism, and an arch raised-eyebrow for the English atheist in the corner. All the gods were happy, even the ones who don't exist.