Subcontinental Holiday Blues

I started travelling in my undergraduate days and the odd break aside, haven't really stopped. I've been to a few places and in all of that time and there's almost nowhere that I've ever been to that I wouldn't gladly revisit. But there's a single blot on this copybook love affair. Actually not so much a blot as a huge, stinking stain - as if some mange ridden, geriatric black dog with irritable bowel syndrome had dumped on my shag pile magic carpet. I had been forewarned. Good, well meaning people whose views and opinions I didn't automatically reject as the musing of lunatics had furrowed their brows with concern. Think again, they'd counselled. Its not like other places, they warned. Its hard travelling, they said. Others were more direct. Don't be freaking insane you idiot. And its not as if I hadn't seen something, buried deep in the back of their eyes, something slightly disturbing, that had damaged them, made them just a bit unhinged. But I'd arrogantly shrugged it all off. I thought I was better than them. I thought I could handle it.

The vast expanse of the India sub-continent contains a truly magical place. Not so much magical as special. Well, not so much special as life affirming. And not so much life-affirming as life-saving. No, it's not the Taj. And its not the Ganges, the Kerala backwaters, nor northern hill stations. It's the back of a 747 speeding down the tarmac at Mumbai International about to lift off on departure. I remember shaking with happiness on that day. I suspect I was sporting the sort of radiant idiot grin common to cult members. The stewardess had asked with apparent concern whether everything was alright. Oh yes, I'd replied with my left eye twitching, I'm fine Captain! as India finally disappeared through my small cabin window.

How do describe India? I had been captured at an early age by that pioneering doyen of convenience foods, Maggi, and one of their inane commercials from the 1970s offering exotic rice dishes from 'the land of contrasts'. And like the rice itself, the reality had stood in stark contrast. In truth it is shit. That's probably how you'd describe India. That's about it really. Apart from there being a lot of it in India, and I mean a lot, you can readily equate shit with awfulness and that just about properly describes everything. Now that might sound like exaggeration. That's just precisely what I would have thought too. Before, that is. And forget about the old chestnut of India polarising people. It doesn't polarise, it traumatises. It actually seeks you out, as if by heat seeking radar, locks onto you, and you're done for. You don't either love or hate India. You just use every rupee and means possible to get your arse out of there. Why? Here's what a typical day in India looks like.

A filthy phone by the bedside will wake you at 4.00am, about 30 minutes after the street noise has died down enough to let you sleep. You'll get a painful electric shock from the receiver. It will be Ramshesh or some such from the front desk, for some reason jabbering about how you must pay your bill, even though you've just checked in that afternoon and you've been asleep for half an hour. You'll explain that you'll pay later that day, or when you leave, and it will be sorted. Ten minutes later Ramshesh will ring again, and you'll have to go over it once more. So you either go down and throw him some rupees (he'll grin as if this horrid imposition is like some silly joke), or you'll endure another three or maybe four more calls. In another half hour the street noise will start up and there will be no more sleep. It was just like that last night, and the night before that. Fine. You'll decide to get up and make an early start to the day.

You'll discover that the shower taps are marked Hot and Hot. Neither, however, will produce hot water. One will be icy, the other just less than icy. So, you'lll strip off, and set to quickly jump in. But you'll find half a dozen faces in the bathroom window. Just there. Looking. Transfixed. What the. They do that in India. No matter where you are, there are always people there, staring. They don't even blink. It's like a cruel form of torture. You'll try to close the window (the lever lock won't work) and continue. The flow from the shower will then spray three quarters up the shower door. It will be impossible to even get your head under. No, it's not broken. It's made that way. So, you'll use your hands to try of divert some of the terrible cold water over your body. Forget about using soap. You'll give up on that after a couple on minutes. Fine.

The power will then cut out and you'll lose the lights. It might be a five minute black out. It might be five hours. It will happen at least three or four times today. But there's no pattern. So, you'll stumble around naked and cold, looking for your bag and clothes. You could follow your nose, since the luggage wallah from yesterday's bus trip managed to accidentally drop your luggage into the mud (strangely enough there were designated luggage cleaners conveniently located at the station, and the station cops were smiling) and it how smells like ten people had wiped their asses on it. Dressed, you'll locate your toiletries and almost poison yourself by brushing your teeth with something called Colfate which is in fact some illegal and toxic substance sold as tooth paste.

After washing some of the burning sensation from your mouth, you'll try to open the door, and after cursing the sticking door knob, struggle with the dead weight of the Indian slumped beside it a comatose slumber. You'll need to tip-toe between snoring bodies to get to the lift. You'll notice the sharp smell of burning electrical wire from the button you've just pushed. Why? Because it stinks worse then the stench of stale urine that was already there. The lift won't work, so you'll take the stairs. There will be more bodies. Getting through will be like a game of moving Twister, played in 3D. At the desk, Ramshesh and his gang will take this as a signal to start noisy negotiations over your bill again (even though you paid him at 4.00 in the morning). Having anticipated this, you'II blurt out something about an appointment and rush past.

Out the door, you'II be violently re-acquainted with any number of olfactory offences. It's as if two malicious fairies had taken a sizable dump in each of your nostrils, with the crap having stood in a sauna for a few hours. You cannot get rid of it. It's the personal smell of India. A mix of open sewers, recycled diesel fumes, cow shit, decomposing animals and a million festering wounds. On the curb to the left, the sleeping bodies will be wrapped in shawls and lined up like sardines. The roadside will look like a morgue. To the right there will be a little chai shop, where a gaggle of early risers will be drinking tea and eating various fried things. It will look okay. Unfortunately, almost every Indian male spends at least the first hour or so of the day clearing their nose and throat by doing their personal best to huck up a lung. It's a horrible noise when one person does it. They all do it. No tea for you then. You'll then try to dodge the spit, snot and sleeping bodies to find breakfast.

You'll be enveloped by an instant human scrum before you've taken ten steps. One will have an elaborate heart breaking story about needing to buy injections for his dying daughter. Another will display a huge, freshly de-scabbed leg ulcer. There will be appeals to you as a God fearing Christian. Snot nosed street urchins will tug at your sides with postcards. There will rickshaw drivers. Several people will offer to guide you to nowhere you want to go. There will be a tall blind guy with freakish white eyes that looks like Indian version of David Carradine's teacher from Kung Fu. Almost everyone will be looking for coins for their collections. It literally starts within seconds, and will not let up. Each is in competition with the other and the keys to success are to grab tighter, plead louder, be more desperate, and cry and wail. While this is happening there'll be an audience of a few hundred others gracing you with that disturbing, wide-eyed stare that laser beams into your brain. You'll have beads of sweat on your forehead.

So, for arguments sake, assume that you've shaken the throng (left them looking dejected and offended), and found a refuge somewhere that looks vaguely like a restaurant. Excellent work. There'll be a brief, fruitless search for menu. There won't be one. You will however be provided with all the most god-awful noise your rapidly fraying nerves can handle. Hindi Pop. Played at full volume. Through the cheapest speakers India can manufacture. It's blasted out in cars, rickshaws, buses, trains, and aircraft. It's spewed out of almost every slum, house, hostel, guesthouse, and hotel. Just try pulling a 32 hour overnight bus trip accompanied by the noise of a thousand wailing cats being tortured set to music. What the hell is wrong with these people?

With the terrible noise stabbing you in each ear, you'll eventually find a waiter and point to something at another bench that looks like a large yellow pancake and a glass of something like lassi. The waiter will smile and leave. Another hour later, you'll be served something resembling a plate of cold duck sick with a couple of boiled bear paws thrown in. The monstrous thing won't even be on the menu. It'll be what they think a Westerner would like for breakfast. God knows why. There will be no possibly reason. And forget about whatever is in that glass. It'll be some concoction more likely involving coconut milk and anchovies, and maybe a couple of slices of salted green mango in the bottom. The waiter will frown when you push the plate aside. He'll make you feel ungrateful. Any number of oily-mouthed diners will be peering at you with similar disapproval on their faces. You know that there aren't any supermarkets, or fast food outlets, and that you'll eventually have to conquer these places if you're ever going to eat. At least you can get a cup of tea, and have a cigarette to calm your nerves.

Let's say you've decided to run an errand, perhaps to cash a traveller's cheque. You'll grab a rickshaw (easy enough), inform the driver of the bank you need (he'll nod enthusiastically), and settle on a price. You'll sit back in a momentary fit of self congratulation until you're in traffic, where you'll realise that your face is now level with a thousand spewing tail pipes, being blasted by streams of hot, filthy, doctored diesel exhaust from every clapped out car, truck, motorbike and tractor on the road. You'll get momentary relief when, after five minutes he pulls into a station for petrol, and about ten minutes after that when the rickshaw breaks down. The servo will necessitate a pointless argument about who should be paying for the fuel. The breakdown will last at least one hour. Your face will be filthy and you'll be sweating heavily.

The driver will have his hand out for a baggage fee (after you've paid for the petrol), though you're not carrying any. Naturally you will have been dutifully delivered to a gem shop, travel agent, carpet seller, restaurant, handicraft shop, tailors, massage parlour, fortune teller, dentist, hotel or family-fun park. There won't be a bank in sight. You might protest. You might say things like - so, lets get this straight, if I actually wanted the bank, I should have asked you to take me to the midget circus. Of course! How stupid of me! My mistake. Here's $100 for your trouble. Tell you what, why don't I jab myself in the eye with this stick, just for the hell of it. But cynicism won't work. He'll just take it as if you've freshly defiled his sister on the footpath. The smart thing is to not get back in. The experienced will have thrown the fare in the back seat and walked away. In less than a minute the guides, beggers, drivers, touts and con artists patrolling the streets for the weak and vulnerable will again line you up.

Let's pretend you're at a bank. There will be a series of queues, each snaking past the armed guards and out the front doors. There's no point asking any of the hundred or so people in the queue whether you're in right line, they'll all just say yes with just enough enthusiasm to assure you. Worst still, it will taken as an invitation to talk. And talk they will. For hour after hour they'll talk. They'll talk at you. They'll talk to you. There be almost no talking with you. In the blazing sun, with no food in your stomach and your head aching with stress, they'll go on and on an on like some type of indecipherable, unstoppable, Duracell powered talking torture robot. And you'll just have to stand there and take it. You'll be advised to get married and have as many children as human anatomy deems possible (roughly twenty three). You'll be educated on any number of crackpot philosophies. You'll be informed that India has the most educated population on the planet and find out that almost every single, breathing Indian male is a world famous engineer of some sort. Just when you think its winding up it will start anew. You'll be drifting off, wondering whether its possible for someone to actually talk you into a coma.

While all of this is happening the plentiful counter staff will be sitting behind their desks, shuffling papers, making notes in ledgers, engaging in chit chat, basically doing just about anything not involving serving customers. An eternity will pass. It is possible that you might make it to the end of the queue. It's been known. But there's almost no possibility that they'll cash that travellers cheque of yours. No siree. It's far more likely that the friendly teller will greet you by handing over a shiny brass token. What''s the token for, you'll wonder as you get pushed from the counter. The token entitles you to join the next fucking queue. It's at that point that the bank will close for four hours for lunch, or the power will cut out again. If you hadn't thought about cutting your wrists, you will now.

If you haven't abandoned whatever other plans you'd been foolish enough to entertain for the rest of the day, you probably will now. You'll somehow get back to your hotel after another series of misadventures, lie back on your bed with the phone unplugged, and vacantly think to yourself. Imagine. How any sane person could mentally endure getting to a train station, buying the right ticket to get you where you want to go, locating the place you want to go to, do the things you've travelled thousands of miles to do? This must be the closest I've ever been to hell on earth. Ramshesh will then start banging on your door asking for rupees. You'll close your eyes and tip over the edge.

That was me, in Bangalore I think, mindlessly staring at the ceiling in a pair of grimy underpants, like Martin Sheen in the opening scenes of Apocalypse Now. But I can't be sure. Perhaps it was Mumbai. Or Pune. There was another bit about a gut paralysing dose of Giardia, but I've used enough references to crap as it is. And the day before a box of Indian matches decided to spontaneously combust in my pocket, leaving an excruciating wound on my thigh. And when all my clothes had been returned from the laundry expertly folded to disguise the fact that they burned holes into every single item during the ironing. But, I think I'm better, now. And its probably good manners to stop there.

I escaped to Goa. I found a nice guest house run by two friendly Swedes. I spent a week with some older Brits and couple of very funny German, recovering, on the beach. I suspect it's what rehab would be like. The sea breeze calmed my nerves. The food was recognisable. The piecing stares were shut out by compound fencing. It was almost normal. After dinner one night, I asked the unmentionable. I'd looked around at the assembled diners and just came out with it - who can honestly say that India isn't crap? One woman snorted her gin and tonic through her nose. A Dutch guy didn't even look up from his paperback and just said, jah, India, she is a shithole, that is for sure. Mildly vindicated, I sat back, gazed beyond the large concrete wall that partitioned us off from the street and thought - there's never going to be a time when, if anyone ever happened to offered me a return trip to India and thousands of dollars, that I could ever say anything but mate, sick it up your arse. There never has.