The one in which I Dirty Sanchez Gandhi...

Tuesday 7th April 2005, 11:38AM

So here I am in “India” as the locals call it…and what a very queer place it is. No not queer like Brighton, though there are a lot of men holding hands (it’s a cultural thing according to my guide book). So, apparently India’s like this whole other country now and we don’t own any of it! We don’t even get a cut of the profit. Jeez, we invented the place! Who’d have thunk it? Shit, if I had known it wasn’t even ours anymore, I would never have agreed to come out here and fix their health service. Why didn’t any of you tell me? They don’t even speak our language very well.

The flight was fairly uneventful. The guy next to me decided the spare chare between us was to put his feet on whilst he slept. How rude! The chair was clearly for me to put my feet on whilst I slept, but I suppose some people just don’t give a crap about others. He also thought it was hilarious when I ate a chili that some smart arse had hidden in my salad disguised as a green pepper. He was lucky the flight was only 91/2 hours because I swear, if it had been like, 6 or 9 more hours I almost certainly, probably would have at least given him a really dirty look. Like, while he was sleeping though because jeez…I don’t want to be a victim of air rage y’know? Needless to say he was pretty lucky we landed when we did.

So straight away one problem with India became clear; it’s full of for’ners. Although, I’m sure there are some liberals out there who would remind me that they’re not for’ners because this is their country…yadda yadda yadda! Bloody Lefties! I think I know a for’ner when I see one, and these people are not like you and me. They wear different clothes and some of them don’t even speak English as their first language. In fact, on the way from the airport, the taxi driver turned to me and said “I’m practicing my English, and would very much appreciate this opportunity to converse with you, with a view to improve my vocabulary and syntax. I must apologise to you though, as I feel my grasp of the English lexicon is perhaps slighty substandard, so you may struggle at times to grasp exactly what I am saying”. Ha! What an idiot. I was all “Juuust-Taaaake-Meee-Tooo-Theee-Puuuub-Saaanje-Yeah? Beeeer?”. He said his name was Victor and that he thought I might have had a small stroke caused by something called “Deep Vain From Bosis” or something. I was like, “ha, what are you...a doctor?!” and he was all “no, just a medical student”.

“Whatever… just drive the taxi yeah?”.

It’s not all overly articulate taxi drivers though. One of the best things about this “place” is everything is cheap as hell! I can’t understand why everyone is so hungry looking and shabbily dressed when you can get a full meal for like 40p! There really is no excuse. Another example; I’ve already been in this internet café today, and I wrote a huge long e-mail that took about an hour. Then there was a power cut and I lost it all. I should note though that it was quite worrying how calmly everyone else in the café took this; I fear it may not be an unusual occurrence. I, on the other hand, was annoyed. Very very annoyed. In the UK I wouldn’t have paid and probably would have written to my MP...maybe even done some nose punching and crotch stomping if it was a Monday. Out here though, an hour of dial-up internet sets you back about 10p! Granted, it’ll take that long to load anything that’s even remotely wankable (some pixilated nipples, maybe a hint of a ball-gag), but it’d still be cheap even at twice the price. TEN PENCE! I usually inhale that much whilst I sleep (did I mention I sleep on a huge pile of money? Ok, so it’s mainly small denomination copper coins and it is incredibly uncomfortable, but still; A PILE OF MONEY!)

And poorly rendered pornography isn’t the only thing that’s cheap in India. Money has virtually no value . Well, not to me anyway…did I mention I’m pretty rich? Well I am…compared to people here anyway. For example, during my first day in the ridiculously named town I’m in (Karikudi…honestly, do they just throw Scrabble sets out of windows and go with what lands?) I found myself hammering for a dump. Sorry, I should say hammering to “drop the kids off at the pool”, although really I’d be dropping them off at the ceramic hole in the floor, as there isn’t really much of a pool there…or any kind of seat. Or any flushing mechanism. Or in fact anything except a prickling sense of shame and a mirror at eye level to remind you how low you’ve stooped, both socially and literally. Alas I hadn’t yet had the guts to ask for toilet paper at the local shop and I really didn’t want to “go Indian” and introduce my left hand to real manual labor.

The only thing I had was some 10 Rp notes. That’s about 8p. You can see where this is going, yeah? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. I had no choice you see? Don’t judge me…you weren’t there man…you weren’t there! NONE OF YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE!?

So anyways, just me and old Gandhi’s and his smug peace loving mustachioed little face, and no one would ever know. Well, not unless later I found it hilarious in hindsight and decided to e-mail everyone about it. Ha, I wonder if Ghandi enjoyed the “hindsight”. Get it? Hindsight? Like, because he was looking at my arse? Well, probably not. He wasn’t really renowned for his sense of humor, and even the best sport isn’t going to enjoy being the victim of a gap year student’s very symbolic and scatological disregard for local culture and customs.

So there you have it. Barely in the country for 24 hours and already I’ve committed an act I fear will stay with me for the rest of my days; I am a terrible terrible human being. Though, having said that I can now at least claim to have wiped my arse on a national treasure and I’ll never have to admit to my grandchildren that I once scraped shit off my anus with my bare hand.

One of the other things I’ve found hardest about this “country” aside from the ablutions is the diet. I came here with all the best intentions of trying everything, plus I’m already quite the curry lover, so I wasn’t expecting it to be such a challenge. However, curry for breakfast is more than anyone can be expected to take, and after a week I’m racking my brains for information I can surrender to stop the torture. I’m sure it’s a human rights violation (Didn’t Hitler give people in concentration camps curry for breakfast? God he was a shit wasn’t he?).

And it’s not just for breakfast that they like to dabble in culinary psychological warfare. They munch copious amounts of this stuff called idli for most evening meals and sometimes at lunch. I’m told it’s like a savory cake made from steamed lentil and rice dough but to me it seems like bread that’s been thrown to the ducks and has gone soggy in the pond water. Seriously, fuck this stuff. They seem to be in a constant cycle of either eating it or making it. Eating it or making it. Eating it or making it, for all eternity. It’s like some Orwellian culinary nightmare. I think if I only learn one thing while I’m here (and let’s face it, if I manage to learn that much it’ll blow my cultural horizons wide open) it’ll be how to politely control my gag reflex and eat anything placed in front of me.

There’s so much more to tell but I’m worried about another power cut (they’re like Indian busses…you don’t see one all day, and then one comes along and ruins everything). The first day I was here I think was the most action packed. I think it must have been an end of season episode in the soap opera of my life. The main thing which made me really want to get straight back in the first taxi, train, taxi, plane, plane, tube, train and bus back home was that I was passing brown liquid where once there had been only solids. This was solely my own fault as I stupidly drank something with ice made from tap water without realising it. The water in India is more of a thick broth of bacteria, which whilst fine if you’re local, will cause rapid evacuation of your abdomen if you’re only packing a weakling Western immune system. I could have shat through a sieve seriously. And I probably wouldn’t even had to rinse the bits out.

To make things worse though, it was also my first day of work in the hospital and I was feeling really nauseous when I went into “theater” (that’s what they call the operating room here…the crazy bastards! Don’t they know that theaters are where you go for plays and the likes…they’ve got their attitude all wrong). We were scheduled to see a little kid get his appendix removed; a fairly straightforward cut and shut even in a rural clinic in India. I felt pretty rotten anyway, but then with all the heat, the smell of the theater’s disinfectant, the mask and the standing up, I wasn’t feeling great.

Finally, after waiting for the kid to get his ass unconscious, the doctor made the tiniest slice I could possibly have hoped for. Unfortunately this veritable paper cut sent me running out like a big girl, white and clammy and ready to chunder. I ran straight out into the courtyard to where the family were waiting and projectile vomited everywhere. Everywhere God damn it! I think they were a little worried about the strange white guy running out of their son’s appendectomy looking like he’d seen someone turned inside out. I managed to find the strength to curl myself up into the fetal position and hold in my tears, before finally having to crawl delicately upstairs when the janitor came to hose down that mornings curried breakfast. We really are indispensable to the hospital you know.

Anyway that’s about all I can be arsed to write now. This key board is shit (it doesn’t even have a “pound” sign…how rude!) and this internet café is about 400 degrees, has sporadic internet and little or northing in the way of refreshments. They’re really stretching the term “internet café” beyond what is traditionally deemed acceptable.

Lots of love to you all (except those of you I don’t like…you know who you are. No don’t look at him…YES! YOU! At the back!! Don’t think I can’t see you!!!)