At The Zoo...all the animals are crying

Sunday 19th June 2005 3:09pm

Dear everyone,

First I’d like to I say how worried I am about you all. I heard via the internets that it's really, really hot in England and that the MET Office is worried for the well being of the average Joe Englishman. Isn’t it like, nearly 25 degrees or something there? How the hell are you all managing? Are old people dropping in the streets? Is the wide spread looting of air conditioner suppliers and ice cream vans being tipped in the streets by roaming gangs of ten year olds? How can a country cope in such sweltering heat???

Here in Delhi the summer is drawing to a close. So as you can imagine the real heat is over, and it's just...well I s'pose you could call it an "Indian Indian summer" yeah? It was "only" 44 degrees yesterday, but luckily the temperature dropped to a chilly 42 last night. The week before we arrived the temperature was as high as 47. I think that the meteorological term for that is "Shit Hot". It’s also really dry and dusty as well as we’re fairly close to a desert, and so for the first time in months I'm not wet with my own salty body juice all the time. We had a mouse in our room (which I'll come back to later) and the bread we used for bate dried up to a biscuit in about 15 minutes. It would amaze me but I’m incapable of complex thoughts since my brain is a shriveled bag of sun-dried proteins and what’s left of my electrolytes. My scrotum resembles a sun-dried apricot and my mouth is drier than a post-menopausal nun for most of the day and I’m drinking more than Judy Finnegan.

So we left moist-Mumbai on Friday, after a few days of weirdness. Basically, Mumbai is like London, but with more Indians (but it is a close run thing...), older busses and about 15 degrees warmer. Apart from that though it's uncanny. The buildings are all Victorian stile london-esque mansions, the busses are read and of the double decked variety. Even the post boxes are old red royal mail style ones and the ordered grid layout of Goa is but a memory of logic, a faint shadow of effective town planning. It’s like they want to be us or something; I’m like “hello, has anyone else noticed that they’ve totally ripped us off here? We demand royalties!”.

Mumbai was good, and fairly eventful considering we were only there four days. we went to the pet market (really disgustingly filthy. I was shocked...I thought only the people lived in shitty conditions), the zoo (like the pet market, except not for sale and with some very bored and confused looking African lions). I got all excited like a five year old about seeing some big animals; before I remembered how inconsiderate animals can be...they all just lay there doing nothing, even when I threw stones at them. That’s obviously a joke, but I was inspired to write that after seeing a kid on a school trip actually do this, right in front of his teacher, who did nothing. I was pretty angry so I told the little fuck that Tigers can read phone directories and a pretty good at Googling small boys’ addresses.

After the Zoo, and once I’d stopped crying about the depressing site of an emaciated and bored looking tiger, we went to the general market (rubbish...which is ironic because I think that's all they sold) and the Dhobie Ghats where all the washermen wash all of Mumbai’s skiddied underwear in 5000 basins. 10 000 (TEN THOUSAND!) people work there, which is more than the working population of Liverpool, washing a metric shit load of clothes. They start at 4:30 in the morning and work right through 'till sunset. We managed to arrange an illegal tour with the government foreman who ran the whole soapy operation. It was really interesting and I took a few cool pictures.

It's amazing how easy it is to bribe people out here. it only cost us 50 Rps to bribe an actual government dude. That’s 62.5 pence (that's quick math) to get this guy to risk his job and stick it to The Man, even though he kinda was The Man. it would only have been like 150 Rp fine if we were busted though so it doesn't matter really. Bling Bling!

We also managed to hit a few bars in Mumbai (well, three) which were quite good. Three litre pitchers are about 3 or 4 pounds, which is nice. The weird thing about Mumbai is that there are loads of men on the street who try to take you to see some guy called Charlie. They come up to you and say "do you wan' see Charlie? dye wan' Charlie brother". I tried to explain to one of them that I didn't know who Charlie was, but Ben recons the guy was selling Charlie. I wasn't sure if Charlie was a rent boy or some kind of man slave, but it seemed stupid to buy him as it’d just be another mouth to feed, so I said "Ben, lets run away" and that's what we did.

there was this other guy who was trying to sell us weed, which we didn't want either, having already shoveled the best part of a kilo of coke up our arses (it absorbs it better...) so we just pretended and we asked him how much. He said 500 RP, so we were like “er, 10 Rp?”. He countered with 400Rp, so we said “er, 10Rp?” (this is how you barter in India...or how we do any way). Eventually we got this guy down to 15 RP which we found really funny and totally ridiculous. Especially when he'd been jogging to keep up with us for about a km before we told him we didn't want anything, even if he was willing to pay us for it. That’s right, we’re so extreme that we get our kicks from winding drug dealers up.

It worries me how many drug related anecdotes I have from Mumbai. There’s a lot of everything knocking about there.

So we left Mumbai by train, first class, which was more than sweet. There were people waiting hand and foot on us, and they brought us free orange juice, chocolates, tea and coffee. They even helped me with my cross word, which was useful because the clues were in broken English and made no sense, as well as having little bearing on the actual answer. And no, it’s not because I’m just crap at crosswords.

So finally, the mouse...

There was a tiny (and I mean TINY) little baby mouse in our room at the hotel, and 6ft 5 Ben nearly shat the bed. I swear to god, I’ve never seen anyone so terrified of a mouse. I told him they like to climb into bed with people and bite their toes and that they like to lay their eggs in peoples urethras and for the rest of the night he was really paranoid. It nearly killed me. then when the mouse trap finally went off he wouldn't get out of bed to turn the light on or anything, and got really angry when I brought it over to show him and did the old "woops...nearly lost it there" gag. definitely a highlight of India.

hope you're all well

The eternal debate: Sand Penis, Sandpenis or Sand-Penis?

Wednesday, 1st June 2005 8:53am

Hello all

firstly, can I start by saying how disappointed I am in you all. I haven’t e-mailed for god knows how long, and when I finally get to my inbox all I have is four very agitated e-mails from my mother, a news letter and some adverts for something called “V1AGRA”. I could have been dead in a ditch…or worse! But did any of you care? Did any of you phone the home office, make appeals on Channel 4 news or start a campaign? NO! You make me sick. You’re all in deep trouble.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I’m now into the home stretch. I’ve left my little hospital and am now on the open road...just me, my backpack and my guitar. Oh and Ben. Who I now hate. With a passion. And, I suspect he may feel the same about me by now because we’ve spent pretty much every waking moment with each other for 2 months.

We left Karaikudi on Thursday and got a sleeper train from Madurai which left at 11pm and arrived at 8 the next morning. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before and gave a whole new meaning to the phrase "Cattle Class". I think India bought its trains from Germany in 1946 because they suddenly had a surplus of public transport for some reason. Apparently they were used to take people to special camps to improve their concentration or something, and now India’s using them for long distance public transport. The conditions are pretty grim. I slept on a wooden shelf with no padding and was woken up at about 4am, which is apparently what time Indian men get up when they want to annoy people...I think I may have bought a Sadomasochist Apex ticket by mistake. The guy below me was meditating. Actually bloody meditating, at 4am like he was Mr. Miyagi or something. For some reason he did this by loudly mooing like a cow.

Since last I wrote, absolutely bugger all has happened, until this weekend. The last two weeks at el-hopital were shit; the new volunteers were lame and things just weren’t as fun without our group. This weekend however, we went down to another TPA weekend which was good because it meant I could get away from Ben, who apparently really needs his sleep these days, and so was in bed by 12 evey night. Everyone else stayed on the beech 'till sunrise, playing guitar and jumping round in the surf (though there was a little too much male nudity for my liking; bloody public school boys). I also met up with Steve and Lizzy, a couple I befriended two weeks earlier on the other TPA thing, which was cool. Steve and I made a huge sand-penis (is “sand penis” one word, or is it hyphenated? I’m never sure…) on the beach. I have photographic evidence and it is epic. It’s modeled on my own, except smaller obviously. It was a little embarrassing when half way through a middle aged English woman came to see what we were making. She stopped about ten feet short once she had realised what we were doing; "oh...I see...how...er, fun" and walked away while we threw sand at her and did whirly-birds with our cocks out, Lord of The Flies style.

The weekend was really good fun, laregley spent drinking cocktails on the beach, watching pirated DVDs and playing in the surf. I’m going to meet up with Steve and Lizzy in Mumbai/Bombay at the end of the month, which is the only thing getting me through 24 hour Ben exposure (“Bensposure”?).

We bought our train tickets on Monday for our entire trip as well, which came to about 80 pounds. That was mainly because we had to get first class sleeper tickets from Goa to Mumbai (2200 km) which came to about 40 quid. Not bad considering you get your own room, meals and its how all the ministers supposedly travel. Anyway, this time next week i'll be in Goa, in two weeks in Mumbai, three weeks time I’ll be in Delhi or Agra and in about a month I’ll be home and wishing it was a month ago.

hope all is well and that exams are going well...haha...only joking! I don't give a shit, I'm off to the beach!

Realisations

Tuesday May 25th 2005

Hey Tim,

I’m definitely not coming home in early June, as that’s only about a week’s time (I think it's the same in England, but I still haven’t quite got to grips on the time difference). I should be back in July, although I'm not sure when. I'm probably going to stay one night with Emlyn (whether he likes it or not) to see his new house, and maybe to take in some more of London town; marvel at it's drainage system, refuse collection and basic sanitation. I'm so excited!

I made a similar joke the other day to the one you made about Emlyn dying and you advising me to move on with my life (that was a joke wasn't it...?) when one of the girls was really sick. I suggested we cut our losses and get over her, maybe even get a tomb stone cut. "Hell...I’m totally over Nickie" I said, to an incredibly icy reception. It was only her in the room at the time I suppose, but jeez, you think she could take a joke, ‘m I right?

Another joke I regret now is the one about kicking and/or punching necks. So many people didn't get that and I think people have become concerned. Two of my friends bumped into one another and they both decided that my e-mails were too violent and I think Mom's believes I'm on a one man GBH rampage across Asia. Since then I’ve left out my stories about standing on throats, poking eyes and stamping livers. Even when they've been true...

Ben is a bit shit I've decided, and it is a shame. I think I've only realised this since I've been left with him and the boring 23 year olds and him for company. I got on much better with the old crowd and only realised my dislike because it's all concentrated Ben Time now. On the other hand, when we go on the TPA weekends I seem really fun and up for adventure in comparison, because he’s spent most of the weekends in bed and making sure he hasn't got Werther's Originals stuck in his denchers. I'm sure he is way tired of me by now as well though. We've spent pretty much every waking moment together for the last two months.

I will be safe from now on...Ben can save his own day in future.

I’ll let you know the day I’m getting back, but I t might be a Sunday I’m not sure. It depends when my flights are for

hope you're ok

love Benj

Drinking Hot Beer and Trying Not to Stare At The Guy Having a Crap in The Corner.

Tuesday, 17 May 2005, 11:51am

hey everyone, it's been a long and hectic week here in In'ja but with plenty of cool happenings and the types of stories only a third world country could ever provide you with, this may become an extensive e-mail...

First off, on Wednesday Ben and I went to a Hindu wedding. It was really strange and seemed completely rushed and almost mechanized. It took about ten minutes for us to be hurried from the meal to the ceremony and then home; chop-chop-chop. It was really colorful though and interesting, especially as Dr John seemed to be the guest of honor and as such we were pretty high on the honor role as well. I suppose it was quite an honor to taken along and fed etc. Oh, also the bride was a total munter. It really outlined the evils of arranged marriages...the poor groom stuck with a hound for the rest of his life- throwing sticks, scratching her behind the ear...countless cans of dog food…trips to the vet. There really should be a “try before you buy” policy, because she’s probably just going to end up either in a dog pound, as a stray on the streets or worse…they might just put her down like so many other unwanted dogs.

On Wednesday afternoon (and I’m rushing through things here) TPA turned up with another volunteer to take Ben and I to the Leprosy clinic. If I had been getting touchy about my height (something I didn't have a problem with until I met 6ft 5 Ben and was dubbed "small Ben" by the hilarious Dr John who, I might add, is a total short-arse) it was nothing compared to how I felt when I met Aurnouldt the Dutchman, who was a circus attraction sized 6ft 7. Seriously; call the Natural History Museum because I’ve found bigfoot and he’s a grumpy gap year student from the Hague. He seems pretty sound though.

The first night at the hospital was incredibly hot and we had nothing to do, no TV and the beginnings of Cabin Fever. I was sure Ben was staring at me when I wasn’t looking, and I knew they’d been talking about me…plotting…skeaming. Either we had to go out, or I’d have to get to them first…get them with my knife…

Luckily, (for them) we eventually decided to head on down to the bright lights of the nearby town- Manumadurai- for a night on the tiles. I was hoping for 18-30s style Brits Abroad debauchery, if only for one night. Unfortunately Manumadurai is a small collection of shaky buildings, some very suspect street lights and very little else. There was no bar, no air conditioning, and pretty much no bright lights. In fact there was nothing much at all; the main attraction seemed to be a big pile of shit, that may or may not have been the actual town itself. After asking a few people for "King Fisher! KIIING-FIIIISHER!" in that wonderfully respectful way us English have when on the hunt for alcohol, we were eventually led down a back alley to a little sand floored court yard behind a wine shop. The court yard had maybe three or four old and rickety metal chairs, a concrete Bench and a man having a shit in the corner. Disclaimer: This is not a joke. There was actually a man, actually defecating in the actual corner of the court yard. What I suppose you may call the “waiter” brought us out three “Zegringer Strong Beers” in large dark brown bottles. The beer was about (and I shit you not) 35^oC and hot in our mouths. The err…”waiter” (and I’m really not comfortable calling him this, because it’s being generous beyond merit) then tried to sell us some very boney and under-cooked chicken (and/or rat and/or dog, and/or pigeon), which I was literally terrified of. It didn’t help that he was one of the greasiest people I have ever seen, or that he kept describing the plate of bloody, undercooked mystery meat as “magnifique”. We left pretty quickly and made our way back to the little bungalow on the hospital grounds that we’d been left in charge of.

Back at the oven-hot leper clinic we still had nothing to do, and as we hadn’t managed to dull our boredom with alcohol or murder, we were reduced to plan C: throwing mangos and toilet paper at the ceiling fan and making an incredibly rock and roll mess (although not that rock and/or roll because we cleaned it up in the morning). I cannot recommend doing this enough. It is truly incredible the damage that a ceiling fan on full will do to a ripe mango. Seriously, those things will tear a mango open like a baby’s skull in a lawn mower.

Eventually the fun came to an end though and after about an hour of trying and failing to fall asleep I dragged my mattress up the stairs onto the roof to sleep there. Out in the open I was soon set upon by swarms of bird sized mosquitoes, so was forced to surround myself with enough mosquito coils to give an elephant Alzheimer’s, which kind of ruined the ambiance of sleeping outdoors. Especially when I started to convulse and lost consciousness, though I suppose I did get an awesome night’s sleep.

The next day we were taken round the villages to see some lepers, and as I hoped, maybe even get some autographs! The hospital is basically a privately run charity, and they spend most of their money fighting the stigmas attached to Leprosy; providing education, giving sufferers loans to buy or build their own houses (land lords will often evict lepers because they are bastards like that), send their children to school, and to increase awareness so that people come forward during the early stages when it is easily treatable. A lot of medicine in India is based on education and prevention, as due to limited resources they just can’t treat illnesses in the same way as we can in the west and also because so many easily preventable disease are rife through general ignorance.

After the Lepers (we deserted after less than a day because it was so hot and boring) we went to Kanyakomeri or somewhere with an equally stupid name, for the TPA weekend. It was great. there was a bar in the hotel and the drinking started at about 5 and continued through 'till about 1, before we all went down to the beach for a swim (stopping off to stroke a cow, which was cool). It was nice to have some disrespectful teenage fun and to spend some time with some other volunteers. We swam about in the very calm bay late into the night, and almost managed to blag ourselves into certain death aboard an Indian fishing boat. Luckily they tried to charge 20 quid per person and we decided this was too much to pay for the privilege of a watery and anonymous grave. I was a little annoyed at the time, but looking back it was an incredibly stupid idea, seeing as the boats were barely more than canoes and out at sea we would have been at the mercy of the Indian ocean and some total strangers. I think we were pretty close to becoming a dodgy story in the Reader’s Digest.

On Saturday we did some other shit, including a rubbish temple, a filthy waterfall and a typically defunct Indian bridge. The waterfall had a men’s section and a woman’s section, and it was quite interesting when it was pointed out by one of the female volunteers that the men’s half of the waterfall was far bigger than the woman’s, and had far more water cascading over it. I took her point, but then told her she should be happy just to be out the kitchen...my black eye is pretty much healed now though, so the jokes on her.

Oh, and whilst at the bridge one of the Indian TPA staff climbed up on the side to take a picture of us all, and I hilariously did the old “whoa…saved your life” jerk-towards-the-edge-joke. Except that he didn’t find it hilarious and looked genuinely shocked and quite frightened of me, though that could have been because I was laughing like a maniac. I thought it was a classic zinger and his reaction didn’t dampen my enjoyment at all. Benji 1, Totaly Innocent Stranger 0.

After our rather eventless day out, we once again headed down to the bar. we started later, but still managed to have a fantastic time. Unfortunately the bars here have a nasty habit of being almost punctual and closing at 12. The bastards! How dare they have licensing laws that don’t suite my schedual! Anyway, two of the girls and I decided to go and buy some beer form a wine shop if we could find one and so set off into the night. First we bumped into an Indian on a scooter calling himself Kirin. Kirin said he would happily take us to a wine shop on the back of his motor bike in exchange for one photo of the girls I was with. I was happy to oblige the man, and saw it as an opportunity to start my new career as a sub-continental pimp…I was even going to ask if he knew of anywhere I could buy a leopard print bath robe or a jool studded goblet. However, Kirin was lashed out of his head and was slurring his speech pretty badly which apparently was a deal breaker when accepting lifts from strangers. Even though, or especially because we were also rather drunk, we decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to have four inebriates on one scooter. Especially when two of them were angry with one of the others for trying to pimp them out.

Eventually we found a taxi driver who would take us to a wine shop and get us some beer and who wasn’t drunk. Well, not visibly, which in India is all you can hope for really. We even managed to get him to agree that no beer, no money was the way we'd be doing things. So after some driving around the dark streets, he took us to this place and woke up some guy at what looked suspiciously like a private house and not a shop at all. It was all feeling rather clandestine, and as our new driver/bootlegger talked to his contact for a while in Tamil, I couldn’t help but feel like a total law-breaking badass. Eventually our driver came back to tell us he'd be getting the beer for 50 RP per bottle. I wanted to get out and see the beer before handing over my money though, because you know…that’s what people do in the movies when they’re buying drugs or making switches for hostages. Unfortunately for my fantasy of being Mel Gibson in Ransom, as soon as I got out the car the driver got really panicky and shouted at me to get back in. Needless to say I nearly dived through the window with fear. Apparently this really was an illegal drinking den, and it was long after licensing hours, when the police just love to arrest naïve tourists pretending to be Australian actors. Awesome! Not only this, but just down the road the coppers were sitting in their little van keeping a look out. Luckily though, they’d probably passed out or something (maybe they were drunk) and so we finally got our beer and gave the taxi driver a fat tip for putting our lives in danger so well. Thanks Sanjay!

We went back to the hotel room and carried on drinking until about 2:00am when one of the guys and I decided to go and buy some food. Of course there was nowhere to buy food at 2 in the morning...well once again, nowhere that was strictly “legal” so we just sort of stumbled around a while looking for anywhere with lights on, or trying to sniff out the smell of frying onions. After a while of this aimless meandering we found a house with some guys who had inexplicably made a two foot high pile of parota (a type of Indian flat bread) which was just lying on the floor, next to which was a huge barrel of chopped onion. we hardly had any money but did have a bottle of beer, so after talking the guy into giving us some food, we gave him 20 RP and the beer and left. It was incredibly weird, but once again was the sort of experience you can only have in India. I still have no idea why they had made all this food, or why they were willing to let us eat so much of it, or why they had just dumped it all on the floor, or indeed why we were so keen to eat the floor food. Indeed it was strange...

That’s about it (kind of) and I’m sure you're glad to hear, all I can be arsed to write.

Hope you're all ok and that the UK isn't sucking too much.

Madurai and Things Get Weird

Wednesday, April 20 2005, 9:42am

Hey everyone

Hope you’re all well. India is still cool; the many novelties are yet to wear off, which is no surprise considering I’ve been here less than 3 weeks and this country is roughly 20 times the size of the UK. I recon it’s got another 3 days though, tops.

We went to Madurai this weekend which is a regional capital I think. It was nice to go somewhere where there are proper shops and even one or two other westerners. It was really really nice not to be stared at everywhere we went, as we are in Karikudi. There were even a few groups of fat middle aged tourists with socks and sandals and back packs pulled tight to their chubby sun burnt shoulders. Despite myself, I soon started feeling a little annoyed by their lack of respect for the culture - not removing their shoes when appropriate, taking pictures of anything and everything. It’s really bad because that means I’ve become the type of “traveler” I really don’t want to be. Next I’ll be wearing sack trousers and saying things like “I really came out here to try and find myself, yah? And to really get a taste for the local way of life y’know? I hear there’s this deserted beach of the coast of Phuket that’s like totally spiritual, yah? Oh my god, we should like, so go there! I’ll see what Rupert thinks…”

Anyway, Madurai was mental, with busses, trucks, cars, rickshaws (both auto and cycle), cattle and people all competing for the limited and poor quality street space. It soon struck me that there were no pavements, no traffic lights and that most people don’t really slow down for anything smaller or less sacred than a cow. I was almost flattened by crazy moped drivers on at least three occasions. Luckily the only thing that hit me though was what I imagine was a string of Indian profanities. Jokes on them though, because I didn’t have a clue what they were saying!

The other crazy thing about Madurai was the weird scam guys that everyone calls “touts”. These are people who come over and are really really friendly and charming and knowledgeable about the UK and Madurai, but only really want to get you to visit their shops. If someone came over to me like that in the UK, I’d expect them to have a bag of sweets, a van with a mattress in the back and to be offering to show me their puppy (“it’s just over here in the back of my van…no further in…in the corner. You might have to climb in and see if you can find him…*slam*”) Of course, we were sucked in by one within about 2 minutes of leaving the hotel, but as soon as he said “I’m no guide, just friendly” we realized what was going down. After getting him to lead me to a guitar shop we told him we weren’t interested and legged it through the crowded streets like frightened little girls. In hindsight there was no need to kick him in the shins before we did so, but things are never so clear in the moment. We also saw many of the fat socks ‘n sandal wearing Germans/Dutch/Brits being led around town by touts who looked like all their Christmases had come at once, and after avoiding a similar fate, had a good old laugh at their expense. That’s what traveling is really about; having a laugh at the expense of others who are less fortunate. Isn’t it…?

The temple in Madurai was amazing, but like all the other temples we’ve seen so far, was ruined by neon lights all up the side of what would otherwise have been four amazing towers. Also they let people set up market stalls inside the temple and these places sell the most amazing variety of shitty tourist tat you’ve ever seen. Jesus would never have stood for it; it really ruins the…and it hurts me to use this word…ambiance. Can you imagine Durham Cathedral with bright neon lights and people selling framed pictures of St Cuthbert with flashing fairly light frames? Actually, that sounds pretty awesome.

We also went to the Gandhi museum, which was seriously lame. It’s quiet impressive that they managed to make Gandhi’s life so skull numbingly boring, but then I hear that pretty much every town in India has a Gandhi museum with exactly the same fake relics and claims of official endorcement.

After a really fun but manic weekend in Madurai, we returned to the quiet life of Karikudi and back to the hospital. On Tuesday, after a particularly meager evening meal (they always give us tiny meals in the evening) of noodles with sugar and shredded coconut, Ben and I decided to go down to this little bar that we found for a curry and a beer.

Beer in India is generally warm and awful, but this bar serves premium King Fisher in frosty glasses with all the free bar snacks you (and your immune system) can handle. The first night that we went it was a little like stepping into a tavern from an old spaghetti-western; everyone in the place stopped what they were doing and watched us with barely hidden sense of mistrust. The bar was almost uncomfortably cold, though if it was because of the cranked air conditioning or just the general atmosphere wasn’t clear immediately. Well, it wasn’t clear until we ordered a large beer each in our English accents and were greeted like old friends by the bar man. Apparently Ben looks exactly like Andrew Flintoff, and to the patrons of this watering hole that alone is more than enough for us to be welcomed like returning heroes. Needless to say, our first trip to the bar ended with both of us seriously worse for wear, discussing cricket late into the night with an anesthetist and a local business man, before staggering back to the hospital, to be greeted by the consistently friendly, though on this occasion slightly less so, night watchman.

Anyway, last night we barely broke the seal, and got back to the clinic at about 11:00pm. It was lucky too that we weren’t half cut again, as we were hurried straight off to theatre. Some goon had fallen out of a tree and snapped himself in two. He’d broken his thigh bone in half and had done pretty much the same to one of the bones in his arm and was in a pretty bad state. It was a particularly brutal operation, with lots of hammering, pulling, poking and even some sawing. They made a big incision about half way down his thigh, one on his arse and one above his knee. Then they got out what looked like long corkscrews and started drilling into his bone going from thigh to buttocks right up the middle. Then they threaded a piece of wire through the hole they’d made and out the cut on his backside. They did the same thing going from thigh to knee and threaded the wire back down and into the bone just above his kneecap. It was really violent in places, and they seemed to be using nothing more complicated than what you’d use in GCSE wood work, and pure brute strength. I’m surprised he was on an operating table and not a Black and Decker Work Bench. After a while we got a little bored, though I did manage to take some quality videos of the doctors hammering away at the fellows leg.

Last night however was easily the STRANGEST night so far. I knew India would be weird but last night took the biscuit, chewed it up, shat it out and proceeded to rub it all over itself whilst doing expressive dancing. We were invited by our family to their son’s nursery school “function”. Apparently it was some kind of prize giving ceremony. At a nursery school. HE’S THREE YEARS OLD FOR FUCK’S SAKE! He can’t even tie his shoe laces. I couldn’t think of anything this kid can do that would warrant a prize of any sort. Most of the time he lies about winging, trying to remember not to crap himself. Anyway we went along in our best Indian attire (i.e. sarong things) to what the big sign proudly called “The First Annual day 2005”. Great English dipshits. Oh yeah, and we had to cycle there in our sarong things, which was totally indecent. I was flashing a lot of thigh to passing motorists, and of course nearly got my massive penis caught in the spokes of my bicycle wheel. Because, you know…my penis is really, really big.

So there was about 10 minutes of prizes, given out for any old shit they could think up to justify the whole travesty. Our little man, also called Ben depressingly, won 3rd place in musical chairs. “Third place” I thought, “not something to be proud of traditionally…what a failure!” To be fair, he was beaten by these two undernourished kids who looked pretty fast, and not above cheating either. We offered to break their legs after the ceremony but Bens mother’s English isn’t too good and she just laughed and tried to change the subject, which was good because it was a token gesture really, and I couldn’t be bothered. I hadn’t even brought my breaking bat anyways.

So the other prizes were all equally crappy…things like “Best at picking coloured balls” and “Chocolate Gathering”. They may as well have been giving prizes for “Not sticking your finger in the plug socket” and “staying conscious long enough to not swallow your tongue”. Why are the parents of India rewarding their children for such inane accomplishments? Let’s see one of them invent something useful, or write a concerto. Then we can give out prizes. God, little kids are so rubbish at stuff.

Anyway, after the ten minutes of prize giving (that I did actually enjoy; I even felt strangely proud of Ben, despite his blinding mediocrity) the guest speakers each gave a speech. They were all speaking Tamil, and the speeches were about half an hour each, which I thought was rude…

“er, hello!? Guests of honour who do not speak Tamil here! I’m getting very bored guy”

After two hours of Tamil speeches I was about to throw my camera at the one the crowd thought was particularly funny, when it finally stopped. Then things got strange…

First let’s get something straight. Indian schools don’t “do” plays. Not in the western sense of the word. I suppose it’s just a microcosm of how they “do” cinema. Gone is the story line, the dialogue, the direction, the acting and any sense of continuity or logic. To replace all of that they have dance numbers. Lots and lots of bizarre dance numbers. With morals. Dance numbers with morals and weird music. Like a Bollywood film crossed with a Year 9 PSE video, on acid. The first one was about mental strength being more important than physical strength, and so to illustrate this, four guys dressed all in orange came out and danced around like a pack of ‘tards. But it was worse than that. They all had one leg (the other folded up in their trousers) and were hopping about to STEPS! I swear to God, It was “5,6,7,8” and I almost shat my pants. I’ve never felt so strange in all my life. There were too many weird acts to tell you about them all (and I’m not sure I want to relive them anyway) but the other one that stuck in my mind was an all singing all dancing underwater number (the moral of which was lost on me. I think…maybe something about not swimming after lunch? Or, like…the dangers of playing on wetlands?). This one had a kid dressed as a deep sea diver, suspended from the ceiling by some ropes. Except that he was dressed like someone trying to dress like a deep sea diver, despite having never seen a deep sea diver or possibly even the sea and being brain damaged. When the music started (a remix of Mumbo Italiano for some reason) the teachers at the side of the stage started pulling on the ropes so that the poor kid was yanked back and forth and up and down, flung about like a rag doll. I was amazed that he wasn’t sick on what I presume were the star fish below him. It was one of the funniest and strangest things I’ve ever seen and luckily I caught it all on video, but I’m not sure if I should send it to You’ve Been Framed or Amnesty International…hmmm. Do Amnesty still pay £250 if it’s shown?

Any way, that’s about it. I’m off to go film myself swinging a child from a rope.