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!

I have a joke for you...What do you mean? Of course it's suitable!

Dear brothers

This morning we were waiting for the doctor and talking to the latest female volunteer. she's "an indian, from America" and not a native Indian or apparently "a red Indian". in fact she got quite annoyed and told me that term was offensive. "especially when you make that whoooowhoooowhooooo noise and tap your hand over your mouth...and they only dance round like that during ceremonies! it's that kind of attitude that's holding the world back yadda-yadda-yadda". she's obviously never seen a Clint Eastwood film...that’s what they dooooooo! She doesn’t even own a casino…psssht.

Anyways wes were talking to the American-Indian-from-India-not-America, and Ben was making up stories again .He does this...even if I was there at the time, he'll still exaggerate madly and it’s not even in the hilarious way I do it; it’s more like “jeepers, I’m really awesome…did I mention how awesome I am?”. Anyway, I had a sudden impulse to poke him in the eye with my nail clippers, or in fact anything else sharp that I could get my hands on; I think our two month honeymoon period is over and I’m going to really struggle being on the road for a month with him. By the way I recently read American Psycho, in which the guy is constantly having murderous urges. I’m not sure if that’s where I got it from, or if Ben just has the type of face you want to stab with vanity utensils. Feel my tweezery pain bitch!

So today is my last day in Karaikudi, and my last day at the hospital. I doubt whether I’ll get the chance to see a proper birth now...although you did make is sound like a charming little show; blood spraying-skin-splitting-vomit-inducing-entertainment at its best. Maybe though, I might still see one if I hang around the shanty towns enough in Deli; I doubt they have many cesareans round there.

It’s a pity that Coldplay are losing the battle against that tiny cocked frog (have you seen the quite frankly offensive advert?). I agree about chavs clearly having too much disposable income. That’s why I’ve been campaigning to increase taxes on the lower income groups, thus no one could afford to go to Malaga, Le Coque Sportif, the companies that make cheap white cider and whoever it is that makes wet look hair gel would go out of business and the demand for velour tracksuits and mah-hoooosive gold earings would plummet. I think Elizabeth Duke of argos jewelry fame (by the way, isn't that where you got your engagement ring for Miranda Tim? or is she not supposed to know that?) would be made homeless. Not to mention the affect it would have on the music charts; no more Crazy Frog and no more RnB or trance. Ah, I can but dream...

The London eye does sound cool, but someone would have to pay for me, and seeing as though your new nickname Tim, is Povertim and you chose your engagement ring from the Additions Catalogue, and Emlyn you're earning less than the average Indian sand farmer, I think the two of you may have to pimp lisa and Beatrice out. Or maybe Sheep...I bet he'd be a nice little cash cow...or should I say "cash sheep"! Chortle-chortle...

By the way tim, I had another one of those moments where I made a joke that got a slightly icy response (except for one or two who loved it...er me being one. There wasn’t really another). The joke was (and I may have told it to you already):

Q: Why does Rupert The Bear wear red and yellow checkered trousers?

A: Because he's a cunt.

I’m not sure why people didn't laugh. Whether it was because they were all massive Rupert fans, secretly owned red and yellow checkered trousers, or just didn't appreciate jokes about fictional bares, I'm not sure...I s'pose I’ll never know. Sometimes I just don’t understand other people.

We're going to be traveling pretty nonstop for the next week until we get to Goa. Tim, I did some research into the bungee jumping place in goa, and apparently it has a perfect safety record and is run by an American company. I think, having seen the way some things are run out here, I was worried they'd forget to tie both ends of the rope, or use regular non-stretch electrical cord or something. I’m still in two minds.

Anyhow, I have to go for lunch so I’ll cut this short. I can guarantee lunch’ll be rice and this nasty watery stew thing called Samba (I like to sing that song when the mother brings it to the table "samba…de janeiro! Deh-deh-deh-deh-deh-deh-deh-deh-deh…" Admitadely it’s not very funny, but still; it took Ben about two weeks to get the joke. *sigh*). Anyway I can guarantee this because we've had 24 lunches, and for 24 lunches we've had rice and samba. Sometimes with razor sharp boney fish (maybe 3 times) and even once or twice with chunks of choke- sized chicken bone with tiny pieces of meat clinging to it. All chicken is like this in Southern India...which makes me wonder what they do with the good bits, or whether chickens are just boney little piles of feather and gristle down here.

Anyway, 'nuff said. And so this is the end of my karaikudi experience, and leaves me with only 4 more weeks in India, which i'm sure will fllllllllllly by.

I’ll be in touch the next time I can be.

love Benji

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.

Braaains...arrg...braaaains!

Monday, 9 May 2005 11:34am

hey everyone

firstly, sorry to those of you who haven’t been getting my group e-mails. I know how you people are relying on them to distract you from the Orwellian nightmare that is your grinding daily existence. I’ll make some changes and hopefully there won’t be to many more problems...even though I’m nearly half way through my trip, I’m sure there'll be plenty more to come.

So this week I saw a guy who'd been in a motorcycle crash and had his head pealed by the pavement. No really, like an orange. His scalp was hanging off like a thick peace of tough stake. It was pretty rough really. He'd been drink-driving and was still trollied (literally...they had no spare beds) when he was brought in. They didn't even sedate him as they began cleaning his skull and forcing the stitching needle through his thick leathery head skin. It was pretty gruesome, but on the plus side (for me anyway) he did end up with a very comedy hair cut...they shaved all his hair to the skin except for his mono-brow...a great look! He was so drunk though that he wasn’t likely to notice. In fact when we first came down and saw him lying in reception on the trolley, Ben and I both thought he was a dead’ne until he started to moan slightly and move about. He stank of booze as well. I’m not sure they could do much more than stich him up, and he was sent to a larger hospital in Madurai for some head scans.

We got back from Tanjour yesterday afternoon, and so concluded the travels of our little group of volunteers, as the girls all left this morning. it wasn't the most activity packed weekend but was still eventful and lots of fun. the new girl Amy arrived on Thursday, into a hail of bitching and complaining about TPA and their handling of the theft of Emma’s money. I think we've all been here long enough and the novelty has sufficiently worn off, so Thursday was spent telling her all about how rubbish a lot of the stuff is, and warning her about the thieving family that she was going to have to stay on her own with. I think it was a bit of a negative introduction to India really, but never mind. she's 23 and she's already been to university and done grown up stuff. If anything, I think she may have been shocked to see 18 year olds and the way we behave. I for one (as most of you probably know) am not the most adult 18 year old, and none of the others are much better. Anyway, so she's a little lame, but she might get more interesting. We will have to wait and see.

On Friday we arrived in Tanjour, which is by all accounts is a bit of a hole, but we had TV and a sit down toilet so it was still nice to be away from the hospital. That night we went to a restaurant in town that was supposedly the only passable eatery in the town. I chose the "Brain Fry" from the menu, not really knowing what it was, but expecting at the very most little bite sized pieces of brain...if brain at all; a lot of the menus out here have hilarious spelling mistakes on them (humus/humans and pita, crab/crap soup etc.) Unfortunately it surpassed even my wildest of expectations, and turned out to be an entire goat brain, stem et al, and it was completely un-adulterated. It was like a biology lesson rolled into a meal. You could see clearly all the different bits (the names of which I don't know, but I did recognise) and you could even make very thin microscope style slides...not that I was playing with my food or anything. In the end I put it out of my head that my meal was capable of complex thought processes and even basic problem solving abilities, and I just ate the brainy bastard. it was very strange and didn't taste like much (not even chicken, which was quite an unsettling realisation) and had one of the most stomach churningly rank textures of anything I’ve ever put in my mouth (*insert innuendo here*). Luckily hardly anyone else finished their meals, so after eating my brain (never thought I'd say that again) I at least had everyone else’s leftovers, which was nice. I think I may have worms though because I seem to be capable of consuming roughly the same quantity as the population of Sudan (actually, that’s not saying much) but I am yet to gain any weight. I do have an incredible urge to eat grass though and a strange goat like…compul…compulsion to…ba…baaaaa…BAAAA!

Anyway, not much else happened this weekend. Temples were visited, Indians stared at us, photos were taken, elephants were seen and copious amounts of very liquidy shit was passed. I think the brain fooled my stomach into not digesting it fully. goats are cleverer than we give them credit for...when we eat their brains. it wasn't too bad though and I’m glad to say I’m back to passing shapes rather than volumes.

On Sunday we had by far the most expensive meal we'd ever had at a really posh hotel (they had ice in the toilets for some unfathomable reason). We had bacon, egg, sausages, tea and coffee, cornflakes, toast fruit juice and oranges, bananas & pineapple. It all came to about the price of a McDonalds breakfast thought I suppose the origin of the meat was more questionable (if that’s possible). It was still nearly as much as our accommodation for the whole weekend though! Sometimes I love this country (well I love how shit poor it is...)

So this morning all the girls left, (except for rubbish Amy) and now Kraikudi is quiet and empty and dull. Boredom has a name, and its name is Amy. Never mind, Ben and I are off to the leprosy clinic on Wednesday for the rest of the week so that'll be cool. it's supposedly really interesting there, with good facilities and cleaner rooms; again though, the competition isn’t exactly stiff. We're going with someone called Henry or Hendrich, we're not sure, but I’m hoping he's not German, because I’m still waking up angry at night thinking about that twat Norman. Also I'm a little bit apprehensive about living in the same building as leopards. what'll happen if they escape!?

So that's about it, I can't be bothered to write anymore anyway and the last week or so has been so boring there isn’t much to say. Only 12 days left in our little hospital, and then we hit the road. I really can't wait as I’m starting to get itchy feet (although it could be fungal).

Dave, good luck with your exams, they must start soon (oh and the rest of you at uni too, if you have any)

Sara, the cesarean was cool, but incredibly messy. I can't imagine why you'd want to be a midwife; do you hate women or something?

Paul it'll clear up if you use the ointment. I know it stings, but you shouldn't have been playing with it so much ;)

Pambam, Placenta and Pachyderm Poverty

Monday, April 11 2005, 10:47am

So, after last week's vomiting all over the hospital and having to learn to suppress my gag reflex(something I hoped I’d never have to do…) my time in India has continued to throw up strange experiences and weird characters. This weekend was, of course, no exception and so we went down to Rameswaram which is a tiny town on the island of Pamban between India and Sri lanker. The island has no cash points. Not one, and I have no idea how this works on day to day basis. They must just use checks or something, right? I don’t know…maybe they just promise to pay later? Gift certificates? Pay-pal? It doesn’t make any sense.

Anyway, Pamban Island is famous as a pilgrimage destination and little else. There’s a temple, a couple of shabby hotels and more goats and cows than I felt was entirely necessary. It’s by no means famous for its beaches though and yet we easily found plentiful white sands, blue oceans, and palm trees. Plus, not a person in sight for miles and miles, which if I’m honest, made a nice change. The island was really beautiful and had a fair bustle (despite the lack of cash machines…seriously…what is with that? ). It was also predictably filthy.

It took us five hours by rickety old bus (a local commute by Indian standards) which cost about 30 Rp. That isn’t even 50p in real money. One of the volunteers Ben arrived on Thursday had some trouble because he's 6ft 4 and his legs don't fit in the seats, plus all the locals think he’s an escaped circus freak and I’m pretty sure I saw some villagers forming a pitchfork wielding mob at one of the towns we stopped in.

Anyway, the busses were "DVD Busses" which means they blast out Tamil films at ear-splitting-hallucination-inducing volumes. Tamil films by the way, are like Bollywood films except they’re lower budget and more annoying. And they play these films everywhere you go. I think I was actually close to death by the time we stopped off at this place called Rhamad about an hour from the island. At Rhamad, we planned to meet up with a German guy called Norman who the girls we were with had met on a TPA organized weekend a couple of weeks before. He wasn't there though so we gave up hope. The three girls with us are all volunteers in local clinics in Karaikudi two called Emma, and one called Natalie. So with two Emma’s, two Bens (as everyone calls me ) there are only three names between the five of us. It’s like being in a bloody Christian pop band.

Any way, we went on to Ramaswaram, and amazingly just happened to bump into Norman in the temple. I soon wished we hadn't though. The girls mainly just wanted to "show" him to us because, as I quickly noted, Norman was a total freak and a bit of a pecker. He was wearing a traditional Indian dhoti (like a sarong...I’m going to get one later today...a silk one costs about 2 pounds) and he had ash on his forehead like the men do down here and was also topless and without shoes. This brought out a very British sense of distaste in me. There was nothing particularly freaky in his attire I suppose, except that he fully thought he was an Indian peasant and was obviously trying to have a “real” experience, or to “find himself” or some other new age bullshit. I was already wondering when would be the best time to tell him that I’d recently wiped my arse on Ghandi’s face.
Norman (The Gorman) was quick to greet the girls but didn't even acknowledge my or Ben’s existence until he said “I didn’t know there were going to be…boys…with you”. Ben and I both agreed that he was more of a ladies’ man than a man’s man…or even a group of people’s man.

He was also full of crap. He regaled us (again, mainly the girls) with tails of the elephant at the palace and how it had killed two people the “other day” (that wonderfully non-specific period of time when all fantastic yarns seam to take place). This worried Norman because he was “in his last reincarnation” and wasn’t going to come back again or some other pseudo-spiritual crap. I was already looking forward to it, and was wondering how one goes about hiring an elephant assassin. He also preyed at all the alters, which I think annoyed some of the locals who must see hundreds of misty eyed foreigners pretending to be Indian every day. He used the Tamil head wobble instead of nodding, but he used it in the wrong way, and too often, and of course when we went swimming he had to be last out the ocean, the only one who didn’t admit that the sand was way too hot to walk on (I actually burnt my feet so that they were painful the rest of the day), the only one who didn’t sit in the shade, bragged about how he ran 17 miles to the next town the other day in 40 degree heat just to see if he could etc. etc. I think you can see the type of guy he was. He also gave this huge profound and moving spiel about the Tsunami in 2004 and how it had emotionally affected the people and how he saw the pain in their eyes. I wanted to ask if this was because he’d been telling them any of his stories. It was all very moving, but one of the Emma’s told me later she’d heard the exact same speech the weekend they met him, almost word for word and she reconed it was rehearsed. Oh…and he was reading Mien Kampf…and he didn’t bring any money and ordered the most expensive things for dinner. God I hated him…fuck.

Anywho, later on the way home we stopped off at the palace that TPA had placed the lucky fucker in. Norm worked as a volunteer at the school of the local “king’s” son (Note: not a real king. Don’t get excited). We were mainly enticed there with promise of seeing the kings elephant, as supposedly every palace has one, and I was excited by the idea of a huge towering beast covered in jewels and maybe golden armor stamping Norman’s face into the dirt whilst I rode on its back (also covered in jewels and golden armour). In the end I wished I hadn’t bothered. The king was incredibly ostentatious, despite the relatively diminished extent of his wealth. He had recently bought 80 rabbits. Why? Well so that he could say “did I mention I have 80 rabbits? No, well I keep them in appaling conditions. Maybe you would like to come poke them with wire one day?”. Maybe large numbers of vermin kept in wire cages is the Indian version of spinning rims and blinged out goblets full of Hennessey…

“Yo yo yo, check it out- I got 50 hunnies and 100 bunnies, I keep those things in
cages. I keep my bitches happy though, by paying living wages”

(I really should be a rapper. My talents are going to waste)

The rabbits were in lines of wire hutches, some 2 to a cage, raised off the ground so they had to walk on the wire and left with no water and little shade. I saw some with mange, others with lumps or bleeding sores. It was awful. There were emaciated dogs tied to trees and exotic birds in filthy overcrowded cages. It was so sad, I almost expected to see a man skinning a unicorn in the corner. When we finally got to the elephant I didn’t know what to expect…they’re supposedly sacred, so I was hoping the elephant would at least be better housed. Well, they’re not that sacred as it turns out and I shouldn’t have got my hopes up. It had a bad skin infection that was causing it to go pink in places, and had both left legs chained to concrete blocks so it just had to stand all day in the same position with nothing to do, except listen to the high-pitched screams of caged bunny rabbits. I regret that that was my first experience of an Indian elephant, and I regret that I thought it was still pretty cool when it tried to hit me with its trunk.

“Did you see!? Did you see!? It tried to lash out in anger and frustration! Awesome!”

So…after the weekend of annoying Krauts and mistreated animals, we’ve returned to Karaikudi and the John Medical Centre. This morning Ben and I were woken at 4:45am to go and see some more operations. First there was a non malignant breast lump, which was fairly interesting because the doctor cut it open and explained the differences between malignant and Benign tumours. Also, tits…so you know…bonus. Then, and probably most amazingly, we were invited to see a caesarian section which was incredible. It was awe inspiring. It was beautiful. It was incredibly gruesome. The mother had already had 4 previous C-Sections, which made me wonder why they didn’t just sow a zip into her, as I’ve never seen as much blood. Dr John removed the placenta and it was as if he’d just gutted her.…it was horrific. Seriously…it splattered out of the gash (no not “her gash”, I mean the actual incision) in her stomach and all over the floor and the doctors feet. I should add that they only wear flip-flops in surgery so I it was pretty sick. There was also a lot of tearing and pulling and all in all it kind of ruined my romantic notions of peaceful childbirth. Apparently they have to be very brutal because as soon as the placenta is broken the baby is in danger of suffocating so they tear it out as fast as they can. I was fine with all the blood today though, and I think the loosing of my breakfast last week was more to do with illness. Ben was next to me and I think he was a little shocked by the amount of fluid and had to hold his head between his legs for a while. What a pussy!

We’ve been seeing a lot of patients with diabetic complications as well recently. It’s mainly the less educated rural people, who do apparently understand that they can’t have sugar but do anyway because they think that if they eat something bitter at the same time it cancels it out. It’s so adorably naive! Add to that the stigma of insulin injections, the difficulty of getting hold of human insulin, and that they only have their blood sugars taken once a week in the clinic and you soon start to see why so many of them have these problems. Huge leg ulcers, neuropathy and retinopathy are apparently very common, and with type two diabetes on the rise it’s becoming a serious problem in India.

The social aspects of medicine in here are incredibly interesting and of course totally different to those in the UK. It’s especially pronounced in cases of infertility and diet related illnesses, where so much social status is attached and the culture can be quite alien from a western view point. There was one woman who was being held prisoner by her in-laws because she hadn’t conceived after two years of marriage. They wouldn’t let her see her family and were blaming her for all their financial problems. As it turned out, the husband has been living in Dubai the last two years and has only been coming back every few months for a couple of weeks at a time. It was so interesting to see the way that this affected both sides of the family, and the couple’s marriage. And that’s just the beginning of that kind of thing. We’ve seen people in clinic who keep trying to have babies because they have to have a boy, and they end up with more children that they can possibly afford. Some have been to see gurus who have told them that if they don’t conceive a son it would be bad luck, so they just keep popping the sprogs. Our doctor jokingly said the other day that the most commonly presented complaint in Southern India is pregnancy. It goes on and on but I think I better cut this short or you won’t bother reading any more.

Oh, I haven’t had a shit in almost a week by the way...thought I’d share that. This really is a land of extremes.