Cold feet in Munnar

I woke up angry today. No wait, scratch that. I woke up cold today. And the cold makes me angry, like a miniature hulk you wouldn’t like me in winter. Don’t believe me? Ask around.

I’m in Munnar, one of the well visited hill stations in South India, and all around me are the landscapes of legends. Its superlative, superlative, swearword-stunning. That jaw-to-the-floor cartoon wolf whistle type of stunning, like Jessica Rabbit, or Daphne from Scooby Doo (although I’ve been told that’s just me).

The writer in me is inspired. I feel like Shelly out at sea, or Lord Byron walking through the mountains of Northern Italy. But in the mornings, which I struggle with at the best of times, I curse the craggy peaks for stealing my sun.

It gets cold here in the evenings too, very cold. My room gets no light and has a ruthless tile floor. Plus, there’s only ice water coming out of the taps whether its morning, noon or night. And I have an obsessive compulsion to shower at least twice a day, no matter what.

So I’m awake and I’m miserable, depressed with a kick, lying in bed wrapped up like a ball of twine in a sock draw. I eventually drag myself out from under the covers, F-and-Blind my way through the torments of washing and shiver up to the first floor, where the sun basks happily on people with a higher monthly budget. I perch on the railings, smoke a beadie and begin to thaw out.

A couple of minutes later I’m greeted by four sour faces, young home counties Brits (not you Amanda and Harriet) who have moved in and are obviously pissed off about sharing ‘their’ porch. They ignore me, but talk loudly about themselves and I feel myself wind up again, like an uncurled paper clip being squeezed around your little finger. I ignore them back but I’m forced to move when I hear that, ‘Chester has gone out to find something normal to eat.’ I kid you not, and his name really was Chester.

I flee to the food stall at the bottom of the street and console myself with an omelet. Eggs for breakfast, my one culinary vice. I’m munching my way through a disproportionate helping of ‘Bread Toast’ and I realise that once again I’ve sat down in bad company. The three Indian lads whose table I’ve gatecrashed are watching me closely and sniggering. I know it’s about me, this is not lonely paranoia, they make absolutely no bones to hide it. Even the guy cooking, a big dark man with huge smiles and hands, comes over and says something to them. They laugh it off, he’s a local. From their wristwatches and number plates I guess a rich Tamil family background.

The sniggering continues and I am reminded of being at school. Ostracised in the playground, outcast over some petty squabble. I eat in silence, finish too quickly, pay up politely and leave. Walking into town I scream muted obscenities at the world.

On the way I walk past the local school and immediately spot the flaw in my plan to remain unnoticed. Its lunchtime and three hundred children are flooding out of the front gates. Right into the road, right into me. Soft targets for the oncoming dangers of belligerent human steering.

Now being white in India you are obviously in the minority, therefore you get noticed. It’s not a race thing, it’s a difference thing (well sometimes it’s a race thing but there are idiots all over the world), like a new shop on a high street or a new ride at a fun fair. People can be interested, curious. And children are the worst for it.

I hear about 15 voices behind me daring each other to say something.
‘Hello sir, hello sir. What is your country?’
I hate being called sir so I always answer back with the same formality, ‘England sir.’
A sea of confused tiny faces stare up at me.
‘And what country are you from?’ I ask.
‘INDIA!!!’ a chorus of proud confirmation explodes on the roadside. Sometimes adults seem offended by this question, but it can bring out the very best in children.

By now I have an entourage of about 25 school uniforms around me, the more daring at the front, with the shier ones, and the girls, watching from a safe distance. We go through the textbook questions and answers, they boast and practice their English, and I forget about the slim chance of being left alone.

Normal conversations dry up quickly so I challenge the boys to a competition to see who’s got the longest stride, knowing I can out stretch them all. They line up, feet and toes touching, and push themselves forward with such conviction that two of them instantly fall over. The tallest is the winner, as I had predicted, and he pesters me about cricket until we reach the bus stop.

As I am waving goodbye to the boys, and exchanging polite smiles with the girls, I notice that my morning’s anger has gone. I feel nothing, no frustration, no resentment. Nothing. Everything today has irritated me, and I’ve loathed everyone, but standing on the roadside exaggerating with my hands I feel strangely calm again.

I find India forces me to deal with people, and sometimes there is physically no escape from a conversation. Strangers here can involve themselves with you in a way that takes years of small talk in England. Its one of the reasons why I love this country so much, and at times its one of the most infuriating parts of being here. But learning to deal with it, to rattle the bars of my selfish cage, has over the years made me a much happier man.

The bus pulls away and I carry on walking into town, knowing I can’t be angry anymore today, not after meeting these children. When someone is so innocently eager to just stand there and look at you, you become acutely aware of your responsibilities to the world.

Hate breeds and anger spills over like a thick syrup, but so does love. And now these children can go home and tell their parents about the funny Englishman they met on their way home from school. And if the next one smiles at them the way I did, I believe the world will become a much warmer place in the mornings.

Long distance traveller

Its 6am, I’m completely naked and the walls are shaking. There is soap in my eyes, my pants are stuffed behind a pipe and I’m terrified of falling into the squat toilet. It’s the end of a 16hour train journey and I’ve woken up to a wall of hot air making me sweat out a kidney, and I’m in desperate need of a fresh shirt and clean water on my back.

The trick to surviving long distance Indian train travel is comfort and cleanliness. I’ve found you can cope with any journey, even several in succession, if you stick to a few simple principles.

First, always take a pillow. An obvious one but too often overlooked.

Second, pack two blankets, one thick and one thin. I have a Tibetan shawl that is perfect for both hot and cold occasions, but any sensible combination will suffice.

Third, bring your own food and water. Major train stations have great places to eat so get your Tiffin box sorted before hand, otherwise you’re playing Russian roulette with the onboard food whallas.

Forth, bring books, iPods, travel games or anything you can do to pass the time. Kanyakumari to Delhi is a 50 hour non stop trip, I love India, but there’s only so much pre monsoon scrub a man can look at in a day.

Fifth, pack a bar of soap, a thin cloth, a pair of scissors and an empty plastic bottle into your accessible hand luggage. That’s right, an empty plastic bottle. Need an explanation? Go back to the naked, shaking, soap covered gora with his watchful eyes on the hole in the floor and all will be revealed, staying clean is the Valium of mornings.

There is no way that you’re going to wash your entire body with one litre of prepackaged drinking water. If it can be done, it can’t by me, and I doubt very thoroughly by anyone. But by making a simple container you can bucket wash your way next to godliness.

Cut off the top of the plastic bottle so you have a makeshift flask. Fill this up with water from the sink and slowly poor it down your back and front. Don’t go crazy, save that for the soap. Once you’re wet and suitably lathered, repeat the pouring action whilst rinsing your skin with your free hand. Indian train toilets are designed to drain water so don’t worry about flooding the floor. In short, go nuts.

Couple of useful pointers; it should take at least two flask fulls to wash your torso and three more to wash your limbs, swap hands to properly clean your opposing armpits, only use water from the sink tap if you can help it, and never, ever, EVER, put soap on the soles of your feet until the rest of your body is happily air drying. Nobody needs to experience the thrill of sliding around the inside of an Indian toilet at high speed to understand the importance of this maneuver.

Now you’re clean dry yourself with the thin cloth, get dressed and then dry the cloth by hanging it out of the open train door. India has a much more liberal approach to public health and safety and exploiting this can work to your advantage. All that’s left to do now is to get back to points one through to four and enjoy the rest of your journey.

Oh, one more quick tip. When you’re in an Indian toilet, stark bollock naked and covered in soap, lock the fucking door.

A Fast Moving Consumable Gora

When I’m in India I listen to The Goon Show on my iPod. Back in England I watch old Amitabh Bachchan films late at night on Channel 4. In the past four years I’ve spent nearly half of them living and working in India, dividing my self between the crown and the jewel.

I’ve become a Fast Moving Consumable Gora. A single white male who exists in two cultures, collecting visa’s and exit stamps, trying to answer the internal question, where is my home?
Don’t get me wrong, I love England. It’s where I was born, where I grew up, where had my first fight and where I first fell in love. It’s my first home. My family live there and I speak the language with indigenous ease. But I miss India, and whenever I’m away from her I feel part of my heart stops, some vital artery becoming clogged by the absence of cows in a busy street.

The two main problems faced by any ‘traveller’ (and I use the expression with extreme caution) are food poisoning and homesickness. Both debilitating and messy, making your stomach ache for familiar comforts.

In India I’ve learnt to eat well, using fresh fruits, parotta, rice, dhal and dosas as the basis of my diet, but I suffer nostalgia at least once a month. It’s a yearning, born from the similarities between these two countries, which to me are as comparable as the differences.

I see reflections of England in India. I see it in newspaper copy and on TV debate shows. In the frenetic confusion at markets and funfairs, and in frustrated glass window of every reluctant train ticket counter. It’s in the buildings, in the politics, in the cities and in the cricket. It’s carved on the face of every tired working man smoking outside a Chai stall.

Then there’s the India I see in England, in the Diwali lanterns I made at nursery school. In the Hindi curses I learnt in playgrounds and in the Aloo Gobi I order in restaurants. In the Asian communities where I live, where I shop and where I am asked to vote for a Chowdhary, a Singh, or a Khan. India wasn’t new to me, it was under discovered, but I’ve always grown up with the taste of spice in my mouth.

So where do I go now? Back and forth, swapping 6month visas for shorthold tenancy agreements. I write this sitting in Kumily, a small hill town on the Kerela and Tamil Nadu boarder, and the birthplace of condiments I have packed up in a box marked ‘Kitchen’. Tomorrow I leave for Munnar, where Tetley Tea comes from, and then back to Kochi, the small but beautifully amalgamated trading port on India’s South West coast.

Everyday I miss England, but I’m still happy in a place where things make sense to me. And when it all gets too much, when the rubber stamped duality shouts at me from the pages of my passport, I think about the packed lunches my mum used to make me at primary school, full of onion bhajees and Kit Kats.