(Well, “Aurangabad” does scan a bit like “awimawey”…)

OK, so I’m just now in the hotel Shree Maya in Aurangabad. I’ll probably be here 3 nights so I can visit various cave-temples and then move on to Lonar. At the moment I’m travelling with a chap called Hans from Colorado. After here, he’s heading north while I head south.

Hotel is comfortable and the room has an en-suite with sit-down toilet – far too luxurious except that I have a horrible feeling I might need it quite often – time to go!!!

Well, it’s been fun but I’ve had enough of Mumbai and am leaving early tomorrow morning for Aurangabad. This was the capital of Aurangzeb but isn’t now, mainly because he’s dead. So why am I going there – well apparently there are some spectacular cave temples nearby and it’s a staging post for visiting what may be the largest visible meteor crater in this hemispere – at Lonar. I’m going to Aurangabad in company with an American by the name of Hans – thereafter he’ll head North while I head South-west to Goa and Kerala.

Yesterday I did the final tourist piece of Mumbai, Elephanta Island:
Elephanta Island
a few caves that once would have been spectacular but the Portuguese used the statues and carvings for target practice. The real highlight was talking with the tourist guide, a local called Sameer. He’s a bright young lad who wants to make it off the island bvy his own efforts and so is working as a guide, while studying, farming rice and keeping house with his sister, Sanskruti. I think he’s doing bloody well – his dad was relatively rich from running a tourist boat to Elephanta until a new jetty, capable of taking larger boats, was built. Sam’s dad’s business faltered and so the dad hit the bottle…

So if you’re coming to Mumbai, then contact him and Sanskruti as follows:
Sameer/Sanskruti Bhoir
At-post
Bombay, Elephanta Island
400001
India
jkid@rediffmail.com or jkid@indiatimes.com (his mate’s email address)

If it ain’t nailed down…
So far I’ve been dipped twice, costing me in total 1000 rupees – about 13UKP. OK, I can afford it but I’m far from pleased, both with the perpetrators and with me for letting it happen. However, the main way Mumbai will pick your pocket is with its toungue – folk won’t have change or will just ask for money. I’ve just about learnt to say no but I’ll be very glad to get out of the traffic noise and overcrowding.

For those who didn’t know, sometime yesterday I entered my 5th decade. To celebrate, I intended to take a trip to Elephanta Island, then come back to my hotel, have a meal and a beer and then watch a movie. Here’s what actually happened.

daytime kanari
I woke at 8.30 to the sound of a child singing ‘Happy birthday to you’. A dhobi-wallah was touting for business in the hotel – I put my dirty clothes in a mesh laundry/fragiles bag but he took them all out – was he really going to wash my four-day-old grunties by hand? (yes he did and yes I did get them all back, nicely folded and presented, for 100 Rupees [UKP1.25])

I meandered towards the Gateway to India, buying a watermelon and two Gallia melons for breakfast and lunch. I got to Horniman circle, and sat to eat one of the Gallias – absolutely delicious! I arrived at GtI around 12 and took a few photos, then saw the crowds waiting to go to Elephanta. An ancient and filthy beggar came up to me – I sent him on his way but then felt really bad, so I gave him the other Gallia.

A tout talked to me, pointing out things that my guide agreed with*, namely that the place would be crowded and yet in the afternoon, Elephanta isn’t so good, and suggesting I take his trip to Kaneri caves. I’d wanted to visit this ancient Buddhist monument and, despite knowing I’d pay more than if I made my own way there, I’d be traveling with an English-speaking guide who would do the haggling and ticket buying for me.
*I checked on this later

On the way, the driver, Dilip, and I talked a lot about the differences between marital customs here and in the UK. I found it hard to explain that I’m separated but not divorced, that I’ve had other relationships in the past and that right now I don’t want another one, nor do I really want casual sex. I think I need someone to put names and dates into Marathi/Hindi, especially the bit about not being divorced. (I also need a tee-shirt saying ‘if I want to buy something, I’ll ask for it so don’t waste your breath on me!’) Dilip also told me that many unmarried couples come to the cave-park for trysting and that I could rent a ‘girlfriend’ by the day or week. I don’t think he was suggesting I should, just that they’re available. He’s married with a son and has a work-visa for Dubai but his wife couldn’t get one so he’s settled back here. He wants to set up his own driving business, rather than driving for someone else.

At the caves, he got me a government (i.e. tipping entirely optional) guide who told me a bit about them in fractured English. (This is not a criticism, just a description. After all, I know I speak no India languages yet.) I was then taken on a ‘lion and tiger safari’ – in a battered armoured bus with a lot of middle-class folk along a rutted track. We did get close to some big cats, so I think I got what was advertised.

movie mayhem
Back in Mumbai, I opened the cards and present I’d been given to bruing with me, then ate idlies and veg samosas at a cheap restaurant and then headed for the nearby flea-pit to see Teesri Aankh (The hidden camera). This was a million laughs and I’ll try to explain why:

It opens with a government meeting – a politician asking assorted rows of police ‘who will take on this pornography case?’ Our rugged hero, who is a bit fat and older than me, volunteers. In London, he upsets his girlfriend, who is a model, by continuing with this vocation. She then goes to a shoot in Trafalgar Square. While changing in her trailer, a hidden camera gets some video of her topless: all we get to see is her back as she struggles with her bra-hooks.

Meanwhile, a movie director and his girlfriend realize they’re late for a party: cue fantasy song and dance routine number 1. The next day, at Elstree Studios, they’re filming an attack scene. The attackee muffs her death but a security guard tells them there’s no time for a second shoot because it’s 6.30 and he has to close up now. (For some reason, the SG says he’s English but he had an Australian accent you could use for a door-wedge.) So the film-crew all leave but the continuity-girl (who is mute) runs back into the studio because she’s forgotten something. She promptly gets locked in.

She chances on the set where two made-men who are running the hidden camera bit are using it to blackmail our rugged hero’s girlfriend into doing a porno-scene with them. There’s also some shenanigans with a CD. ORH’s girlfriend refuses, which prompts the made-man who looks like a gay klingon from the 1980s to go radge and stab her many times. As she dies, the CD, which is bad news for someone, falls out of her pocket into an cranny in the set floor.

The continuity-girl runs away but is heard – cue 10-minute chase/hide sequence with lots of shots of her delightfully large breasts bouncing as she runs. During this, she tries to text her director but he doesn’t hear his phone because he’s busy getting a blow-job from a script-writing colleague. (This finishes just in time for him not to get caught by his girl-friend.) Meanwhile CG is still failing to be caught by the made-men but making every stupid move in the book. She’s caught just as our rugged hero arrives along with the director and his girlfriend. She tries to convince them that there’s been a murder but the gay vulcan shows a stage knife and some fake blood and convinces everyone else that he was just acting. Anyway, there’s no body because the security guard has moved all the bin-bags, including the one that actually contains the body, into a skip.

So the director and his girl-friend go to another party while the continuity-girl relaxes in her bath, only to be disturbed by the two made-men. They chase her through the house but she temporarily stops them with an aerosol can and a blunt implement. Meanwhile, for some reason, our rugged hero is attacked by machine-gun wielding bikers. He takes several out with his revolver and kicks which then moves sideways to crush others. Finally he grabs the front wheels of two who try to sandwich him and flips the bikes through 360 degrees. There’s then more fighting, most of which amuses the audience wildly, followed by an intermission.

After the intermission, we get a bit more fighting, then our rugged hero reminisces about his girlfriend – cue fantasy song and dance routine number 2. The choreography doesn’t quite hide that he’s fat and can’t dance. Next, at a meeting in India he’s told that the investigation is off and that the chief suspect is to be freed. Just after walking out of prison, the chief suspect molests a woman walking by, so our rugged hero single-handedly beats up him and his mates. ORH then goes radge on another minor official. This causes a newsfilm-crew to use him to expose a corrupt politician talking live about his corruption, so that’s another baddie sorted.

Meanwhile, the continuity-girl is still running from the made-men, so she runs into a club. Cue fantasy song and dance routine number 3, involving a very attractive woman in a very short skirt: I’m sure we get to see a few glimpses of her undies. Eventually our rugged hero, the film-director, his girlfriend and the continuity-girl go back to Elstree to to look for the CD. Just as they find it, more machine-gun wielding thugs, along with the two made-men burst in. More fighting, in which the director is a prat but his girlfriend saves him and coolly kills the made-man who looks human. ORH shoots the thugs – who are the worst shots ever – and treats the gay Vulcan to a death reminiscent of that of the chief baddie in Commando. (I like Arnie films!) There’s a bit more fighting and policial speechifying and the film ends to rapturous approval from the audience, including me.

So, something for everyone:

• Attractive women shaking their booty in very revealing clothes
• Heavily insinuated (but never actually seen) sex
• Fights which pay homage to Crowching tiger, hidden dragon, The matrix and many Arnie films
• Fantasy song and dance routines with heavy visual effects to hypnotic bangra rhythms
• Anime-like cinematography to emphasise emotion, shock, action, etc. (Think of Mission Impossible II if you can hold down your breakfast.)
• Political intrigue and corruption all dealt with by Dirty Harry tactics

I loved every minute of it!

sadness
When Vayshali and I talked on Saturday, she said something about coming back/meeting today (Monday) at 1pm. So I got back to where I met her around 1.20, having got lost both on the way to and the way from Mumba Devi temple. (Don’t go, it’s not worth it!) I’d bought a rucsac (190 Rupees = UKP2.30) full of fruit (oranges, pears, apples) to give to her and her family as a sign that my promise to try to help her when I could later in 2006 but that now I had no money to give them. Their little pal was around and demanded some fruit, so I gave her an orange and a pear and she scampered off. I then sat on the same bench as I had on Saturday and ate a water-melon. There was no sign of Vayshali or her family, just three little boys playing cricket. Eventually, their ball went into the road so I retrieved it – they came over, as did a few teenage girls bearing babies and the usual conversation started:

• Where are you from?
• How long have you been/will you be in Mumbai?
• Where are you going next? Goa?
• Your necklaces are pretty/can I have them (no, they help keep my friends close to my heart)
• Do you want hash, grass, opium, etc? (It’s hard to make them believe that I don’t, especially looking the way I do.)

By now, I was convinced there Vayshali and her family weren’t around and the kids had seen into my rucsac, so I gave the fruit to the. Vayshali’s little pal materialized, demanding more from me. I thought ‘no, you’ve had some already’ and all I had left by now was an orange, which I was keeping for my lunch. So I opened the orange and tried to give her a couple of segments – she refused these, even after some of the other kids suggested she take them. Conversation soon dried up and I went on my way. I’m still a bit sad because I wasn’t able to keep an admittedly vague promise I’d made and maybe let someone down.

embarrassment
I went back to the synagogue to try to speak with their records-keeper. After writing down all I’d been told about my great-uncle, I was invited to speak with a senior chap there. He asked me whether my great-uncle was Ashkenazic or Sephardic and I had to embarrassedly admit I didn’t know the difference. It turns out that, being from central Europe, he’d have most likely been Ashkenazic. This synagogue is Sephardic and doesn’t really have contact with the other branch of the faith. However, the chap said he’d see what he could do. I’m now also the proud possessor of a CD of info about the Sephardic set-up in Mumbai and am about to google for Ashkenazic synagogues here.

Friday 3rd part 2
woke 8pm
Henry at hotel 8.40
Pay for 4 more nights
To internet cafe near Eros Eros cinema
To Dhobi Ghats near Mahalaxmi racecourse
Haji Ali Durgah – meet bloke from UP whose son is studying MSc in Genetics at Birmingham and collapse into giggles at this example of a small world.
Malabar Hill
Then bus to HSBC
taxi to near hotel [scary scam]
sleep, wash, xerox maps
train to Grant Road is full, yet at each station more people literally hurl themselves on
Walk for 3 hours around Grant Road/bazaar area. This teaches me what Bombay drivers mean when they use their horns. They’re saying either

1. hello
2. goodbye
3. I’m behind you [and I can’t be bothered to turn on my lights] so get out of my way
4. I’m behind you. Even though there is no way you can get out of my way because something is in your way (and you’re blaring to get out of your way, not that it can because…), I don’t care, get out of my way anyway!

Further definitions will be added once I’ve understood them. Unfortunately, like an orang-utan’s ‘ook’, all these are expressed in exactly the same tone.

I saw 4 taxis blocking each others’ paths. There was space for at least 2 to reverse out of the way but no….

However, Mumbai drives have to be the best in the world – no-one else I’ve seen could squeeze through the gaps they do. Also, I don’t think anyone should try to take on India in battle – everyone here is already used to the noise and confusion and to maimed and dying lying around.

Saturday 4th
woke 5.30
decide what to post home [I’ve realised that I have quite a lot of surplus kit]
decide what to do next

1. 1. today sightsee in Colaba/Fort/Churchgate area, try to contact local chess federation, see Mumba Devi [city deity] temple
   2. sunday Elephanta island, wash clothes
   3. Monday if possible, speak to local chess folk
   4. tuesday head for Goa
      so started by walking to Colaba. Met first scam – a holyman will almost force some sugar sweets on you, then tie a cord around your wrist, bless you and then ask for a donation. The way I can see it’s a scam is his wallet full of change, ready for folk with big denomination notes.

Another is the “buy my baby milk”. I’ve refused several of these and each time felt as if I had killed a baby. I can see the child is thin and dirty and I can’t see any reason why its life is any less valuable than mine (apart from I can do some useful things and it can’t yet), or why I have any more right to life than it. I can almost see why death-squads target street children – but don’t let that make you think I agree with their solution. Mine would be an airborne infertility virus that stopped over 90% of people being fertile, without discriminating between races or financial conditions. OK, it wouldn’t help much now but it would stop the next generation of utter bloody misery and the next generation of western capitalists from buggering the planet for the rest of creation. (Now call me a hypocrite because I flew here.)

Whatever the theorising, if anywhere could break my heart it’s here. I sat for a moment near the natural history museum to drink and cool off. A pre-teen girl was playing with a toddler and the fun they were having caught my eye – I love seeing children having fun. One came over and tried to insist I give her my water bottle – there was a playful battle of grunts since she spoke no English and I speak no Marathi.

Eventually, a woman who I thought was her mum came over to talk. It turns out she was the older sister (called Vayshali), aged 13 (I had thought about 18!). Their mother, Anita, also turned up. We (mostly Vayshali and I) talked about conditions here and in the UK. We talked about homelessness here and there – the only thing I could say is that not so many people sleep in the streets because it’s too cold.

They also asked whether I was rich. [My answer was “I used to be when I had a job. When I go back to the UK in September and get a job, then I will be rich again. For now, I have no job so I am poor”]. I suppose I should have said “yes by Mumbai standards, no by UK standards, even when I have a job”. Vayshali is in 8th grade, studying English and Marathi. She says she wants to be a doctor. I think she could, given the chance: she certainly seems bright enough. There’s no way I’d be as fluent in any foreign language as she is if I had to haggle for a living and lived on the street – I’d be too busy trying to get food to have time for school. Vayshali also was clean and bejewelled enough to say ‘I take care of how I look and am proud of it’ (unless she was yet another scam-artist).

So on Monday, I’m going to ask her to show me her school because it will have a postal address. If it turns out to be true, then once I am back in the UK, have a job, have sorted my finances and have some surplus, then I’ll send the school some money to be spent on Vayshali. If she can’t show me her school then I’ll walk…

Saturday 4th part 2 – synagogue blues
You may know that my mother’s uncle lived in Mumbai from around 1938, after getting out of Dachau, to some time in the 1960s. My mother tells me that during this time he became Indian chess champion. He was also a fairly religious jew. Part of my reason for coming to Mumbai was to see if I could find out ny more about him.

So having seen big synagogue marked on my toutrist map and it being sabbath (which means the place should be in use), in I went. I talked with a very friendly hazan who invited me to come back to the end-of-sabbath prayers because someone who’d worshipped in Mumbai all his life (and was now 75) would be there. If anyone could remember my uncle, it would be him. I burst into tears – I’ve been carrying this hope to get a bit closer to this side of my roots for years – and was reminded that it’s forbidden to be unhappy on the sabbath! I choked out “happy tears” and promised to come back later.

I did and met the elder. He can’t remember my great-uncle but suggested I try the University, the David Sassoon library (it was endowed by a rich jew in the late 1900s) and also come back during the week to look at the synagogue records. There are also a couple of other synagogues in Mumbai so I haven’t given up hope yet.

So, time to crawl into my pit to get up early tomorrow for a sea-journey…

from an internet cafe near the Taj Mahal hotel, this is a trnscription of my diary so far…

Tuesday 28th
woken at 4.30am, full of mucus
train 7 minutes late
on train with art teacher

crazed picknicking i the english countryside
and the cassette played pop tones

[at consulate] no system for enforcing number queues
[eat] subway
little ****** giving out passports with visas
big ****** receiving his
RA is impressive – contains Royal Society of Chemistry
Biting fingernails to armpits = Bruce de Milo?
rental permission sorted [rental agent put the head on mortgage company’s brickwall]
Momo
Bakhlavas
So however/luggage panic
Piccadilly [wish I could remember what I meant by this]
[other pssenger’s] leg caught in yube door
Bus to hotel short distance as crow flies but actual route as convoluted as a herd of cows’ intestines in a strong improbability field

Wednesday 1st
Dad sorts palm
On board, [piped music is] an instrumental version of HOTEL CALIFORNIA!!!!
Get three seats because of cough
4493 miles of turbulence to go
take off hour late
7387feet = 2462 yards = 1.5 miles
Marianne and I get pissed on Johnny Walker Red Label
Vegan food issue but staff very helpful
[fly over] Volga or Don ??? around 12.30 (1.5 hours flying = 1000 miles)
Slept 1 to 3.30 Uk time (awoke over Qyumran?)
[at Mumbai airport] change money, [taxi to] Golden Lion hotel in Andheri [suburb]

Thursday 2nd
Wake 10.30 am a bit dehydrated/tired
write off shirt and trainers
[hotel bod guides me to station and queues for my ticket – fantastic customer service!]
At Andheri station: anti-bush/european (products) rally and I’m a whitey with a cuddly pig
Feng Shui advertised
“7 days without bible makes one weak”
Henry
Liberty hotel
colours like poorer CA [khaki]
sleep, ****, shower, meander to Marine Drive
Say no to at least to beggars
Then see Pizza Express [and am torn between laughing and anger]
get lost after dark!
Found Liberty restaurant but not hotl
ate alu methi with steamed rice and ganga jamuna (orange and lime) juice, followed by fruit salad. BROKE ALL THE RULES [drank unknown-source water]
restaurant offered “sugar free chai for our diabetic customers”
spent ages looking for my wohnung []Liberty Hotel, 49 2nd Marine Street, near Metro cinema, behind Round Masjid, Dhobitalao, Mumbai 400002

Friday 3rd
Lay awake from midnight to 4 am, thinking about morality [much excised here] Only conclusion so far is that I am intellectually and morally deficient.
4 am dogs barking – tired but not sleepy

So, I’m still alive and have been ‘adopted’ by Henry, a ‘tour guide’ who has been honest and helpful. He’s shown me where to sleep for 175Rs (2UKP) a night, where to get my watch-strap repaired, to a toilet when I was in urgent need, to this internet cafe. My tum is rumbling but no problems so far apart from possible slight dehydration. With the exception of 1 glass of water and the fruit salad, I’ve eaten safely and if anything happens, I only have myself to blame.

Mumbai – think of every film you’ve seen with teeming masses, dilute it a bit, add cars where people live on their horn buttons, cellphones, the occasional beggar, lots of street life. Well, so far it’s Ankh Morpork but without the dragons and Thieve’s Guild. So far so good

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi says Everything in the universe is ‘Muslim’ for it obeys God by submission to His laws… For his entire life, from the embryonic stage to the body’s dissolution into dust after death, every tissue of his muscles and every limb of his body follows the course prescribed by God’s law. His very tongue which, on account of his ignorance advocates the denial of God or professes multiple deities, is in its very nature ‘Muslim’…

So god’s law is that I deny him – yeehah!

Since I have a mortgage for 13 Eddie Court, I need my mortgage provider’s permission to rent out the flat. I applied for this at the end of January, once I was sure of the names of the tenants. I’ve been checking on the progress of this application ever since.

However, the mortgage provider’s head office help-desk-bot tells me now they haven’t received the form. Their lettings department doesn’t take incoming calls so the help-desk-bot has emailed that department to ask them to contact me.

I’ve also contacted my mortgage provider’s local office: they can’t speak to the head office letting department either. However, my lawyer/rental agent has retained a copy of the application and is now trying to use it to beat ‘seven shades of shit’ out of the mortgage company via their local office.

Meanwhile my sister’s dealings with state agencies crawl on interminably. She’s been denied tax credits for 2003-4 and 2004-5 because she didn’t provide proof she’s still disabled. Because she’d already received these credits, the inland revenue now want them back: over £1500. The only consolation is I now know she can pay this.

Also, the Department for Work & Pensions now want to check up that she’s been looking for jobs assiduously enough. They’ve denied her JobSeeker’s Allowance for several months because Morrisons told them she’d resigned her job ‘for a change in career direction’.

Of course, Morrisons have yet to put their offer of reinstatement in writing. Their latest tale is that their lawyer doesn’t know whether the written offer should come from the lawyer or the HR department.

I thought I had it yesterday and today all planned out:

• lunch with a friend in Edinburgh
• take the 2·10 train to Leuchars to meet with MsInvisFem at 4 pm. (She’d told me she wanted to contact me about issues resulting from our separation and, since I’d come back to Scotland to see old friends I hadn’t been able to meet in January, tweak some final pieces about renting out the flat and to have my final vaccinations, it seemed reasonable to offer to meet face-to-face.)
• spend the evening with friends in Gauldry, then either stay with them or go back to Edinburgh
• if Wednesday’s meeting with MsInvisFem hadn’t covered all she wanted, go back to St Andrews to meet finish it on Thursday morning
• get my final vaccinations in Dundee
• get back to Edinburgh around 5pm to have a final evening with Elly before heading back to Worcester on Friday

Here’s what actually happened

• as planned until 4pm, when MsInvisFem said she was cold. I offered to turn on the heating and found the boiler’s timer (which wasn’t replaced when the old boiler was) had died.
• That utter god of CORGI, Paul Johnson, arrived about 5pm to try to fix it. He had to remove the old timer from the wall and fit a new one above where it had been. This then left an open junction-box where the old timer had been and Paul didn’t have any blanking-plates to cover it. However they are easily available at DIY stores so I should have no problem buying and fitting one on Thursday.
• MsInvisFem didn’t have time to finish the things she wanted to cover that evening but said she would finish a draft for me to see on Thursday morning.
• My friends in Gauldry were going through various hassles and so couldn’t offer me a bed for the night. Elly offered to come and collect me from their place and take me back to Edinburgh. There was a few phonecalls back and forth to agree a final plan, during which I feared I’d upset her and was just about ready to jump out of a window: she’s been so supportive of me, especially over the last few months that even coming close to upsetting her is totally out of order.
• I met up with Gauldry-dwellers. Emily had to go to bed as soon as we’d eaten: their 6-month-old had hardly slept for the past few days and so needed attention all the time. Barry and I chatted until after 10pm when Elly arrived. On the drive home, my brain seized up and my mouth dried out so conversation was difficult, and hampered by my fear that I’d embarrassed Elly when she arrived at Gauldry.
• Got to sleep around 1am and woke around 5pm, full of emotional issues and annoyance about the flat not yet being sorted.
• took 9·10 train back to Leuchars. Just before I left Edinburgh, MsInvisFem phoned to ask when we would meet. I told her that I would be in St Andrews at 10·30.
• MsInvisFem arrived at the flat at 10·50, bearing teabags, sweeteners and soya-milk. (Many thanks to her for this.) She hadn’t finished the draft the previous evening and so took a while finishing it. Discussion of it took more time. I then visited my lawyer to discuss the draft and look for some documentation Julia believed I might have in the files I’d left there.
• No joy with the files, but plenty to alter in the draft before it ceased causing me problems.
• Then rush to Dundee and wait for over an hour to be seen.
• Get out of hospital at 4pm back to St Andrews to buy and install the required blanking plate.
• take the 5·44 train back to Edinburgh, arriving 6·45 – almost two hours later than I wanted and dog-tired.

Destructively testing an iPod nano

How much of your kit could cope with this kind of abuse?

Sunhair – Ozric Tentacles