Camp Cabaret and a Ring of Fire

Well, it’s been an eventful week to say the least....

We've had some highs and several distinctive and frankly unpleasant lows.  But hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and having learned some valuable life lessons in the past seven days, I’d like to think I’m a wiser man for the experiences I have, well.. Experienced.

Last Sunday, I decided to go on a bit of a solo adventure around some of the villages near the coastal area of Bandra.  I figured there would be a good chance of finding some interesting/bizarre things to write home about... what I didnt expect was that probably the best thing i saw that day would present itself to me within 30 seconds of leaving the apartment.

Now, this may just highlight my unusual sense of humour but it just cracked me up when I saw it ... A crow eating a chicken’s foot.    

 

Just look at the beast, perched atop its
conquest, with an almost regal look on its face.  He (I assume it was a bloke) actually stopped eating when I approached him and posed for me...  it occurs to me that its ever so slightly cannibalistic but he doesn't look like he gives a shit so I say live and let live.  Of course, stumpy the chicken probably wouldn't agree...

The other highlights of the day included meeting this guy, who uses a modified bicycle to sharpen knives...

 

And running into a few coppers who had decided to take a short break from fighting crime, and have a game of cricket in a back alley with some local kids...

I stayed with them for a while just watching.  The old bill, clearly not concerned about getting into trouble for cricketing on the job, they literally insisted that I took their photos... 

Literally 10 minutes later, I grabbed this quick video of another group of kids playing cricket round the corner

Cricket is as much a social constant here as football is back home.  You don’t really see kids having a kick about in the street here but almost every road you walk down, you're guaranteed to see some street cricket in the offing...

So onto the working week....

Monday started out as any other Monday at the office... until Avi came over and asked me if I fancied going to see his friend in a production at the Mumbai Comedy Store... why the hell not, sounds interesting and I hadn’t planned to do anything else..  We left straight from work to save time and headed to SoBo ...

So this is the point at which things started to get surreal... and, quite frankly, gay.  It turns out that the Comedy Store was hosting a Valentine’s Day celebration of love special cabaret!!  Now, in his defence, Avi claimed that he was unaware of the specific details of his friend’s production ... personally, I’m not buying it and still suspect I was being primed/groomed for a tactical fruiting.

Before I know it, I find myself in a darkened room, glass or rose in my hand, listening to renditions of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and even Chris de Burgh. 

The entertainment later progressed all the way to an ABBA medley (right) and a guy getting up on the stage and proposing to his girlfriend....

I was slightly impressed to find out that the whole thing was choreographed by Longinus Fernandes (the guy in the middle sporting a white shirt, dark glasses, beard & mullet), the guy that choreographed Slumdog Millionaire and several other Bollywood blockbusters.  At the end of the show, he came over to introduce himself to me and have a chat.  I’m not entirely sure why but can only assume that he spotted me and thought:

'A - Only white guy in the place B - no sign of a date C - wearing a suit D - drinking rose.... he must be in the trade'

Monday over and in possession of a wealth of piss taking collateral for Avi in my pocket, I took forward to the rest of the week, as it could surely only get better from here...

So it’s Tuesday night.  Now for background you should know that I hadn’t pinched a loaf for a few days at this point (sorry) and was starting to get some stomach pain... So far I have been fairly proud of not having the shits and so a little constipation was the lesser of two evils from my perspective.  I popped to the pharmacy/newsagents round the corner and tried to explain the situation to the guy behind the counter:

He just said 'bad stomach?', I said, 'yes', he reached under the counter and passed me a little foil strip of tablets called Spasmonil.

Great, that was easy I thought so went back to the apartment and downed a couple.  A short time later, I start to get convulsions and a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth...   At this stage, I decide to look a bit closer at the old Spasmonil... went on google and looked it up.  Turns out it’s a prescription only treatment for IBS sufferers ...  good one doc!

I go to bed, stomach still bubbling away.  I know deep down that it’s only a matter of time before the glacier melts and the tsunami begins... I put a towel down to be on the safe side.

About 2am, I woke suddenly and knew straight away that judgment day had arrived.  I hobbled to the lav, dragging the towel underneath me in case of spillage... and unleashed the fury... I then repeated this process about once every two hours until lunchtime on Wednesday, by which time my arse was nothing more than a habenaro pressure washer!!

Needless to say, work was out of the question on Wednesday, so I stayed in and ate bread for 24 hours to try and firm up again.

So back to work Thursday and Friday.  On Friday, Avi comes to me and suggests we go to the wedding reception of a guy from work.  I was cautious from the start, given the events of Monday, so I checked the story out with some other colleagues and it all seemed above board.

It was a pretty decent night all in all.  I’m not sure how standard the set up was but I would like to think that all Indian wedding receptions have the same array of integrated services that this one had. To highlight just a few, we had:

1. All you can eat food stalls
2. Masseuse
3. A potter (like as in someone that makes pottery)
4. A bangle maker
5. A mystic that can calculate your future

The food was great, the masseuse was a bloke and therefore a disappointment, the potter had literally no reason to be there, the bangle maker was fairly skilled as he was using some kind of barbeque to craft jewellery, which brings me onto the mystic...


Im not sure how many of you saw the episode of An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington, but he goes to see one of these guys and I found it hilarious to watch so thought I would give it a crack.

He, who shall be known as Merlin, wanted to know a few things before we kicked of:

1. Dad's name - Rod
2. Dad's age - 59
3. My age - 27

So from here, Merlin did a few sums and took a look at my right hand for a few seconds and declared he knows everything about me and that he could answer me two questions about my life (for the nominal fee of 31 Rupees).

Question 1 - How old will I be when I get married?

Answer - 28 (shit...)

Question 2 - When will I die?

Answer - well, he refused to answer this one

Question 2 (b) - How old will my future wife be when I marry her?

Answer - either one or two years younger than me (sorry Sandi... its not going to work out.  According to Merlin, you are too old and I need to trade you in for a younger model)

So lets be honest, the guy is a fucking chancer of the highest order.  People were queuing up to fill his pockets with cash in return for him filling their heads with complete and utter guff.  I cracked a joke about him being a charlatan in front of some of the work guys and they were not impressed... they really believe this shit.. 

How can a man tell the future by asking your age, your dads age and your dads name, then  looking at a slightly soiled palm?   Would it have made a difference if I had washed my hands after using the bathroom just before going to see him?

So on to this weekend... 

Saturday I hung out with Preeya and we went rummaging through a beachside landfill/slum kind of area looking for weirdness to photograph... it was a great laugh to be fair, although im pretty sure that disease was rife and we both now have about 10 days to live.

The day offered up a vareity of comedy animal sightings, from the slightly cute to the downright sacrilegious ... 

First off,  beach pigs... not particularly weird by i just found them hilarious as I have never known pigs to live on a beach before. This pig in particular was ace... he was just arsing about with a carrier bag and occasionsally griefing the goat from next door..

Next up, we found a gang of fundamentalist goats trying to break into a temple...

The second the heard the camera, they abandoned the burglary and came over to straighten us out....

This dog succeeded where the goats had failed.  By the time we got there, he had already secured the village shrine.......






Anyway, Saturday night, we headed to a house party, via a minor chastising by the poilce for drinking neat rum in the streets...

Sunday, we headed to a genius daytime event that I can see becoming a regular weekend hanut.  The Hilton hotel in Mumbai holds a poolside brunch from 12 - 4 every Sunday.  You basically pay 1000 Rupees (about £13-14) and its all inclusive. 

The food is unreal, with about 60 odd different starters, mains and deserts inside and about 4 specialty counters including a barbeque outside.  You just go up and tell them what meat you want (even steak!"!!) and they cook it and bring it over.  To go with this, unlimited Champagne, cocktails and beer waiter served to you and complete use of their pool and sun terrace whilst the DJ plays 80s classics on a massive outdoor soundsystem!!


This is Avi btw, and apologies for the cock-grab poses ..  quite a few lychee martinis had been sunk by the time this was taken...

Have a great week and I'll speak to you all soon Mumb-iatches!