Long time no speak guys.... my fault, I know...well what can I say, other than 'sorry luv, it’s been a while'....
It’s been a fairly intense couple of weeks at work that combined with the arrival of Mr and Mrs Winner and a long awaited return to the Gym, it’s been tough finding time to give you all my undivided and bring you up to speed with all things east-side....
As my memory is only able to retain 48 hours of coherent information at a time due to a misspent youth, it would be ridiculous for me to try and give you a chronological run down on encounters and events, so don’t be surprised if this week’s update is more along the lines of a slow, mental, tantric build up, confusingly ejaculated onto your screens...I will, at least try and start at the beginning and we will see how it plays out..
The week before last, Ahmad and Laura touched down on Indian soil, and it was great to see some familiar faces. I let them in to the apartment early doors and spent a little time with them before heading to work, leaving them in the luxury of Mahal Bridges to get rested from their journey from Africa ... Got home in the evening to see the pair of them looking entirely more human and with Ahmad still denying that he had been stirring the sausage casserole in my gaff whilst I had been out ... I wouldn’t mind but I told both of them It wasn’t an issue in advance, for two reasons:
1 - I’m from Cannock and, quite frankly, Cannock rules apply in these situations. We (and by that, I mean anyone from Cannock) have all done it...
2 - The place gets bleached and the sheets changed every day so any STDs they carried over with them from the jungle would surely be neutralised and pose no risk to me...
So that night, we went out and I introduced them to my favourite backstreet shithaven 'Janata', pronounced Junta ... Cracking place with good food and cheap booze.
We ordered a couple of curries, a load of Tandoori Roti, an entire Tandoori Chicken, a bottle of coke and a quarter bottle of Old Monk ... all for about a fiver between us... I love this country!!!
Ahh, it occurs to me that I may have not yet introduced you to the Old Monk. Now just to be clear, it’s not to be confused with cockney slang for semen ... that’s Harry Monk. Now who is to say that the Old Monk's name wasn’t Harry, and if so then we should all be concerned. .. Anyway... ..Back on track, the Old Monk is a quality beverage that rapidly established itself as my staple within a week of being in the Bomb. It’s locally produced Rum, rocking out at about 43% with the colour and consistency of tar. It makes Captain Morgan look more like Seaman Staines or Roger the Cabin boy. Tastes great though and when you can buy a quarter bottle (about 180 Ml) in most backstreet bars for about a quid, it’s a guaranteed winner every time. I also believe that a shot of this after every meal (even breakfast) is a bang on way of purging any nasties you may have consumed during your culinary experience... That reminds me (and takes me even further off track), whilst we are on the subject of nasties, Ahmad and Laura informed me on arrival that they were on worming tablets. Upon hearing this, I immediately recall that we used to give worming tablets to the dog when I was growing up and never completely understood why, something to do with meat and parasites growing in the intestine ... 'surely these tablets cannot be for the same thing?' I don’t even need to say it do I.... of course they are
It seems the beautiful Lake Malawi, which has until recently been on my list of places I’d love to visit, is packed full of parasitic larvae. Anyone who goes in there (and wishes to retain the exclusive rights to their colon) needs to take these tablets to purge the beasts before they mature and the host ends up looking like Sigourney Weaver at the end of Alien 3 ... fucking bonzer!
So we finish our banquet of meat and strong booze and head over to Avi's to meet him and Ujayan, a guy who is over here for the states to work with us for a month. Ujayan also brought his wife along and Avi had somehow accosted a fairly attractive female to join us so there was a decent crew to start the night. We hung at Avi's place for a while and drank a bottle of vodka, during which Avi's lady friend mentioned that she was a vegan... well I gave her the run down on my experiences with vegan squatters and the mince beef frag grenades (I’m sure I told you about it in an earlier post) ... needless to say, she was royally unimpressed and the night was off to a good start.
We moved on to Olive for some upmarket bollywood (wannabe) style schmoosing and lube-less arse raping for a round of kingfishers. .
Friday, the guys moved on to their new digs and we resumed battle on Saturday, Ahmad's birthday .. We spent some time rocking round SoBo during the day and frequenting an array of booze establishments, including:
A nice little rooftop beer terrace at the strand hotel overlooking the sea and next door to the famous Gateway of India (which is pretty shit btw)
We moved on later to a couple of other places that served curry and monk, during which time, Ahmad stepped up to the plate and took on a chilli to prove his manhood - that worked
Towards the end of the night, we were walking down the street when Laura announced suddenly that her anal waters had broken and the brown Nile was knocking at the back door ... there were few options at this stage as when the bum death strikes, you have a maximum of 15 strides in you before your sphincter starts to cave in and the beast is unleashed. The top picks were; a particularly nice looking restaurant and a little spot Ahmad and myself had eyed up for her next to parked taxi. Laura surprisingly opted for the restaurant, where she approached the doorman with a look of distress on her face that explained the situation without the need for words. She hobbled in whilst Ahmad and I pissed ourselves outside... She later returned with relief on her face and a light glazing of hard earned sweat on her brow
Soon after we retired for the night and awaited Sunday ... The Hilton Brunch for Ahmad's birthday celebration!!
We all convened at Avi's place early doors on Sunday (about 12ish anyway) and commuted to the Hilton. Another outstanding afternoon of sun, pool, fine grub and unlimited Lychee Martinis. Here are a few pics from the day
This is a shot of the blatantly paedophilic children's entertainer, Gary the clown
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| The winner takes it all... |
And my personal favourite of the blog this week ... A long distance sniper shot of the man himself rocking truly superior Michael Winner pose in the pool when he thought no one was looking - What a legend!!
We met up once more on Monday for more Monk action before they headed off to Goa to continue their epic world tour...
****The latest installment of Crow Bistro****
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| Crow vs. salad in newspaper |
Whilst mooching around the streets of SoBo, we spotted this gem:
On Saturday this week, I spent the entire day and night at Avi's place watching the India-South Africa Cricket World Cup match ... I figured that as the I’m in India and they are currently hosting the world cup, it was about time I made an effort to actually watch a match all the way through and see if I can establish any form of interest in the game. In all honesty, I enjoyed it and didn’t vomit blood once ... I may even watch another in the coming weeks.
Sunday, I had a mooch around a slightly seedier village near Bandra to see if I could source some banter or weirdness. Having not seen anything in particular of note, I had almost given up and was on my way back to base camp when I walked onto the high street and was presented with a bizarre experience. Now, I don’t have a picture as I was too bewildered by the events to dare get the camera out. Let me give some background:
In Mumbai so far, I have experienced an array of groups that approach you to either peddle their wares or get money out of you somehow. There are those that work the high street and those that work the traffic jams and appeal to the captive audience. The key players in the market are:
- The Eunuchs - The undisputed top of the food chain
- Standard Beggars
- Beggars with scabby babies in their arms (those ones really pull at the heartstrings as the kids are in a terrible state and it genuinely is awful)
- Men selling all kinds of shit like feather dusters and furry stuffed ducks
- The fake book sellers - This is a pretty good enterprise as they effectively make good copies of top titles which look the same as the original and read the same as the original, but the pages are thin like newspaper. For about 50p-£1 a pop, who can argue?
- The amputees - a particular favourite of mine as everyone likes to be poked with a severed limb on the way to work on a Tuesday morning!)
However this day, I encountered an entirely new operation and don’t fully understand it. There was a woman (a real one), wearing seemingly decent and colourful saree, with some kind of basket on her head and holding a drum, which she was drumming the shit out of. For the benefit of the blog, we will call her Keith Moon. From what I could see, her only role was to rouse public attention, which she did.
The next part of the set up was child number one, who was again, brightly and decently dressed, aged about seven and whom we shall call Alfie Moon on the basis that he was effectively an east end charlatan. His role was to walk round poking people and asking them to give money. He poked me and I turned round, took one look at the little scrote and he backed off, aware that my next move would have been to backhand him into the midday traffic with a single swipe.
Just as I’m walking away, child number two, who we will call bondage boy, presents himself. Now this boy is about the same age and sporting a pair of bright green MC hammer trousers, no shirt and a fucking bull whip!!!! His role seemed to be walking around the same group of people cracking his whip in the air and concerningly close to people’s faces.... I was bewildered and concerned to say the least, yet the public seemed to be giving them cash and not asking too many questions... I gently moved away, covering my eyes before bondage boy whipped one of them out, and skulked away down the street.
As I mentioned, I was too confused to get the camera out and so have opted to grace you all with some more of my finest artwork to help explain the scenario. Now, I’m not 100% what their USP is or why people give them cash so if anyone more culturally aware than me knows of this practice and the background to it, please post back onto the blog and let me know.
I assume it is some kind of religious or cultural fear that makes people give them money; either that or they are the worst street circus in all the world and should be shut down for health and safety reasons.... I wondered if they were some kind of gypsies. not sure ... Then I thought, 'well Eunuch's must have been children at some point so maybe these are Hermaphro-Juniors and the mother comes out and bangs the drum to let people know the score. When they are older, the drum is replaced by clapping and it’s fairly apparent that they are Eunuchs... just a thought.
****Eunuch Watch****
So, I have taken my life in my own hands this week and bagged a couple of shots of Mumbai's finest in action for you.
Although this one is slightly blurred, if you open it up full size you will see an awesome cheb, just hanging there unsupported and swinging at the hapless commuters at the cash is prised from their hands... Genius.
****Flob Watch****
As we draw to a close on this chapter, I wanted to bring you further evidence of the toxic flem that plagues the streets of Mumbai. This is a classic image of the hocking practices of the native Mumbites . . this may look like the fallout from mount etna but, based on my growing experience of the phenomena, I would suggest that this is the remnants of a single session of approximately three minutes lung clearing, most likely by a Ricky driver. I would imagine by the angle and distance from the pavement that he was not in the Ricky at the time, but rather standing next to it, potentially leaning on the wall as he delivered his alveoulus delight all over the pavement. The redness comes from this stuff that they chew out here that gets you slightly high and can be bought in most corner shops and I will endeavour to get stuck into some before I leave in May....
And I'll close tonight on a happy note. Sandi arrives on Saturday (subject to Visa....) and will be here for a few weeks. Its been ages since I have seen her and have missed her loads. Cant wait to share all of the weirdness of this place with her ... Im sure with her keen eye for the bizarre, she will help uncover some hidden gems for the upcoming blog entries ... I may even see if she fancies doing a guest entry in the coming weeks ..
Spank my ass and call me Amitabh Bachchan, I’m out...
Gray
