Last Days of the Rage Part III

The King of Fruits

Going to India makes me angry. Not because of the country but because nothing ever goes right and my foresight didn’t let me down!

This trip was just shy of 2 weeks and my longest to date. The visa process took over 5 months and I applied for a year’s multiple entry but you can only imagine the humour echoing in the open plan office when I proclaimed I only got a double entry!! I landed in Mumbai and I took immigration by the horns. Hotel pick up was waiting for me and the first of many beggars (with new born baby) started tugging on my shirt tails and heart strings. Great start!. I was residing in 5 star grandeur this time with an outdoor pool. Well that’s how they described it but I beg to differ when they served me coffee in a chipped red mug.




Dhobi Ghat - Good to see they separate out whites and colours

 

I wasn’t looking forward to my trip after residing in the most seedy hotel the previous time where am I still convinced they were filming a skin flick. The only highlight was going to be the eye candy in the lab but alas he left in one of those 5 months it took to expedite my visa. The dashingly handsome supervisor was replaced by a local Mumbian woman who use to live in the States, in Chicago, who lived at Irving and Broadway and use to work in the lab on the floor beneath my favourite customer in Chicago and was actually friends with them too. Bloody small world. I was at this account for a full week and I saw very few people as everyone was a little distracted by this small tournament that was going on…..the cricket world cup. Even the sales rep had disappeared but I found everyone congregating as the sales rep was projecting the match on the wall via his lap top. It did feel good to be in Mumbai when India won but I ddin’t get (couldn’t get) close to the stadium and watched the celebratory fireworks from the safety of my hotel room. I toured Mumbai again. I don’t know where the lat driver took me but it certainly wasn’t the top 5 tourist spots that I saw on this tour! I loved the Dhobi Ghat. It’s always refreshing to see men do laundry.

The following week was spent in Kolkata. I have never flown an internal flight in India before and didn’t know what to expect! . The airport at ridiculous o’clock still equalled mayhem! I did bump into my cousin’s wife there who lives in London. Very surreal. The shuttle to the plane must have taken over 30 mins and I have convinced myself that I saw Sanduker’s (local Mumbai cricket player who was playing in the World Cup) new Audi when passing the cargo holding area . So when boarding the plane I was eyeing off this man in an embellished tee shirt, terrible hair, huge diamond earrings and a tracksuit that Jimmy Saville would have been proud of. A woman passed him and bowed at him and told his she loved his work. The intrigue was killing me! A man at the luggage carousel kindly put my intrigue to rest and this man is a famous Bollywood singer called Kumar Sanu…..his diamond bracelet which spelled out Sanoo could have told me that and if I knew than then I would have told him he had spelt his name wrong.

I was told Kolkata was a dump. They weren’t kidding. The hospital was in a place called New Town and somebody forgot to tell me that the hospital was just a building site. I was ushered into into a car where the driver picked up somebody’s spat out chewing gum with his fingers, dropped off in a car park in the middle of a building site to be met by two strange men and I didn’t even question it! I like to think my naivety is part of my charm. The name New Town speaks for itself! If it wasn’t for the roaming cattle and the rickshaws then you could have easily thought you were in some city in Eastern Europe! Kolkata lacks the charm of the India that I know and have become accustomed to. Give me stylised India over those high rises sprouting up everywhere.

I was invited to a party in the hotel….the French embassy was hosting as they have opened a new consulate office in the city. Well, I am quite fond of some French tunes. I was expecting some Phoenix, Air and Daft Punk combo and not some rock/Asian fusion awful sounding noise. The noise was worse than bag pipes. I left soon after the second song but not before this woman came over to me and started to stroke my face to tell me I had beautiful skin and looked so innocent. I didn’t want to tell her that was the positive effects of the anti-malaria tablets that I was using are normally prescribed for acne. Ergo!

Since things went awry I had some time to myself so I thought I would take a little tour of the city. So the driver was late and I was paying a premium for it. I told concierge that I would like to see what made Kolkata Kolkata! Well, because the driver was late when we started the tour it meant the dark was cutting in and I couldn’t bloody see anything! The concierge told me to see the famous flower markets and fruit markets. I was taken to the local market which sold……knock off trainers and handbags. It was like being on the Quayside on a giant scale. I did get to see a couple of things before the dark set in. I was warned that I will see a lot of limbless in Kolkata and I was boasting to the people that I hadn’t seen any. Well, I spoke too soon. I was too busy looking at the fat gypsy wedding carriages to realise a beggar hot on my heals who only had one thigh on a hand steered tricycle flatbed contraption was following me. If you know me then you know my fear of people with less than four limbs. My face was a picture. I couldn’t get back in the car fast enough.

It took over twenty four hours to get back from Kolkata. I had an over night stay in Dubai and thought since I took a voluntary hunger strike (so I didn’t need to use the facilities) I would treat myself to a feed up at the Gordon Ramsey restaurant in the hotel. I went from 500 calories a day for 2 weeks to a 7 course tasting menu! I knew I had to be up early so I booked a 730pm table thinking I wasn’t going to be there for long. I was the only one in the restaurant at that time but 2 hours and 40 minutes later I wobbled out of the place after the genial couple next to me insisted on letting me share their very expensive wine! The food was blood tasty but I do have to add that Lisa Reci’s minestrone soup is far superior!

Check out my photos of Mumbai, Kolkata and Dubai....well a 7 course tasting menu