ENTRY

I haven’t written anything here for a while. Sorry about that. I am in Pune. Near Mumbai. Last week we were in Bangalore, further south. We took it easy down there, being exhausted after 2 weeks in Delhi of sightseeing and birthday partying (for both of us). We stayed in a company house and got to have our first cockroach experience when we discovered a hundred of them, all shapes and sizes, squatting in the microwave. Butter popcorn proved to be too much for them (or maybe it was the sweltering microwaves) and they made a mass exit, some trapped in the digital clock (it’s cockroach o’clock). But it was a welcome change to be under a roof with more than one room to call home that we didn’t have to take an elevator to get to. We’d been looking forward to being domestic again (we’ve forgotten what cooking and cleaning is), but we were denied such simple pleasures as the house provided its own duo of maids to cook every meal and wash every dish. But after having seen the menagerie in the microwave we weren’t too keen to hang out in the kitchen after all.
I was fortunate enough to get another radio interview in Bangalore, with an English pop/rock station called RadioIndigo. I was interviewed over the course of an hour by RJ Ayesha, live on the air, and she played Marianne and Stop the Time from the record, and I played Howling and the Moon live. The response from the rush-hour traffic listeners was fantastic- many text messages of support and requests for CDs. We gave a few away. I wish I’d had another week there- I would’ve tried to do a show. But maybe I’ll go back. In fact I just talked to Ayesha today, and she said there’s been a request for Marianne every day this week. So that’s heartening.
So onto Pune. The weeks are flying by now. We’ll soon be back in bustling Bombay. Here in Pune I walk around a lot. Today I played a tracking game. I sat in a roadside café and waited for someone to walk by that grabbed my attention- a fire-person. A wizened old man with a full head of silver hair, and a child-like perplexity about his features caught my eye, so I let him get half a block, then began tracking him. Following him. We crossed the bridge and were soon wandering through tight streets choked with afterwork traffic, people rushing home, rushing to school, or not rushing at all. I soon lost my quarry and had to find another one. I did this a few times. It’s a great way to get into the thick of a city. It’s a great way to get hopelessly lost as well, so I made continuous mental notes of how to get back to the bridge (Go back to Hindu temple with green truck, turn right, back to Yellow Cloth Pyramid, turn Left, etc). I enjoyed peering into people’s lives as they went about them. I sat by the road and had the best chai I’ve ever tasted for 3 rupees in a tiny shot glass. I wandered back over the bridge.
Sometimes I get a little sick of being a tourist so I make up these games. Tracking people and so on. Sometimes I feel isolated in these hotels, or just that I need a haircut. Sometimes I go off the rails, but most times I’m pretty close. Wobbly but okay. Sometimes I feel like an emotional flatliner, I’m riding a riverraft down the flat line, coasting to nowhere in particular, feeling nothing in particular. It’s disconcerting. So there’s colours all around me, why should I jump ship? My legs are waggling. Some say it’s unlucky, but I can’t help it sometimes. Sometimes.
To start a rickshaw you pull up on a long lever that lies flat beside your left foot. It grunts and sputters like a lawnmower before it gurgles to life. Women in sarees ride behind their husbands side-saddle on the scooters. Little boys in school ties play plastic cricket under the awnings of abandoned shops, 6 feet from the smoke and long horns of early evening traffic, and the little girls in green school frocks stand in large circle playing a clapping game, waiting for their mothers to fetch them. Some men sit at the steel chai-seller’s table and wait for a friend to pass by. Most sit for the minute it takes to finish the small glass, and abruptly leave. Some of the stray mutts that roam every city have surrogate caretakers, and follow them in small packs, waiting for a small treat. At the base of the bridge, the man with the lime-juice cart sweeps the stones in front of his stand with a short broom, thin twigs tied with twine.
It's better for business.