‘So you can fly to Ukraine for us, then. Great.’ The movie mogul sitting opposite me takes a long sip of his chilled Kingfisher and leans back in his wicker chair. I look at my plate, where four different varieties of meat sit happily amongst a spoonful of mint chutney and some papad fragments. So much for self-imposed vegetarianism, then. So much, too, for ‘slumming it’ as a regular backpacker. These kinds of conversation are starting to become scarily common.…
India
The Other Side of India – or ‘Why I Had to Buy a Pair of Jeans During the Indian Summer’
Posted on May 7, 2012I’ve been thinking a lot about the way I look at India. And, by extension, the way that India looks at me. For the last two months, I’ve seen fleeting glimpses of a vast amount of India, whether sitting on buses, sleeping on trains, or fearing for my life in leaking boats and terrifying tuktuks. Many of these glimpses have been caught for posterity through a camera lens; many more have been noted down on paper. I’ve wandered through temples and…
Those who know me well are probably a bit confused by this title. In my normal London life, I am not known as a high heel wearer, and am certainly not a flaunter of anything considered remotely ‘bling’. I’m also not particularly enamoured of either object. But here’s the thing: I’m not in London right now, and people can sometimes change their opinions in life. Particularly if the surreal life that they are living in India suddenly puts them to…
After Part 1, the steady climb to the top of Bollywood adoration continues here. Read on, dear friends, read on… Hour 9: wedding jitters and pole dancing strippers I stand in the hotel grounds and gape, with open-mouthed wonder, at my surroundings. This place is a little bit mental. The stage, speakers and silver sequinned dancers, the ever-stretching banquet table flanked by Roman columns, the guests whirling around the dance floor underneath a giant cardboard medieval castle entrance way… For…
*Disclaimer: These are the first experiences I’ve had of accompanying any celebrity in their day to day life, and hence any overreactions should be excused merely as the internal excitement of a poor travelling Westerner. For the purposes of privacy, the celebrity in question shall, from here onwards, be referred to as Mr. Bollywood. Or Mr. B, for short. Let’s set the scene… I’d said a sad farewell to my travelling buddies of the last two months after a wonderfully…
My introduction to the ways of the Goans started with a spool of thread. Now, when I think of thread and India in the same moment, it’s Gandhi that comes to mind; teaching the common population to become self-sufficient by spinning their own cloth, thus lifting them out of their desperate poverty. Well, in Goa there’s still a method of making money with thread, but it’s probably not quite what the father of India meant.…
Water has been sourced and the fans have been turned off – the power is out in Goa again. At 30 degrees but with 71 percent humidity, it’s almost the end of the season here, and beneath the casual behaviour of the vendors, there’s an definite sense of urgency. Who will go back to the North with the biggest haul from the sunburnt tourists? Who will have enough money to get through monsoon comfortably? Who won’t make enough to get…
From the moment I stepped off the plane in Chennai, I knew I was going to like South India. The air was warmer and more comfortable, the streets were cleaner, and people were happier – not to mention the strange absence of beggars wandering around. We’d left the North in somewhat of a rush, with a few people still feeling under the weather, and it was such a relief to find ourselves somewhere completely different. What’s the south of India…
The sand and salt are curling my newly short hair. My sunburn is pink and red in patches along calves and shoulder blades. The sound of the sea is full in my ears as I lean back in a wicker chair at the Juice Shack, perched on the cliffs of Varkala. For the first time in two months I can’t hear the roaring of traffic or the shouting of people; now, it’s nothing but bird calls and the breeze blowing…
I always knew that India was going to be filled to the brim with tiny hands asking for food and painfully skinny women asking for money. What I didn’t expect was the intensity with which it’s thrust into your face. Rajasthan wasn’t that bad to start with, but things suddenly escalated in Jaipur, and it really got to me. Absolute poverty in India For the first time in almost a month, the children begging were about three years old, the…