Reading Naked Lunch in the depths of India can skew your perspective

Serenaded by a classical Carnatic trio in the Old Portuguese Courtyard in Kochi. Cheryl framed by a great decaying wall - black with mold and perforated at its base by mood-lit alcoves thick with moss of ectoplasm green...One of which on her right doubles as a pen for a bronze four-headed elephant. The humid air breathes musty as we inhale our forbidden meals of Spanish Beef and Baked Mussels, all washed down with a strange concoction of buttermilk, ginger, honey, curry leaves and onions sucked through alabaster straws.

We are flanked by odd refugees from foreign climes. To our right are an incestuous father/daughter twosome furtively reading Aztec adventure comics to each other in French. While to our left sit three fugitive Burmese monks disguised as Japanese tourists.

We make our excuses and slip past the scowling lesbian Maitre'd unnoticed.

Wildlife

We've been in Munnar in Kerala's Western Ghats these last few days. A bucolic idyll and home to the world's highest tea plantations, it's been a more than welcome welcome break from the oppressive heat and chaos of the coast. We'd been living pretty cheap of late and decided we'd splash out on a one day tour of the local area with our own private driver - getting the local knowledge on our surrounds.

We started first thing in the morning - taking in tea factories, cardamom, pepper, sandle wood and tea plantations, waterfalls and breathtaking scenery. Beautiful, but pretty standard stuff for these parts. After lunch our driver dropped us off to commence our 5 hour trek in the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary.

Maybe it's my Aussie upbringing, but the term 'Wildlife Sanctuary' conjures images of migrating water birds and a few furry creatures scampering about the place if you're lucky. And if there are any dangerous creatures present, measures are taken to keep any visitors out of harms way. So I thought nothing of signing the declaration they handed me. It mentioned stuff about trekking being 'highly' dangerous and that while 'all care is taken', they won't be liable for any accident occasioning death or injury. Pretty standard cover your arse stuff.

It slipped my mind that we were in India. It slipped my mind that the owner of the farmhouse we were staying in insists we only take auto rickshaws home after 7:30 and not walk back through the surrounding tea plantations as wild animals some times creep in during the night (for 'wild animals' read: tigers, elephants, panthers, leopards and boars). Maybe it's the genteel surroundings - a strange cross between Australian Tablelands, South Coast England and the Swiss Alps - that never allows this threat to really sink in.

Anyway, our driver secured our tracker and guide and introduced us, he was a young local guy from an indigenous tribe that (among others) had been entrusted as caretakers of the land. He smelled of last night's campfire on a dewy morning and looked more like a Koori (an Australian Aboriginal) than Indian. As the four of us (tracker, driver, Cheryl and myself) commenced our trek, it became more apparent just how much he had in common with the Koori trackers. At one with his land, his movements and sensory perceptions took on animal-like characteristics and sensitivity. He had this piercing gaze that seemed to scan his whole field of vision with hunter precision, his ears twitch at the slightest sound and our driver mentioned he could smell animals from across the valley.

We begin to track some elephants - which is not so hard given they leave behind great steaming piles of shit and knock over any trees that may be in the way - when a sound stops him in his tracks. He holds his hand to quiet and still us, his animal senses working over time. I watch his face intently to see if it will betray anything. He looks concerned then relieved before muttering something in Malayalam.

"Tiger. But not too close." our driver translates

Tiger?

I had no idea there had been sightings of Tigers here. There are a few select places you go to increase your chances of seeing one and this wasn't one of them. I'm at once incredibly excited and a little concerned.

On the excited trip - I love tigers. They're my favourite land animal (for reasons I won't bore you with here) and laying my eyes on one in the wild is one of those boxes I must tick - if not on this trip, then at least in this lifetime.

On the concerned trip - This love of tigers also involves a deep respect for their ability as the most stealthy, ferocious and single minded land hunter on the planet. Their their paws can break its quarry's back with a single blow, the jaws crush wind-pipes and neck vertebrae for good measure and it will stalk it's prey for days (giving up earlier opportunities) just for the fun of it.

With all this in mind, I'd kinda been banking on seeing one within the confines of a 4WD (Big Cat Diaries style)...or at the very least on top of an Elephant. Only a few days ago we'd met a French couple who had encountered wild elephants and their guides had taken rifles along in case anything went wrong. Ours was armed with a half sized machete and we were on foot (flip-flops to be precise). We ploughed on, never really realising how vulnerable we were. At the time, we were still bird watching as far as I was concerned and I thought this little tiger show was something they put on for hapless tourists.

Back to the story. So, after several hours of walking around examining piles of shit and animal tracks and a distant Bison sighting, our tracker spots a lone elephant across the river on the opposite slope. We scramble up to higher ground only to see it disappear over the other side. Perched atop an overhang with an incredible view of the Western Ghats out of Kerala and in to Tamil Nadu, I pour my backpack's contents on to the rock and we hang out and eat, drink, take in the view and hope the elephant wanders back in to view some time soon.

After a while some tribesmen appear at the clearing where we'd spotted the elephant. We assume they must have been tracking him too. They seem apprehensive about following him down that same slope, but eventually conjure the courage and disappear from view. Soon after, two of them re-appear. Running at speed - like 'run for your fucking life' speed. I never thought it possible for a human to run so fast, down so steep an incline. Then we see another two. One is running too fast and he takes a really bad spill, tumbling head over heels a few times before miraculously regaining his footing and keeps on going...never letting up.

Their reaction seemed all so out of proportion. No elephant could have followed them down such an incline, yet they just kept running and running and running - at literal break-neck speed. The final two soon follow in similar fashion and by now the four of us are in hysterics (fed by that universal humour of witnessing other people's misfortune, whilst safe in the knowledge that they're gonna be OK). The distance and the river between us rendered their terror silent and the spectacle took on a farcical nature that was a cross between Benny Hill and The Gods Must Be Crazy. We waited for that elephant and I tell you, if an elephant had bumbled over that hill in slow pursuit I would have suffered a fit of such rock slapping laughter that it would have required a Heimlich Manouvre just to get me breathing again. But alas, the bumbling elephant never made his entrance and the hysterics died down to absent chuckles.

The hilarity over, I began to stuff the regurgitated contents of my backpack back in to its belly (careful to leave not a scrap of rubbish behind), when our tracker's eyes bugged out of his sockets like tongues. He shot up pointing and shouting the only English word in his vocabulary:

"TIGER!"

A tiger bounded over the top of the hill and with feline dexterity gracefully bolted down the exact same slope as the tribesmen - making a beeline straight for the trees they had taken shelter in. When at the very last second something scared him and it changed its tack and veered right, leaping off a considerable drop in to a clump of trees below - never to re-appear.

Full disclosure: I didn't see that last bit ^^^^. I'm afraid that brief, yet crucial paragraph has been constructed using the eye witness accounts of Cheryl and our driver with some flourishes courtesy of my minds eye reconstruction. Where was I? I was there, packing my pack. And from the angle I spun round on, the guide's finger seemed to pointing to a rather bland rocky outcrop. Cheryl described everything to me and was kind enough to say that it was all so quick and far away that it could have been a large dog, that it didn't really count as a sighting. But the fact is that I missed out on the punchline that made what we had witnessed less of a joke and more a playing out of a real life and death drama, of two top-of-the-food-chain dominant life forms scaring the bejeesus out of each other. I had been thwarted yet again at seeing a tiger in the wild (first time: Sumatra) and my first close encounter with one lacked the teeth of actually seeing it.

The fact is, they are so rare now and are fighting a losing battle against extinction. Even where they are protected, their habitat isn't. Being located largely in the third world it only takes a small payment for officials to turn a blind eye to poachers and loggers. Sadly, unless conservation efforts miraculously manage to turn things around, the days of this magnificent creature ruling the Asian wild lands are numbered. Those that are left are understandably shy of humans and are notoriously difficult and dangerous to encounter - with that camouflage they are only seen when they want to be seen.

We make our way back to the car without event. Part of me wanting to catch a glimpse, the other (much louder) part hoping he stays on the other side of the river. Still, I won't give up until I see one in the wild, with my own eyes.

Only in India

The things you read in Indian newspapers. This one is courtesy of Indian broadsheet The Hindu:

Priest drowns during yogic feat

GUNTUR: A 33-year-old priest in Medikonduru mandal drowned in a well while performing ‘Jala Stambanam’ (a yogic practice by which a person can stay inside water for a long period).

Purnam Rama Sastri jumped into the well on Wednesday around midnight, after assuring his family members that he would come back the next morning. However, the man got drowned and his body was fished out in the morning.

According to Sub Inspector of Police Md. Osman the priest had been practising various meditation practices in Guntur. On Wednesday night, he jumped from a two-storeyed building and sustained only minor injuries.

Indian Spirituality

It pervades everything. I don't know why, but anything that would pass as cultish or faddish in the west comes across as genuine and sincere here. Yoga instructors radiate serenity rather than smugness and it doesn't seem strange that somebody, whom you've just met, suddenly starts reading your palms (I'm gonna be minted and have three kids). Conversations with people about their daily routine of yoga, oil massage and going to the temple are of great interest in comparison to my: have a coffee, make a resolve and boost it with extra paracetamol and hope I wake up sufficiently before I make it to work. If it was a blonde with an LA accent telling me their body is a temple and what routine is responsible for that crazed look in their eyes...I would have lost interest before they'd mentioned their morning wheatgrass shot.

Maybe I'm prejudiced, but maybe it's because Indians are the true original New Agers and us Westerners just come across as cheap counterfeits when we try and jump on the enlightenment bandwagon.

What got me on this riff was an unsolicited text message that I received from my mobile provider this morning:

"Every bad situation will have something positive. Even a stopped clock shows correct time twice a day. Think of this and lead ur life. Good Morning. Regards Airtel."

If this had happened in the west, I'd be sure I'd joined a cult not a mobile network. But here in India (the largest cult of them all), some spiritual guidance to start the day is all part of the service.

Masala Rider

When researching the riding of motorbikes in India I had a web-based nemesis, a portent of doom that followed me wherever I went. Everytime I posted a query on a message board, his dark log-in would emerge from the ether and proclaim that if I were to ride a bike in India, I would surely meet my demise. I dismissed it as a classic case of keyboard-hero fear-mongering or just some clown with a dark sense of humour (as clowns have). Strangely, I never thought his comments might have been based in truth.

After riding only 35kms from Varkala to Kolam yesterday, I may not have met my demise, but I was certainly sailing close to the edge of existence. After only one day on the road I don’t exactly qualify as an expert - but in the interest of traveler health and safety (and from the comfort of a stationary chair with four legs), I have managed to collate these unofficial, yet essential top-ten guidelines to negotiating Indian roads for your perusal:

1. When riding at any speed you will need to keep one eye on the road watching out for potholes and the other for oncoming traffic. Vehicles will regularly and unexpectedly veer on to your side of the road to avoid one of the numerous wheel-destroying potholes. You will end up doing this also.

2. Use hand signals when making turns or when coming to a stop. Other drivers will only notice your vehicle’s indicators once you have done this.

3. Use your horn…a lot! There is a constant barrage of horns around you. Use this cacophony as a bat uses sonar. Each horn is a vehicle telling you where it is amidst the chaos. Use your horn on corners, when overtaking, when approaching vehicles, pedestrians and livestock or when you see something funny. It’ serves a language that says “do you see me?” with the reply being “yeah I see you”. It can also say many other things like “Get the fuck out of my way sisterfucker” or “Hey check me out! I’m a dude on a bike with some cool Bollywood shades and a hot girl on the back”.

4. If you are unfortunate enough be on the apex of a bend at the same time as a bus coming in the opposite direction - close your eyes, breathe in to reduce your body-mass and hope for the best. If there is a shoulder on the road, use it, as the bus will use his lane, your lane and then some.

5. When being overtaken by a bus, let them get ¾ of the way past you then apply your breaks. They will cut you off. In fact – try and steer clear of buses altogether.

6. Don’t speed. Period. Apart from the above, there is always a multitude of reasons for having to stop on a dime. You will have to share the roads with people who cannot drive for shit, have a death wish & officials that tear down the roads sitting on their horns maintaining a beeline down the middle of the road regardless of what’s ahead. There is no emergency; they’re just propelled by self-importance and the official sanction to put everyone’s lives at risk so they can make lunch in time. You will also have to share the road with cows, goats, water buffalo, playing children, farmers drying grain across the road and using vehicles’ wheels to do the threshing for them and men pushing hand carts stacked impossibly high with goods ranging from coconut husks to metal girders.

7. Try and not get too distracted by what you see by the side of the road. Whether it’s breath taking scenery, village life, people screaming hello or any one of the forever surprising elements of India…keep at least one eye on the road.

8. If riding in the late afternoon, pay extra attention while answering all the questions being shouted at you from the school bus in front. Just because the kids are asking your name and where you’re from, doesn’t mean that Mr. Deathwish driving the school bus will drive any less erratically. He will stop suddenly - just as the pot holes will keep coming. Again, keep at least one eye on the road.

9.When the smell of Cardamom and Tea hits your nostrils – slow down, pull over and refresh yourself at a marsala tea stall.

10. And finally, when you eventually make it to the next town in one piece, the taste of adrenalin has subsided and the feeling has come back to your numb butt cheeks – you will want to get straight back on and do it all again.

A sting in the fairytale

You think there’s no room for magic anymore. You’ve grown up and the time for child-like wonder has passed. Some try to re-capture it with drugs or even Harry Potter books – but these are more exercises in escapism. The land where fairytales might exist has been submerged under weightier issues such as mortgages, careers, mistakes and possibly a few regrets.

Then one day you find yourself in Kerala, slowly drifting down the backwaters with a boatman and his long bamboo stick the only mechanism to get you anywhere. The people, their superstitions and the land itself has conspired with your imagination to suggest that maybe there is more to this place than meets the eye.

You round a bend in the river and see before you an island bathed in sunshine. As you approach, music seems to draw you in - a siren song. You gesture to the boatman that you would like to alight and explore the island and with an almost imperceptible head wobble, he changes the direction of the boat. As you alight, music emits from the forest like an echo from heaven. Sunlight dances on the leaves and the palm trees dip and sway in the breeze as if in time to the music.

As you negotiate the narrow paths in to the interior, you have step aside for the fairies – little girls moving to and fro wearing brightly coloured princess dresses. There are thatched houses with vegetable patches, enchanted gardens and swings garlanded with flowers. You move on through into a forest dense with columns of Coconut Palm trunks. The forest floor is carpeted in soft grass and decorated with ferns as another swarm of giggling fairies pass you by – the music still filling your ears.

In the middle of the island is its heart. You stumble across it in a clearing, a church whitewashed in sun-faded pastels. It is from here that the girls come running from, where the wires that feed the speakers in the tree tops throughout the island are powered at their source.

Though the curtain has been pulled on the great Oz pulling his levers, the island still maintains its fairytale quality. Inside the church, through the open walls, you see the matriarchs praying as a girl with the voice of a cherub coos her hymn into a taped-up microphone – piping her blessings out into the trees. Behind her is an altar festooned with flowers and disco lights and a kitsch portrait of Jesus Christ at its centre. The sight seems out of place until you remember that in India, there are many paths to God.

You move past the church where the sun (now low in the sky) warms your face and silhouettes the palm trees and boys playing cricket on the beach – the breakers behind them all thunderous and kicking up mist. Hidden by the glare are the fishermen at your feet, dressed in Lungis and Sunday-best shirts, staring at you with lines etched in to their faces as deep as the wells of their eyes.

Having walked the breadth of the island, it is here that you realize the precariousness of their existence, of this unique and enchanting paradise. It is no more than 1km long and a few hundred metres across. On one side the temperamental Arabian Sea, on the other the monsoon-prone backwaters. It is a thin green line between two powerful ecosystems that wax and wane at will and (at times) without warning. On this knife edge a community exists in a bubble, a haven of tranquility between the wilderness of the ocean and the chaos of mainland India.

The island cannot be higher than ten feet at its highest point - one storm surge, one monsoon deluge or even one melted iceberg away from obliteration. Only recently, a fishing community (just a few kilometers to the south) was decimated by the encroachment of large seas. Like anything of beauty, the island is fragile and possibly fleeting.

You slowly make your way back, leaving the same way you came. You try and etch it all in to your mind and don't even dare to take a memory tainting photo. As you leave the island and step back on to your boat you hope - for the sake of the girls in princess dresses, the praying matriarchs, the girl with the taped up microphone, the boys playing cricket and the fishermen in their Sunday bests - that this fairytale doesn’t have an ending any time soon.