RALPH’s Peta Murray reckons India is second to naan.
Arriving at Delhi International is like jumping sober into a Metallica mosh. A sweaty crush of people yell, wave signs and jockey for position near the airport doors. I stand in a daze until someone pushes me into a taxi. I’m heading for the city with the smell of spices, fumes and shit floating through the window.
What strikes me first about India are the contrasts. Entire families live in slums metres from five-star hotels, and limousines share peak hour with rickshaw-wallahs jogging barefoot between the shafts of rickety wooden carts.
What strikes me next is the lack of anything resembling traffic rules. Hindu shrines line the roads and local travellers fling rice from bus windows as they hurtle past.
I find this religious devotion a bit over the top until I take my first bus trip. Getting the gods on side is sound practice on narrow, unlit roads where giant petrol tankers rule and everyone drives around like a three-headed Shiva.
In da loo
In a crowded post office in the holy city of Varanasi, it becomes clear the gods are not on my side. Fate, destiny or maybe just a rogue vindaloo sends my bowels into meltdown in the stamp line. I spend the next 48 hours staring at the fly-encrusted ceiling of a stuffy hotel room, paying regular visits to the porcelain hole-in-the-floor.
Three days later, several kilos lighter and my gut still cramping, I decide to tackle the train to Mumbai. But 24 hours on, I’m still waiting at Varanasi Central. I’m spurred on by the relentless optimism of the locals until it is finally and mysteriously agreed that the train in question has broken down, been hijacked by Sai Baba separatists or cancelled due to lack of interest.
Funda-mental
By far the greatest cause of grief in India, though, is the “dry state”. I stumble upon this unfortunate phenomenon in the southern province of Andhra Pradesh, an Islamic state where mosques soak up the skyline and women cover their faces.
Beef is readily available (no diplomatic immunity for the holy cow here) but alcohol isn’t – a sad truth I discover after hours of wandering the hot, dusty streets of Hyderabad in search of a cold beer.
In desperation I hail a passing rickshaw. The driver listens to my dilemma and, after a moment’s thought, waves me onto the backseat. He motors across town and ejects me under a flicker of neon which gasps “bar” at irregular intervals.
Inside, I’m checking out the suspicious lack of alcohol or fellow drinkers when a barman in a penguin suit and hair like David Hasselhoff slides toward me.
“Good evening, madam. Do you hold a drinking permit, madam?”
A permit to drink? I take a look at the weighty form he hands me. The line of questioning is disturbing. Forced to give my name, age, reasons for wanting to drink, amount of intended consumption and whether having a coldie or two is a regular pastime, intentions are starting to blur. Am I signing up for a beer or membership with AA?
To read the full story, buy the August 09 edition of RALPH. On sale now at newsagents.
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