Call Forth the Cannons of Madras!

I sat back against the grave of a Sub-Conductor, who had died in 1915, leaving a bereaved wife and several forlorn children, and stared at the blood on my hands in stark amazement.

In front of me, pink-flowered bushes played themselves off against pariah dogs and burning garbage. Further on, a hundred feet from the cemetary's western wall, a subway clanged by on an odd-looking bridge, people hanging out the side.

Behind me Bollywood signs rode up the overpass like cowboys, and presumably, the ghosts of this man's wife and children were screaming at me in abject silence, pathetically trying to cry out from both the past and beneath the din of the traffic.

I wandered for somewhat more than hour. The guardshouse was being squatted in by an impoverished Indian family and the gate was wide open. The first few graves were covered in the family's laundry; the rest were covered in either garbage, ashes, weeds, or crows - which skitted from grave peak to grave peak in some sort of efficiently grim, unpaid employment.

The deaths were sometimes as remarkable as the graves or cenotaphs that marked them, that were erected with the jaunty arrogance that the British would still, 200 years later, be the rulers of Madras; would drive back the French to Pondicherry still, after all these years.

"...Helped put down the Indian insurgency of 1857 in Bangladesh..."

"...Perished at sea with his wife and four daughters, their only children..."

"...was, in friendship, disinterested and sincere..."

"...a Member of the Madras Signalmen..."

"...was killed, aged 18, by a shell from a German cruiser..."

Call forth the cannons of Madras, and the ghosts that manned them.

My train for Delhi (35 hours) leaves in under an hour. I am well-equiped with Waugh and Capote and earplugs and patience.

Dinner in Pondicherry

The sheets were damp, my nose was running, and it sounded like rats - in a similar mood, no doubt - were leaping off the aluminum roof to their deaths beside my bed as I tried to grind my eyes shut in the unusual cold of this south Indian hill station, high in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu.

The cold was brought on by two days of malnutrition, which itself was brought about by one day of violent illness. However, I slept for nearly 12 hours and woke up refreshed and ready to hike.

However, again, the guide cancelled on me because it looked like rain. Sure enough, later, it did rain; this is no excuse, though, as it is only rain.

Enter: Mike Dawson (whose claims follow). The son of a British lady and Indian gentleman (both imprisoned by the Japanese in the Second World War but freed by the Gandhi's violent and lesser known counterpart); he had lived in Ooty since 1952.

Since I was reading Bertrand Russell at the time, and since Mr. Dawson was unusually strange, our converstation cannot be fully recounted here in detail that does it justice; no doubt have ye, however, that it lasted almost all day and consited of Lucipherian conspiracies, Hindus worshipping Nilgiri black magic and witch doctors, the essence and point of religious fervour in more general senses, flaura and fauna, Russell vs. T.S Eliot vs. Jesus, academic unorthodoxy, the history of tea, his rotting, soon to be amputated leg, and motorcycle sprockets.

The man was a veritable fountain of the incredible.

At one point, he started pointing out where - two years earlier - four people had been eaten by tigers. A possible, unconfirmed fifth was only smelled. To understand why they didn't follow up on the smell (beside the possibility of being mauled by a tiger) , one only needs to ask the security guard who discovered the third body - which had been eaten from the chest down; essentially, a hollowed out, grisly skeleton with fleshy shoulders and a nearly intact face - who could not eat for three days. The other victims were all women, but were eaten completely; breasts, eyeballs, arms, thighs - all eaten.

It was around this point that the monsoon - with which I have been playing an unusual game of hide and seek - sought us out and began its downpour. Luckily, it was near the end of the day and provided a misty backdrop for a walk through the tea estates. We came upon a group of about 18 young women employed as teapickers who were finishing their day. Within a few minutes I had been proposed to by every one of them. I was flattered, to say the least, in a country which takes marriage as seriously as does India. My success rate was startling but unlikely to be repeated among women who share my language, and hence, the ability of finding me morally repugnant as well as physically dire.

I took another one of those mountain buses back down into Coimbatore. The experience of riding on one of these buses cannot be overstated, and the skill - or insanity - required to pilot one is beyond my comprehension. At the side of the road, at one point, a man patted his vomitting son on the back and looked around awkwardly.

Regardless, I eventually plodded my way into Pondicherry, at the coast of Tamil Nadu on the Bay of Bengal, south of Madras. The overnight bus trip was intriguing. I was constantly awoken by various things, one of which was the bus driver, outside in the rain, grabbing his vein-bulged forehead, illuminated by lightning with some sort of pronged device in his hand, surrounded by tires of various sorts; one having previously been on our bus before it exploded.

On the bus with me were several members of the Campus Crusade for Christ; people who, like the colonial buildings of south India, are physical remnants of when well-to-do religious nations were less obvious about leaving traces of their exploits.

Pondicherry reminds me a lot of other post-colonial cities, which for some reason I always end up in. Regardless, the town was packed with foreigners seeking enlightened servitude to an invented Church, and a dogma and doctrine unenforced by their parents and nurses and hence more agreeable and exotic. It instantly repulsed me.

The only friendly person was a North Korean, who promptly invited me to dinner. He was staying at the Ashram down the street and approached me as I was walking along the beachfront promenade. I never showed up because the hostels were all full and I left on a bus for a small village further up the coast toward Madras.

That night, I was wracked with the journalistic anguish of not going and suggesting that I record our conversation with my radio equipment. My consolations, however, were twofold; one, I am more intent on living my life than being a journalist; and two, I rank journalism and writing on different levels, the former being a more debased version of the latter, and I was consequently able to milk an amusing piece of fiction (like all my fiction, based somewhat in fact) out of the whole scenario.

Tomorrow I leave for Madras, from whence I will leave via train for Delhi. I will then fly out to Beijing. Today, however, I fooled someone intent on harassing me by pretending that I could not speak. When he asked me, as I walked by silently and forcefully, "Why aren't you talking!? Why won't you talk?!" - I feigned sign-language (shamefully, I know), to which he replied, "Oh. Oh God. Sorry!"

Once in China, however, I will no longer be in India; and once no longer in India, my accounts will hopefully not lose their exuberant absurdity - a turn of phrase, I hope, which is used to describe me by my close friends' future grandchildren.

The Irony of a Delhi-less Belly

The irony of this must not escape you.

To many travelers in India, the words "Delhi-belly" conjure images they would rather forget: of lengthy, horrible trips to the bathroom; of tossing and turning in the early hours of the morning, wondering why you're hungover when you haven't drank a drop, etc.

So, my obligatory intestinal post commences with the lack of cliche and the intense good humour of arriving at my own version of Delhi-belly, almost 1 month into my trip and near the end, and actually in Tamil Nadu, in the southern tip of India near Sri Lanka, about as far as one can actually get from Delhi.

But...I was booking a train...from Chennai to Delhi Central Station. Oh, the richness of it all.

As the woman behind the counter jotted down the final numbers of the train I would need to board, I broke out in a cold sweat. I memorized the number and darted away. Outside or to the bathroom? I headed for the bathroom and pushed the door, which jammed.

My proper revenge came in the form of regurgitated fish masala, which rocketed from my gut all over the door. My heaving at it - not to mention my hand leaning on it - moved the door and I bolted inside.

After a few minutes of refreshing, jovial banter with the sink, I left and sat down - where I immediately started laughing, in much the same way as I laughed when I fell of the scooter in Panjim, or when I fell in the courtyard fountain at the fort in Amber.

Tomorrow I board a toy train for Ooty, a hill station in the mountains and an old, Raj-era British outpost.

I've shaved and bought a pack of Polos to commemorate the occasion.

I was standing outside a line up cars, buses, and industrial-strength Ashok Leyland trucks painted in outrageous colours, when the clouds started to drift. Yanking themselves off the peaks around us and tearing themselves in the process, they drifted through the windows and made everything damp and eerie.

These are the borderlands. Where the hammer and sickle and the swastika do constant battle; one hand-painted on to rocks and cliffs and storefronts, and the other peering out mildly from temple windows and autorickshaw license plates. Kerala meets Tamil Nadu.

That morning I was lost in the tea estates of Munnar. Bright green, clipped, and ready to dry and drink; mountainsides full of them, full of women hunched over like boulders clipping and clipping. Sure, you can have some water. Help yourself to my biscuits.

In typical communist fashion, the Keralans I with whom I was riding in the tractor started berating their "manager" and screaming, in a communal manner I'm sure, at their coworkers who dared side with the - GASP - boss.

The bus to Munnar had been utterly uneventuful, by which I mean to say that the only event that did not happen was my sleep. I arrived that morning, bruised and in tatters, with an 11-hour bus ride behind me but the air was clean and crisp and made me so as well.

Currently, I'm in Trichy - a city of bewitching sunsets and lovely, fascinating bazaars. The people here are wonderful and tonight I dined with a priest. I will make it to Pondicherry and also Madras in the next week, but I am unaware of when and on what schedule.

The Dockyards of Thought

I spent last night in Fort Kochi, in Kerala, India. By the docks, they have these huge cantilevered Chinese fishing nets - about 40 feet high, that sweep down into the Arabian sea and scoop out fish and trash and seaweed. I wandered around the dockyards and the merchants' export quarter until I smelled like a catch of the day, and retired to a Kathakali show.

Before I went to bed I ripped apart the Aloe plant I bought off a street vendor for 10 rupees and lathered it all over my bright red shoulders. I woke up at that awkward crack before dawn, when it feels like you're about to go fishing with your dad and he's downstairs making tea and rubbing his hands together, and prepped my backpacks.

I walked out and around the neighborhood to the main jetty, stopping for chai and deep fried coconut shavings, and hopped on a ferry to Ernakulum as the sun crested over the huge cranes that popped and whirred around me. I walked through the town whistling my favourite Bad Plus song to the street vendors and contemplated buying a copy of the Hindustan Times before I remembered that for one month, I'm going to let myself do all the thinking.

Right now I'm killing a bit of time in Kollam before I get on a canoe and drift through the rural backwaters. Tonight, I'm getting on a bus to Trivandrum - the capital of this province, the only Communist state government in India - and either tomorrow or the next day I will bus it up to Munnar, a mountainous range of tea estates and wildlife. From there, it's onward to the land of the Tamils; where, apparently, they speak no or less English and may or may not force me to abandon my regionally-centric, linguistic ignorance.

Tales from loved ones keep me warm: of Lanterns in Korea, of the Savoy in London, of mountains in Peru, of tree-climbing in Ontario, and of the various successes and ventures my friends are executing back in Ottawa or Toronto. But for me, and for now, I'm here and loving this.

I've had an immense amount of time to think and to write, with no deadlines and no formats, no scripts or word counts or 1st person penalties, or price per word or per article; I've composed poetry in post-colonial graveyards, where Portugese sailors cry out to Mary from beneath the weeds and lizards; I've pondered my future on long train rides through lush, trash-strewn palm forests, flying over rivers decked out with bathers and oxen; I've fished with Indian boys who boast they have sex with naive foreign tourists; I have supped on fresh mangos and pineapples and stared into the waves over local beer and seafood; I have dodged diseased cows in urban slums - and through and through and through I wonder and wander further still, not satisfied, sated, and thankfully - apparently - unsedated, though still tainted, by western security, values, and ideas.

Onslaught and Stowaway

I'm positive it was illegal, and it had to happen in Bombay.

The beautiful post-colonial city was shining in the sunset, glowing. Like vines, the people of this land reclaimed a city built on top of them, without their permission; the tea remains, but markets and bazaars flourish - raw cinnamon bark, ginger, fish, prawns, and pineapple pierce the night air and our noses like scimitars. The moon reaches over the tops of crumbling, English-concession architecture, casting shadows on the sari-clad women who work the stoves and sweat for their children within. I pocketed some cinnamon for 5 rupees and left for the train station.

It said platform fifteen but forgot to include that it was to be an utter madhouse, a zoo, a metropolis gone insane in the heat and humidity. (There were, in fact, riots that very same day in Bombay - Jr. doctors went on strike over something or another, people died in hospital transfers and from lack of treatment.) The train was late, and when it did arrive, the surge was unreal. Waves of suitcase-carrying Indians crashed upon the ticket collectors, and aimed themselves in wedge-shaped crowds toward the traincar doors.

Looking in, one could see dark shadows and faded bulbs highlight heads jutting out at awkward angles, four feet above where they should have been. People rode shoulders; people fought; old women were knocked down screaming; children cried out for parents.

I panicked. My ticket read W/L 482 - in other words: waiting list at # 482. In even other words: Iain, you are screwed. I showed it to a collector, who shrugged, laughed, looked at me like we had met at Ypres during the First World War and threatened him with a toy gun, and told me, "That's a waiting list ticket. Go to the general carriage." I turned around to this particular carriage (described above) and panicked some more.

I ran back up the platform to the English couple I had met earlier (I made sure to pack my charm and humility.) My fair, non-Indian skin, got me into the carriage without a problem. The English couple's bunkmates were a rather homely Brit and a slight, bright-smiling Aussie. It was promptly agreed that I should stow myself away.

The camo-wearing Indian soldier patrolling the car probably would have disagreed. But to my fortune, while I was pursuing fruitlessly W/L 482 the ticket collectors of that particular first class carriage had already passed. I laid out bedding and got ready for bed, but had to go to the bathroom.

I emerge from our curtained cabin to the soldier (carrying a gun by the way, but in that tin-pot dictatorship, fake-looking kind of way, if you get my meaning). He points at me and motions me forward. My heart, at this point, was somewhere in my esophagus attempting to choke me or escape or explode under pressure, or something.

Then I realize that in my freezing, I had failed to pop a piece of cinnamon in my mouth. To my surprise, it was this he wanted. I hand it over with the sort of awkwardness inherent in giving flowers to a prom date, and wait. He cracks it in two, and throws half in his mouth. He then points to his nose and mumbles something about sinuses. I shake his hand, pat him on the shoulder, and off he goes.

I woke up the next morning, with my head stuffed under the Aussie's bunk and my feet under the Brits' - so that the only visible portion of me was a blanket covered knee or two - feeling refreshed. Apparently, I had the best sleep in the cabin. And it was both free and illegal: two things I am not used to accomplishing, especially at the same time though I suppose they often accompany one another.

I stepped onto the platform at the Karmali Train Station in Goa, India, with the sun shining. I flashed W/L 482 to the guard, who waved me by, and walked out into a new province, with new friends, sporting a grin that would make any mother on earth slap me outright.

And sand blew through the open window

I spent last night huddled on the lower berth of a train bound from Ajmer to Chittaurgarh, with my luggage strapped to my waist and sand from the Rajastahni plains blowing in through the barred, open windows.

The day before I sat with an Irish man and watched a tourist with dreadlocks get fleeced by a false Hindu puja ceremony at the bathing ghats in Pushkar; that he lost so much was his own fault, that he provided me with so much fodder for antitheism is no one's fault in particular.

Before the train left I was besieged by a crowd of well-educated youngsters who excitedely shook my hand and introduced me to their mothers. I was then told that I was very handsome. To this, I flustered with speech and waved my arms and book about in the air as they giggled and smiled.

Yesterday was also my brother's birthday, to whom all I could offer was an email. 'Sup, Chris?

The Most Literary Travel Post of All Time.

I never thought I'd say: "I'm blogging from a small, underground brick building in Agra, India." because why would anyone ever say that unless they were doing it; if they were doing it, it would seem pompously self-reflexive and anti-climatic.

So I'm not going to say it.

That said, I'd like you to refer to para/1 so I can get on with this.

Well then. I flew into Beijing on 2 May, but I'm not going to give you a rundown of my itinerary because that is mind-obliteratingly inane.

I did get to see the Midi Rock Festival in Beijing, which was neat - especially when The Wombats from the UK yelled, in the most hilarious cliche of rock history: "It's so great to be here in Shanghai..............."

"...BEIJING!"

The two people I'm living with - Maomao, friend of Wu Yan, and Judi, Maomao's boyfriend from Indonesia - are intensely awesome. They've done up this awesome room for me, replete with Tibetan (well, north Sichuan) goodies and stuff. Maomao is in publishing and Judi is doing a masters in architecture at Qinghua University, so with their combined powers they have: "...made it look like a girls' room." according to Judi, who apparently then, had nothing to do with the fruitier aspects of the decor.

Why I am I writing like this from a brick shack. Dammit, I swear I wouldn't say that.

Anyway, though I am rather content to think that no one has ever typed "fruitier aspects of the decor" from this, or indeed possibly, any other brick hut - I can rest content and original.

As original as one can be when stared down by the Taj Mahal, which is approximately a km or two away. Or as original as one can feel in a mosque in Delhi as the sun is setting behind it's massive dome, it's lanterns glow an eerie green against the cap'd youngsters playing cricket in its courtyard, etc., etc.

I'm on my way, friends, on my way. I have a brief sketch and some moulding train tickets showing me the way, but it's up to Iain to see how much he can screw everything up before it's all over.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm leaving things out. This is deliberate. One does not keep all eggs in one basket - especially if he can eventually entice people to pay for his beer as he takes them out, one by one, dusts them off and explains their intricacies.

With Love,

Iain

The Goodbye - China, India, China

Tomorrow I leave.

First: a short stop in Beijing, during which I will somehow have time to imbibe of a Chinese indie-rock festival.

Then, I fly out to Delhi, India, where I will be travelling for roughly a month - living out of a fake backpack by the seat of my pants.

Then I fly back to Beijing, where I will be working until August.

I shall spare ye all the poetics: for those of you who made this year spin by so quickly, I thank you. To my brother and Nara in South Korea: my thoughts are with you, though I will see you soon enough.

To Wu Yan, the unstoppable force for good, thanks for all your hard work making this both possible and not as financially devastating as it might have been.

To my friends - past, present, and future - I look forward to our run-in's, our conversations, and hugs of goodbye and hello.

I shall aspire to blog frequently, but slow connections, infrequent access, and what from now shall be called the Nanny (of Internerd Nanny-state controls), may conspire against my efforts.

Nevertheless, I shall try. I can be reached at the email address in my profile.

Goodbye.