Pigeon Water. Shithead and Prohibited Rum 2/2

We moseyed back through the narrow streets. Orange flowers strewn over the ground, sun beating down on our heads. The Lonely Planet Guidebook (affectionately known as the LP) had advised us to go to a few different eateries. The rooftop disaster from the night before had left us with a sour taste in our mouths. We wanted something different, so we climbed up the narrow staircase, passing some 'toilets', to a sheltered rooftop cafe.  On one side we overlooked the hubbub and mayhem of the market:

and on the other side lay the peace and tranquillity of the lake of Pushkar.

We had a veritable feast of houmous and goats cheese and bread and nothing at all related to India. We asked for a banana lassi.

'A Marijuana Lassi' winked the owner.

I was convinced we must have misheard. We stuck with banana. On our way out, the owner showed us the Cannabis sachets that they use to make up the concoction.

A month later when I came back to London, I was chatting with a couple of guy friends. We were perhaps discussing my innocence. I said, the only thing I regret about my trip to India is not trying opium. They looked at me agog. Agog I tell you.

"Phil", said they, "you do know what opium is right?"
"uh yah", I retorted, "it's like what they used to have in dens in the olden days"
They looked at each other.
"It's heroin"
"Oh."

I'm not being funny or anything* but I disagree. Opium water is available in India as Orange Juice is available in all good supermarkets. You drink that, you don't inject it. They are being overdramatic. Charles Dickens was an opium addict. As was Florence Nightingale. And Marcus Aurelius. There you go - a nice bit of trivia for a Sunday night.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, that like any good girl from a good family with a good reputation, I drank banana lassis and that was that.

We went back to the hotel and were greeted by our ex-tour group. They were to have an orientation tour and Faye and I decided to lie by the pool.

The pool. An oasis in a barren desert. Clear blue glistening water. Chlorinated of course. Ecstasy.

No I lied.

The pool was an abyss of murky shit. There was a thin skin across the top of the water. What that skin was made from I have no idea. Pigeons pooed across the surface. They bathed in their own waste.

So did I. (Their waste. Not mine.)

I was hot. Hot as a bitch. The water (unchlorinated, possibly just rain water) was cold. I dipped a toe tentatively. Dirty but refreshing. I got in.

Then disaster struck.

Owen, a fellow tour member, galumphed into the water. He proceeded to hold me by the leg and flip me upside down. I was thirsty. I had not, however, intended to quench said thirst with the aforementioned crap water. I'd have sooner licked my own armpit. And given the heat, I doubt that would have been a pleasant experience.

Have I mentioned that I am not a water baby?
Can I swim? Yes.
Can I dive? Yes.
Can I float? Absolutely not.

I physically cannot do it. I have already said that my body defies gravity when I go down I slide. It wants me to stay hanging vertically mid-air. However, when it comes to water, gravity wants me to be sucked under. I used to have lessons with a man called Tony Williams.** He said I couldn't float because I am a runner and have a huge amount of stamina.

Balls.

I got out. By this point, fully clothed Faye had run away squealing and he had chased her. He came back Faye-less. I struggled and struggled and tried to make myself as difficult and heavy as possible, but to no avail.

The inevitable happened. I flew back in for a second gulp of pigeon water.

They all went off for a look around the town.

We sunbathed and read, all set to meet them for dinner. A vegetarian dinner obviously. No meat allowed.

We got to the lake for dinner and it was absolutely stunning. Faye and I posed for a photo. Standing fairly close, as you do for photos. A man looked crossly at us. I thought maybe we were breaking the 'affection' rule. It turned out we were merely wearing shoes too close to the water's edge. We watched the beautiful pink sky until the sun had set. It was an incredibly romantic place. Had I been there as part of a couple, I would have been mighty irritated with the 'affection' rule.

Oh. And we illegally drank rum and played a card game called Shithead. Dignified.

I shan't bore you with the details but just thought I'd tie in with title.


* Is this a Northernism? Because I always use this phrase and my uni flatmates (from Cambridge, Southampton and Wiltshire doncha know) thought it was hilarious.


They were always partial to my phrases. Like 'oh, she's got a bob on herself' (aka she thinks she's it) and 'well, that's not going to bath the twins' (that won't get things done) or 'well it's all part of life's rich tapestry' (self evident non?). Maybe they are Cottonisms. 


My sister's boyfriend was slightly overwhelmed by our use of abbreviation. Here are a couple of examples:


Beg your puddin'
'Snips (This was originally 'I beg your pardon', which became 'Beg your parsnips', which further became 'parsnips' and then just 'snips'. Classic Mummy Cotton.)


Some people think we are lazy. I think we are eccentric and inventive.


** Again, clearly a source of much hilarity in the famille Cotton, Toe Knee Willy Arms...

An interlude. I shall call it Lent.

Once upon a time, when I was 4, there was a Harvest Festival at school. I should mention at this point that I went to a little Catholic primary school and we celebrated things like this with a service. There was one priest called Father O'Reilly, or as we liked to call him, something along the lines of, Father PickNails O'Reilly. Mainly because he used to pick his nails. He had a really wet voice. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. He was probably involved in this festival. I may feature him later.

So, there was a teacher called Mrs Tin*. I have a vivid memory of a royal blue jumper she used to wear with white bears on it. She had a pair of glasses to go with every outfit. She was one scary lady. I'm sure she was a nice lady but she could be fierce. She shouted at me once because I hadn't brought the pictures of monkeys in magazines from my tidy drawer to the green seats. Obviously scarred me because 20 years on and I still can't let it go. Why we needed pictures of monkeys I will never know.

I had only been at school a month and proud mummy Cotton had come to watch the Harvest Festival in which her little lovey was featuring. I'm pretty sure when I say I was featuring in it, I mean that at home, my mum put together a little basket with tins of baked beans or something in it and then we all brought them in and put them in the school hall to give to the poor and/or needy. We raised money for a charity called CAFOD but I think the poor and needy who got the baskets were just old people who lived round the corner from the school and so we bestowed our charity upon them whether they liked it or not.

Well I cried and cried during the service. (When will this family ever get a good reputation?) Afterwards Mrs Tin came up to me with my mum and said, 'What's to do poppet?'** And I said 'I don't like Harvest Festivals'. Although this is a pretty irrelevant anecdote it could lead to some interesting points.

1. From a young age I had a discerning palate for festivals? I was clearly advanced for my age
2. I was a fussy little madam? Moi?
3. I don't like giving stuff away? True, but I don't hold tinned products close to my heart
4. Father PickNails scared me? No comment required
5. I'm not so much into the religious festivals? Or maybe I'm not so much into sitting cross-legged for hours at these religious festivals, watching a wet man pick the dirt from under his nails...

Here is a tenuous link. It is Lent at the moment. Ha. Told you it would become relevant. (ish).

Lent starts with Pancake Day according to the general public. At school, it began with a Holy Mass. Shrove Tuesday - eat all your crap from the fridge ie pancakes. Ash Wednesday - have a big fat Mass and get some ash put on your head. Give something up.

For about five years in a row I was sick on pancake day. I didn't even eat the pancakes as I wasn't mad keen. Family Cotton happily munched them and I had spaghetti bolognaise. I can still, all these years later, visualise the contents of that toilet bowl, (my mum should have cut the mushrooms into smaller pieces. And possibly i should have chewed more...) and cries of 'go away mummy, you're making it WORSE'

So...the next year I was sick again which was probably a coincidence because I'm pretty sure I still didn't eat any of the pancakes. And then it became a joke. Oh it's pancake day, she's going to be ill again!

If there is anything you might have learned from this blog, it is that I have a good memory. But for bizarre things.

I gave up Pride & Prejudice, the 1995 BBC adaptation, for Lent once. Hats off to the people who give up chocolate and crisps and alcohol. I say it's good to be original though. This time round, I have decided to give up worrying. My friend has taken up doing something different each day. The other day, he took an empty pram and a female friend around London and they pretended to be parents for the day.

This is not really a blog post. Nor is it particularly interesting. It is more of a musing on Lent.

What's to do poppet? I ask myself. I am tired and below par. So I will pipe down now. Goodnight.



*real names are not used in this blog post. Well... aside from Father Picknails.
** to be read in a Lancashire accent. Classic Mrs Tin.

Pigeon Water, Shithead and Prohibited Rum 1/2

It was to be a day of disobedience.

We awoke. We left the hotel to go to the 'Turban Tying Competition' and the  'Moustache Growing Competition'. Exactly what it says on the tin. (except obviously you don't sit there watching people grow their moustaches as that would be extremely dull and you would probably end up with a very numb derriere and heatstroke).

Anyway back to the plot.

It was hot. Hot as a bitch. The sun was low in the sky. I, for one, felt a betty* coming on. The fact that Pushkar was a town of propriety and purity meant that one's shoulders and chest area were to be covered. I was therefore sporting a bizarre dress/ t-shirt conconction. I did not look good. We weaved our way down the dusty sun-beaten track to the town, staring straight ahead so as not to be led by temptation into one of the many jewellery shops that we were a constant source of delight and distraction.

We arrived in the arena. A veritable feast for the eyes. I posted some pictures in a previous post but here they are again.*

Event one - the turban tying competition. After swatting away a couple of Indian pesterers (the innocent question "Where you from?" and the response "Ah lovely jubbly, sound as a pound", which had once been endearing and the source amusement, had become a source of exceptional irritation), we waded through the sweat of bodies (deodorant obviously not in vogue in this arena) and plonked ourselves down on the floor.

In all honesty, I couldn't see a thing. I am short. People were standing up in front. Not a good view.

However, they had picked out some Western women to tie turbans on the heads on their loved ones. Here is a small example below. Although the event was haphazard to say the least, there was certainly a huge amount of enthusiasm from the crowd and so I was excited. Camels to the left of me, camels to the right and there we were, stuck in the middle of a sea of excited, angry (because of people standing in the way), smelly Indian men. The men in front were particularly uncompromising. They kept turning and glaring at us. Mainly because Faye's and my feet*** were pretty much up their bums. I gave them my best evil eye back. It is a good evil eye. Although some people have told me it looks more 'come hither' than evil. This is, I wager, not a good thing under the circumstances. I certainly did not want them to come hither, but rather go...er...thither...

Event 2 : Moustache growing.

Faye and I were hot. Hot as bitches (yes this is a common theme). And so we had moved from our sitting positions to stand at the back of the 'stage'. This was unwise for two reasons

1. we couldn't really see
and
2. we were once again bothered by whereyoufrom-ers.

I can't remember what the latter was trying to sell us but I think it was truly bizarre.

It is hard to tell from these photos, but you may all take my word for it. The moustaches were incredible. The men had them wrapped around their heads and proceeded to unwind them for the crowd. One man opened his arms to their full span to hold out his moustache. Whatever would possess you to allow such a creature onto your face is beyond me. I mean I'm all for a bit of designer stubble, but this was a yard of hair. Plait-able hair. Braidable hair. Longer than my long hair. And growing from a lip. It must have been really heavy and sweaty - I wondered it didn't make their heads lollop forward in an unseemly fashion.

And so we left, happy as Larry. We were to have lunch and then meet the group again as they joined us in Pushkar.

This post is quite long so I will save our lunch in a lovely rooftop restaurant (at which we did not accept drugs) and the pigeon water and the shithead and the breaking of the rules until next time. Which will be much sooner than the last time I said next time.




*If you don't know what this is then shame on you.
** NB my shoddy camera, which had by this stage of the journey acquired a black spot across the viewfinder, doesn't quite capture the wonderful colours. Think of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, add a splash of lung-constricting dust and dirt and you will have a clearer idea.
***This syntax perturbs me. My Grammar Nazi-ness has failed me momentarily. I have pharyngitis and a dodgy wisdom tooth and it is 23:22 so please correct me quietly and without disdain if this is wrong. Too in pain to check and this entire blog is a stream of consciousness. So no smart alec wisecracks please.

Words to Follow Pushkar in Pictures Albeit a While Too Late

Here are the words to follow the Pushkar in Pictures post.* They are indeed about a month late, but I like to keep everyone guessing. This now becomes a test of memory as it was now a good three months since I was in the land of spice and excitement.

Where was I? Faye and I were a bit smug because we had a bindi on our foreheads. It did look a bit odd on us. Also, I was unaware that they stuck rice to your head as part of the bindi. Although at the time, we felt very important and all spiritual, looking at the photos and what with the random rice grains, we probably just looked like we had a big old whitehead that needed squeezing.

We pootled along to the hub of the festival where there was just row upon row of horse and camel. The sun was setting and the whole sandy paradise was covered in a beautiful orange glow. So there we were, basking in an orange glow, surrounded by a caravan of camels**, dodging rogue bareback horse riders, sand swirling up around us. And what did we want? A cold beer.

Now I think this is all psychological because we knew it wasn't possible. There were three rules in this sacred town of Pushkar.

1. No eating meat
2. No showing affection in public (apparently a newly-wed couple were arrested for kissing)
3. No alcohol

As Faye is a veggie and I was being a veggie for the duration, that didn't really matter. Obviously number 2 was of no relevance or consequence but rule 3 was quite frankly, a bit crap.

Furthermore, after trying to watch the cow stripping event (in which no cows were actually stripped, whatever that even meant), we went to get something to eat (casually stopping off to buy some moonstone earrings and rings).

The food was the worst food ever. It was non-food. Our oh-so-sought-after peshwari naan (actually hard to find in India) was just plain naan, our navratan korma was lukewarm and we had to sit on a dirty mattress on the floor to eat it.

I realise I have now put Pushkar into a bad light. It was honestly one of my fave places in the trip. When anything went a bit pear-shaped on the trip, Faye and I generally ended up laughing. As my wise mother always says, 'It's all part of life's rich tapestry'. I think my section of life's rich tapestry is quite extensive.

Day one of Pushkar had come to an end. And it was good.



*Note unsubtle alliteration.
** I prefer this term to herd. It is the collective noun for a group of camels by the way, for all of you sitting there wondering if there were also caravans in the desert. You can apparently also refer to them as a flock of camels, but I feel this has connotations of wings.

Camels are huge.
I can safely say they do not fly.
They lollop.

Four and twenty sparrows baked in a baba ganoush.

I haven't written anything for a while and for this I am truly sorry. January ran away with me. Many an interesting thing happened in January, including me reaching the ripe old age of four and twenty.

This blog is not India related. I will be sure to write another India post this evening as I am at home. Probably along with the long awaited downstairs loo blog.

It is February and it is snowing. It is a good thing it is snowing because I only have heels or snow boots available. To say I look a tad bizarre would be an understatement. My snow boots are really fat and red and it looks like my sparrow legs are going to snap off at any minute. It also doesn't help my look that I have tin foil in my hair and a black see through lacey top on. Some people think having legs like mine is a blessing. But then they don't have the rigmarole of boot shopping and realising that every boot looks like a welly. And I thus look like I am about to go horse riding. Which doesn't help this whole false perception of me as a horse rider. Which I am not. And quite frankly, never will be.

It was my birthday on Friday and thirty five of us went to check out the restaurant underneath my flat. As there were so many of us, we ate a Levantine feast of humous, baba ganoush*, pitta, kebabs, falafels, cheese things, lamb things and baklava. I can now add baklava to the list of foods I could really do without. Somebody told me the other day that I was a fussy eater. I'm not. The thing is that I would just rather not bother with things that I don't love. I don't see the point - it is a waste of my time, my jaw muscles' time and there are others who could enjoy it more than me if I left it for them. It is also a waste of time for the farmers and manufacturers who have made said foods. In this case, the baklava farmers...

 In conclusion, there are still only 3 things I can't eat and they still remain butter, beetroot and veal's head.

Once upon a time, my American friend Jessie cooked us a thanksgiving dinner. It was incredible. I was a thanksgiving virgin. To accompany the turkey, was a mushroom gravy. I am not a mushroom fan generally. I will take or leave. But as a gracious guest, I took. And I ate. And Jessie waited until I had eaten. And then she said, 'phil, they weren't mushrooms, they were giblets.' I can't describe the revulsion I felt. It rose like a wave and stuck in my throat. It stayed there for hours afterwards. I still haven't forgiven her. This has a point. I am just not sure what it is. I think this is just proof to all those doubters out there that I eat stuff I don't like.

 Anyway, the birthday dinner was a triumph. Up to the point where they brought in a belly dancer. And they dragged me up to dance. Don't get me wrong, I like to be the centre of attention. But let us hark back to the post I wrote about dancing. And how I can't.

Three things were not in my favour

1. I don't possess a belly
2. Or sufficient bosom
3. Or the ability to dance

Furthermore I had been so busy trying to make sure everybody was happy, I hadn't really had a drink. One word sums up the entire event: mortifying.

34 pairs of eyes on me.

Friends from home - fine. They know I often make a fool of myself.

Friends from uni - alright. Although I hadn't seen them for a year.

Friends' partners and friends of friends - no doubt sitting there wondering why people associated with this loon.

Friends from work - dear lord, what would they say on Monday? At least I could blame the Christmas party on excessive alcohol consumption.

The next table of 15 who I didn't know from Adam but who I was paraded in front of. Well... by that point I had embraced the mortification and I was in my element. Shimmying like nobody has ever shimmied before. Granted, there wasn't much to work with on the jiggling front but I tried my best and got some laughs.

 At me. Not with me.



 *Oh. And I still don't know what baba ganoush is.

Pushkar in Pictures. Words soon to follow.