This is a man's world ??

I attempt in my humble way to give a feel for life in India and Bangalore through this blog, and it also has considerable therapeutic value. Earlier this week I felt like giving up blogging having read Hemingway’s epilogue to ‘Death in the Afternoon’ – which managed to pack in more evocative detail in one short sentence than I manage in a several blogs worth. Reading ‘essential’, and very manly, Hemingway also seems to have affected some of my choices – I ended up with a macho DVD watchathon over the last couple of days Casino/Godfather Part 2/Platoon. I was also prompted to get a copy of ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ which I did for ‘O’ Level several decades ago, and now am anticipating a dinner of barracuda and giant prawns.
I need to resist this and have put all the red tablecloths in a locked cupboard in case I feel the urge to try my matador skills with the local sacred cows, and I feel fly fishing in the local rivers would be rather fruitless. I clearly need to be careful with my reading, I will leave the ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’ alone before flying off to Singapore later this week especially as my damaged legs have not completely recovered from rugby a couple of weeks ago.

Mrs Reiver has gone ahead, and it is worrying that she is finding it so reassuring just on the basis that simple things such as traffic, water and supply chains for food actually work there. Revisiting the OMATS was surprisingly pleasurable and I am hopeful that revisiting Singapore after living there nearly 15 years ago will be similar but I suspect it will be full of surprises. I may well miss the chaos of India, but probably not the dawn chorus of fighting dogs which woke me this morning. There are some linking themes through between the two counties, with Singapore operating its own ‘caste’ system but based on education rather than family history – as Mrs Reiver would point out these are however not independent variables. In Singapore there is also the concept of ‘Kiasu’ where extracting the most economic advantage out of every situation is celebrated, the same approach applies to interactions in India but on a more stealth basis. I will overtly extract maximum pleasure from my Singaporean weekend and possibly some covert payback if I happen to run into my ex Boss who still lives there – or maybe I have just spent too much virtual time with Vito Coroleone recently.

The Circuit of Life

There is much wisdom embedded in Disney song lyrics – and my personal philosophy is probably summed up best (if not tunefully when self delivered) by a medley of Jungle Book songs. I chose yesterday to dispense with the usual music whilst running round my local race loop (diagram attached) and felt that in this kilometre or so reminded me somewhat of ‘The circle of life’. Cross checking the Lion King lyrics they are rather apt:

There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There's far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round

So as they used to do when I worked in F1 in my youth - lets take you on a lap of the tricky and variable Indiranagar Circuit.

Pulling away from Harmony with the rubber on my trainers smoking slightly there is a relatively easy down start but with regular speed bumps testing out the suspension in the dodgy knees. This circuit is littered with unexpected distractions so you must stay alert at all times. On the opening straight these consist of:

1) The open air ironing man – with still hot coals scattered around his stall – even more dangerous than the ‘marbles’
2) The building workers collected in a magnetic huddle around a hole watching one person work – if you slow down for a peek here your lap is ruined
3) The local HOPCOM selling fruit – you must ensure you are stocked up on papaya before leaving the pit lane

Then comes the tricky sharp ‘DON’T URINATE HERE’ lefthander negotiating the recently created 4) random piles of debris in the road. You can relax a bit on the shady tree lined bottom straight, hold you nose as you pass over 5) sewer bridge and then smoothly hit the apex and accelerate into the uphill back straight. You do have to keep your wits about you and your eyes open for auto-rickshaws coming up the wrong side of the road.

As you churn up the hill the pacemaker hits the limiter but it is critical that you are not tempted by any of the back straights wiles:

6) The Hindu temple – spiritual needs
7) The Street Vegetable Stall – 5 a day needs
8) and 9) The Electricity & Bottled Gas shops – energy needs
10)The Bakery – food needs (but of course not bread – at a bakery – come on!)

You are now approaching the prime spectator viewing areas as you negotiate 11) sofa corner (avoiding also the head tennis game that is permanently ongoing) and cruise along 12) Washing Line straight. As well as avoiding the washing lines, kite strings and small children being washed in the street – you need to prepare for the challenging corner combinations which end the lap.

Swinging left at 13) Bullock curve with the occasional misfire under braking, you need to watch your grip and then try not to titter as you pass the 14) ‘Vibrators for hire’ shop. The uneven surface of the next short straight tests the ankles and that suspected broken toe, but you can sniff the end of the lap as well as the coffee and ciggies of the blokes all standing outside the 15) local shop doing very little ( a national sport in India). Rounding the final turn is downhill all the way to the finish with the only real distraction being a 16) strolling lemon seller with a sack on his head.

Then in is into the pits supervised by the gate marshalls and definitely time to take advantage of some corporate hospitality!

DIY, Y, Y - Delilah!

It is always difficult to work out whether you may offend local sensibilities in what you do whilst in India. This is made no easier by there being a locally raging debate about what is appropriate ‘Indian’ behaviour in the 21st century, so that there are no real goalpost and/or they are possibly moving.

My attempts to cater for Vegans at our housewarming party suffered from the fact that in practice this also excluded (I later found out) anything that came out of the ground so my carefully assembled attempts languished wallflower like all evening whilst the beef and ham snacks disappeared almost immediately. Plus my wonderful mushy peas were assumed to be avocado – do I look like an avocado sort of person??!
Interestingly there are virtually no recognisable DIY stores as everybody who is reasonably affluent has workmen in to do things although often it is literally a workman (no tools, no equipment) that turns up. Most Indians I have met just cannot get their heads round why I would do my own cooking when we have a maid. I attempted a largely DIY approach to the event and the guests seemed to enthusiastically get the hang of the self service bar, but were less adept at noticing the direction to the toilets on the side of the fridge. I got quite a strange and frightened look when a young Indian asked about the location of the facilities and I just pointed at the fridge – he was much relieved at many levels when he found the directions!

Our DIY approach extends to my ‘haircuts’ which Mrs Reiver explores her shaping tendencies with electric clippers finding this both cost effective, relaxing and therapeutic. In the UK we would occasionally do it on the front step in poor white trash fashion, and I would then run around the garden twirling my shirt about my head – this suddenly sounds like a punchline to a poor taste joke so I will get to the point. Going for the ‘Easy like Sunday morning’ vibe today I had by hair cut by Mrs Reiver in her Jamas in the garden ‘biblical style’ with the Radio 4 Sunday service wafting over us and vivid butterflies circling. This took quite a while as she cannot help as a mathematician striving for symmetry, and rugby and life has rendered my head somewhat aesthetically unbalanced. Was this culturally insensitive or inappropriate? - we will probably never know what our security guard made of this performance, not because he is reticent to communicate, but because he was dozing in his slippers.

A Reivers Kitchen Nightmare

We have probably foolishly decided to throw a house-warming party on Friday the 13th inviting people over for drinks and nibbles – this then resulted in the debate with Mrs Reiver as to what nibbles constituted in an Indian context, as they seem to expect a full feed on most occasions. I am now charged with producing food and drinks for 30 or maybe 50 people covering carnivores, vegetarians and vegans with snack food but enough so that they don’t go hungry, and within the context that there may well be no electricity on the night – so no pressure then. Mrs Reiver even wants it also to be reliably edible and tasty – she should have learned by now that my experimental cooking is rarely both.

I am dredging my 70s past and pretending it is now posh – so sausages on sticks have now become chorizo kebabs, little sandwiches have become Ciabatta slices with Chinese fried fillet steak, and Pease Pudding has become garlic pea puree and chilli ‘hummus’. I have found supplies of Blue Nun and Mateus Rose extra-ordinarily limited and neither sight nor sound of a Watneys Party 7 – so we may have to rely on contemporary drinks, and I may still be tempted by trying a supply of India’s first Malt Whisky (from Goa).

The 70s will be well represented on the music selection although what our Indian aquaintances will make of the juxtaposition of some Manilow magic with a blast of the Pistols I am not sure. I was vetoed on working up the Friday the 13th theme too much and my idea for putting small blood stained pillows with and embedded axe in each of the bathrooms was not well received, neither was greeting the guests wearing a hockey mask and holding a cake slice.

The dry run last night was anything but with the disposable cups that we got proving far from water or wine –tight. Friday promises to be an interesting day, as we shop for a giant block of ice for drinks cooling, and hope that everything comes together, and that the building site next door doesn’t provide too much noise competition. In case they do I have the stocks of rum and coke and a Lindisfarne medley prepared for late night competitive collective Karaoke.

By the end of the evening guests may wish that they were ‘Sitting in a sleazy snack bar sucking sickly sausage rolls’ and hope that it was all a bad dream.

I Got the Music in Me

When I was a lad, music originally came out of radios or juke-boxes – or if you were daring you tried to record Top of the Pops direct onto your reel to reel tape machine. Technology advanced in the early 70s when there were ads for mini-radios with a single earpiece that you could secrete in your blazer and surrepticiously listen at school. Of course after that bloke at Sony did the Walkman it started to get out of hand with it being difficult to spot someone now who isn’t wired – and with adverts in India encouraging students to do (unflattering) electronic caricatures of their professors in lectures.

Whatever the delivery device the choice of music is always instructive – von Karajan famously selected 8 von Karajan pieces on DID many years ago. I found the other week that as well as being the Antidote to Panel Games that ISIHAC also worked well against Bangalore traffic jam fatigue.

So as I went tortuously jogging at 32C the other day I asked myself what my choice of accompanying running music said about me and my life in India. The current selection was:

• Could it be Magic – Barry Manilow (us proboscally endowed artists need to stick together)
• Peaches – The Stranglers (my ears still ring from hearing them live)
• Guns don’t Kill People, Rappers Do – Goldie Lookin Chain (humour is in short supply in India – especially that subversive type from the underground Newport Welsh rap scene)
• Stan – Eminem (I like songs that tell stories, plus a very good steady jogging beat)
• Dead Ringer for Love – Meatloaf (A song about music, alcohol, and having fun – strengstens verboten in Bangalore)
• Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen (with my taste bypass I enjoyed ‘We Will Rock You’ in the West End)
• Downtown Train – Rod Steward (On the things to do before I am too decrepit list is to see the man in concert with No 2 son)
• Wonderwall – Oasis (Happy memories of late nights at the Red Lion in Frodsham)
• Walk this Way – Aerosmith/Run DMC (I like contrasts and possibly kicking walls – and what were those girlies doing making a version – some things are best left alone)

At a total run time of 42 mins which includes my warm down routine (sit in deck chair – pant – sweat) it also says I am not running very far – our gym membership processing is proceeding with the glacial urgency of most Indian administration – perhaps I should add the 'Ballad of Urgency' by the Black Crowes to the playlists of those concerned!

Thirty Degrees of Separation

Whilst Bangalore is a ‘connected’ IT capital is still easy to feel remote from the rest of the world – especially if you occasionally forget to pay your ISP bill! and end up having to use an internet ‘café’ with cubicles that makes you feel extreme empathy for veal calves.

Earlier this week as the UK (well the South East) suffered its heaviest snowfalls for years and little else filled the airways - I was confined to barracks airing my knees in the garden in 30 deg + heat to facilitate the healing process. They are looking a lot better (thank you for asking). Using this forced reflection period I concluded that the trick is, I think, to stay grounded in where you are living, but sufficiently connected to where you are from. As I can’t resist lists – here are my ten top tips for staying connected with your roots whilst living in India (plus a little something extra for the gadgee).

1. Refer to waiters, shop assistants etc as gadgees as often as possible
2. Occasionally wear socks and sandals
3. Talk to your staff as if they are real people
4. Avoid any events with more than 3 expats present
5. Listen to at least 30 mins of Radio 4 comedy per day – preferably the News Quiz or ISIHAC
6. Use the Mantra ‘Whilst the Maldives are lovely – I would rather be in Alnmouth’ regularly
7. Remember that you used to find ironing somewhat therapeutic
8. Read the UK economic news regularly
9. Catch any head wiggling tendencies early
10. Continue to wear shorts and T-shirt when the Indians wrap up in scarves and balaclavas against the bitter 15 deg C winter nights
11. Keep the ‘sail before steam’ principle alive whilst sharing the roads as a pedestrian with the traffic

The original border reiver’s allegiance to family was always greater than to any country. I am afraid I don’t buy into the notion that you take on family responsibilities for your staff in India – anyway ours are far too well behaved and probably less than 50% of the required weight to remotely qualify as a member of this family.

I guess that's why they call it the Blues

If you discount the daily road antics of auto-rickshaw drivers and bikers – live entertainment is somewhat thin on the ground in Bangalore. It was so bad that we were forced to enter the dark shadows of the world of karaoke last week at a Goan themed bar close to the house. Mrs Reiver went initially on a works outing, and just as I was settling into a quiet evening in with a beer and Star Trek – The Next Generation Series 1, when I was called up to provide moral and vocal support. Mrs Reiver’s boss looked somewhat askance as we duetted all over Hotel California, and my miming of ‘stabbing with their steely knives’ left him checking where security were. The evening degenerated in predictable fashion and it was a merciful release, at least for any music lovers and all our livers, that Bangalore has good old fashioned chucking out time at 10:45.

We assumed the quality would be better at the Jazz and Blues festival at the weekend. What happens when you assume – it makes an ASS out of U and ME! The venue in the centre of Cubbon Park was pleasant enough, and of course it started late – but only fashionably late by Inidian (or Virgin Rail) standards. The singer from the first artists was described as a Mystic, a World Traveller, a Women’s Right Campaigner and a singer – Uh Oh. The content, mostly latin, was pleasant enough but the links about world peace and harmony had the alarms going off in my head. We thought we would at least give the next act a go. First of all they were French, nothing per-se against the French, but this guy was using urban backing tracks, had blond dreads, was wearing MC hammer pants, his physical stylings were pure 90s techno and he was playing the sitar as if he thought he were the re-incarnation of Hendrix. Three tracks from this outfit had me reaching for the lighter fluid! – so before I gave them some real audience feedback we left.

For a jazz and blues festival, sponsored by a whisky company the evening was entirely devoid of all three. In recession and credit crunch hit times you would think that the blues would prosper, there should be plenty of stories to tell. I soon realised that the whole event was a cryptic Indian joke with the music being so bad it made you depressed enough to drink their aptly named ‘Black Dog’ whisky. Churchill apparently coped with his ‘Black Dog’ by laying bricks to relax – so perhaps this blog should be regarded as ‘just another brick in the wall’.

To counter all this doom today’s picture is an un-identified pretty flower from our garden – which looks to me suspiciously like one of those killer ones from the original Star Trek series?!