Asia 2006: Random Bozo goes to Maharashtra

After another patchy sleep, I finally surfaced at 10.45 and charged to where I'd arranged to meet Virendra, arriving just after 11. He wasn't there and so I waited, while getting more Marathi 'lessons', for about half an hour. I'm still in two minds about this - I was a couple of minutes late and so broke our agreement and feel I owe him something. However, I'd have expected him to wait at least 5 minutes before giving up on me, I called his cellphone several times without success and I didn't get any service from him, so I certainly don't feel I owe him anything like Rs300 - maybe a glass of chai, over which we could chat and remake the arrangement. (I didn't get the chance because I never saw him again.)

I couldn't face any more Marathi martyrdom and so decided to walk to a viewpoint called Arthur's Seat, about 12km from Mahabaleshwar. (Constantly being bothered by taxi and autorickshaw drivers had turned me against them.) I'd got maybe half a mile down the road and realized that I was getting quite warm when two blokes in a wee three-wheeler van overtook me and then stopped to ask me where I was going. They insisted on taking me halfway, to Old Mahabaleshwar, to where they were delivering a load of laundry at a posh hotel. So we pootled off, me wondering whether the van would turn turtle under our combined weight or whether the engine would simply refuse to get all thee of us up the slopes on this road.

They dropped me off at Old Mahabaleshwar, which seemed worth a look. However, fist I downed a very welcome Mirinda (an Indian orange-flavoured fizzy drink) and bisleri (bottle of water) and a café, while watching a bloke wash his scooter and then his socks just next to me.

There are two temples at Old Mahabaleshwar, one of which is built over the spring which gives rise to (or at least is used to celebrate) 5 rivers. (Mahabaleshwar and surrounding hamlets appear to be on a peak from which various spurs and ridges fall away. I'll scan my map when I update my photo-website so you can see what I'm on about.) The water has been channeled to come out of a carved bull's mouth, into a sacred bathing pool, then to flow through five neat channels, each in a niche with a statue/altar to an appropriate god, on its way to the rivers.

I can't show you any photos because photography was forbidden within the temple and I searched all the stalls around the temple for postcards or pictorial guidebooks. All I could find were written guidebooks (in Marathi!) so I'm really sorry I can't share with you how this temple looked. It wasn't grand, yet it was obviously important and in constant use by a thin trickle of visitors. In fact, the lack of grandeur made it more impressive to me. It seemed to be saying here is water, here is god: react how you will without saying I am god, I am going to overpower you.

I recall buying some rather foul peanuts (still in their shells) from a stall and watching a couple of boys play cricket along the alley between the stalls. However, it was soon time to move on and so I started trudging up the road again. I encountered two little girls who were selling bunches of flowers wrapped in newspaper, ready to offer at a temple, for 2 rupees a bunch. Again, I felt unable to refuse and so bought a posy from each of them, then tied these to my rucsac. While I was doing this, some other children arrived, asking me to do jaadoo (magic). This confused me for a while but I soon understood they wanted me to take photographs of them. (I think they'd realised I have a digital camera and so they'd be able to see themselves on its screen.) I have a few shots of them spontaneously dancing and cavorting in front of me. I intend to send them hard copies sometime and so have the address of one of the older lads.

Again, after walking less than a mile, I was offered a lift on a scooter by a photographer going to Arthur's Seat. He knew this road very well and so it was quite a smooth ride, punctuated by stops to restart the engine after freewheeling (to save petrol) down slopes wherever possible.

The views from Arthur's Seat are breathtaking and I really hope my photos do them justice. I also met the photographer: he takes Polaroid photos of punters who are on a platform overhanging one of the many drops from this point. Since he had refused to take anything for the lift and I fancied having a 'professional' photo, I got him to take one. It's hopefully on its way to my parents in the UK but I'm a bit concerned that this parcel is overdue.

I bought two makkai (cinder-grilled corn-on-the-cob which is then rubbed with lime and masalas [spices]) - absolutely delicious and ate them while dodging flies and watching other stall holdes play 'throw-tag', then walked back to Old Mahabaleshwar.

Back at Old Mahabaleshwar, the kids I'd met earlier were playing cricket with other friends. They asked me for more jaadoo and again I have some shots which amuse and give rise to other emotions I can't name. It's always lovely to watch children playing without falseness or guile and with amazing exhuberance. I noticed that one of the small children wasn't getting into the shots and so hoisted him onto my shoulders and got an older lad to take the photos. Of course, quite a few others wanted a turn at this. Also, some of them, learning I was from England, wanted me to pose with their cricket bat, and finally a shot of me holding a very young child. I don't have any qualms about any of this - it was pure enjoyment for all of us, as far as I could see and two local adults were looking on. (I'd also asked one of them if I was causing problems: he laughingly said 'no'.) Also, one of the kids gave me a sprig of small black berries (reminiscent in flavour and colour of individual blackberry pips) and showed me that he ate them, so I munched away quite happily - again, purely delicious! By now, dusk was approaching so I got a seat in a shared jeep/taxi back to Mahabaleshwar.

I ate an indifferent methi dahl with jeera rice at a dhaba (restaurant) near my hotel, then played a couple of frames of pool at an amusement center on the main street. While waiting for a table, I chatted with some trainee homeopathic doctors from Mumbai. One was curious about western marriage/relationship 'culture'.* On learning my status, he asked how many sexual partners I'd had. I replied honestly (but incorrectly because I was quite surprised by this question) and his friends joked that he was offering to be my next - this had all of us giggling. I jokingly declined and they went away.

*Many people here have asked whether I'm married and whether I have any children. My usual replies that I'm separated from my wife and so am glad we didn't have any children [because otherwise they'd have been hurt by our break-up] is usually understood and accepted but the questioners' reactions imply that such events just don't happen here.

I played a couple of frames with a man who turned out to be the owner of the pool-hall. He beat me but I was quite proud of some of my shots - I haven't touched a pool-cue for over a year. I also learnt that women don't smoke here (unless they're super-rich and 'westernised', though many men do) and that the owner's woman cashier (who appeared to be around 25) was divorced due to some domestic problems. (This information was volunteered by a local lad who runs a stall here. We'd also been chatting while I was waiting for a table, during which we touched on the conversation I'd had with the homeopaths.)

After the hall closed (at 10.30!), I returned to my hotel but played a bit of football in the street with some local lads who asked me to join them. They were all apparently under 13 and one (Shubham) is the son of the man who runs the phonebooth I'd used quite often. I've also played a version of hopscotch with these lads (Rohit, Pratik, Pamesh, Dhananjay, Kaitan, Shubham, Yashodam, Ashitish and Daud) a couple of times. You throw a stone into a scoring area chalked onto the path, then hop to it, then through the numbered sections to your stone, then hop-kick it out of that area. If you succeed, you get the number of points in that area and then get another go. However, if you don't get your stone into a numbered area (or if it lands on any of the chalked lines) or if you put your foot down, take more than one hop between numbered areas, land on any chalked lines or fail to hop-kick your stone completely out of the scoring area, your turn ends.