Namaste!
The doctor thinks I’m making “reasonable improvement”, and I now have “satisfactory mobility of the shoulder girdle”! Pretty cool, but the pain remains the same, and the treatment continues interesting. Jeshma says that if it becomes unbearable, I can have ultrasound treatment to reduce the pain from the myotherapy. I wanted to say something sarky along the lines of “becomes unbearable?”, but restrained myself.
Since I am now trying to reduce my reading, I watch more tv in the evenings, mainly dreadful romcoms that would have Darren in convulsions, frothing at the mouth. There are lots of Indian soaps, but they’re even more incomprehensible than Emmerdale, so I avoid them.
When filling in the application for my visa registration all those weeks ago, one of the questions on the form was “name of husband or father”. Since I didn’t think the officials would be impressed with the answer “living in sin”, I dutifully put down my father’s name (at least my parents are respectably married), which seemed to do the trick.
This patriarchal attitude extends further than visa forms; it also means that when going to one of the other clinics, about an hour away, for Alexander technique lessons, the clinic manager didn’t want me to go by myself, but sent a dashing young escort along! And I had the option of going on a motorbike! At least I think that’s what the guy said, but when I asked if he had a spare helmet he looked so confused that I said I preferred to go in an auto-rickshaw, which is marginally safer, and indeed on the way we saw an overturned motorbike leaking petrol by the side of the road. If you’re not familiar with the autorickshaw, imagine the result if Mr Bean’s car mated with a moped; it’s got three wheels and a back seat big enough for two people or an Indian family.
Once I knew where the clinic was, however, I went by myself, and at first got mercilessly fleeced by the rickshaw-wallahs. They take one look at me and triple the price! However, one day I decided to haggle. The rickshaw- wallah gave me a preposterously high price and explained, despite speaking no English, that he was demanding more because he had waited an hour outside the clinic. I said “Go ahead, punk, make my day”, or words to that effect, and told him what I would pay, at which, to my surprise, he smiled (rickshaw- wallahs never smile). I probably still paid too much, but we were both pleased with having haggled! I have since learned that wearing my black skull-and-crossbones cap effortlessly brings the price down by about a hundred rupees.
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| Rickshaw-wallah (green face paint courtesy of the Holi festival) with his auto-rickshaw |
I have also, under the guidance of Diya the nice Alexander technique teacher, come into contact with buses! In keeping with India’s contrasts, some are air-conditioned Volvos; some are, I swear, pre-Independence, with holes in the floor and cracks in the walls, though cosily decorated with flower garlands and pictures of Ganesh. Also, most of them have nice conductors, like on the old London buses. (If there is no conductor, the driver will somehow manage to take payment and give you change while driving, holding the steering wheel with his feet if necessary.) There is no time table, which is strangely liberating. You just wait by the side of the road, and sooner or later a bus, hopefully he right one, turns up. I went shopping with Diya one Sunday a couple of weeks ago. Getting back was an EPIC adventure!
Getting of the bus at a certain bridge, I attempted to hail an auto-rickshaw. However, since the clinic is so far away out in the sticks, nobody knew where it was. A nice auto driver tried to call the clinic to find out, but it turns out the receptionist only speaks Hindi, and everyone else speaks Kannada. The nice auto drivers instructed me to take a Volvo bus instead, to a certain hospital, and try again from there.
After getting off at the hospital, I again tried to get an auto, but the drivers either don’t know where Anjanapura is, or don’t want to go there because it’s so far away. A nice man told me to get another bus to a certain bus station, and try again from there (anyone spot a theme emerging?), helpfully writing down the name of the place I was aiming for.
Getting off at the bus station, I literally bumped into one of the rickshaw-wallahs who fleeced me before I learned to haggle. He smiled in recognition but wouldn’t take me to the clinic. However, he pointed me in the direction of the bus towards Anjanapura.
After about 40 minutes I was in the middle of nowhere, just lame cows, brush vegetation and dust as far as the eye could see. At this point the driver suddenly remembered me, and told me I’d gone too far, and would have to get off and wait for the next bus in the opposite direction. I was starting to get worried as I didn’t know where I was, it was past five o’clock and the sun sets round 6:15 – I did not want to be lost in the dark! (Also, an inner voice kept telling me that this was exactly why the clinic manager doesn’t want me to go out alone. I told it to shut up.) Luckily there was a family with small children also waiting for the bus. They seemed entirely harmless, and were too busy allowing their children to throw stones at the lame cows to show any inclination to rob or beat me.
When the bus finally arrived, a nice lady conductor in a smart khaki uniform took me under her wing. I was as sweaty and dishevelled as ever Elizabeth Bennet was in Pride and Prejudice, and curiously enough my sweaty appearance seemed to have roughly the same effect on the young men on the bus as Lizzy’s did on Mr Darcy. A thousand pities that Mr Darcy wasn’t on the bus, or I could have bagged myself a rich husband! The conductress told me that the young men all said I was beautiful. A strange penchant, but apparently one that’s shared by young Indian men on buses and 19th-century English landowners – they like sweaty women! I thanked the conductress and told her I think Indian women are beautiful (though considerably less sweaty than me). Finally she told me that we had reached Anjanapura.
Getting off the bus, I still had no idea where I was, but, pushing past a turkey, a gaggle of geese and a hen, I found a nice rickshaw-wallah who knew where the clinic was. In my joy and relief I agreed to pay him 100 rupees for what turned out to be a 5-minute journey. Absolutely preposterous, but you don’t haggle when you’re desperate, and 100 rupees is still only just over £1!
One day I saw two camels walking along the road, as cool as cucumbers! Next time I’ll try to get a picture!
The weather has got warmer – it’s now nearer 30 than 25 most days. However, the mornings have suddenly become a bit misty; you can see dew on the ground and smell moisture in the air, and the sky is sometimes a bit cloudy during the day! Normally when I get up, the sun is going crazy and I feel like Bertie Wooster when Jeeves says, “The weather appears extremely clement, sir”, but at the moment I’m more like Mma Ramotswe when she smells rain! (Though not in appearance. Thanks to the treadmill and the healthy food, I'm quite a lot less round than Mma Ramotswe.)
The food remains delicious and the Tiny Friendly Ladies remain friendly. Breakfast is usually chickpea curry with chapatti bread (like tunnbröd) or, even better, a type of fried chapatti the name of which Diya told me but which I can’t remember, which is like a mix between a pancake and a croissant – extremely delicious and calorific! Sometimes the chickpea curry tastes a bit like ärtsoppa, which is strangely comforting, and the food often has cinnamon or cloves in it, which reminds one of childhood Christmases and is a bit confusing.
There is an annoying ad on tv for Bournville chocolate (a smarmy male voice says, “The finest cocoa from Ghana, a recipe from England”, and you just want to shout, “shut up you smarmy colonialism-perpetuating bastard, English chocolate isn’t that good anyway!”, however, the fifteenth time you see it you can’t help but salivate) which has now, after five weeks, brainwashed me to the point where I HAD to have some. Consequently, I walked to the supermarket today. A new category has had to be added to the list of creatures stupid enough to go out in the midday sun when they don’t have to – it is now “mad dogs, Englishmen and Swedish women”. By the time I got to the supermarket I was drenched in sweat; it was streaming down my face, to the amusement of the other shoppers. I kept my sunglasses and my skull-and-crossbones cap on and tried to look normal. It took me just over an hour to get there, and a bit longer to get back, as I had a heavy rucksack and blisters, and then - THEN I saw the supermarket Diya was talking about - right at the end of the village, 20 minutes from the clinic! You live and learn! As I was approaching the clinic, a man with a child on a motorbike turned round and stopped, so his child could either a) laugh in delight at seeing me, or b) laugh at me. Scenario b seems more likely. Fair enough.
I have moved up in the world, and now receive treatment from two chaps called Ramesh and Ajeesh, instead of Manjula, who now only does yoga. Ajeesh likes cricket. The world cup started yesterday, and I’m starting to feel like I should at least look up the results on the BBC website. Yesterday, Ajeesh explained the rules to me, then said, “so now you understand the rules of cricket”, which I didn’t dare contradict. If P. G. Wodehouse and Stephen Fry haven't managed to explain cricket to me, then probably nobody will!
Well my dears, I think that’s everything.
Thank you, come again!
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