3 April: The Market That Almost Was, and the Tiny Trousers

I suddenly realised that I look like an Uruk-Hai: Tall (the Alexander technique makes you taller), lean and with wild, straggly hair. Hobbits beware!

My goal today was to reach the old city silk market, and I can proudly state that I almost did!

I was lucky, as the bus I was aiming for arrived straight away, and what’s more, it was one of the snazzy Volvo buses! They have air-conditioning and play music (nice and loud, so you don’t miss anything). It’s expensive though – to go where I went, they charge 35 rupees for the privilege (as a price comparison, you can get a kilo of garlic for 60 rupees at the market, and a normal bus ticket costs about 12 rupees). On the other hand, it’s less crowded, and you can actually sit down. (It’s not too bad on the crowded buses either, though; Indian ladies with flowers in their hair are a lot less unpleasant to be squashed up against than greasy London commuters.) Getting off the bus and navigating out of the bus station, no mean feat in itself, I realised that a city map is only useful if there are street signs telling you what the roads are called! (Darren, I’m not saying I’m gonna stop complaining, but British street signage might possibly not be the worst in the world.) I managed all right (a nice man pointed me in the right direction), but I happened to find myself extremely confused right outside a police station, and asked a police man where I was. He told me where to go, but unfortunately failed to hide his scorn for lost tourists.

Despite scornful policemen and anonymous streets, however, I managed to move in the right direction, and actually found the market area! Though I didn’t find the actual silk market, I found the road that (apparently) leads to it, which isn’t bad for a lone blue-eyed Scandiwegian! The general market area goes on forever in every direction; you can buy everything from exquisite silks to nail clippers and human hair. I was far too disorientated to buy anything, apart from a couple of books. I’ve been craving Lord of the Rings lately (must be those random bursts of Old English translation I’ve been doing in a doomed attempt to keep in shape for Fil’s reading group), and I found it displayed alongside The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which somehow suited my mood perfectly: lost, filthy and utterly confused!

I needed a new pair of jeans, since all my trousers (well, let’s not allow our delusions of grandeur to get the better of us: both my trousers) are too big. I look quite sad, like a sweaty hobo, with my large trousers and mad hair, and I thought, the trousers at least I can do something about. So I stopped off at the new mall which has just opened near Gottigere, on my way home. Malls, in my opinion, are repulsive and obscene, and totally against my principles, but damn, was it nice to shop in an air-conditioned environment after spending an entire day sweating worse than the Dead Sea! Two super-polite sales assistants insisted on measuring me, and did a special trick with the measuring tape to check where my curves were (I didn’t think my arse was that subtle). Then they gave me tiny, tiny sizes to try on, which was very nice of them, even if I ended up asking for a larger size, that I could pull up further than my knee caps.

Made over-confident by the nice shop assistants and the tiny trousers, I then went to the shop where they sell traditional women’s clothes and was swiftly brought back to reality after getting my head stuck in in several kurtas. Note to self:  Indian women are v. small and slender!

After spending a whole day not seeing a single foreigner, I suddenly spotted a girl at the mall who was taller, blonder and cooler than me, and instantly hated her (I mean, how dare she?) – evidently I’m still not very Zen in my thinking, despite everyone’s best efforts.

One sees swastikas here and there on buildings, which is quite nice, as they’re clearly completely unconnected to homicidal German dictators with small-man syndrome. There’s even a Swastik General Store in Gottigere! The most amusing signs, though, at least to a Swede, are those advertising “Muthoot Finance”. Let’s hope they don’t launch in Scandinavia.

Several children called me “aunty” today. “Hello, aunty”, they said. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Friday was a wondrous day; because it was April fool’s day, one of the trashy channels showed The Simpsons – ALL DAY! I enjoyed every minute, stopping just short of squealing with pleasure.

The Tiny Friendly Ladies are fed up with me saying “thank you” all the time, and have made it clear, without using a word of English, that they won’t tolerate this kind of behaviour any more. I am to learn to use at least the phrases “Have you had your food?” and “Yes thank you, I have” in Kannada if it kills me! So far I have mastered “Namas kara”, “hello”, because it sounds like “mascara”. (When you write your opus on Indian languages, Fil, I’m available to advise and caution.)

Regarding the treatment, the heavy artillery has been brought in: I’m getting more myofascial release treatment, administered by a lovely girl called Reghanna, since some trigger points sneakily returned when I wasn’t looking. I’m also getting sessions with a chap called Nirav. He looks for neck- and muscle imbalances, and apparently I’m a rich source of those. Nirav holds the distinction of having given me the funniest instruction I ever received: “Don’t let your scapulas go flip-flap!” (Unless my esteemed and mad father’s unforgettable statement that “It is impossible to overturn on a tandem bike if you’re going fast enough”, uttered while careering ahead uncontrollably on a tandem bike, counts as an instruction.)

Thank you, come again!