2 March: Indian Mutiny

I've been reading Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab’s account of a Special Forces mission that goes wrong, landing the surviving soldiers in an Iraqi prison, where they are horribly tortured. I still say that’s nothing, and McNab should try some myotherapy with Jeshma. Then we’ll talk about torture. However, I am now having more myofascial release therapy than trigger point therapy, and that is, believe it or not, quite pleasant.

My trigger points are more or less gone now, which means that, theoretically, I should be free of pain. I’m evidently not, however, which makes me, to use the medical term, a bloody freak. The current theory is that my nerves are still irritated, causing pain. I am therefore having something called nerve desensitization, which is every bit as unpleasant as it sounds, and not necessarily much less painful than trigger point therapy, though at least painful in a different way, which is refreshing. (On the other hand, when I arrived, my neck muscles were in constant spasm (that means that the muscles were permanently tense, not that I was in any way spastic, Declan and Fernando); almost unbelievably tense. All the therapists asked if I had frequent headaches, and were astonished to learn that I don’t.)

I have finally got hold of a phone that works with my Indian SIM card! I went to the village and bought the cheapest phone I could find from a very dodgy man. Anyone with an urgent need to tell me how fabulous I am can now do so. I haven’t yet figured out how to top up money on the damn thing, though, so if I don’t respond that’s probably why. On a side note, as a blue-eyed Scandiwegian one sticks out a hell of a lot more in Bangalore than in York or London. Some people in the village stare to such an extent that I find it necessary to keep my giant sunglasses on at all times and pretend to myself that I am a very sweaty film star. Saying that, if I don’t manage to rehabilitate my way out of RSI hell, the only career option available to me may be that of invincible rock goddess.  I say again: anyone want to start a band? Though I lack musical ability, I look good in a leather jacket, and can probably be trained to play a tambourine or other simple instrument.

Thanks to Manjula I’m also increasingly flexible, i. e. I have moved on from the frozen mammoth stage to the next level; defrosted mammoth. Manjula is on holiday this week, so I’m trying to do the yoga poses and relaxation by myself, but it’s not the same without her telling me the colours of the chakras. However, any holiday time the staff here get is richly deserved. They work incredibly long hours, six, sometimes seven days a week. I wish I could say that I’ll never complain about work hours again, but we all know that’s not gonna happen.

The tv loyally continues to supply awful films for my enjoyment. Apparently the Indian nation is obsessed with Sylvester Stallone films, as one or other of these seem to be on most nights. There are probably little Indian grannies getting their camouflage paint on and waving large knives around in excitement.

I showed the Tiny Friendly Ladies some of my pictures from Facebook. They responded enthusiastically to the ones of Becca looking mad as a spanner, and of Line with a fetching ginger moustache. They also seemed to find it hysterically amusing that I’ve been taking pictures of the cows outside through my window.

View from my window: A baby calf and its mother, licking her own arse.

Now I’m going to lie down on the floor.

Thank you, come again!

20 February: Mad dogs, Englishmen, and Swedish Women

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.

Rickshaw-wallah (green face paint courtesy of the Holi festival) with his auto-rickshaw

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.

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 19^th-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!

15 February: Myotherapy Blues

Have you ever had bruises in your armpits? Take it from me, it’s not pleasant. I’ve written a poem. I call it “Myotherapy Blues”. I meant to insert it elegantly at the end of an e-mail, but what started out as two lines soon became 13 stanzas, and I feared for the attention spans of my readers, especially Declan and Cyrus. So it is now (almost) an e-mail in its own right.

I’ve put off typing for a while, but, though the pain remains the same, the good doctor is pleased enough with the progress of my trigger points to recommend that I start typing and writing, slowly. I’ve had to change my reading habits, since it was pointed out to me that prolonged bending of the neck is very bad news indeed for the nerves trying to get to the arms and fingers. I hadn’t realised this despite my, ahem, extensive reading on the subject. So I read and write in 10-minute intervals, with a lot of stretching and lying on the floor in between. Rock’n’roll! (It’s occurred to me that reading with glasses is worse than reading with contacts, since you have to bend the neck more with glasses. Maybe the solution is to get enormous ‘80s-style ones?)

Please note that “interesting” is a euphemism for “painful”, ever since Jeshma inflicted such excruciating pain to my thumb that I had to tell her, between repressed screams, that I found the experience interesting. We both found that funny, and now giggle heartily at my squirms and grimaces whenever the treatment becomes especially interesting. We take whatever amusement we can find here at Iraqi prison camp.

If you’re wondering why Diya is “teaching me how to sit”, it’s because Diya’s the nice Alexander technique teacher. She’s been teaching me all kinds of cool things like sitting, standing, and walking – it’s all going on my CV!

Anyway, here’s the poem. If anyone would like to compose music for it, go ahead (and if anyone wants to start a band or a barbershop quartet, I have a fairly pleasant alto soprano – Jeshma even claims to find my howls of pain musical, but then that may just be her sadistic nature). I‘ve got a feeling that Myotherapy Blues could become a massive rock’n’roll hit! However, you’ll find that it works quite well to the tune of “Camp Granada” (“Brev från Kolonien” på svenska), though you may have to slur a few syllables with a British drawl in order to make the syllable count add up.

If you need a refresher, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Hx_X84LC0

Och på svenska:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vreZhL5p4V8

Myotherapy Blues

I’m a cripple, don’t you doubt it

Full-time job? Forget about it!

A few months at Recoup Clinic

should hopefully restore health to this cynic

I’m racked with pain that won’t abate

My deltoids’re in a sorry state

My arms are full of trigger points

Oh dear God, it hurts when they mobilize my joints

My poor neck is in constant spasm

The pain is certainly no phantasm

My muscles burn like they’re on fire

And all my nerves are stretched like piano wire

My posture’s slumped and, not to mention

nerves are trapped by muscle tension

You’d think I was in my forties

See, my jaw is locked as if in rigor mortis

The clinic’s full of vicious sadists

pretending to be therapists

I feel like a tortured soldier

A fellow digs his elbow into my shoulder

Jeshma tortures my poor fingers

For days and days the pain lingers

While Manjula treats tendonitis

I swear, the pain is worse than appendicitis

Myotherapy’s a painful process

It sure ain’t a dance on roses

It is a hardship to endure

Prevention is certainly easier than the cure

I am here at Recoup Clinic

I would love a gin and tonic

Anything to ease the pain

The only drugs here are produced by my own brain

during yoga, called endorphins

They’re not quite as good as morphine

Diya’s teaching me how to sit

While Jeshma digs her fingers into my armpit

It tickles and I scream and howl

This treatment really is quite foul

Jeshma just laughs and makes it worse

Nothing I can do but swear and silently curse

Trigger points are interesting

I‘m black and blue as if from wrestling

But to Jeshma and Manjula

inflicting pain is nothing at all peculiar

Now there is a point to all this

The violence is not gratuitous

My thoracic outlet syndrome

produced this astonishingly beautiful poem

One day I’ll go home all cured

I’ll thank Jeshma and Manjula

for the pain that they inflicted

My condition was bad but I finally kicked it

Thank you, come again!

30 January: The Crazy Gibberish-Adventure Continues

The treatment, it marches, as Hercule Poirot would say. According to Dr Sharan the trigger points are reducing in number and intensity, but there are some resilient ones in key areas, hence the pain remains. He asked if I'd feel able to cope with an extra session a day, which is funny, as I've been having frequent thoughts of Le Chiffre extending his hospitality to Bond in Casino Royale, and Bruce Springsteen has started leaping from my subconcious to snarl "I was bruised and battered / Unrecognisable to myself" in my head. However, temporary pain is a low price to pay to get rid of crippling, chronic pain. All the same, I feel that a "Bravery under Torture" medal or two, perhaps awarded by Andy McNab, would not be unmerited. A couple of swarthy Iraqis to hold me down during my giggling fits when Jeshma hits a ticklish spot would also be useful.
One of the therapists, Jerrish, is very nice, but his hands have a fierce grip! The other day I was treated to the sensation of having my collarbone pulled. This particular form of torture is part of what is called "joint mobilization". Don't try it at home.

Manjula has started me off gently with yoga, but we have rapidly advanced to a tree pose! I'm roughly as flexible as a frozen mammoth, but that's ok, 'cause I've got all my cool Sweaty Betty yoga outfits! Manjula is a girl who speaks in superlatives and repetitions. In yoga, she likes to achieve "maximum stretch", and she's not content to ask you to merely relax, it's "relax relax" or even "relax relax relax relax"!
In addition to the myotherapy and yoga, I've got roughly three hundred strengthening and stretching exercises to do. It takes a hell of a long time to do them all - it's lucky I've got sod-all else to do! (Fil, I'm glad the Indo-European poetics book is so long. I've got a feeling that if I ever finsih it, I could start all over again and still find it interesting - I suspect that I don't absorb all the finer points of Greek hexameter). My favourite exercise is the amusing hands-shaped-into-motorcycle-goggles one - the one Justyna could do, but Betsy struggled with. (Although those coktails could have had something to do with that particular bout of poor hand-eye coordination...) Turns out it's an excellent nerve stretch! Hurrah!

For those who are going to be in the vicinity of Yngsjö this summer, you are hereby informed that there will be kayaking and horse riding!!! In the meantime, a pox on Darren and the neighbours for having fun without me! All your escapades will have to be repeated in April! There will be plenty of pub action, and also champagne action! You have been warned. (The only drugs here are endorphins, produced by one's own brain during yoga.) After my prolonged health-boosting existence, I will be in need of a good dose of depravity, shouting, and talking bollocks about Norse etymology! And cheese.

The weather, which has been chilly (as in, you need a long-sleeved top to sit outside) is nice and warm again. I continue my futile hair-bleaching activities on the roof. Kerstin, your kind gift of SPF 50 sunscreen is invaluable!

We conclude with a quoite from Paul Linden, from Comfort at Your Computer:

"...it is inhumane to let people suffer and injure themselves simply because it would take some thought, effort, and money to prevent and relieve their suffering (...) It is important to realize that computer users are up against the real limits of the human body. In order to continue using computers in the workplace, the physiological limitations of the body have to be respected. If the question is, 'What computer workstation setup will allow eight hours of uninterrupted computer work every day?' there may be no answer at all."

Thank you, come again!

25 January: The English Patient

Damn. Turns out the last English patient here was extremely charming and vivacious, and spent all her time learning all the local languages and teaching the staff to dance salsa on the roof. I even overheard the Tiny Friendly Ladies speaking fondly of her, and they don't even speak an Indo-European language (thanks for that information, Fil)! I now feel extremely introverted and eccentric by comparison.

I suspect there is a malicious cannibalistic sect at work, as it is becoming increasingly obvious that I am being fattened up like a pig. The nice housekeeper has taken to making me enormous bowls of fruit salad with ice cream, and the other day I was served a pudding resembling risgrynsgröt but made with some kind of noodles, and a cubic metre or so of sugar. However, help is at hand - even though I'm not supposed to go outside due to the rabid dogs, the discovery that there is a treadmill in the children's therapy room keeps me sane! Also, yoga starts today - hurrah! I may not be doomed to become obese, toothless (tea without sugar is but a distant dream) and covered in warts, and have to go and live in Hackney. (Actually, the buttons on my North Face trousers have stopped popping, which means that all is well.)

Actually, so far my health seems fine. The nurse who changes my sheets every morning also, for some reason, checks my pulse and blood pressure which apparently, despite my paranoid thoughts about Amelie in the film, remain normal, and each morning we conclude that I live to see another day.

My hair which, when I left, was a purplish grey colour (Karin, don't read this; it will pain you) due to a mishap with a box of L'Oreal colour, has turned an unpleasdant yellowish tinge. I guess I got what I deserved. I try to get some sun exposure on the roof, in order to turn it into an attractive sunbleached blonde.

There is a library! With computers! And books on Alexander technique, shoulder surgery and relaxation! There is also some ficiton left by former patients. Half of them are in Dutch (that would be from the head of the Dutch RSI organisation whose blog from the clinic I attempted, unsuccessfully, to read), and the rest are the complete Twilight series. If things get desperate, that's what I'll be reading, unless I come to my senses and throw myself off the roof first. All the desks in the library have footrests (or fotubaurda, as we say in Gothic), encouraging an ergonomically correct posture.

Thanks to Suresh and the enthusiastic honking Toyota, I have slain the monster of bureaucracy and successfully registered my visa! Since we had to wait around while the officials twiddled their thumbs and mislaid documents, Suresh and I had lunch. He selected the food and I paid, an arrangement which I suspect he found ideal. On the way home we drove past a truly appalling block of luxury flats, called "Prestige Notting Hill". It appears one of Britain's gifts to the Empire is a building style which can only be described as neo-mock-Tudor. I'll send pictures as soon as I've stopped retching. The prize for Spectacular Sight of the Day, however, goes to two big bulls, horns locked in battle, in the middle of the road (not that anyone raises an eyebrow). Apart from the smell of sewage from the river, and the pollution, the air really is filled with spices, which is pleasing.

"Come, friendly bombs..."

The treatment is slowly having effect. I realised with a shock this morning, after my myotherapy session, that the tingling pain in my right hand was reduced. It's very strange, as I don't remember what it's like to not be in pain. I can also move my arms easier, and even clasp my hands behind my back without discomfort. (The last patient, the vivacious charming one, couldn't move her right arm at all, or drink or eat unaided, when she arrived, but skipped out of the clinic, symptom-free, four months later).

Thank you, come again!

21 January: Taking the Pain

You live and learn. Or not. Indian people eat with their hands, and manage to do it gracefully. I, however, get special treatment: to avoid me spilling and slobbering all over myself, which would be unpleasant for everyone involved, I get a spoon with every meal! The food is extremely good, and extremely cheap. Sometimes it's mouth-scorchingly hot, but I have yet to come across anything quite so horrendous as Fernando's Mexican Pasta From Hell. People keep telling me that if I want plain food, I have only to ask. I take this to mean that I look pathetic, struggling on with my spoon and my runny nose, and that everyone pities me. However, I didn't come to India to eat toast, and so I soldier on. It does sometimes take me a long time to finish a meal, as I have to stop between every mouthful to breathe and wipe my nose.

The treatment continues. I think Andy McNab would be impressed with the way I take the pain, like a pro (or Iraqi prisoner)! I wonder, though, how staunch he would be in the face of tickling. (Does the SAS train its soldiers to resist tickling, Darren? Or perhaps the Regiment's soldiers are less ticklish than me; I would betray my king and country in an instant, if tickled in an Iraqi interrogation cell.) Trigger points, the bastards, tend to congregate on the border between the torso and the arms, that is, the armpits. I go into convulsions of giggles, and have to bite my lip! I infinitely prefer the pain.

I have been for another airing in Suresh's enthusiastic honking Toyota, and realised that I have been unfair: nobody believs in indicating! Or seatbelts. Luckily the Toyota is large and sturdy, and the traffic moves very slowly, thanks to everyone weaving in and out between cars, and all the dogs, cows, schoolchildren, etc, in the road. The object with the outing was to attempt to register my visa, however it turns out you need five hundred types of paper, and the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow. The battle continues.

Traffic.

Hurrah! My very first care package has arrived! A helicopter turned up, scattering bounty from the sky (or rather, a uniformed porter knocked on my door, haha). Many thanks to the anonymous philantropist who sent me "Maigret and the ghost", a delightful French mystery! Please let me know who you are so I can forward your name to the Nobel committee. (I have my suspicions, but one likes to be sure.)

I make progress, of a sort, with my Gothic. Mostly it's gibberish, but today I managed to make out a complete sentence! Needless to say, it's when Matthew starts waxing lyrical on the subject of fornication that he finally becomes lucid.

The weather is extremely pleasant, about 20-25 degrees (Celsius, of course). It turns out my Millets Value t-shirt is perfect for the climate!

Time to finish, lest I undo all the good work!

Thank you, come again!

17 January: The Adventure Begins

So, our adventure begins. After assuring ourselves that the toilets at both Abu Dhabi and Bangalore airport were satisfactory (even excellent; pictures to follow), we arrived in, as Andy McNab would say, shit state, after about 19 hours of travelling, indecently early on Friday morning, after a most amusing cab drive with a cabbie named Suresh, who doesn't believe in indicating, but has all the more faith in honking.

The clinic is situated in a suburb full of lazy cows (yesss! There are holy cows in the road!). At the moment there are no other RSI patients here, so I've got nobody much to talk to, however the staff are extremely friendly, though the accent takes a bit of getting used to (and I thought Irish people were bad!).

The "cooking facilities" turned out to consist of a single microwave in my room, so I take my meals in the cafeteria on the roof, staffed by tiny friendly ladies, and with an incredible view of the surrounding scrub brush and electricity cables.

My plans to become enviably slim through moderate, ideally not life-threatening diarrhoea may come to nothing (though I haven't given up yet) - the whole clinic is incredibly clean, and the tap water is bloody drinkable. Huh.

A fashionable tan also seems out of the question, since foreign patients are not encouraged to leave the clinic alone (though we agreed that tans are vulgar, right, Rox?). As a result, I'm a bit cooped up. Please send books. (A woman cannot live on Gothic grammar and Indo-European poetry alone, however impressively intellectual she may try to look.)

Dr Sharan has diagnosed me with thoracic outlet syndrome (google it if you can be arsed), and treatment has begun; I'm to have myotherapy, yoga and Alexander technique teaching (taught by a former patient)! Two gentle, softly-spoken girls called Jeshma and Manjula (yesss! Like in the Simpsons!) are in charge of myotherapy - you wouldn't think to look at them that they could inflict such pain! I've got a lot of trigger points (stiff points in the muscles), and they need kneading to death. It hurts.

Oh, and I'm staying at the clinic, so all letters, presents, awards, small fluffy puppies etc may be addressed here:

Recoup Neuromusculoskeletal Rehabilitation Centre

#312, 10th Block,Further Extension of Anjanapura Layout

Bangalore, Karnataka

India 560062

I haven't found a post office yet, and since my laptop died, I've only got internet access when the nice admin guys lend me their computer, so communication may be sporadic and somewhat impersonal. Apologies.

There is a variety of local fauna observable from the roof; apart from the cows, wild dogs roam the grass. Only the thought of Millets-Sam, and his weird and smelly behaviour after his rabies shot, prevents me from flinging myself off the roof to play with them. Little birds flit about, trying to get in through the windows, stupid bastards - Darren's dad would love this ornithological hotspot!

India is fantastic for vegetarians! Although, when approaching Abu Dhabi, I found myself watching a desert sunset, and thought, "let me off! I want to go there!", I doubt the food would be as good. The tiny friendly ladies smile and serve me incredibly good food, though I have to carry tissues at all times, since the spices make me snotty. Sometimes the tiny friendly ladies (very tiny; about the size of my gran, or even smaller!) come up to me and give me Indian sweets! (Their beautiful saris make me wish I looked a bit Oriental like Roxanna, so I'd look good in a sari. Stupid homogenous Scandinavian genes!)

Thank you, come again!

P.S. Books are welcome. Please don't send anything expensive, as I may have to leave some behind - maybe something from Oxfam?