Indians! Mykel Goes to India Entry 4

Indians!

Mykel's Travel Blog 
India: Entry 4

Oct 12, 2018

I love Indians… and yeah, I’m talking red dot… not feather. I don’t know any feather Indians… The Navajo I’ve met have all been pretty nice… but I don’t know enough of them to say I LOVE them. But the India Indians???

Holy Guru batman! They are terrific.

As a visitor… well, let me tell you their motto… I’ve heard it several dozen times…

GUEST IS GOD

In America, guests begin to smell like fish after three days. Like fish, they should be canned.

In India… they’re annoyed with you if you wash the dishes! “Why did you do that? You didn’t have to do that.”

My best houseguests are the ones who wash the dishes! It’s almost a test of guest value Ten extra points for washing the dishes. (That means you Gavin… my last guest who washed the dishes.)

Washing the dishes is for hosts. God never washes the dishes.

So what happened? I guess I’ll take it in sort of reverse order. This was last night:

You might have guessed that they’re old (not as old as me) punk-rockers. Members and hanger-oners from the great-named Mumbai punk band: TRIPWIRE. Amey, the guitarist, I met on facebook, introduced by the great Luk Haas.

Now we were meeting in person for the first time-- along with friends, promoters and the bass player. We hang out all evening. First they take me to this ROLL place… not bakery rolls, but real Indian crepe rolls. I forgot to take a picture of the really fat guy who owns the small chain. It’s something like a Kushner Roll… but not exactly that name.

“Say it’s an Indian Burito, Mykel,” says Sagar, the bassplayer.

Mmmm sure is good-- spicy with just enough sweet in it to make it a WOW. It sure hits my lingual G-spot. But that’s only the beginning. From there it’s on to THE PAGODA… sort of.

On the way, I casually mention that my boots need fixing. The sole is separating from the rest of the boot. For some reason (the heat?), since I got to India everything seems to be falling apart. A handkerchief I brought with me shreds on its own. My camera front pulls away from the camera back. My shirt loses a button. My body is suddenly filled with itchy blemishes. And more.

“Yo! Yo! Yo!” I say. “You guys know where I can get my boot fixed?”

“Mochi! Mochi!” They tell me.

“I wasn’t asking about Japanese food,” I start tell them… then grip the sides of the car door as Amey pulls a U-ey and drives down a side street, then screeches to a halt.

“Give me your boot,” he says. I unlace it and hand it over. He takes it and bounds out of the car. In a quarter hour he’s back… sole firmly glued in place.

“Ok,’ I tell him. “That’s great. I’ll take care of the Japanese food.”

He frowns.

“You said you were going for mochi,” I say. “You know those chewy rice cakes.”

Laughter.

“Mochi, in Maratha means cobler.” he spits out through the laughs. “I just took your boots to a mochi.”

Bang! Back into the car and off to the pagoda.

That’s another thing about India… it has so much stuff to look at… And we do… can’t go inside but do get to see it lit up… and walk around late at night. The night had a perfect crescent moon with one star… like the flag of a (non-Jewish) Middle Eastern country.

I try to take a picture of it, but the camera refuses to see what I see. So you’ll have to imagine it in stark black and bright white.

After the pagoda, it’s on to a bar. (Who me?) We sit at a table on the side, and order beer. My stomach is beginning to rumble... I am in India after all. 

I excuse myself to go take care of it. I follow the signs that say TOILET! Then end in a little room wtih two urinals. No toilet that I can see. I try to make good with just a gas release... and then I return to the table. 

That's when I notice it. There are only men in the bar. Tables full of men. Old men, young men, groups of men, men sitting alone... just men. 

"Is this a gay bar?" I ask Amey.

"No," he says, "why do you ask?"

"There are no women here," I say. 

He looks around and laughs. 

This is a lower class workers bar. Heavy jobs... construction... cleaning... you know. Women don't do that kind of work.

I shrug.

"But don't men shit?" I don't ask... And I do get through the rest of the evening.

R.A., the promoter, has a whiskey. On Saga’s suggestion, I order a LONDON PILSNER-- STRONG.

“I wanted an INDIAN beer,” I say.

“That IS an Indian beer,” says he.

I shudda known. INDIAN PALE ALE is the most popular style of American beer. So why not have LONDON PILSNER as a good Indian beer?

Yeah! Another good choice.

Aside: I need to explain Indo-Chinese… For Americans Indo China is the peninsula where Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia hang their hats. For Indians, Indo-China is a food style. Chinese food with an Indian twist! [Note: Every country in the world has its own version of Chinese food. Why should India be any different?]

So we have the spicy chicken and the spicy shrimp… and another LONDON PILSNER PLEASE? And another……

11:30… In New York, I’d be just starting, but I’m worried about waking up my Indian family. So, soused and ready to go home… (more about my HOME in Mumbai later)… Amey drives me back.

That brings me to Jocel, Karin… and Lael… my family here in Mumbai.

This is a trio who have put up with me for 11 days and counting. (I THINK I’m leaving tomorrow, but I have learned that PEOPLE PLAN… GOD LAUGHS here in India even more than other places).

Jocel works… leaves at 10AM returns at 8:30… Karen takes care of their cute but rambunctious (just like me!) offspring Lael… is a job and a half in itself. Plus, they both take care of me. I don’t mean they give me a bed… and a room to myself… They do that. But they also feed me-- breakfast in the morning… dinner at night... entertain me with Bollywood on the large screen TV… ask me about my day… suggest places to go… make sure I’m okay… (I’m okay)… do I want this or that? All while taking care of an ever-moving 4 year old!

PLUS! 10 days of this so far. I even try to take them out to dinner to say thank you…. my credit card is declined… THEY PAY!

GUEST IS GOD!!!!

Ok, as God, if I have the choice, you guys get straight to heaven… that’s for sure!

Then there’s Narantha:

No, she doesn’t have half a Salvador Dali mustache… that’s a lock of hair hanging low. I don’t have photoshop in this computer, so I can’t remove it.

Another couch-surfing discovery. Namratha (and I hope I spelled her name right… those Indian names are killers!) was hostessing when I first inquired through couch-surfing in New York. She can’t hostess me. But, she says, she’ll have me for dinner.

“I don’t taste that good,” I warn her.

We meet near where she works: Akruti Trade Center. The auto-rickshaw driver (auto-rickshaws are like Thai tuk-tuks… If you don’t know what that is… ask Google… She knows.) leaves me off at the Akriti STAR Center, which is right across from the Akruti Enterprise Center. I go in and show the concierge the address on my phone.

He shakes his head and gestures moving his hands every which way.

“So I have to leave the building and go somewhere else?” I ask.

He nods his head. I leave and cross the very busy street in front of the building. (Crossing the street in Mumbai is an adventure that deserves it’s own entry. The closest experience I’ve had to it is crossing the street in Dakar. Think, dodge ‘em!)

Across the street, I enter Akruti Enterprise Center and show the concierge the email message. He makes exactly the same hand gestures as the previous concierge. I point to the other side of the street. He tilts his head in that ambiguous way which I think means yes. I sigh deeply and cross the street back to the other side. Then I text Namratha.

I look around for a landmark.

“I’m in front of the Chinese restaurant,” I tell her.

“There?” she says, “I know where you are. I’ll be right there.”

And she is… and it’s all uphill from there. Great dinner. Great conversation. More introductions… Dinner again in two days with her and the Brahmins of Juhu… no meat… no booze… but great company.

Wow! Do I love Indians!

--end--

If you’re interested in my non-travel, more political, social, satirical, scatological, punker writing. You can read more at: https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com