Normal service resumed

I know, I know, it's been a while.

I was planning to write a full report on the Mumbai attacks but hey, I ended up as an unpaid roving reporter for the South Wales Evening Post.

Three issues including a front page feature. Fame in adversity.

Anyway if you want to know, source the back issues or ask me for the link!

Back to the here and now.

It's Christmas time, mistltoe and wine, children singing Christian Rhyme.

With logs on the fire and girts on the tree it's time to rejoice in the..... ah balls to that.

I will rely on Kipling to tell it as it is. We fly to Goa on New Years day and my resolution is to maintain my initial efforts on this blog....



Christmas in India
Rudyard Kipling

Dim dawn behind the tamarisks--the sky is saffron-yellow--
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.

Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers o'er the earth;
And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white and scarlet berry--
What part have India's exiles in their mirth?

Full day behind the tamarisks--the sky is blue and staring--
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.

Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly--
Call on Rama--he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And today we bid "good Christian men rejoice!"

High noon behind the tamarisks--the sun is hot above us--
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner--those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!

Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was cheap--wherefore we sold it.
Gold was good--we hoped to hold it,
And today we know the fulness of our gain.

Grey dusk behind the tamarisks--the parrots fly together--
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether.
That drags us back howe'er so far we roam.

Hard her service, poor her payment--she is ancient, tattered raiment--
India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter,
The door is shut--we may not look behind.

Black night behind the tamarisks--the owls begin their chorus--
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day!

Call a truce, then, to our labors--let us feast with friends and
neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.



-THE END-
Rudyard Kipling's poem: Christmas in India

The coming of the Mumbai Messiah

Mumbai.

An architectural vacuum of monotony which Indophiles and eternal optimists ambitiously hail as a World City.

With a population double that of London what is to there be contested in such a claim?

This is the engine room of sub-continental expansion.

Is it not true that the hazy perma-pollution which hugs leechlike to a narrow strip of lowland between the Western Ghats and the vastness of the Arabian Sea has been both bellowed from the lungs of it’s industry and financed by this beating financial heart of Indian business?

Indeed, upon first glance there is much to be said for this claim to a lofty perch in the worlds pecking order.

This argument has great validity in so far as the sprawling coastal wedge of humanity (or inhumanity if you prefer) has comfortably the highest air traffic volume on the sub-continent, represents the greatest concentration of film industry output anywhere on the globe, boasts malls of haute fashion retail space together with the exclusive presence of a Rolls Royce dealership.

Mumbai also acts as an increasingly powerful magnet to those rural disposed, sucked like so many iron filings towards the attractive core of the rapidly expanding megalopolis in the vain hope of sharing a part in this exclusive dream.

But having said that, despite it’s obvious lure this city sure has its downsides.

Outside of the CBD environs of Colaba, Mumbai’s pavement free streets are unparalleled in their filth.

A demonstrable lack of civic pride whose importance escapes the local populace ensures a continued yet unfulfilled requirement of maintenance. Green areas are few and far between, play areas for children non-existent, with a basic awareness of community action being thus far missing from my observations..

The city also has horrendous pockets of poverty and striking inefficiencies.

Then to cap it all there is the traffic problem.

Smoking, choking, crawling, stalling, horns beating, overheating, endless snakes of engined transportation defiling the dwellings of Mumbaikers from pre-sunrise to post-sunset.

But wait you doomsayers, look there…...
What is that ribbon of concrete spreading southward from the headland of Bandra to its Southern counterpoint at Worli?

See as it skips in wide steps across that infected, lifeless bay.

True believers, gather round and listen. For this strange structure is the Worli-Bandra sea link. The John the Baptist of Maharashtran infrastructure, here to path the way for a yet greater shift in the city’s transport system.

Somewhere in ancient Sanskrit writing it is rumoured that a chariot of iron shall ride through the clouds and dance between the great man made trees of the urban jungle.

Yes my friends, prepare the arrival of the Messiah. The one who brings hope to the traveling masses and delivers them from misery of the daily commute.

Prepare your salutations and ready yourselves with chargeable smart cards, for soon is the coming of the Mumbai Sky Train.
Yes, you heard it, the city authority are also building a Metro system.

Balanced upon a belt of track several metres above the current commuter level, these initial three lines of transit offer hope to those who have faith.

If only this city wasn’t so corrupt, it might even get finished. Or perhaps the reason that it will get finished is that this city is so corrupt?

Confused by that contrary concept?

Tune in soon to hear my tale of Bob the Builder and Jim’ll fix it.

Maybe then it will all start to make sense.

Superman and Muslims

When I was a wee lad I had a bedroom decorated in superman themes.

My walls were plastered in Superman paper, my duvet cover had the last son of Krypton emblazoned all across, hell, even my alarm clock involved Superman making a daily effort to wake me from my dreams.

"Superman is here to say
It's time to wake up and start a new day
Waking up can be fun
When you wake up, my mission is done"

Now, such a concept may be acceptable when at Primary School, but at the age of 36 I think I am done with the wacky morning alarms.

If I had wanted a novelty yodeling wake up call I would have kept an issue of the Innovations Catalogue that came free each weekend with my parents copy of The Mail on Sunday.

So on that note why must i be rudely awaken by the local Imam who finds it perfectly acceptable to shout praise to a non-existent deity through a loud hailer at 5.15 each morning?

You can believe whatever wacky superstitious nonsense you want, but please, please don't inflict it upon me at the crack of dawn.

Nature v Nurture

It is said that in Mumbai there is no escaping the poverty that surrounds you.
I can now vouch for the authenticity of that statement.
Even the wealthy areas have all too obvious pockets of poverty like no other place I have visited. You might be waiting at a busy junction in Bandra, Queen of the Suburbs, when a tapping at the window will draw your attention to the inevitable alms seeker.

There exists in Mumbai an inverse hierarchy of begging. The less able a person appears to have the wherewithal to support themselves, the more readily one should contribute to their welfare.
I have taken the lead from our drivers, who have a consistency in their approach to giving.

The rules are pliable but appear thus:

1. If the beggar in question is a healthy adult of working age, then give nothing.

In this city of gold everyone has the opportunity to work, no matter how demeaning their role nor how poorly paid their task might be. To see people both living amongst and sifting through garbage in order to eek out a living is both disturbing and humbling at the same time.

These people however retain their humanity. They work, they eat, they survive.

The local or “Desi” population feel it is poor form to resort to begging and it highlights an underlying laziness on the part of the poor wretch who resolves to such action.

It may sound callous that someone earning a western wage should not give freely, but if one were to donate upon ever request, the inconvenience would be more in terms of time and sourcing of change than that of purely gifting money.

I think the only way forward is to find a local charity of choice, one that I believe is making a difference, one I can donate to in bulk.


2. A woman holding a young child is not necessarily the mother. Give with discretion.

I understand, though have no basis for my belief beyond that which I have been told by our driver, that it is commonplace that women borrow the children (at a rate of 50 rupees/day) from the natural mother in order to turn a profit at busy road junctions.

I can accept that this occurs though expect it’s frequency is somewhat overstated.

It is sad to witness a young child in arms mimicking the mothers hand to mouth gestures with no understanding of what they are doing or why they are doing it.

What chance in life if this is their trade before they are even able to speak?


3. Older people are deserving. Donate freely.

If a person has survived what has likely been a tough life and has managed to bag a life innings of 1st world proportions, then that has to be respected.

Their seniority itself dictates that they are no longer productive and therefore relatively incapable of supporting themselves.

Donate small denominations but with frequency.


4. Lepers should not repulse you, donate freely.

Being some of the most unfortunate members of society, this should go without saying, though being a typical “Britisher” my instinctive response to my first encounter with a leper was one of shock and fear.

I guess this is only natural as seeing as leprosy was eradicated in the UK waaaay before my time, and the sight of a bandaged stump or a hand with an obvious absence of finger joints does shock the fight or flight instincts into overdrive.

Fortunately, the usual status quo of having a car window between oneself and the “under handed” local sorts offers an element of security and safety, though I keep telling myself it is only ignorance that generates fear and I consider myself rather educated on such conditions.

Christ, you could spend months, nay, years, working with lepers an still come out of it with all major extremities intact.

After all, Ernesto “Che” Guevara did well enough to fight and fire in a revolution following his time spent with lepers. It was the Bolivians that got him in the end.

However, regardless of the early work of communist icons, there still existed that niggling doubt in the back of my mind which turned to outright fear and repulsion when whilst sitting in an auto wearing only shorts, shirt and sandals, a toothless and handless old man motioned towards himself as a sign to donate.

It was then whilst I was frozen with an immediate and temporary paralysis coupled with a twinned reaction of verbal incoherence (most likely emanating from the fear that had enveloped me due to his immediate proximity or perhaps more specifically the lack of a protective paneling between myself, and what now appeared a far too contagious disease) that he decided to reach out with his relatively good hand and touch my bare foot.

Jump???

I almost shat my pants.

Sod Donating. Sweet Jesus, charity was the last thing on my mind right then.

I just wanted the auto driver to do his best Lewis Hamilton impersonation and race out of his P4 grid position before we had even received the green for go.

It was only upon later reflection I realised that instinct is a powerful thing and in the nature/nurture debate, I am backing old mother N every time.

Flight Lt Colin Blythe and his unflinching standard of forgery

Right, I'm getting to grips with this place. Time for my lucid rants to begin.....

I had been forewarned about the unique concept that is Indian bureaucracy, but to experience it first hand certainly teaches tolerance and directs one toward the goal of suppressing any urge to yell.

As seems par for the bureaucratic Indian process, nothing can be simple.

Any foreign national planning to spend more than 6 months in the country must register their intent with the authorities. This is of course is despite the fact that you have already been granted a Visa to stay for such a duration when you made our initial application.

In fact, given that said application was made online, almost all the required information for this second stage registration was already held by the Indian authorities.

Nonetheless, it took two visits to the office in South Mumbai before I successfully acquired my documentation. The first visit (which involved a two way car journey totaling nearly two football matches worth of road time) was fruitless because, well, because they said so.

This is after all bureaucracy central and there is no point in arguing.

The second visit (better traffic conditions, there in 70 minutes, back in 50) proved successful yet still involved a 3 ½ hour wait at the offices during which time I had to enter the already once submitted personal info on their computer system, as well as writing out the same within my newly provided identity card which I had finally acquired following a pointless queueing process and a small bribe to the surly admin exec.

I once read about the strong correlation between corruption and poverty within a given regime.

This I assume was the theory in action.

Given the undue bureaucracy and the attention to detail, one might think the final supplied documentation would be somewhat more sophisticated than the identity cards produced by Donald Pleasance in "The Great Escape", but no, even a progressively blind WWII PoW would consider these ID cards as somewhat retro.

I swear a junior school art class could be more creative.

Luckily for me, it was not me, but her indoors who registered our shipped belongings. This meant that I would avoid the frustratingly tedious 6 hours she spent in a non air-conned building somewhere out back of the airport where our boxes would be opened and sorted through with a fine tooth comb.

Fortunately the customs officials had little idea of the value of our belongings which they had decide to tax in their entirety. In fact she undervalued our two bottles of champagne at a paultry 5 squid each. Tidy.

How embarrassing would it be for a single young man with some "adult art" titles within the shipments? Please estimate value of dog eared Western pornographic literature sir...... Uh, thats not mine!

There's a lot to be said for marriage you know.

Continental drift

So I’ve been here almost two weeks, I think the world is due is a brief sample of my musings.


Day1

Arrive in Mumbai to a sultry 32 degree welcome. It is the Dassera Holiday today so the place isn’t as hectic as one might imagine and fortunately the smell isn’t anywhere near what I had been led to believe it would be. I thank the cooling breeze blowing in off the Arabian Sea and jump into our car which has successfully honked its way across a line of traffic . The journey is both noisy and eventful with a relentless cacophony of car, bike and autorickshaw horns accompanied by unusual visual stimulation such as urbanite bovine and fowl, an orange haired guru-like mystic and the strange and slightly disturbing sight of two young boys appearing from an open manhole.

Spend the afternoon exploring Juhu where we stop for a beach front Coke which sets us back about 25p inclusive of straw.

Times of India:

“Cops barged into a Juhu pub on Sunday night and picked up 240 youngsters on suspicion of “doing drugs”. Policemen had earlier visited the pub on Thursday but failed to arrest any of the alleged peddlars.”

“100’s gathered at a roadside Cross of Jesus Christ in Chakale Road on Thursday evening when water was seen seeping from its toes. Several devotees filled water bottles…. The statue is centuries old but has been recently renovated and is made of fibreglass”



Day 2

2 Cows, 0 chickens, numerous stray dogs, 1 x goat, 1 x naked guru, 3x hawkers selling giant balloons.

Visited the historic centre of South Mumbai, swiftly left the Gateway of India as it was under renovation and largely wrapped so you couldn’t see it. The sun was baking as it reflected off the light coloured floor surface so we dashed off to a local Parsi Café where I sampled my first mango lassi.

My intro to Indian cricket as the 1st test vs Australia begins with the Ausies amassing a decent 400 odd total.

Slowly, the language of incessant use of car horns is beginning to reveal itself….



Day 3

6x cows, so many stray dogs they don’t bear mentioning, 1x pot belied guru, 1 hawker selling maps, street kids begging and tapping at our car window.

Those car horns are nothing but background noise now. Even the art of crossing the road seems simpler than at first glance. I think you basically step out into oncoming traffic and force them to stop. Extending your nearside hand towards their bonnets whilst nonchalantly looking away seems to be the technique of choice.

We are already gearing up for the next holiday in a few weeks time.

Diwali is a big one. The Indian Christmas I have geared it described as.

Well, in so far as it is the “festival of lights” it does kind of match Sandfields, Port Talbot for a brazen display of seasonal illumination except the lights are rather more tasteful and the displays lack the ubiquitous Santa/Rudolph combination so beloved of those council house rooftops. I can but hope it remains so.

Day 4

0x cows, 4x goats, 1x donkey

Not just the sound of vehicles, but the sight also has become the norm. Most vehicles in this city are for hire and are consequently coloured a two-tone black and yellow to help distinguish them from all those other two tone black and yellow vehicles that swarm like so many wasps around the arterial roads and gullies of the city.

We visit South Mumbai again and watch some spontaneous cricket matches played upon Oval Maiden. The backdrop is of a gothic picture postcard Victoriana and simply screams ‘Empire”. I notice the streets are much quieter and free of autorickshaws. Our driver explains they are banned from entering this far into the heart of the historic city centre and that they are limited to a point on one of the entrance causeways. Mumbai was once a series of Islands and much of the modern day city centre and adjacent areas have been reclaimed from the sea. The city is now scarred with creeks that act as nothing less than open sewers. These effluent highways snake their way across the urban landscape caring not whether an area is rich or poor, though it is often found that the poorest of society will be “housed” along their banks, vulnerable to both seasonal flooding and malarial risk.

Day 5

The first day of work.

Our office is located somewhere amidst a labyrinth of gullies, somewhere behind the Grand Hyatt hotel, hidden upon a sprawling hinterland of a business park. When I say business park, I don’t refer to the manicured lawns and columned entrances of such parks in the western world, no, this is more like the small unkempt industrial estates one might find in working class towns where pavements are optional, fly tipping is to be expected and deeply rutted roads are standard.

Upon entry to our workplace it reveals itself as a bit of a throw back to the 70’s, which though it was expected, it still comes as a great relief to hear we are moving into new premises over the next few weeks.

Hallelujah! There is aircon.

The CEO draws us a map of Mumbai, and against all my understood conventions, North and South, East and West are flipped to a mirror image of what we in the West would call the norm.

I guess it is all a matter of perception and there are no wrongs and rights, but hell, it would be a damned sight easier for me if everyone stuck to the rules.

But that I guess is the essence of India in so far as I have thus far understood. Rules are there merely as guidelines, not necessarily as objects of control to always be obeyed.

If you happen to be driving on the “wrong” side of the road, it is only ones perception of what is wrong that makes it so.

Perhaps it is our rigid Western way of thinking that needs to be examined? Already I am aware of so many dichotomies in this country, though I am sure I have only just scratched the surface.

The city is constantly busy, 24/7, yet nobody is in a rush. There is an inordinate volume of vehicles on the road, each following their own rules and with no apparent system of priority, yet the traffic somehow keeps flowing.

There is great poverty and great wealth in close proximity yet still I am oblivious to any latent animosity between societies haves and have nots.

India is going to take a lot of understanding, and I am excited about what experiences lie in wait.

The cross-pollination of Leigh de Vulght

Well, the clock is ticking and I am officially a man of leisure until mid-October.

Amongst the poignant packing away of ones life memories inside overpriced cardboard boxes, the uncertain contemplation of that which lies in wait and the anxiety of attempting to finalise plans for the big push, there remains the extremely important task of deciding which Mumbai football team to swear allegance to.

It seems only right that on arrival, my flag is already pinned to the mast.

It would certainly be comforting to be lost without friends in an unfamiliar landscape, yet to have a retort to that overplayed amd seemingly rhetorical chant of "Who are we?"

To be frank, for a urban throng comprised of over 19 million people, there isn't a hell of a lot of choice out there for football fans.

I could perhaps go for Mahindra United?

Mahindra are the leading Mumbai based outfit and won the national league as recently as 2006. They are the only team in the Maharashtra state to win the FA Cup equivalent more than once, triumphing in '98, '02, and again this year.

This team looks a sure fire route for a newcomer to Indian football to hitchhike upon established success, but the again, as a Swansea City fan used to years of underachievement, this doesn't quite feel right.

So we come to the alternative. Mumbai FC.

Their home ground is in Kandivali, and holds about 12,000.

Formed as recently as 2007 they have been making "big name" signings, such as manager Henry Menezes and Indian international striker Abhishek Yadav. They won promotion from Div2 last season, so 2008/09 will be their first effort in the I-League.

Mumbai FC was launched with the community based aim of encouraging all Mumbaikars with a god given talent (not sure which God does the footbball talent bit, but I reckon Shiva sounds a good bet for my midweek coupon) for footie to participate in the development of the sport and its resultant cultural growth in the city.

Mumbai FC also have an English head coach in David Booth, formerly of Grimsby and Darlo. This sounds more like my cup of chai, but on the downside, they do play in yellow.

Now this last factor may not bother most fans, but for me it counts as a serious negative against them.

I have only ever owned one shirt of this colour, and it attracted lots of flies.

Granted, when I effortlessly plucked said shirt from the outstretched arms of other Jacks down at Southend FC, it was indeed rather sweaty.

I did wash it, several times, but when I proudly wore my undersized yet authentic "Leigh de Vulght" football league shirt around the sites of Australia, the insects absoulutley loved it. It was as if a giant sunflower had appeared in the bush and cross-pollination was this seasons vogue.

That was a harsh lesson I learnt and it has stayed with me.

Under no circumstances can I encourage Malaria carrying Mozzies to come suckle on my juicy Welsh flesh.

So what will I do?

Take the easy option, or go with my instinct?

I think I need to investigate away kits......

What a Wankhede!

Cricket, bloody cricket.

Just when you think the 5-day format of the game beloved of gentlemen and empire has been exorcised from the psyche of your average British male, out of nowhere you are given the opportunity to move to Mumbai.

My relationship with the sport has been a long and increasingly tenuous one.

As a child I was weaned on stories of legend. It was upon my local county ground that the soon to be "Sir" Garfield Sobers clattered six consecutive deliveries beyond the St Helens boundary rope.

My father claims to have been there on that historic day, as does every man over the age of 50 born within a 10 mile radius of that wicket.

Last month saw the 4oth anniversary of this cricketing milestone and in the interim years I must have met at least a dozen people who have claimed ownership of "that ball", otherwise known as the final delivery of a Malcom Nash over which was to be sent heavenwards over the wall and into Gorse Lane, or perhaps even the distant side street that was to be forever preserved in monochrome as a result of Sobers' remarkable achievement.

My own cricketing memories are somewhat less well catalogued than the BBC coverage from that day.

As a child I played both at school and with friends in local parks. My right hand bowl, left hand bat a continual object for discussion and derision. Amongst the highlight I remember hitting my first century in the loosely demarcated grounds of Victoria Park.

The ground was a local classic. A pot-holed dirt track marking the boundary at one end of the wicket, perfectly achievable with a straight drive, a confident batsman could make quick, easy runs.

Extras were seldom awarded, and the consensus of what constituted a wide was generally governed by how old the bowler was and whether the batsman could still have struck the delivery if his arms were 15 feet long.

Batting at "the railway end", a left handed hook over a low metal fence and into the tarmac covered playgorund would earn me six runs with the probability of a young mum throwing the ball back to speed up the delivery process. A well executed cut to square leg might see me scoring four runs if the tennis ball crawled beyond the t-shirts that doubled for that boundary.

A high scoring innings was usually dependent upon how recently the Council Parks department had cut the grass, and how few fielders were available.

As the years went by my left-handed square cuts continued to serve me well, though like a less dashing, darker-haired David Gower, I too was prone to a loose shot cheaply giving away my wicket.

As my teenage years passed, the opportunity for play receded. It was far easier to organise an impromptu game of tennis with one, or at a stretch, three other players than to organise a bunch of young males to dedicate their spare hours to standing in a field watching lifelessly for long periods of time.

The urge to play cricket slowly recinded, but the trademark LH bat had left its mark on the Tennis Circuit of South Wales where my double handed backhand was a much feared weapon which even helped me to the final of the county U-16's tournament where I was soundly beaten due to a combination of big match nerves, tennis elbow, and the fact that my opponent was considerably better than me.

Eventually even the tennis seemed to take too long to complete, though admittedly this coincided with the fact I was now old enough to be legally served with alcohol, and yep, there were ladies in those there bars.

Perhaps I am a sullen reflection of the way we as a nation have changed? Maybe it is this inability to stay still and reflect without recourse to external stimulation which has triggered the rise of our instant gratification society. If so, surely this is mirrored in the declining popularity of cricket in the UK both as a spectator sport and in terms of those who actually take the field of play.

Todays soundbite generation are in no way inclined to spend more than fractional hours in any given pursuit, let alone spend the best part of five days watching a sporting soap opera unfold in front of them.

With a generation of British youngsters having been raised on a diet of multimedia options, and the lines between real worlds and virtual worlds becoming ever more blurred, is it no wonder that the historically conservative governers at the MCC have been forced to back track and accept that 20/20 cricket is the only way to generate interest amongst this difficult to please audience?

This led me to an intriguing thought.

With India becoming ever more wealthier, and an emerging middle class being offered a plethora of other ways to spend their time and money, is it inevitable that cricket in the sub-continent will follow?

Not necessarily in terms of the loss of love for the sport as seen in England (and Wales)s green and pleasant land, but in terms of a shift away from the connoisseurs choice of the longer format towards a shortened version of the game.

Then I thought, hang on, this has got further to run.

Whats more, I am sure there is a huge market out there waiting for me to exploit it!

Could I yet be the Kerry Packer of my generation?



"Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you........


The 2014 Nip & Run World Cup Final, live from the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai...."




K