Kylie Is With Me

I'm not alone here any longer. Kylie joined me.

Mumbai, February 27 (ANI): Australian pop sensation Kylie Minogue on Thursday arrived in Mumbai to record a song with Oscar winning music composer A.R Rahman for forthcoming Bollywood film 'Blue'. Catcalls and cheering crowd greeted Minogue as she landed in Mumbai. The film starring actors Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif and Lara Dutta is touted to be India's first 'official' underwater film.

Dull

My life is rather dull right now. I'm again on one of those business trips at and off Mumbai in India. Actually this is were I spent the last six days between 7:30am till 11:00pm:



Yes, I'm pretentious and only travel with two laptops. The picture is not quite accurate, since normally two dozen Indians were also present. The rest of the time I was either eating rice with something in the wardroom, was lying in my berth or was sipping tea with cardamom and milk. I actually spent 120 hours in the ship without breathing fresh air once.

However, a poxy gun broke, and we had to suspend the trials. Now my workplace looks like this:



I haven no idea how long this will last. I have got a return ticket for March 1. And since I've checked my mailbox, I know that there is another ticket to Rome on March 2. Some here think I should stay until March 7, although the Taj will kick me out on March 1 since they promised my room somebody else. And all I really want is a little hug by Toño. But nobody cares of putting this into my plans.

Diddled

I cycle or I get driven. I hardly ever drive a car myself. Nevertheless, I loath using taxis, even more since yesterday.

I arrived late yesterday afternoon at the domestic terminal in Mumbai. At the international terminal you can hire a pre-paid taxi. I like this. You pay a little more than when driven on a meter, however, you know what you pay and what you're likely to get upfront. This is fine with me.

At the domestic terminal there is no such service. I was on my way to the taxicabs, when I was approached by a fellow informing me that the prepaid taxis are at the other end. Although a dozen alarm bells were ringing within the next five minutes, I somehow ended in a mouldy smelling car with two fellows, still not knowing how much this trip was gonna cost.

One of them showed me a tariff card, indicating that it would cost 2100 rupee (about 50$). A pre-paid taxi at the international airport cost between 850 and 1000 rupees. For 2500 rupees you get a leather upholstered sedan with a driver dressed in livery. I knew, I made a big mistake getting in this car, but matters wend from bad to worse pretty quickly.

I handed over 4x500 + 1x100 rupee banknote. The bloke claimed to have received only 1x500 + 4x100. I was immediately reminded to a story a colleague told only a day ago from the same airport about a banknote trick being played on him in a cab. But stupid as I am, I took back the money and handed him again 4x500 + 1x100. This time he claimed to have received 3x500 + 2x100. I grabbed my money and yelled Stop that car! I took me some more shouting to get my luggage out of the trunk. The hideous bloke even claimed that I'm offending his honour. I could not have disagree more, since he had 1600 of my rupees.

It was only a few hundred meters back to the airport, where I grabbed a black and yellow (kaali-peeli) which cost me 515 rupees. This was ridiculously overpriced, but it's what I should have done in the first place...

However, I'm back at the Taj Mahal hotel and it went upwards ever since (although I was given en a room without DVD player). The positive news are:

1. Word came through, that the management buy out by Toño's boss went through (letter of intent state). So Toño economical future looks brighter than it has been for a while. If you haven't yet, you should subscribe to Vinum magazine right now. You will not only be helping Toño but might learn a lot about wine and its culture in the process.
2. A hotel butler just knocked on my door and brought me a complimentary dessert.