Farewell To India

Once in a while one has to indulge oneself. Like I did today by going for the big Indian buffet at dinner.

Well, there is this German saying without any English equivalent I'm aware of: die Rechnung ohne den Wirt machen. Literally it translates to something like making the bill without the landlord. It means there is something you haven't considered.

In my case, I haven't considered the in-your-face manager of the restaurant, who made me taste every single dish on display. Now I'm overfed like a French duck. There is a huge mess in my stomach. The wafer-thin mint were these Kuja Karti made with figs and cashew nuts and covered with vark:



However, I have to admit that every single dish was simply delicious. I have adapted a bit too much for my taste. It's time Toño regains control over my diet.

I have to pack anyway. In half an hour I will head to the airport. I hope my plane will not be delayed due to the nasty weather in Zürich. How do people only cope with that?

A Club For A Hero

Me and my colleague are stuck here in Mumbai for another week with another sailing starting on Tuesday and lasting (probably) three days.

But it's not as bad as it seems. We've received a pep talk email from a caring employer's brass, calling us true heroes for so stoically enduring these hardships. On our return, they will probably have named a corridor after us. We are dead certain about this. The only open questions for us are, who will unveil our roll of honour and which champagne will they serve?

How do you celebrate being called a true hero? Well, I stuck to a tradition I anyway have on trips which include staying at lush hotels. I ordered a club sandwich. I have got this tradition since July 1989, when I was deflowered* in a hotel in Damascus.



* with respect to club sandwiches

Dulces Sueños

The Laundry Roses

My derioulsy beloved Toño is a man of many talents, among which is his faculty of letting me discover that there is a (kind of) romantic in me. Not that I'm now writing poems. I have no idea what forces are required to let me develop those sacred skills. It's just that I can't look at these roses without getting goose bumps and thinking of Toño.



I've got those roses with my laundry. The hotels of the Taj group put a rose onto every basket with the washed, ironed and nicely packed undies and shirts. Yesterday, I was in my room when a couples of baskets were delivered. I took the roses, put them into a water glass and got myself a medium to be with Toño. Then I know, that there are certainly some flowers in our resident as well as at Toño's office.

Since I'm not a poet at all, I have to resort to Pablo Neruda, a master of this art, who wrote the “The Herbalist’s. Rose,” devoted to flowers, branches, and vegetal growth:

La rosa del herbolario

Dejo en la nave de la rosa
la desición del herbolario:
si la estima por su virtud
o por la herida del aroma:
si es intacta como la quiere
o rígida como una muerta.

La breve nave no dirá
cuál es la muerte que prefiere:
si con la proa enarbolada
frente a su fuego victorioso
ardiendo con todas las velas
de la hermosura abrasadora
o secándose en un sistema
de pulcritud medicinal.

El herbolario soy, señores,
y me turban tales protestas
porque en mí mismo no convengo
a decidir mi idolatría:
la vestidura del rosal
quema el amor en su bandera
y el tiempo azota el esqueleto
derribando el aroma rojo
y la turgencia perfumada:
después con una sacudida
y una larga copa de lluvia
no queda nada de la flor.

Por eso agonizo y padezco
preservando el amor furioso
hasta en sus últimas cenizas.

The herbalist's rose

I consign to the ship of the rose
an herbalist's decision:
whether to honour the rose for its strenght,
or the wound of its odor:
whether all is intact, as he likes it,
or stiff as a corpse.

The terse ship will not say
which death it prefers:
the prow thrusting itself
through victorious fire
crowding its sails and ablaze
in its clustering beauty,
or wilting away under its regimen
of medicinal comeliness.

I am that herbalist: friends,
flinching from every complaint
because I can never agree
how to resolve my idolatry:
the rose's investiture
burns love on its banners,
time flays from its skeleton
the juice of a scarlet aroma,
the perfume's tumidity:
then, with one blow of the weather,
a great cupful of rain,
nothing is left of the flower.

Here I am moping and mowing
to preserve the full fury of love
till the last ash flickers out.

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.

"Are you in Maintenance?"

A quick update from Mumbai. It's all all work and no play. There was not even a weekend. My caring employer gets the daily rates for this. However, I had signed a weird contract that denies me being paid for overtime. In other words, I just worked two days for free. Apparently, this is included in the compensation package. But I can't deny to have the sense that I'm being cheated. To add insult to injury, next weekend will be no better... and I'm desperately missing Toño.

But how is Mumbai? I have no idea. Everything looks pretty normal from the 10 minutes, I spend on the streets every day. My hotel is right next to the fishing port, where the terrorists landed. Nobody seems to care. Word came through that the Taj Mahal Tower will reopen on December 21. Mumbai never stops.

The only difference I'm experiencing is that the cab can't drive to the hotel stairs (I have to walk 10 meters), and that I have to walk through a scanner and that my bag is being searched. The other day, the lady in charge of getting through my stuff was shocked by all the cables I carried. "What do you work? Are you in maintenance?"

Mumbai - The Update

I've been asked, whether the trip to Mumbai is still on. I can confirm that it is, however, it has not been preponed but postponed by three days. I'm supposed to embark on December 10.

Of course, Taj Mahal is not available. I've received two emails regarding this. A former boss of mine wrote "New Room Heating installed in Taj Mahal"*. The other one came from the hotel itself, saying "We will not be able to confirm the booking due to unforeseen circumstances at the hotel."

I've changed bookings to the Taj President. "Good choice", an Indian told me. "it's safe, it's inland". I've measured 300 m to the next shoreline on Google Maps**. He also wrote me "Good, you have the Mumbai spirits, people say Mumbai, will never stop for a moment."

I'm already a bit too Indian, my given name is the surname of people belonging to the royal community of Mysore in Southern India. And my surname is a traditional Punjabi name, written ਹੀਰ.

* he one's commented on a broken arm of mine "It's your own fault, you arsehole". He has his own ways to show that he actually cares.
** Obviously, India had been warned by the U.S. of A. that there might be a terrorist attack from the sea against luxury hotels in Mumbai

Into The Crosshair

Did you follow the news of the terrorist attack at Mumbai? In a bit more than a week, I'm booked at one of the sites - at the lush Taj Mahal hotel to be precise. Coincidentally, I'll have to go there for firing trials. I'm so not looking forward to this.



Added Later: It was later that I realised how close this shave was. In September, I was told this trials are due in November.

Taj's Laundry Basket

I just had to take a picture of this laundry basket:



Luckily, my caring employer takes care of the bill. 2.5 $ to wash a pair of undies... They smell now of perfume instead of ship's diesel. Tomorrow, we have to go back on board. Saturday was our day off and I could not be bothered to do anything more than enjoying to get my laundry delivered.

The Princess and the Pea

There was the traditional lake crossing in Zürich...


... and of course, I'm abroad. My packing list were not speedos but wellingtons, an umbrella and imodium. Yes, I'm in India. Mumbai to be precise. In the middle of frigging monsoon and parted from Toño. Despite of staying at the lush Taj Mahal, I'm far from being in exuberant spirits.

Coming Home

My seventh trip to India is over. I'm quite exhausted. We worked 12 days in a row up to twelve hours daily, not including travelling. Luckily, we had a decent hotel, The Taj West End, a ***** deluxe. Unfortunately, these kind of houses are completely overstaffed. On the way to breakfast, your are greeted by more than a docent of them. If you dare to care anything bigger than a stamp, each of them tries to carry it for you. One of the better experiences was a waiter knocking at my door at 10pm asking if I care for some leftovers:



Or complimentary wine in the room. Or the laundry brought back with a rose in a nice basked*:



But all these is nothing compared to coming home into Toño's arms. There were flowers everywhere. The fridge was stocked with delicacies. On the table was a bottle of vintage champagne and plate with freshly picked berries and apricots:



The first meal was Crema de elote. Despite the heat wave, Toño managed to take perfect care of my plants. Especially the chiles and the tomatillos are flourishing:



It will be hard to leave for my next trip**.

* On the other side, everything (even undies, socks & wife-beaters), was single wrapped and in a cellophane bag. It took hours just to unpack a daily set of clothes (change daily and keep friends!).
** By the way. I'm back into Frequent Traveller status at Star Alliance. It's always good to have some privileges.
***** read "Five Star".

In the Park

This time, we are lucky in Bangalore and could get some rooms in the Taj West End, a really beautiful hotel in the heart of the city. The rooms are located in various bungalows. Everything is rather colonial. The room are tastefully decorated and have recently been renovated. This is the one, I've got:



But it even gets better, when I open the window and step out onto my porch. Then I'm in the middle of a beautiful park:



My room has even a feature, I've never seen so far. In the bathroom, the wall towards the bedroom is made of glass. When I open the shade, I can see the park through the bedroom, while I'm taking a bath and dreaming of Toño and his tender poems.

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By the way, blogging and especially readings blogs from India is at the moment a tedious venture. A directive from the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) came days after the Mumbai blasts, and was aimed at shutting 17 blogs which carried material from religious and political extremists. But service providers were forced to cut all major sites, including the popular Geocities, Typepad and Google's Blogspot.

Complaining

Call me a spoiled bastard, but I'm so not looking forward to my business trip to India next week. It's not only that I'm separated from Toño again (this would be bad enough), but far too many things went wrong so far:

• I's not clear whether I'll fly on Monday or not. Two of my colleagues did not receive there visa on time. My boss will decide over the weekend, whether we will cancel the trip.
• I'm booked for a hardcore red eye. We will arrive at Mumbai in the evening. The connecting flight to Bangalore will be at 3 am an offers economy class only - and it's straight to work from the plane. There would be a nice flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore which arrived perfectly well at bed time.
• Not only the flight, also Bangalore is completely overbooked. There are hardly any free hotel rooms. Since about half an hour, I've got a booking in a crappy three star hotel in a noisy neighbourhood for $200 a night. At Bangalore, I'm used to stay in the beautiful five star deluxe Taj West End, which is one of the best places to stay on this world.
• Temperature forecast is 96°F/35°C, which is nice for holidays but not for extended working days.