The Winking Corn-Flake

Well the new clinic is finished and I'm getting used to the peach colour interior. I have my own room now, of course still under the supervision of Mahesh. I went once more the the isolated rural clinic outside Bangalore. It's a day trip and totally torturous. It takes 4 hrs on 3 local buses each way. So 8hr of traveling before you even see any patients. Mahesh is these peoples only real contact with the outside world. Although I think they now do have electricity but their water tap is only on for 2 hrs a day. It's sad to see some of these people. A bright young girl of 15, one of the young people being educated, now this visit we see her with her wedding bands. She is now the bride of her 35yr old Uncle. We advised her to try and leave it at least a few years before conceiving, but it's hard to tell them that generations of Uncleloving can lead to genetic and developmental defects. They are more concerned with keeping what little money they have within the family and also avoid dowery payment. The treatment results here though really are even more striking than in Bangalore. The people are innocent and trusting and accepting and although they come with ailments their general level of constitutional health is higher than in the city. I'm unsure if they still think I am Chinese. I have told Mahesh that he really should stop the clinics, its too tiring for him, there is no way I can go each week it kills me. He has to leave Bangalore at 5am and does not get back until almost midnight, he loses his city practice money and does not make any money from the village (about 10p a treatment). I have been thinking of setting up some kind of charity or donation to buy a crappy old car. This would get the journey time halved and make the whole thing more digestible. This would also mean that he can take some junior Drs with him with the final hope of perhaps sharing the load. So please feel free to make the first donation? Is that tumble weeds I hear?

I have just checked in the mirror and was horrified to see that the "nothing" of a spot I picked yesterday has turned it a monster. It looks like a winking corn-flake. Are those developmental limb-buds I see? See my heath has been generally better, or at least my mental health, but recently each time I cut or nick my skin it take about 4 weeks to heel properly. Dirty.

This weekend was a bank-holiday weekend. So with my friend Katharine we decided to head off for 4 days of South Indian exploration. We joined the tri-ocenanic moontribe of Kanyakumari where the sunsets and the moon rises in the same sky. Where 3 great oceans meet at the very bottom of India. Also some of Ghandies ashes where stored in a room here before being delivered to the oceans. It was a very nice place a bit more chilled out than normal India, I found the further south you go the slower the pace. I assume this has something to do with the heat. At the very bottom cape of Indian it really was hotter than the centre of the sun. The ferry ride across to the twin islands to see the temple and 133 foot poet statue was short but the heat incredible. I burnt my feet on the hot stone. I had to seek refuge inside the statue where I read some of the 133 verses of instructions on human life (commandments if you like). These are world famous and have been translated into over 65 languages. Unfortunately, I feel something was lost in the translation to English.

"If you drink the sink, thou would make you stink"

"You neighbor should be loved like he has fur gloves."

"Don't do things that someone else might not like"

Strange things like that.

We took a stroll down to where you could stand on the rocks and look out to sea. The rock platform had enough space for about 20 people. As soon as we arrived the platform swelled to about 80. Pushing us further back as the crowd of mostly Indian boys wanted their photo taken with the foreigners. They pushed and shoved wanting to be next to the European girl. The crowd swelled so much that at one point I though we are in danger of disappearing over the edge and into the sea. I let them have "just one more" about 30 times before we managed rush for a small gap in the crowd and leg-it.

Sunset and sunrise are a big attraction point for Cape Comorin. We have to remember that most places have two names in Indian. The real name that everyone uses and the official political "get me votes" recent name change name. Bangalore has just had it's name changed to Bangalaroo or something like that. I still think it means bucket of old beans. There has been a purpose built viewing tower built for watching the sunset, we cleverly hung around the paying window to see what the locals were paying only to find the price hiked 10x when they saw us. I'm getting too smart for the Mossas now (cheaters). The view was pretty good, a little too much cloud cover but not bad. Once again we were swarmed by Indian tourist, all smiling and wanting to shake hands and have "snaps" with the foreigners. It really does make you feel like a movie star, its very overwhelming sometimes but is a nice feeling to be so special. Speaking of movie stars I'm not sure if Richard Gere story has reached the west. A few weeks ago while on stage for an AIDS promotion event he kissed an Indian actress (the one in Big Brother). The response here has been incredible. The Moral police out in full force, protests, burning cars, effigies of Gere.....usual mob culture...Yawn. There was even a judge in Rajastan that produced an arrest warrant for Geres unethical and disgrace behavior. Stating that to kiss is unIndian. This comment I feel a little cowardice. These people are movie stars, when did movie stars follow the moral mainstream? Besides these self appointed guardians of Indian culture appear to have conveniently forgotten about real issues like child poverty/labour and slavery, child forced marriages, marriages between cousins and Uncles 20years older. Female fetal abortion is also not mentioned? Are these more Indian than kissing? Anyway, my rant is over. Now I can say 20 words in the local language I now have a right to rant at least once a week. Of course most modern Indians are extremely embaraced of such a reaction by a minority of the public feeling they are being made the laughing stock of the world by such clowns.

After a few days in Kanyakumari we headed on the train to the transport hub of Madurai before getting a private 3hr bus ride up into the Western Ghats. Of course 3hr always ends up being 5.5hrs after the bus driver kindly takes you to 5 or more "drops" for "sightseeing". Really his mates fruit shop or some museum of natural history (stuffed rats and human babies in pickle jars). You have to submit to it all sometimes, you have to understand and expect all these kind of things or it will drive you crazy, totally crazy I may add. I read this in a book about India recently,

"Sometimes you have to surrender to progress".

The hill station of KodaiKanal was very pretty, much nicer then Ooty, but not as nice as Darjeeling. The view was great and they even had a huge natural lake on the hilltop plateau. I felt pretty great with Katherine peddling our squeaky 8 foot yellow swan boat around for 30mins being followed by the other tourists wanting snaps of us. A taxi ride in the reverse order took 2.5hrs, approx that's about half the time to get up the hill on the bus. Back in Madurai I sat and read a book while Katharine went and explored the famous temple. This is all Madurai has really, and after returning to put trousers on and buying a ticket to get in she was stopped by a very annoyed guard proclaiming that foreigners are not allowed in "even though they will sell you a ticket"...She had been Mosared again...ahhahaa.

Once back in Bangalore I was treated to some German cheese that Martin had brought back from his trip home. It's amazing how simple a taste cheese is and how good it feels if you have not had it forever.

Right now I am sitting on my MacBook, especially sent over by Robbie from Canada. It's ubercool and fast and sexy, though I am still steaming about the dirty Bombay customs man charging nearly 150quid for duty on a used laptop. I better go now to call mum and dad, they have just got back from a 3 week adventure in the States. It's a hard life being retired.