People Are Strange, When You're A Stranger

There is nowhere in the world quite like India. At first, the chaos was overwhelming and we struggled with the congestion, cleanliness and cultural differences. But, once you accept that resistance is futile and you allow yourself to become consumed, endurance becomes enjoyment...and you fall in love with your former enemy.

That said, there is still a catalogue of differences that confound and confuse in equal measure. I've already 'vexed lyrical' about the absence of hygeine, social etiquette and straight answers - but here are a few more examples of the anomalies of India...

1) The Hinglish Language
The Indian verncular is peppered with post colonial English words and phrases - creating an Anglo-Hindi hybrid that sounds like a Bollywood Fast Show sketch.

The low caste Indians have a selective command of the English language, although their understanding is usually restricted to conversations carrying the ulterior motive of either money, accomodation or taxis. A typical exchange is, "Hello friend - Where are we going? - You don't want rickshaw? - You come see my shop! - I give you very good price - Why not? - Maybe later? - Maybe tomorrow? - I wait for you - (whispered) You want some charris - Goodbye". It can be difficult to talk to people with Rupee signs in their eyes.

By contrast, the middle class speak the sort of Queen's English that would embarrass a lord. Victorian phrases from the time of the British empire have been preserved, which sounds like old fashioned English with an accent. It's especially cool speaking to the elderly. A typical exchange is, "Good day - What is your good name, sir? - And what is your good country - What is your working? - Ahh, that is most interesting - And, tell me, are you married? - But why ever not!?".

Among younger Indians, my favourite saying is "Full Power!" - which means, "Let's Party!". As in "Full Power, 24 hour dood!"

2) Drunky Drunky
Alcohol is not readily promoted in most parts of India. In the north, it rarely features on the menu - but will usually come served in the disguise of a China cup if asked. There are very few bars outside of hotels, which means you have to rely on the 'beer and wine' shop.

Buying a bottle here is like trying to get served at an overcrowded bar during last orders. Men line the small counter waving notes and shouting orders. It's the easiest way of juding the caste system, which seems to correlate with whisky blends. Low caste workers buy quarter bottles of local spirits while the middle classes work their way through a hierarchy of premium spirits towards the height of Indian alcohol taste - Johnny Walker Black Label.

Goa is completely different from the north. Low alcohol taxation and a more relaxed attitude lure (usually respectable and often married) local men to the south to celebrate what appears to be a second stag coming. Unfortunately, they can't handle their high...

They get pissed. Like, really, really pissed. Like slavering at the mouth pissed. Like falling asleep in your food pissed. Like rolling around the beach in at least one of your own bodily fluids pissed. Watching a moustachioed, middled-aged man behaving like a teenager on his first holiday to Ibiza is hilarious!

3) Hair Apparent
Ninety percent of Indian hairstyles could have been cut by the same barber - doing a roaring trade in short back, front and sides. Long hair is reserved for hippies, holy men and the occasional Bollywood actor. Hair products are available in wet look gel only - apart from some elderly men who favour Henna dye-jobs that leave them with a shocking shade of ginger!

Moustaches reign supreme and appear to be regarded as a staus symbol. The thickest growths are usually sported by wealthy businessmen and other people of power - I have never seen an Indian policemen without a moustache, which must make undercover work difficult.

The most impressive moustaches are found in northern India, where men spend hours grooming their facial hair into comically curled ends. Marveling at a man's moustache is the highest form of flattery.

4) Wet Dreams
The Indians are not natural swimmers. I remember taking my teenage neices to a beach 10km from their house and teaching them how to swim for the first time. They wouldn't let go. I nearly drowned.

Despite this inate fear of the water, domestic tourists flock to the beaches at weekends. They enter the ocean en masse in a crowded space. The men in their chuddies (underpants). And the women usually fully clothed. The bravest one will be waist deep. The rest will be advancing and retreating in time with the waves, while screaming hysterically.

A far more popular beach pastime seems to be the ritual burrying of your friend in sand and then sculpting female body parts on them - cue more hysterical screaming.

5) Manners maketh a moan
Although the middle classes behave with the manners of a Merchant Ivory production, social etiquette among the masses is largely absent. Most people will publically stare, pick their noses, correct their cocks and take a piss practically anywhere.

The protocol for taking a No. 2 seems equally unhygienic. It starts with barefoot squatting over an unsanitary hole in the ground and finishes with the Indian 'wipe method', which basically involves water (if available) and your left hand.

Spitting, accompanied by excessive throat and nasal clearing sound effects is a national pastime. Many of the men also use paan, a red betel nut digestive that is chewed and then spat out. It leaves their smiles stained with crimson teeth, while the streets are splattered with red marks that resemble the aftermath of an anally hemorrhaging pigeon!

The streets are also littered with waste, usually plastic being scavenged on by a variety of underweight animals. Even parts of the beaches are strewn with rubbish (which, for some reason, always seems to include a single lost shoe!). I thought that more bins would help, but it's the mentality that is at fault - if you gave a group of Indians waste bags, the beach would be littered with them the next day:(

6) A Dog's Life
I've taken to befriending stray dogs around the world (I'm cheap - if food can buy me love, I'll throw a dog a bone). But, even I won't entertain the mange-ridden mongrels scavenging the streets here. They all seem to share a distant relation, inheriting genes that determine cunning eyes, nondescript colour and a skeletal body.

The worst look like the dogs of the undead - diseased, scarred and especially dangerous at night. We were hounded by a pack of street dogs late one evening in Pushkar - thankfully we never found out if their bite was worse than their bark.

7) Phucking fones!
There are approximately 1 billion people in India, which means there are probably more mobile phones here than anywhere in the world. Most of these phones have downloaded ring tones. All of these ring tones are face-scrunchingly bad, and set to full volume.

It often feels as if we are audience to a countrywide competition to find the worst ringtone imaginable. Somewhere, there is a Crazy Frog getting rich while my ears bleed!

8) Out Caste
In any other country, the Indian caste system would be regarded as outrageously racist. Indians are born into one of four unchangeable castes, which dictate social status, marriage and even career paths. Below the four castes are the 'untouchables', the lowest of the low who are forced to work in the most demeaning jobs or simply beg for a living.

Caste discrimination is apparently illegal now but doesn't stop educated Indians treating street dwellers like animals. Anarchy is avoided as every Indian seems to accept the fate that any number of gods have given them, which is incredibly noble and sad at the same time.

9) Karma Chameleons
India seems to affect some travellers like nowhere else. Otherwise normal people arrive and apparently 'discover spiritual enlightenment' that transforms them into Lords of the Hippy Flies. Dreadlocked 'trustafarians' from the Home Counties can be seen everywhere - wearing robes and bindis, sipping herbal teas, and blessing their chillums while extolling the virtues of the latest ashram that's changed their lives (at least for two months of their gap year).

I may have been pictured wearing a pair of fisherman trousers and some beaded bracelets...but I'm not one of the deluded.

10) Chaos Theory
Today, while drinking at a bar, we watched a flock of pigeons wrestle for space to sleep on a telephone line. Several large pigeons were settled comfortably at one end untroubled by the masses of smaller birds fighting for spots at the other end.

If all the birds had agreed to line up properly, there would have been space enough to spare. Instead, the alpha birds would not share while the smaller birds restlessly defended spaces larger than they needed and chaos reigned supreme. That's my Indianalagy.

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