India: The Beginning
India: More colourful than I had intended.
There are two questions your are likely to asked in life, upon which it is very handy if you have an answer.
The first one will occur when you are about 8 years old, and will be asked by your grandmother. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Foolishly, you will like most kids offer an honest answer, such as hairdresser or fireman. Grandma’s response ranges from “that’s nice dear” to “Oh my God, your mother will die of shame if you do that”. Of course the smart kid says they want to be a brain surgeon or a 747 pilot, to which the Granny oohs with approval.
The second of life’s questions hits you just after the honeymoon. Everybody, and I mean everybody asks you “how’s married life”. Like when you were a kid, an honest answer may not be the best, “Just like single life except I can’t actually do anything on my own”. Some of us manage to come up with something akin to what the asker is wanting to hear. Something along the lines of “great, we wish we’d done it earlier I had no idea marriage was such fun” or “I love wearing a wedding ring it makes us feel so connected” usually does the trick.
Recently I travelled to India. To my surprise when I got back, I have discovered that there is a third life question that everyone asks. “How was India, did you get Delhi belly?”. Needless to say, I assumed that I had two options in reply, the honest, and the one that they were expecting to hear?
Interestingly and it took several encounters to realise this, I discovered that I seemed to satisfy both of these with the same reply.
As it happened, my very first meal in India was at a famous café in Mumbai called the Leopold. Its on the Colaba Causeway, and part of its infamy is that in 2008, terrorists sprayed the place with bullets killing 10 people. As it turns out this was just the entree, as they then walked around to the Taj Mahal Hotel and killed another 167 as the main course. The bullet holes in the Leopold are still there and I looked at them with stoic sympathy as I tucked into my vegetarian risotto and mother of all naans.
As bad luck would have it, I was the one needing the sympathy. That night as I lay in my comfy bed I started to feel a bit queasy. By midnight I was sprawled on the toilet floor spewing like a man who had just swallowed an elephant. I will spare you the grizzly details but I was very crook, saved only by the power of gastrolytes, and a loving rubber gloved wife. So there I was, my first meal in India and I had experienced an supersized Delhi Belly.
When I now relay this experience, it certainly answers the question. Yes, I suffered in the unwashed hands of India. Surprisingly, this answer is honest, and substantially approved of. A ‘two for one’, or ‘meal deal’ you might say. You see, it turns out that people who haven’t been to India are terrified of Delhi Belly, and this fear forms a large part of their justification for not having been. For them, I had, in one lousy meal, proven that no sane man should travel to such parts. I had confirmed their worst fears.
However, and unfortunately, upon telling this story I haven’t yet managed to really answer the first part of the question, “how was India?
With a newly emptied stomach and Supermodels’s fear of food, I proceeded to engage with India determined to put my first meal literally behind me .
I am happy to say that from thereon in, I saw the sites of Mumbai (including their slums), attended a wedding in Goa that was more colourful than a chameleon convention, and saw the Taj Mahal and other magnificent marble masterpieces, all the while holding down everything I ate.
So how was India? Tune in next week and I’ll tell you.
Richard Alexander Bain
Self confessed chucker