Derby at home

The end is nigh.

I've started to do things for the last time. Today I took maybe my last ever share autorickshaw ('share' basically means cram as many people into the tiny thing as possible. Once we got 10. It was awesome. Don't worry, ladies, you get priority on the back seat. I was swinging off the side, knees grazing motorbikes) to have my last ever 'lonely subway.' Well that is what I would call it if I had ever called it anything. I guess now I have. Lonely Sub.

Anyway this is what happens: I pretend to go to my bus stop like every day as my good friends Claire and sometimes Malika get their own share auto. I walk on a bit and wave them goodbye as they flash past, crammed, and sometimes it's dark but sometimes it's not but in any case the sun sets awfully fast here. Then I get my own share auto (they are very frequent down Road Number Twelve) and trundle off down the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a big mall called the Ashoka Metropolitan. In the mall is a Subway. I leave my tentative anti-globalisation stance at the door and indulge for 45 minutes. And then I go home. Every week. No more. I hope I never eat at Subway again to compensate.

(stop reading now, this isn't going to get anymore interesting)

So... yeah! I was going to tell you about my solo expedition, as mentioned, you will NO DOUBT have noticed, in my previous post. Well now, and this is very exciting, dear reader, I am going on TWO solo expeditions.

1. Tommorow I will go to Chennai to watch day three and four of the first Test match, India vs. England. If you find yourself at a pub at lunchtime of Saturday and Sunday and the television is on and it's showing the cricket then look out for me. I will be wearing my Wolves shirt and if I do not wash it tonight it will be a bit dirty but it is essential I think. I will try to sit above the bowler's arm menacingly. If we're doing shit I might stare at the camera for two days and become a cult hero when the cameraman can't stop looking. Or one of the snipers on the roof will shoot me.

2. On Thursday (my word, a week today) I'm going on an ADVENTURE. Not the biggest adventure in the grand schemes of adventures ever to be fair, bur for this small brain it is quite enough. It goes: Hyderabad > Mumbai > Jodhpur (The blue city) > Agra (Taj Mahal) > Varanasi (dead people on river) > Bhopal (past ecological diaster) > Hyderabad. It is a triangle. Then I fly home the day after. Christmas Day is in there somewhere.

Today I have bought four books for my adventure: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, We The Living by Ayn Rand, The World In The Evening by Christopher Isherwood and The Agony And The Ecstacy by Irving Stone. I spent about two hours this evening in my favourite bookstore here choosing, and now I want to start them all and read them all and finish them all at once. But first I must finish The Cider House Rules by John Irving, which I am liking very much despite/(because of?) it's penchant to take you swiftly down female genitalia and bloodily smash it all up, literally (it's about abortion and orphans, thus far). Did I buy it because it mentioned cider? Yes. Get ready 19:55 Fiddler's. If you don't exist anymore I'll be on my knees weeping at your doors. But no-one will see because you don't fucking live there anymore do you!!! Fucking hell.

Anyway on topic, my adventure will be swell. Most nights will be spent on sleeper trains. I might not sleep for two nights and then sleep too much and end up in Kathmandu. I am taking my trusty camera. Isn't it funny my little camera will take a photograph of The Taj Mahal! Arguably the most beautiful building in the world! On my little camera! I bet it will faint with a little sighing beep. It will be complete.

"I've been trying to show you over and over...
Look at these my child bearing hips,
Look at these my ruby red ruby lips.
Look at these my workstrong arms and
you've got to see my bottle full of charm"

I never liked PJ Harvey before.

"put money in your idle hole" he said
"wash your breasts, i don't want to be unclean" he said
"please take those dirty pillows away from me"