A Walk on the Wild Side

We have a new friend, of the winged variety. I’m fighting the urge to give him a name (hopelessly anthropomorphic, I know. I had a tea-pot called Enrico, so there’s no hope in this department...) and was considering Percy, but that would get him mobbed, here in Mumbai. I’m now thinking Pakhi, which means “bird.” What do you reckon? Anyway, he comes every day - if you sit very still, he comes right in. Mr Roland’s less than thrilled by the advent, because Pakhi’s a pigeon, but I’m honoured by his presence. I choose to believe that it’s the same pigeon, every day. The possibility of there being Pakhi I and Pakhi II and Pakhi III, ad inf., is unpalatable to me, so it’s fortunate that all pigeons bear a passing resemblance to all other pigeons. Flying rats, Mr Roland says, but I think you have to be a bit more ornithologically condolent. I’m not feeding him (yet), Pakhi comes to peck between the window runners, where I can only suppose there’s microscopic life.






There’s also life, on the ledge, outside our bathroom. Pigeons, again. A man comes to check for leaks, since the rains are giving all the mortaring what-for, on the roof. He opens the louvred door between our shower and a hundred yards of fresh Powai air. This is a first for me - I look at the little bolts, as I slap on the conditioner every morning, but I’ve never actually opened the door. Now I do, I quite see why I haven’t. Our man doesn’t find any leaks, but he does find eggs. Poor, poor pigeons, making a nursery out of hostile concrete. But, human babies are born, every day, on the streets of Mumbai, with paving-slabs for cradles, so it should be no surprise that the birds have to make do and mend. The nest’s right by my window, which explains why I think Ma and Pa Pigeon are actually under my pillow, cooing and flapping, first thing in the morning, with their avian PA system. The only drawback that I can see, is that, should we ever have a break-in, as the burglars jemmy their way into our apartment, we’ll just say, “Oh, drat the pigeons!” and roll over back to sleep, as the felons stuff their booty bag full of laptops and carved elephants in elephants. The Pasty-face Who Cried Pigeon.


Yesterday, the discussion, in the car, concerns the Cow with the Poorly Leg, which lives on the road, as you turn into Powai from Parkside. She has a problem with her front nearside leg, which seems not to bear weight. I wonder, since cows are objects of veneration, here, and you can expect two years in prison, if you run over one, why no-one has brought this limping specimen to the attention of a vet. According to Monu, “Many people no like the cow!” Today, he says that, retracing his steps after dropping me at home, yesterday afternoon, he comes upon the cow again, and this time he stops, and gets out. “I examine the cow,” he says. Dr Singh reckons it’s a birth defect, there being no sign of injury or breakage. You can take the boy out of the farm, I tell him, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy. I’m just being utterly charmed, when I remember. How come he’s allowed to touch the cow? I get out of the car, to take a photo of the Cow with the Lying-Down Horns, on the road to Powai Lake, and Monu whips on his Bovine Police hat. “No touch the cow, very danger animal!” Aforementioned cow does not want to be patted, I discover, but I think it’s a language-barrier thing. A toss of the head, a flick of the ears, even I can understand that. When the ears wiggle, the horns move too. If you don’t believe me, here she is. Or he is. I wasn’t born on a farm in Uttar Pradesh, like some, so what would I know?

Since we’re on a wildlife roll, here, let me tell you that the kites are back - black kites, and plastic kites, both. The birds are such a feature of the Mumbai skies, I don’t know if they get wet feathers and stay indoors, for the monsoon, or if they slope off to sunnier climes for the duration – I imagine the thermals are a bit damp, in the rainy season, for lazily looping the loop all the livelong day. But, they’re in circulation again, which has to be a good sign. The little – and not so little – boys are back, too, flying their kites, to the peril of life and limb. They balance on a concrete plinth by the roadside, spanning the railway, with power cables overhead – it couldn’t be any more dangerous, unless they had a burning sword clenched in their teeth, and a loose tiger fore and aft. If kite-flying were an Olympic sport, we’d all be whistling Jana Gana Mana by the end of Week One. It’s an art-form, and these boys are masters, even with a kite made from a supermarket carrier-bag.

What's more, it's dragonfly season. At home, it’s rare to see more than two, in one eyeballful, but here, they hunt in packs. Or flocks. Or shoals. Whatever the collective noun is for dragonflies, they’re doing it, and very beautifully too.

The monsoon’s still monsooning, and I’m getting twitchy about our UK visitors, due this weekend. On Tuesday, the rain’s so heavy and insistent, the roads flood. Monu and Tariq can’t get back across town to go home, and have to sleep in their cars. I’m just about to ask, if they were warm enough, when I have a small internal geography lesson, concerning climate, and keep my mouth shut. (It was bound to happen, at some time....) I refer to the car, wittily, as the Hotel Innova, but I am appalled, nonetheless. This morning, however, the sun’s streaming through the windows, like the first day of the summer holidays in Enid Blyton stories.

I delegate meteorological responsibility to Monu, who’s quietly confident. “Last rain, Saturday. Sunday, no rain. I arrange.” I’m not the only comedian round here, I see...

Elephanta Island

Today, we go to Elephanta Island. We have to cross Mumbai, to the south of the city, just a few kilometres away. It takes us two and a half hours. Diana says, you could have travelled from Middlesbrough to Liverpool in less time, but that’s Mumbai for you. The traffic’s in no more of a hurry than the pedestrians, weaving between the seething taxis.

We see a bullock-cart, parked up at the side of the road. The bullocks stand, still as stone, while their owners sell melons out of the cart at the back. Behind them, seven streams of traffic jostle on a four-lane road, beeping and pushing in. If you hesitate for a nanosecond, with a yard of road in front of the nose of your car, three tuk-tuks slip in. There’s an art to Mumbai driving, but you need Grade 8 Karma Proficiency, as well as a driving permit, in order not to die of apoplectic frustration, every time you want to go anywhere.
Elephanta Island’s a popular destination for locals, as well as tourists. Ferries leave every half hour, from the Gateway of India. 120 rupees, return. The sea slaps against the harbour wall, making climbing onto the heaving boat slightly interesting, but none of us contrives to disappear down the gap, to the disappointment of the gang of boys, porpoising around in the muddy water. After an hour in an open boat, some of us look like Medusa, and our skin’s tight with salt. On the island, a persistent guide hounds us, along the whole of the kilometre-long pier, to no avail. We’re accosted by wizened ladies with very dark skin and not much going on dentally, who offer to pose for us, balancing piles of stainless steel pots, taller than themselves, on their heads. Smile, please.
We have thali for lunch, in a bold manoeuvre. The floor show arrives in the form of a cow, putting its face in at the door. It doesn’t happen in Stokesley.
After lunch, and the culture shock of the “rest-rooms,” we set off in search of temples. Elephanta Island’s famous for its caves, carved out of the rock. Contrary to what you might suppose, no elephants. The island was named hundreds of years ago, after a great carving of an elephant at the entrance to the caves. The Portuguese tried to make off with it, but dropped it in the sea. Serves them right. Our hopes of pachyderms rest in Jaipur, so today, we satisfy our fauna requirements with the monkeys, which line the path to the caves, sitting on the walls, scavenging discarded corn-cobs and sweet wrappers.
At the foot of the steps, we’re offered a lift. Ordinary kitchen chairs, lashed to great bamboo rods, and two scrawny porters. The stone steps are uneven in depth and spacing, one hundred and fifty of them. It’s punishingly hot. We’re torn, as always, reluctant to deprive the porters of a living, but not wanting to play the rich exploitative westerners, either. We decline, and run the gauntlet of the tourist stalls on foot. We can understand the carved elephants and alabaster coasters featuring Ganesh and his chums, but are utterly baffled by the Eiffel Tower key-rings nestling next to them. Tourists are universal, and so’s the tat, I suppose.
Entrance to the caves costs 250 rupees for visitors. For Indian nationals, the price is 5 rupees. After a two and a half hour drive, an hour in a boat, a sweltering walk along the prom and then 150 steps to climb, we’re not about to quibble over the inequality of a 5000% mark-up, so we pay up gladly, and it’s worth it. The caves are amazing. As well as being a national monument and a favourite Indian picnic zone, the temples are in active use. We don’t realise until we see one of the official guides, slipping his shoes back on at the doorway. Inside, there’s a dome-shaped stone, looped in a circlet of orange flowers, incense burning on the ledge.

In the main cave, the massive three-faced statue of Shiva is magnificent, as they said it would be. The central image is supposed to be the most serene face in India, although Andrew says, it’s a pity he closed his eyes just as Diana clicks the shutter.
We sit on the wall, in the amphitheatre outside the temple, waiting for the drifting black kites to come near enough to photograph. We wait. And wait. Diana dismantles and stashes away her Bollywood-sized camera, and says, “Camera packed. Cue kites.” Sure enough, six of them wheel into view over the edge of the cliff, cavorting and diving. We can almost hear them laughing.

To hawk, or not to hawk?

“SAVE US FROM THE HAWKING MENACE,” says the poster in bossy capitals, tied to the fence of a nearby park. “DON’T TURN THIS BEAUTIFUL TOWNSHIP INTO UGLY ONE!” its partner cries, four steps further on, grammar the victim of passion.
My first thought is of rogue bands of falconers, wilfully plying their jesses, to the peril of our neighbours’ smaller offspring. For once, this isn’t mere caprice. Mumbai’s skies are constantly patrolled by black kites, drifting on thermals in lazy spirals. From our apartment, we look down on them, quartering the city. (Have not had one land on the windowsill yet, but feel it to be a matter of time. Am wondering what they eat, and if I have any in the fridge. Have not shared this plan with Roland yet, he is not a Nature Lover at heart, only smiling at wildlife when it is on the barbecue.)
My second thought, which I instantly try to unthink, concerns expectoration. Unequivocal “NO SPITTING!” notices elsewhere make this theory plausible, however unwilling I am to consider it. Red splats of betel juice polka-dot the pavements: I hastily avert the gaze, but I’ve seen them. I’m famously not clever with emissions – if, for example, in our nonage, Roland waxes bronchitic, I’m hiring in a rosy-bosomed wench in a nurse’s uniform to look after him, then I’m running away with my gerontologist.
Roland the Pragmatic says, however, he thinks hawking refers to street traders. You’d be hard pressed to stop street trading here. People just seem to prop up one wall of their house as an awning, and anything that’s not nailed down is for sale. If business is slack, the shopkeeper just has a quick snooze, confident that, should a potential customer present himself, the goat tethered to one leg of his cot will serve as a doorbell. And Britain’s called the nation of shopkeepers - did Napoleon never get as far as India?
I’ve yet to brave the delights of the open market, convinced I have “Please feel free to triple your prices” hennaed on my pasty white forehead, but the shops-as-we-know-them - with tills and uniformed doormen, but no goats - retain all of their allure. I attempt to buy a packet of safety pins in D Mart (“Experience the Convenience”) from a charming lady in mercery. I can still only say “Namaste” but feel it hardly meets the case. I already have a small following, on account of aforementioned pasty face, but they look like they’re on my side. After some futile initial skirmishing, I take out my trusty pad, and draw a safety-pin. Inspired. My assistant consults her friend. They laugh and nod, and bring me nail-clippers. I put aside the slight to my artwork, to deal with later, alone. My entourage is now blocking the aisle, but no-one wants to go anywhere, the show’s right here. I take a deep breath, and MIME a safety-pin. If I say so myself, I’m very good. The reception is tumultuous. Five assistants are now clapping with joy, congratulating one another in triumph, they know exactly what I’m after...but no, they’re out of stock. Dilgir. Sorry.