When Pigs Fly

It’s been another awesome weekend. This time it was a trip to the city of Indian dreams; Bombay, to watch the man behind Pink Floyd; Roger Waters. The flight from Delhi was at 6am on Saturday, and at 11:30pm Friday night, we realised we had lost the tickets. This then involved a drive to office in the dead of the night, and convincing the guards to let us in. In the end, we just managed to catch an hour of sleep before getting up and heading to the airport. My uncle picked us up at the airport, and we headed to his apartment.

That evening, we took a taxi to Victoria Terminus, the brooding gothic legacy of the British, complete with gargoyles. Just opposite it is the corporation building, another architectural behemoth, and just behind that is the office of the Times of India. We walked till Crawford market, which is another building worth seeing, and tehn retraced our steps to walk past VT, and go on to see the Flora fountain. On the way we popped into the JJ college of Art to have a look at their exhibition. Quite nice actually.
As we walked through the amazing architecture of Bombay, I almost felt transported to the streets of London, except the number of people thronging on the streets, roadside vendors selling everything from paan to digital cameras. Every second building was stare worthy, and stare we did. We finally reached the Gateway of India, and took a ferry ride round the harbour. Very scenic. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Then it was a drive along the Queen’s necklace, before crashing at home.
I devoted the next morning to visiting long-lost relations, and I have a LOT of relations in Bombay. And then it was time for the dark side of the moon. A hush set in, and finally ol’ Roger strode on the stage, and burst into Shine on you Crazy Diamond. The crowd went wild. The place was buzzing and the pyrotechnics and the visuals were superb, and quite took away from the . And of course, soon the pig was let loose. Emblazoned with slogans like ‘Kafka rules, OK’ and ‘Impeach George Bush’ and even something in Hindi about doing away with the caste system; it was quite the star of the show. It was led around the grounds, and finally let loose to disappear into a distant speck into the moon. Beirut got an enthusiastic response from the crowd too. After a short break the band launched into The Dark Side of the Moon, which is a fantastic album. We came out exhausted but contented.

Weddings and Wildlife p3 - Bathroom singers

Then it was a long beautiful drive back to Coimbatore through mist and rain. The next day we were in Bangalore, mall-hopping and shopping. We had lunch at this restaurant called Mainland China, where I had this surreal bathroom experience. As I stepped into the loo, we were confronted with just one urinal, which seemed to be full of ice cubes. Unsure of whether it was a actual urinal or a display piece, we hesitated, till the pressure in my bladder forced me to step up. I’m not talking about a couple of ice cubes here; it was full to the brim, and when used created a very nice golden waterfall effect. Even more surreal, just as soon as I started using it, oriental music started playing through hidden speakers, leading me to conclude that it was some sort of Chinese congratulation theme.

I'm never really comfortable in public toilets anyway. I mean, what the deal with those teeny 2 foot partitions they put up between the urinals anyway? It would only prevent a midget from looking over, and if I were a midget, you know I'd be bringing my footstool to get to the right height. Thats why, guys invariably choose the urinal at the extreme end; at least that way they'd only have to worry about the guy on one side peering. Thats another thing, if there are several urinals free, and a guy chooses the one right next to yours, you're in trouble. Thats basic toilet training. Needless to say, if I see the only urinal which is free is between two occupied ones, I divert my direction to the stalls.

We caught our flight back to Delhi that evening, but the story doesn’t end there. As we were standing around waiting for our luggage, we spotted Lucky Ali(an Indian pop star). We were not sure at first, as he was alone, and no one seemed to recognise him, but then he got his guitar off the belt, and turned and it was him! We were like staring at him, and he noticed us, and walked to us and said ‘Whats up guys?’ We were too starstruck for comprehensible conversation, so the best we managed was something like ‘Bla blu bla’, and then he was gone.

Here are a few more pics of our trip