Cock on the Bedside Table

Dave calls me up out of the blue and asks if we want to go to Hampi. I mention it to the wife. “Can’t you guys think of anything else?” She retorts. Hampi with an 'a' honey, I tell her. Oh, the women of today – they have a one track mind; not that I’m complaining!

We set off in Dave’s Scorpio. The car is packed with seven of us and his luggage rack is put to good use. The bags piled up on top limits our speed somewhat but we still make good time. Our plan on leaving early to avoid traffic works and before we know it, we are checking into the Hotel Malligi in Hospet. The hotel is set among what appears to be the ruins of Hospet but you leave the squalor behind as  you enter the gates. The rooms are spacious, the food is acceptable and the service is superb. They have a full bar – they even stock Johnny Black – and at prices that I havn’t seen since I was in high school.

Come evening, we are driving around the ruins of Hampi. A police car coming in the opposite direction stops us and asks us to turn back. There has been too much mugging lately and they don’t want us driving around lonely roads in the dark. It’s a sobering thought and we turn right around.

Hampi is impressive : Huge temples carved out of solid stone. A lot of it has been done by just one king over a span of 20 years. I wonder how many men it took to make all this; what looks like ruins today must have been teeming with activity a few hundred years ago. What must have been a rich and vibrant empire has been reduced to almost nothing now. It just goes to show that whatever wealth you may amass it will still be in ruins in a few hundred years.  I change my life motto : Don’t worry about building stuff in stone. Get stoned instead!

The queens bath is impressive; it’s as big as a football field. Either she was a big woman or there were many queens. I suspect that it is the latter. There is also a bunch of musical pillars. These are stone pillars that emit musical noted when hit with a stick. Different sections contain different sets of pillars that are set to different scales. Simply amazing!

All that walking in the heat is draining and I fall into an exhausted slumber (some may call it a drunken stupor ………….. and they may be right) I am woken early the next morning by the cock that the wife keeps on her bedside table. I don’t know where she got it because she picked it up when I was away in Singapore a few months ago. I was agast when I came back and found it staring at me. “Can’t you at least hide it away where it can’t be seen, honey?” I ask her. “No,” says she. “I need it here every night”. I resign myself to it even though I hate it. And get your mind out of the gutter – it’s just an alarm clock that cries ‘cock a doodle doo’.

One crow less in this world

Summer is here. Ah, long days and even longer nights! We have visitors from Corvallis and the time seems to fly. We do a few road trips to show them the sights – Belur, Shravanabelagola and of course, the Mysore temple. D is fascinated by the traffic. “How can they not hit each other more often?” he asks. I have no answer; I have wondered that myself a hundred times.

We end up at the elephant ride behind the palace which is clearly marked with different prices for Indians and ‘foreigners’. One of the mahouts taunts the elephant too much and it takes umbrage. It simply steps in his foot and does not let go. The other mahouts beat and berate the elephant and he finally steps away with one last squeeze leaving the mahout massaging his injured foot. Serves him right for torturing an animal in captivity! We get out of there, however; an angry elephant we can do without!

G is teaching a weekend class in Chennai and she has volunteered me as her travel agent. Of course, I am nowhere near perfect as she would like me to be (I am a work in progress) and she end up with no tickets for one of the weekends. But this travel agent has a good customer service policy - unlike the corporates of today who simply don’t seem to care – and I offer to drive her. We wonder which of the Hondas to take and it’s a short discussion – size and comfort wins hands down over economy and environment.

We have killed a dog on every trip to Chennai in the recent past and I am determined to watch out for them this time. It’s not that I care that much about the dogs; but they take out a bumper each time and bumpers are expensive. My diligence pays off and we reach there without incident. We set a speed record of sorts, at least for our family. We have driven 385 kilometers from home to the Cosmopolitan Club in 3 hours and 50 minutes; that’s averaging about 100 kilometers an hour and some of it through city streets. Midway through, just when I am beginning to think that I can qualify for the F1 trials, I am rudely brought back to the ground by a blimp in my mirror. I am flooring it at this point and the speedometer is hovering around 180. Nevertheless, the blimp quickly metamorphizes into an Audi Q5 which passes us and disappears over the horizon. The wife now knows exactly what she wants for her birthday. Damn!

Chennai is dry. The election results are to be announced and there is a big sign at the club telling us that all liquor is prohibited. Oh no it’s not; it flows freely in my room. Boy, am I glad I’m packing! We are up early the next day and head for the beach. The beach in Chennai is crowded. There are all kinds of shapes and sizes taking in their morning breath of fresh air. There are a whole bunch of people sleeping; apparantly they live on there. We notice one family of Dad, Mom and two daughters. All their worldly possessions seem to be crowded onto about ten feet square of cardboard packing laid out flat on the ground. All of a sudden that Q5 doesn’t seem very important; I say a silent prayer thanking God for the abundance that He has given us.

The bad luck with animals continues; or should I say, the bad luck for the animals continues. We are sedately making our way back from the beach when a crow takes a fancy to us and does a kamikazi style dive straight into our windshield. Wham! Blood, gore and feathers and one crow less in this world. No damage to the windshield, at least. A friend of mine once told me a story of how an eagle dived into his windshield and created great damage. I thought it was pretty funny, especially when he told us how he ducked instinctively; well, it’s funny when it happends to someone else; I didn’t find this funny at all.

We watch a lot of TV. Not having cable at home has its advantages; we have not seen any of the ads and laugh hysterically at some of them. There is an old cricket match playing and we watch. Bangladesh is bowling to Pakistan; the bowling lacks bite and the batsman takes a mighty heave at one sending it out of the country I think.

It’s a short trip and it’s time to head back soon. Dave and his family are coming over tomorrow and we are all off to Hampi.