I left you last in Masifipur, on my way to stay in the lap of luxury with Prince Manu. We arrived by bus in Ranchi at 7:30 in the morning. The short story is that Manu is a lying thieving fuckhead. The long story I have just deleted because it sounded too whiny. Think waiting seven hours for the aforementioned fuckhead and then being met by his mignon who wanted us to pay a ridiculous amount of cash for a room. Compound to this that I had a rather horrible experience with a guy that was supposed to be one of Manu's friend's friends who did everything but call me a whore. Now imagine two really pissy and tired and stinky travellers. It does not make for a pretty picture.
And then... redemption!! The friend of Manu's who we met at Gangtok (not Daniel Craig, the other one) comes to fetch us and whisk us away to all things wonderful and good. Mayur Jaismal, is what I would call, a playboy. He is the kind of guy we would generally despise because his catch phrase would be, "Do you know my father is??". Unless we were friends with him and in that case would be saying, "Do you know who his father is???". This is the Jaismal family. Mayur and his brother Mayank, their trophy wives and their parents. The dad is incidentally running for mayor. And this happy family all live together under the same roof. Only in India...
They drive fancy cars, but also have chauffeurs. And servants. And the lisence to all mobile networks in Jarkhand. They technically work for this mobile thingy wingy but they don't really work, if you know what I mean. They took us to their "club" (think of elite Indian families drinking high balls and speaking in low tones, with "oh Muffy, where do you summer?" ringing across the lounges) where they proudly told us that you can't just join the club, you have to have your father invite you. Ahem *cough*. But we can come because we are their guests. It was all tres big boys club, darling. And I was just glad to relax and chill out and have things done for me for a while. So we were taken to a Valentines party and out for lunch and given a nice room to ourselves and spoilt really. Lex got ill and while he was playing Grouchy mcGrouch (which, incidentally, he is extremely good at) I chatted to the wives, read in the swing in the garden and watched two M. Night Shyamalan movies in a row. Bliss :)
After a few days of seeing how the other half lives, Lex wanted to get home to Mumbai and I was ready to start my travelling again. I boarded a train for Amritsar in Punjab and will write a separate email about that so it doesn't look like an essay.
No-one makes me bleed my own blood, Asti xx
PS. We had told the brothers that Lex and I were dating and they in turn told their parents we were married, so we could share a room. This gets confusing but I wore a ring in any case. Lex told me when we were alone one night that we were married last January in New York and we met when I was holidaying there. This means that the past few years stay relatively unchanged in that our stories about our lives are still our stories (university, friends etc) and this way we keep our lies down to a minimum and won't get tripped up. His attention to detail can be frightening... :)
Friday, February 29, 2008
guest blogging: astrid's account of the jharkhand wasteland
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7 comments:
[ed. note: I'm going to come off as an arrogant prick here, but I should accept that as my forte.]
Minion: group of followers
Mignon: delicious steak
The guy who wrote the last comment obviously has no grasp of the "singular vs. plural" concept. A minion is singular and defines a single follower. Minions would be group of followers. He should move to the mountains and stop correcting people's typos.
Oh I remember that wedding! I think somebody got drunk and there was a carnival clown who kept trying to guess everyone's weight and it looked like Astrid was going to leave you at the alter, but she didnt! And then you got your hand stuck in a gumball machine and the fireman got it out.
See! See! I can go along with a smooth lie, take me to India!
anna, speaking of pricks correcting grammar:
alter - to change something
altar - a place I will never be left alone under penalty of blood (and lots of it)
so, maybe you should stay at school and take some english lessons before you come here.
Oh Anna thank goodness for you, I don't even REMEMBER the wedding. All that champagne, I vaguely remember being knocked out and dragged to the altar (altar not alter, you happy .x?). But that could have been the carnival clown. And I could have been dead at the time.
Yeah, sorry about that whole clown costume thing, I had to leave straight for work after the ceremony.
and kurt, thank you for you marvelous presentation of "Madame Butterfly, Nude in 37 Minutes". It certainly involved a lot of jumping. Almost hypnotic, your jumping.
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