The Ballad of Cruel Freddy Bellows

He was a malicious, twisted, cold-hearted fellow,
That evil, nasty, young Freddy Bellows,
In Riverside's gutters, grog shops, bordellos,
There's not a one alive; man, priest or whore,
Whose fruit hadn't been tainted by his rotting core,
And who wouldna 'spected that cruel Freddy Bellows,
Would earn his dues at the end of a gallows.


He was christened by his preacher father as Louis James Emmerson, but he wasn't to know that, having run away from the long, black-legged, drunken madman as he chased the three year old around the larder, his breaches open at the front with rigid, shameful intent.

By the time he'd stumbled through the freezing fog, into the frightening dark of Riverside, he was sobbing and sliding in the greasy, putrid gutters, his tears rolling down his left cheek - his right eye had swollen completely shut. His arm, which he would never straighten properly again, was on fire, and he longed for the only warmth he'd ever known, his mother's tender, protective embrace.

In his cold fright, he thought he'd found it again when he took the safe, comforting hand of his young mother, and was led down a dank alley, but when they reached a small, peeling door at the far end of a dingy cul de sac, her grip tightened painfully, and transformed into that of another. He squirmed with fright, but before he could struggle free, he was thrust through onto a cold floor, and was immediately set upon by an unseen figure who, in the impenetrable darkness, forced themself upon him, smothering his scream with a rough hand...


He was a malicious, twisted, cold-hearted fellow,
That evil, nasty, young Freddy Bellows,
His trick was to slap-on some of Old Jim Crowe's tallow,
And in the dark of an alley, stick it to Mad Mary Fellows,
He'd lure her there, vacant and trusting,
And bash her around, shouting and cussing,
He was lucky, I guess, that cruel Freddy Bellows,
That a hard life in Riverside had left poor Mary fallow.


The man who was no longer Louis James Emmerson had never loved anyone other than his darling, kind mother, but exactly where she was, he had never known. During the years of his tormenting enslavement, so much of his mind had decayed. He would never learn that his last memory of her, crumpled on the cold larder flagstones on that horrible night, had in fact been her own last memory. Nor would he ever learn that the bailiffs had found the bruised, beaten, swollen body of a sixteen year old girl washed up on Westbank the following morning, never to be identified as a young Mrs Emmerson, the preacher's wife.

When he grew old enough for his brawn to match his aggression, Freddy fled his depraved incarceration and set about searching Riverside for something – for what he did not know, but he longed for it ... ached for it, with his entire being. He tried to find it, first in the arms, and later in the soiled skirts of Riverside's diseased, loveless women. Initially he had been fascinated by the fine frocks they wore; the billowing skirts and lace collars reminded him of warmth, and something long-forgotten ... something magical. But these women had come from similar stock to Freddy, and had little of what he sought once the pennies had changed hands. He soon became bitter, and rage seethed just below, and frequently spilled over the surface.

Freddy Bellows had known only hatred, cruelty and depravity his entire life. His rejection and rage took hold of him, fuelling him both physically and emotionally in a way that the Seaman's Powder he used to buy for a swift one on the docks of Westbank no longer did. He became cruel and dangerous. He took whatever he could, not only money – in truth he had little need of it - what he really wanted was for people to feel the anguish that he did. He had learned that the only time he felt happy was when he looked into the eyes of another, and saw their pain and horror, deep within. In time, Freddy came to realise that the more helpless the victim, the more pain he could inflict, and the more exhilarated he became.

Soon everyone in Riverside knew about Freddy Bellows, the hard-tempered sadist. Few had escaped his harsh treatment, and while some boasted their intent to "do 'im in", most kept a wide berth. His prey became increasingly difficult to find, but there were always the odd favourites; the stragglers who were left behind. Mad Mary was always an easy one to fall back on if things were a bit slow...


He was a malicious, twisted, cold-hearted fellow,
That evil, nasty, young Freddy Bellows,
His appetites grew, and his soul the more shallow,
And in one what he saw, she was new to the scene,
He sensed something forgotten, her frock familiar and clean,
And dog her he did, to the bridge he did follow,
But 'pon reaching this morsel, even for greedy Freddy Bellows,
This meal would prove more 'n Freddy could swallow.


Before long, Mad Mary had received a visit from a desperate Freddy every other night, as did a half-dozen other frightened Marys amongst the alleys and grottos of Riverside, each suffering increasingly horrific treatment as his appetites grew more and more urgent and depraved. In the space of a fortnight, three young women had sustained severe facial injuries at the hands of his unforgiving rage, while another had been so badly beaten that she had frozen to death on the cold stones where he'd left her bleeding.

The Riverside girls soon refused to work at night, and before long there were brawls and stabbings every evening in the filthy taverns along the entire length of the docks. Freddy was amongst them, too, and did more than his fair share of damage, always with a maniacal laugh and a lunatic's strength, but despite their best efforts, few were able to get within a dagger's reach of Freddy Bellows.

Late one night, Freddy woke abruptly from his bed of urine and vomit to find himself in the cold gutter outside the all-night tavern. He'd been dreaming about his beloved Mamma, and as he attempted to sit up, his groggy vision focused on the very woman who only moments before had been embracing him and rubbing his back. He shook his head, assuming that he was still asleep or drunk, but when she remained in his line of sight, gliding across the cobbles on the far side of the street in her regal dress, he staggered to his feet with a shout.

The woman turned towards the slurred bark, her perfect complexion changing instantly from question to fear as she saw the huge, pathetic oaf lumbar towards her. She shrieked and darted down the nearest alley, and Freddy jerked and staggered after her, knocking over boxes and tins as he called, "Mamma! Mamma!"

The frightened damsel was quick on her feet, but Freddy was a desperate pursuer. Before long he had halved the distance between them, but his anger had been sparked by her refusal to stop, and he had begun to curse and rave between his hacking wheezes. Just as he was nearly upon her, she shot sideways down the stairs by the Queen's Bridge, sending Freddy sliding along the slippery cobbles into the railing. He roared with pain and anger and raced after her, down the stairs and onto the shingled river bank. As he followed her around the closest of the great pylons, he suddenly fell to the ground with a great flash of light and an almighty pain in his forehead.

He shook his head with an anguished, piercing howl, sending droplets of blood and gore fanning out around him. As his vision cleared, he was confused to see his dear Mamma standing off to his right with her arm hooked into that of a slender, smirking, top-hatted gentleman. Realisation finally dawned on him that she was too young to have been his mother, and he flushed with embarrassment ... or was it rage? Freddy didn't have time to ponder what was going on, as a gang of familiar ruffians, all scars, sneers and glinting eyes surrounded him and closed-in.


He was a malicious, twisted, cold-hearted fellow,
That evil, nasty, young Freddy Bellows,
And while all wouldda 'spected that cruel Freddy Bellows,
Would earn his dues at the end of a gallows,
T'was not by a rope that Riverside choose'd,
But by cold steel and clubs of those wronged and abused,
As always the bailiffs, dredging the shallows,
Discovered his body, yellow and sallow,
And with the blood round his head, a grizzly red halo,
There was nought who would mourn him, that cruel Freddy Bellows.

Did you hear the one about the Racist, the Anti-Semite and the Suburban Australian Family?

This is a bit of a lame post, really, but rest assured I’m working on something a bit more worthwhile and more likely to make a contribution to society, which I’ll post in the next day or so. This post, on the other hand, is a bit of an interactive jobbie ‘cause I need some opinions.

Y’see, I’ve been a bit emotionally sore and sorry for myself these last few weeks, owing to the fact that I am still in transit on my way to Tibet, and my enforced exile in Melbourne, which should be making me feel great, is, apart from the SPECTACULAR coffee, making me feel lonely, alienated and arrogantly uppity.

It all stems from my catching-up with friends and loved ones over the last few weeks, many of whom live reasonably affluent lifestyles in the outer suburbs, and all of whom seem to be pretty free with their opinions. Me? I tend to cower a bit with my opinions, but lately, having reached the limit of what I will let through to the keeper, I have been sticking up for myself and my beliefs, which has certainly resulted in a degree of ill feeling between myself and certain parties … the consequences of which, unfortunately, are me feeling lonely, alienated and arrogantly uppity.

So I have been questioning my recent actions, and had been coming to a decision that I was just going to have to shut up and hope that it will all go away, however this week I have read a couple of blogs of people who it would seem have similar views to my own, and it gives me a little bit of hope that I am not alone in this world, and that in some places, and amongst some people, there are still intelligent people with informed views and opinions.

Geez, Donkey, will you wipe the rabid foam from your mouth and just get on with it? OK, so this is some of the stuff I’ve heard over the last few weeks, and I just wanna know if you think the following comments and opinions are OK, right and proper for a modern, learned, informed society. So, here we go;

- In reference to a neighbour: “The squinty-eyes next door…”

- As a joke, in front of his children, in response to his wife’s nagging: “I’m sorry, did I fall into a bucket of black paint? I must look like a nigger the way you keep telling me what to do tonight…”

- Regarding local governance: “The council is run by Jews and they all look after each other. If you wanted to open a childcare facility, you’d never get it through council, but if it was for Jewish kids, it’d be approved tomorrow”

- In regards to seeing the Indian foreign minister on TV saying that his government will not stand for the continued incarceration of Dr Haneef in Queensland: “But I bet it’d be OK if you wanted to send a bit of money his way”.

- In regards to Muslim women in Australia not being prepared to remove burquas or headscarves, “When they’re in our country they have to adopt our customs … this is a Christian country after all”.

- Regarding government-funded, public education versus (increasingly) government-funded private education: “People who say they haven’t got enough money to send their kids to private schools are probably the ones who don’t really value education as important for their kids”.

- In regards to public shower cleanliness: “In our country, they should have to adopt our customs, or not be allowed to use the showers”.


For this roving Donkey, it has been a difficult process to return home recently to a government who has finally noticed something wrong with the health and social systems in indigenous Australia, and thinks that the best way to prevent further child abuse and improve indigenous health is to send in armed soldiers; accordingly I have been increasingly dismayed at the rising tide of hatred and xenophobia that seems to have infiltrated the suburbs.

It almost feels to me like some of these enclaves of white Australia have become like those Biospheres; y’know the ones, where nothing (such as good ideas and reality) gets in, and nothing gets out (at least we can be thankful about the latter, although I am fearing that their ideas seem to be leaking through some undetected crack in the dome!).

So, tell me, am I wrong to feel down and outraged about this? Is it just a case of the times moving along, and me being slow to catch up? - it wouldn't be the first time Donkey had been caught napping while the world flew-on by, as evidenced by my pink side-winders and bright orange pair of pants. Has the re-emergence of global terrorism changed society so much that it's now acceptable and normal to opine hatred and intolerance of cultures and beliefs which don't mirror our own? It's possible that this is the case, but I still can't help but think it's a tad irresponsible to bring up children with a sense of what is right and wrong, and then just throw it all out the window when it suits and say that all those immigrants, Muslims, Jews, protestants (Geez, don't get me started on what I've been hearing about those guys!) and everyone else are fair game for mistrust and abuse.


I suspect this prototype for outer suburban planning could be good for both sides of the political spectrum; it locks the racists inside and keeps out any of those disgusting, drug-smoking, free-loving lefties with their ideas about equality and racial tolerance. A win-win situation, if ever there was one. Pic: www.ec.gc.ca

The re-emergence of the angry, young ... Donkey

I bet you never knew that there was a punk band from the 1970s called Thrush and the Cunts! Nah, me neither, and I nearly pissed myself with mirth and fell off my seat on the train this evening when I read about it. Apparently they were a seminal punk band in Melbourne's avant garde music scene in the late 1970s, and almost certainly the southern hemisphere's first all-female line-up of the genre. They obviously didn't do much other than snarl and bang a few pots and pans on stage, 'cause no one seems to have heard of them, but it got me to thinking about how much, after all these years, I still don't know about punk ... and I suspect I'm not alone.

I can remember my first punks. It was a wet Sunday afternoon in about 1982, and I was in the city with my family. Things are a bit different nowadays, but back then, there didn't seem to ever be much cause for families from the suburbs to go to the city, and certainly not on a Sunday, when everything was closed. Looking back, I'm sure it might have been only my second or third time in the city, and it was all quite overwhelming – lots of huge buildings and unfamiliar streets. I remember feeling completely swamped by the number of people around the main railway station, and I was scared I was gonna let go of my mother and be swept away in the throng. But most of all, I remember being shit-scared of all the punks that were hanging around.

Perhaps my memory of this day has been distorted a little (blind terror has a habit of doing that, I've noticed), but I remember groups of three or four guys and girls milling around – the girls all with thick eye-liner and matted hair, and the guys – man, the guys – they were, in retrospect, friggin' immaculate! Mohawks sticking up into the sky in huge, coloured pillars of gel, press studs in their eye brows, massive crucifixes dangling from their ears, leather jackets with all kinds of studs and metal hanging off them, and they were all sitting around looking angry and menacing ... well, actually, if I am to be really honest about it, thirty-year old Donkey has to admit that they may just have been hanging around talking, laughing and generally minding their own business. But still, at the time, I was pretty certain I was gonna get knifed and my family brutally killed if I so much as looked at one of these animals.

So what is it that makes a seven year old Donkey scared of punks? It's a tough question. How could I have known what they were? I can recall having seen a Knight Rider episode in which KIT and a leather-daked Hoff took on a gang of mohawked bikies who were terrorising a US mid-west town (yeah right, like there would have ever been any real punks in the American mid-west!). And perhaps the leather-clad, violent villains of the Mad Max film which my older siblings had forced me sit through would have seemed pretty frightening to a six year old Donkey foal, so it's possible that I was influenced by these, but the truth is, I can't really identify how I would have known to be frightened of these people.

By my reckoning, that Sunday in 1982 must have been almost the end of the punk era, and these studded, mascara-ed, follicularly sculpted beings were probably the last of their tribe in Melbourne. I was too young to have been exposed to their behaviours, and never really learned what they'd been about. Later, when I was old enough to understand a few things about the world, the punk waters got muddied a bit with the rise of the Nazi skins, who were violently terrorising the Vietnamese immigrants in Melbourne's west. These leather-clad, jack-booted skin heads received the mantle of 'punks' by those of us in the comfortable, ignorant, leafy east, and so cemented in me the fear of punks that my early trip to the city had engendered, and I remained mistrustful and fearful of punks for many, many years afterwards.

Back to Thrush and the Cunts (there was no real need to slip that in there again, but I think you'll agree, it's both priceless and fun). Tonight I have been reading a history of one of my greatest, non animate loves of this world, the community radio station, Three Triple R (for the uninitiated, cast your eyes over yonder to the link in "Stuff I Dig" and enjoy the fun). I found Triple R in about 1990, when, for reasons not entirely clear to me, I began rejecting the music, clothes and attitudes that I was being force-fed by my friends, TV and anyone of influence, and I found in this rather odd radio station, with its occasional dead-air and potty-mouthed announcers, not only an extraordinary range of fantastic music, but a critical, and seemingly informed view of society, literature, the media and in particular, politics and social issues, which had definitely not been a feature on my landscape up until that point. Most importantly of all, I somehow felt both welcomed and valued by the Triple R family, in a way that I certainly hadn't been by the supposed trend-setters of my peers and the wider, mainstream media.

Triple R was born in the mid 70s, and much of its early content was punk and new wave, which was screaming its way out of the UK and finding a receptive audience right here in extremely conservative Melbourne. What I have discovered in my reading, and through listening to the Rs over the last decade or so, is that punk was not about white supremacy and radical right wing views – quite the opposite, in fact. Punk was about a bunch of people who rejected the conservative music, literature and especially politics, of 1970s Britain, the US and even lil’ old Australia. These talented, and occasionally informed individuals, far from being the racist red necks I later mistook them for, were actually the next generation of peace-loving hippies, admittedly with a little confusion over their post-free love identity, washed-up onto the shores of 1970s conservative, Cold War politics. Like their older brothers and sisters of the 60s, and like me making the switch to Triple R in the 1990s, they were simply rejecting the conservative politics and social attitudes of the day, albeit with a little more angst and irritability, a bucket of hair gel and a much sharper wardrobe.

As the punks grew up, got their hair cut and became teachers and lawyers, the radio station that they had managed also grew up, but Triple R maintained that healthy cynicism and critical comment which had grown out of its punk roots. It was this quality which drew me to it, and I too developed into the socially-minded, critical, witty, attractive and upstanding citizen you see today. In a way, you could say that I too appraised what I was being exposed to by way of music, media, social ideals and politics, and decided to adopt what I liked, and reject what I didn't. In that way, despite having been born about fifteen years too late, I too grew to be that which I once feared above all else; I too became a punk, albeit a ridiculously exaggerated, mule-like one with questionable bodily hygiene.

And armed with those angsty desires to do it my own way (I reference Sic Vicious and Nancy here, not Frank), I forged a life for myself which has taken me out of the suburbs, and into the big, wide world, where those views and ideals have been further shaped by my experiences. It's fair to say that there is nothing more likely to instil nationalistic pride in an individual than sending them away to live in another country, and it's true that this post-punk era expatriate Australian Donkey punk still, despite the odds, is proud to be Australian, and to live his life according to a set of values he deems to be uniquely Australian. The only problem, unfortunately, is that Australians at home seem to be rejecting those very ideals of social justice, inclusion and compassion which I believe makes us great. In returning to my beloved country this month, I have been shocked to discover just how deeply ingrained the xenophobia has become; from the political elite right down to the average Joe in the suburbs, Australians are becoming more and more conservative, less and less concerned with the plight of their fellow man and moving closer and closer to the right … and it's heart-breaking.

Every time I sit and listen to a loved-one spouting off about this foreigner or that aborigine, the bile starts to rise, and I increasingly find myself looking around for alternative conversations and alternative media to give me a metaphorical back-rub. Obviously I turn to Triple R, which never disappoints, and I also seek counsel in other, like-minded punks. People like me who are becoming increasingly horrified at the attitudes and beliefs of our leaders and neighbours, and people who, like me, have a developed social conscience and an ability to recognise what they believe in, and what makes them happy, and to offer informed criticism where behaviours and attitudes threaten these values and beliefs, even if it means going against the norm. Like me, these people don't wear ripped jeans, sport green mohawks or clink under multiple piercings, they are regular, everyday people - teachers, lawyers, plumbers and health professionals. They almost certainly wouldn't identify as punks, but in their admirable way, they are doing exactly what those menacing, leather-clad young people did some thirty years ago.

"Punk's not dead, it's just gone to bed", so the pop song goes, but bloody hell, it's time to wake up and get active again. It's time to stick a metaphorical pin through John Howard's nose, flash the forks to commercial media and spit at the camera of shoddy journalism. It's time to start being critical about who we are, and what we can do to become who we want to be, even if that means playing it a bit dangerously, and rejecting "what everyone else thinks".



I guess this could easily be conceived as frightening to a young Donkey, but you've got to hand it to 'em, imagine how long it would take to get that together each day. Pic: Google images




Don't worry about this pic - it's functional and has nothin' to do with the story - Donkey

The Horror, The Horror

As much as I try to avoid them in an effort to preserve my sanity, I'm still a sucker for a scary movie. I should clarify here; I'm not talking about those over-done teen flicks with the wacky, stereo-typical, drug-smoking Jamaican guy, the big-boobed, dumb blond cheer leader who 'puts out' and the nerdy girl who takes off her glasses and her blouse in the last scene, nor am I talking about those crappy, B-grade shockers which actually feature creeping vampires wearing black capes and turning into bats, disfigured, drooling monks and ware wolves which howl in silhouette before a full moon. I'm talking about REALLY scary movies, like the ones with faceless little girls who walk slowly, unstoppably, towards you, or the ones with large, high ceilinged rooms, completely bare apart from a lace-lined basinet – man, it took me two years of therapy after seeing those films before I could go to the bathroom at night in our old house without turning on every single light – and THAT'S what I mean by a scary movie.

Of course, there's also the other type of scary movie, in which the ghouls are not so much mythical creatures from the underworld, but rather a nasty, more sinister kind of evil which, as we grow up and learn more about our surroundings, we know actually exists in our real, everyday world. And it's this type of scary movie that I wanna dwell upon here.

In these types of films, you don't necessarily know that what you're watching is supposed to be scary; the story usually starts slowly, and plods along as it introduces us to everyday characters like ourselves. Just like in real life, we are introduced to these people through a glimpse of their often hum-drum, normal daily routines; shopping, paying the electricity bill, picking the kids up from school, taking them to the park, catching the bus, watching celebrities on TV ... just the routine, normal stuff that we all do everyday.

Often in these films, through the course of these everyday events, we are introduced to various, seemingly external characters, usually men, who play a minor, although significant role in a single daily episode. It might be the kindly guy who works behind the photo-processing counter at the mall, or the old, friendly bloke who turns up in the outback to help fix your broken-down car, or perhaps the quiet man on the bus who moves over to give you a seat, and who mentions how beautiful your young daughter's hair is. Simple interactions which seem like everyday occurrences (which is exactly what they are), and definitely nothing to be scared of.

Invariably, as these movies progress, the passenger on the bus happens to turn up again, this time at the main character's local corner store, and next time outside their home. Or perhaps it's the photo guy who finds an extra print and brings it to their house, even though they'd never given him their address. Or maybe it's the insistence of their rescuer to spend the evening at his camp because the nearest town is too far away. These scary movies are excellent, 'cause each of these somewhat odd happenings still appear a bit normal, but for the viewer who, through the series of initial, everyday events, has developed some affinity for the central characters (and perhaps, who has started to become one of these characters) it starts to get a little eerie.

By the time we begin feeling uncomfortable about what's happening on the screen in front of us, it's too late. Just as if this was actually happening to us; just as if it was the guy from our own photo processing place, or the guy from our own bus trip, by the time we realise something is amiss, he has already infiltrated our privacy. Like the helpless characters, we too are helpless to stop watching. The plot has been constructed very slowly, and very methodically, and now we're implicated.

And the best part in these films, and by "best" I mean the "totally shit-scary" part, is when the penny finally drops and we discover just how whacked-out this guy is, and if you'll indulge me, that is usually when, as the central character, you have just sent little Lilly off to the park to walk the dog with kindly old Harry from next door. Just as you have every afternoon for the past three months, you kiss Lilly and wave with a smile as she walks away with her little hand in his, and with the old blood-hound, Rex, straining on the leash in front of them.

An hour or so later, and you notice you have been hovering around the front window, waiting for them to return. A few hours after that, you have been to the park twice to see if they are there, but no sign, and you are getting frantic. Again you go next door and bang on the door, calling for Lilly and Harry. No answer. Desperate, you climb over the fence and peer through the only window in the house. The rapidly-fading light makes it difficult to see inside, but soon your eyes adjust and you see a large room, completely devoid of furniture or floor coverings. The space is bare and cold looking, and then the walls catch your attention.

What you had absently assumed was dark, patterned wall paper, you now notice to be a floor-to-ceiling collage of photographs - every inch of the wall is covered, and on each one, someone's face has been blacked-out with a permanent marker. With a start, you fumble with your torch and peer more closely at the closest wall, and right there and then, the wind rushes out of you. Gripping the windowsill with horror, you notice that in each photograph, immediately beneath each scribbled, black marker mess, is the body of a little girl dressed in a summer dress or winter overalls, holding Rex's leash.

Now if you're anything like me, it's at this moment in the movie that your blood runs absolutely cold. Up until then, there had been some suggestion that all was not well, but at this point, the danger has reared its head, and the real horror of the helplessness of the situation has been revealed. To me, this real, easily identifiable, and genuinely imaginable horror is what is the scariest thing to watch. It's scary because it really happens – we see it on the news and read it in the papers ever week. Investigations later reveal a lonely individual with severe depression or mental illness, often manifesting with a degree of obsessive-compulsive behaviour.

As I said, at that point of the movie, when we see the photos on the wall, or the hoard of scrap-books full of newspaper clippings, or the collection of victims' cars, the thousands of candles, the names scrawled all over a wall, the collection of knives ... whatever it is, it makes my blood run cold. Much like what happened to me on the bus only a couple of days ago.

But first, just like in these very scary films, I need to introduce you to the hum-drum, drone-like daily existence that my life has become since, while en-route to Tibet, the Chinese authorities have put the stall on my visa application. Basically, rather than just spending a couple of days of fine dining and catching up with friends in Melbourne, I am now faced with five weeks of getting up in the cold, dark mornings, and struggling to the office on the crowded train, tram and bus, sitting in a dimly-lit, miserable office all day, and leaving in the cold, wet, depressing dusk to retrace my steps towards the cold, dark, miserable and, as you will soon discover, sinister outer suburbs.

It was while stewing in my own, depressive juices on the bus a couple of mornings ago, that I experienced real, blood-chilling horror. In my semi-comatose, commuter state, I boarded the bus, checked my ticket through the machine, and momentarily moved up one level of consciousness as I scanned for a place to park my substantial Donkey ass. I avoided sitting next to the loud-mouthed school kids 'cause I wanted to read, and I bypassed the business man reading his broadsheet newspaper as I didn't fancy a smack in the face with every turn of the page. I avoided the fat guy ('cause two fatties on one seat just isn't practical) and I selected a vacant spot next to a respectable-looking, middle-aged woman. She was well-dressed, with elegant, not-too-much face make-up, excellent posture and she was, I assumed, reading a novel. All in all, the most benign choice for a seat on the bus that morning.

I sat down and busied myself with getting my book open, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, and as I settled into page 542, I noticed in my peripheral vision that my well-dressed neighbour was not reading, but writing, very quickly. I didn't pay too much attention, however, as I was slowly drifting back into a coma, but I did notice that she would periodically stop writing and look up to the very upper corner of the window, before resuming her correspondence.

Melbourne traffic being the ridiculous joke that it is, I came-to about ten pages and only 200 metres later, and realised that the lady beside me had been writing frantically the entire journey, except during her periodical scrutiny of the upper window. I stole a glance at the writing in the open, lined exercise book in front of her; she had just turned the page, and was completing the first three lines, not with words, as I had expected, but with an identical, continuous, curling line from left to right. "A bit strange", I mused, and returned to my book, but rather than take up my (by comparison) less interesting novel, I noticed only moments later that this prolific woman had completed the page with a further, identical thirty-odd lines, at which time, true to form, she looked up and stared at the upper window, before returning her gaze to her book in order to turn the page.

And as she did, my blood drained cold. As she attempted to turn the page, she fumbled, and in doing so, revealed an entire exercise book, perhaps sixty-four pages, each one filled with thirty-odd lines, and each line featuring the identical, scrawling script. I started visibly out of my mediative state, and tried to look at her face beside me, as I did, she met my gaze with a cold stare, devoid of any warmth or companionship, but with a challenging menace that left me with only limited control over my bladder. Unintentionally, I had shuffled away along the seat, and with relief I noticed my stop approaching. I rushed off the bus, and stood leaning against a pole as I sucked in lung-fulls of cold, fresh air. After a time, when my shaking had slowed enough to walk, I shuffled off to the office feeling frightened and alone. What an unfamiliar, unforgiving and sinister world this is.

____________

"I can't remain here any longer. I am an outcast; a freak to these people. All I want is to get by without hurting myself. All I want is to be able to mind my own business, and to live, work and be myself. It is not my fault that I was born this way, and yet, to all of them, I am a monster."

"If they only knew the agony I must go through; the years of therapy, just to get me out the door. What I have gone through, just to spend a few hours each day amongst them. They told me I am allowed to go outside. They told me that I am a person too, with all the rights of other people. They told me that I was equal ... but it's not true."

"Sure, I might dress like them; put on make-up and look like them. But I will never be one of them. Not while the danger remains ... the danger of me flipping-out. I couldn't handle that again – the horror in those people's faces. The women shielding their children's eyes from the sight of me, as they would some hideous monster. The screams of panic – I couldn't bare that again, being the object of everyone's fear and hatred."

"I thought I'd come so far. How bloody stupid I was to believe that I could hide my repugnance from the world. I should never have tried. Oh, how I have enjoyed my wanderings these past months. How I have loved being amongst them, feeling the cold wind and rain on my face. I genuinely believed that I was going to be OK. Just doing those little, secret things – those simple, silly routines ... it was never ever going to make it all alright."

"But I was a gullible fool. Because those stupid games - those coping mechanisms – they weren't invisible at all. They were there for all to see, and today, on the bus, I saw a man looking at me with that familiar terror, that same fear and distaste as I had seen in those faces before, all those years ago. I hate them ... and I hate myself. I'm staying in here now. Staying until I ... until it all goes away. That's what should happen. Monsters must be locked away where they can't do anyone any harm."



OK, so I said they didn' t scare me, but this portrayal of Dracula, in the early, German silent movie, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, still freaks me out whenever I see it. Pic: Wikipedia

Queen Victoria and the Three Chauvinist Bears

One wouldn't exactly say that it was with great, big, welling tears in his voluminous, Donkey eyes that your favourite barn-yard correspondent wandered up the gangway of Indira Ghandi International Airport for the last time on Saturday Night. I had just suffered a week of being metaphorically turkey-slapped by every high-ranking official from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as I tried to organise my exit papers, and this was followed by a walk through the furnace-like heat, with it's dust-laden twenty feet of visibility, amongst the most uncaring, and unforgiving traffic in the world, and by the time my last hours of Delhi daylight had faded into the hazy smog, I was pretty-well at the end of my tolerance for my home of the last eighteen months.

The traffic on the way to the airport (from the inside of a car, this time), was equally harrowing thanks to the city's questionable attempts to showcase its even more questionable modern infrastructure to the international Commonwealth Games-viewing public (at the expense of acres and acres of itinerant housing settlements – leaving millions homeless each day), and my mood didn't improve all that dramatically when faced with a $180 excess baggage bill and a final kick-in-the-ass in the form of a forty minute wait in the immigration queue. And, to add insult to injury, I'd have to say, that last forty minutes wasn't sweetened by the huge hoardings on all the walls, floor and ceiling suggesting that "together, Delhi will show the world in 2010". "Lotta work to do!", that's all I can say. So, no, it wasn't as a blubbering mess that Donkey squeezed his oversized butt into an airline seat last Saturday night – far from it.

Sad to admit that my last little stretch in Delhi wasn't the most enjoyable couple of months of my life, but while I'm a bit down on the place now, I guess the bad will fade from my memory in time, and the good (of which there is plenty) will soon boil over to bore the pants off all whom I meet, "Yes, we lived in New Delhi – it was wonderful! Best years of our lives..." Not sure how long this cycle will take to complete, but I wouldn't be surprised if, come the 2010 Commonwealth Games, I will have become completely sucked-in by the Indian Government's propaganda, and I'll be the biggest Indiaphile in the Commonwealth.

Which brings me to my point for this post – why do countries like India, or just about any other country in the Commonwealth, want to remain a member of that horrible club? Didn't Ghandi, the father of the biggest nation on Earth, wander across the country dressed in nothing but an old Cornwall (ironic!) potato sack, in order to OVERTHROW THE HATED BRITISH!?! It's rhetorical - of course he friggin' did! So after 150 years of extreme repression, followed shortly afterwards by perhaps one of the bloodiest roads to Independence the world has ever seen, these people decide they not only want to join the club set up by the bastards who have been killing their sons and daughters for generations, they also want to throw a big party for them as they host the Commonwealth Games in 2010!

But not only that, in "beautifying" the city for the big show, they are upholding the fine old traditions on which the entire Commonwealth was founded, and committing the kinds of atrocities upon their own people that the Brits once dealt out to them!

Isn't it funny how things go? It was all this and more which was washing over me as I launched into the big black some one-and-a-half hours behind schedule on Saturday evening. The "and more" had to do with Delhi society (one of the most unsocially-minded I have ever experienced), and in particular, the way they treat each other, especially if one happens to be of the lower classes, lower castes or, lowest of all, a woman!

To help explain the complexities of social India a little better, I call upon the grand old children's story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You'll remember that little Goldi busts into a house, a completely unwanted guest, and helps herself to the porridge. Now, you will recall from the story that the hot porridge was given to Papa Bear, 'cause the man of the house gets the best of everything. And so it is in lower to middle, to upper class Delhi society – the man gets everything he wants, and that just happens to be the best of everything.

The next hottest meal on the breakfast buffet that morning went to Baby Bear, who happens to be male also, and the first born, and there's no child more spoilt in this world than those rolley-polley Indian sons-and-heirs who love to ram their new remote-controlled cars, their brand-spanking new bicycles, their drivable, motorised toy cars or their new, league-standard soccer balls into the heads, ankles, hips and stomachs of passers-by, while their doting parents beam their admiration from the sidelines. I once even witnessed a wealthy father, with knuckle-white, closed fists, take to the head of a young, grimy beggar boy for getting in the way of his prized heir, even though the now-squealing young porker had deliberately swerved toward the helpless urchin with the intention of running him down. In a matter of seconds, the incessant, piercing ring of the bicycle bell was replaced by the sound of a dozen hungry piglets as the waddling blubber-ball donated a fair quantity of celebrated, first-born skin to the New Delhi pavement – poetic justice perhaps, but the young, innocent street-ling still copped a ferocious hiding.

So Papa Bear got the hot porridge, and Baby Bear got the warm porridge. Interesting that in India, it's always the poor old sod that does all the work who gets shafted, and that's usually a woman. So in the story, it was Mama Bear, after slaving away at the stove for hours, who ended up not being able to eat her porridge until it'd gone cold.

There's only one other in the Indian family structure who cops it worse than Mama Bear. Did you ever hear what Sister Bear's porridge was like? Of course you didn't, 'cause when Mama Bear's real first-born turned out to be female, she ended up taking a swim in a well – just like in India!

So if the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a comment on social structures in India, then who is Goldilocks? Hmmm ... now who could that be, I wonder? Let's see ... she's blond, pale skinned, has blue eyes – probably not Indian, so I guess she's European. She barges in uninvited, and helps herself to the spoils of the labour, gets first dibs on even Papa Bear's porridge, without so much as a second thought, and then retires in the early part of the day for a nap.

I don't know about you, but I'm drawing a pretty clear resemblance between Goldilocks and a once powerful, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouths, heartless colonial ruler who set its own citizens up as the highest caste in the land, reaped the spoils of all and sundry, and retired early in the day for a nap. So that's it, Goldilocks is Britain, and the Three Bears are the social and familial classes of India. And you thought it was just a good, old fashioned children's tale about a sweet, innocent little girl and some nasty woodland creatures. Not so, it's a cleverly disguised fable with a subliminal message to teach our children that while repression of an entire nation is strictly inappropriate, geneal repression of women within society is both tolerable, and necessary to ensure the ongoing stability of the family name and fortune. Goodness me, it's no wonder the world is going down the tubes!

The only question that remains, of course, is what comparison can be drawn from Goldilocks' rather grizzly demise when the oppressed Indian classes found her napping in their beds? Well India hasn't quite gobbled England and her G8 allies completely up as yet, but if the economists and their forecasts are even half-correct, the Three Bears are well on their way to making the biggest Goldilocks kebab the world has ever seen. No doubt they're timing their supper for well after 2010, however; after all, in typical sycophantic style, there'd be no reason to ruin the great party they're throwing for their Commonwealth friends.

THIS PIC HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY REMOVED

In the ridiculous heat, the streets of Delhi can be a most unforgiving environment – and yes, that guy next to Mrs Donkey is clearing his sinuses. Pic: Hagas

The heart of darkness

DISCALIMER: The following piece is written for yet another assignment cooked-up over at the House of Sternberg. The task this time was to write a piece based on the opening sentence. Then the tricky part – once completed, we were instructed to go through the piece, choose various words and consult a thesaurus for better ones, or at least ones that added to, or improved the writing. At the end of the piece (below), I have indicated what was changed.

Actually, I found this exercise tough, 'cause I usually use a thesaurus as I write. In this exercise, I selected many words to be changed, but at times, after consulting the thesaurus, I opted to maintain my original, chosen word. Other times, there weren't any suggestions to select from, and at others, I realised the word I'd selected was not really the one I needed – this often happens when you use metaphor to describe something, and as such the thesaurus doesn't always pick-up the subtlety. Enough from me – I hope you enjoy it...


I see things in darkness that no one should see by light of day, but then, that is the burden of those of us who are no longer tolerated out there; for those of us who have been sent here by friends and so called "loved-ones", by the judges and those who are said to be our legal guardians, by our religious leaders; our politicians. We are here because these and more have deemed us deserved of our fate, either due to our actions and thoughts in this life, or the wickedness we have led in others past. We are here now for ... I suppose you might say, "the rest of our lives", but from the moment you enter this place, your life as you (or indeed any of those who condemned you) knew it to be, has been terminated.

Here, in this no-place, I must endure endless days; endless, for with no window or opening through which to allow the passage of light, one cannot distinguish dawn from dusk. The hours, days, weeks melt with everything else in the airless, simmering heat, and become one, fluid age to be endured; just as one must endure the fetid stench of the other women, if indeed you could still call them such, for without regular water with which to bathe, and with many of my "companions" no longer able to control their faculties, whether through fear or physical dysfunction, there is little that remains of our dignity, and our humanity is likewise eroded with each corporeal indiscretion.

For some, it is easy to see why they have been sent here. Many are clearly no longer able to even think, let alone care for themselves, and their families and communities, either through a lack of compassion, or in their belief that their mother/daughter/cousin/wife would be well cared for, have sent them here to see out their days. Of course, not one has ever returned to visit, or to enquire whether their relative or friend is safe and comfortable, so whether through sensitivity or spite, to these once-significant others, we may as well be dead. Indeed, perhaps they are not mistaken ... perhaps death is not the absence of life, but rather an altered life; one now filled with unfathomable pain and emptiness.

We are not all soft in thought. I am not here because I cannot care for myself. In fact, were it not for me and one or two others, many of the women here would have perished long ago. Nor am I here for having committed some great wrong. I am here because the world has turned inside out. I am here because those who once taught and preached about virtue and morality had failed to add the qualifying phrase, "unless you are a woman". I am here because I would not accept the beatings, the abuse and the infidelity of a man who, although willing to take a wife to be enslaved, refused to love and provide for her. I am here for no other crime than for believing what I had been taught; for speaking-out, and receiving the wrath of a blinkered, uncaring and unjust society.

And so, to "protect myself and the community from my insanity", my husband's father signed the documents which led to my being locked away, to succumb to disease and hunger and fear.

The fear I speak of is fear of the night. Yes, the night. For there are other ways to distinguish between day and night, than the rising and setting of the sun. By day, we remain locked away, in the heat, amongst the sick and screaming. Locked away, out of sight, and on our own.

But by night, the international agency which runs this hovel (doing their best to "help the poor and destitute in the third world"), pack away their things and return to the town, to their homes and their families. The keys are left to the men. Men who, like us, have been sent away from their homes and communities. Men who, to the unseeing, uncaring world outside are, like us, dead. These men, with nothing left to lose, and no one to answer to, are tasked to clean our prison.

They come amongst us, with their leers, and their fists, and their sticks. Their appetites, borne from the betrayals of their own pasts, and fuelled by their own diminished humanity, are insatiable, and their brutality unspeakable. In this disgusting, putrid, furnace-of-the-un-dead, miles from the ears of a happily ignorant society, day and night is not distinguished by the presence or absence of light, but by the variance in pitch between a scream of fear or pain, by day, and the heart-piercing shriek of fear and pain by night.

Here, in this chamber of anguish and misery, I see and suffer things in darkness that no one should see by light of day. Each morning, a number of us are dragged away, bleeding and lifeless. I pray that I shall soon be one of them.


Thesaurus changes.

Sent to condemned
Has come to an abrupt end to has been terminated.
Period to age
Erodes just as surely to is likewise eroded with each corporeal indiscretion.
Bodily to corporeal
Compassion to sensitivity
Clarifying to qualifying (not thesaurus)
narrow-minded to blinkered
Crescendoing to heart-piercing
Inhumanity to anguish and misery

Business Trips

Why aren’t business trips for me like business trips for everyone else?

Ever since I’ve been old enough to have a job, I’ve been listening to friends sitting around the table at the pub, and telling me and all about their awesome business trips on which they are collected from the airport in a limo, taken to some swanky restaurant where they are plied with all-expenses paid, five-star cuisine and with all the best top-shelf scotch they can stomach before being whisked out to an up-market strip joint for a wonderful evening’s entertainment (again, furnished with all the plastic panty money they need to keep them happy), and then it’s onto the casino for a late night snort and a hundred bucks worth of chips, before calling it a night in the penthouse jacuzzi of a centrally located, luxury hotel with whom-so-ever the company deems fit.

The explanation then usually goes on to describe days out at the races, the footy, corporate golf, more fine dining and barrel-loads of booze. By the time the end of the trip arrives, the hosting branch of the organization almost has to carry my friends onto the plane, and it’s back to work the next day with a mighty hangover, an itchy, weeping knob and a truck-load of yarns for the tea room.

So I’m thinking about my business trips over the last couple of years, and I’m wondering why it is that I don’t have any wonderful yarns about wins at the races, picking up at the Black Jack table, snogging Keira Knightly at the Harbourside Brasserie or ordering room service and having the waitress jump into the tub with me wearing nothing but a champagne bottle and two glasses. Admittedly, these friends are from the Business and Finance sector (B&F), or the IT sector, or other such industries sporting a Two-Letter-Acronym (TLA), and are not quite in the business of saving the world (STW), but surely I’ve been at this long enough by now to at least have earned just a little respect in the form of away-from-home-comforts, haven’t I?

Well, obviously not! I’m writing this from the very dirty, hot, crowded departure hall of Chennai airport, where I have just been informed of yet another 45 minute delay of my flight, and there’s not a compensatory beer or beer nut in sight. This has come at the end of a pretty gruelling couple of days, and I’ve about reached the limit of what I can handle. But if you’re thinking I’m being a bit precious, and perhaps whinging just a bit too much,* allow me to draw a few comparisons of my current business trip, with that of my corporate friends.

Collected in a limo:
I wasn’t collected at all. I paid for a taxi, then struggled across the busy road with my luggage to find my taxi. I had to kick the driver up the arse in order to get him moving as he was quite happy to continue chatting with his mates. When he did finally get moving … he managed four feet before getting grid-locked in the car park. He then bypassed the exit, and went to collect one of his mates who needed a lift, and so he jumped into my cab as well.

Taken to a swanky hotel:
I didn’t have an identified hotel to stay in, but my suggestion of a place was met with the usual, “That one is full, Sir. I take you to good hotel”. “No!” “Yes sir, it’s a good hotel”. “NO!” ”OK, Sir. As you wish” … and sometime later, me: “What’s this?” ”A very good hotel, Sir” “Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh!”

I looked out the grubby window at the Mars Wedding Hotel, a one-and-a-half star wonder, complete with an attached wedding hall. Having been through all of this before, I knew that the best thing to do was to get out and have a look at the room, so at least then my chauffer would let-up with the nagging and let me go to another hotel. Actually, after entering the lobby and seeing the chain-smoking entourage leftover from a recent wedding celebration, I was kind of interested to have a good look at the type of room that the still-with-a-lot-of-climbing-to-do social climbers of Indian society will stay in on their wedding night. I was even more intrigued when I found out about the hotel’s special wedding feature, a “tunnel of love” ensuring easy, saree-stripping access from the marriage hall to the bedrooms.

As expected, the room was dirty, with a low, sagging bed and with a strangely musty smell about it (not surprisingly). Not quite what I had in mind.

Put up in a luxury hotel penthouse with a jacuzzi:
By the time I’d answered to the now commission-less taxi driver (for the fourth time) as to why I did not want to stay in his suggested hotel, I was pretty "emotional” about it all. We tried two more hotels with no rooms available, and so I had to make a decision on the next one.

The room wasn’t quite a penthouse … more a pentbox, and the grubby, cold water tap hanging out of the wall with the slimy-bottomed bucket beneath it (which was obviously what the hotel brochure was referring to when it listed "hot shower" as a feature of the room), was an almighty cry from a jacuzzi.

And I'll bet that my corporate friends didn't have someone else's pubic hairs in their sheets BEFORE they even got into bed! Who knows? Maybe they were even lucky enough to have full-length sheets; ones which covered the whole mattress, rather than the three-quarter length ones that I discovered when I threw back the bedcovers that evening. Now that was a brilliantly executed ruse to convince a potential guest that the room was OK if, like me, they demanded to give it the once-over before agreeing to stay – what a sucker!

Put up in a centrally located, luxury hotel penthouse with a jacuzzi:
This marvel of modern, sophisticated accommodation was hardly what you'd call "central", unless your idea of going out on the town was to walk around dusty, congested streets and visiting stores that sold rubber and glue. Chennai's original industrial zone occupies the 15Km buffer zone between town and the airport; the traffic-congested trip takes up to one hour, so my attempt at an evening's sight-seeing around the hotel's surrounding streets was pretty short, before I rushed back to the "jacuzzi" to wash all the dust and grime from my face and neck.

Taken to some swanky restaurant where they are plied with all-expenses paid, five-star cuisine and with all the best top-shelf scotch they can stomach:
Industrial zones aren't known for their tremendous restaurants, and so it was back to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Some proponents of Darwinism believe it's man's ability to choose that distinguishes us from the apes, but when the choice is to be the only diner in a strategically, dimly lit restaurant, or go hungry, as I resigned myself to the murky interior, I felt about as ape-like as I could get without wanting to scratch my armpits and sniff my neighbour's bum (fortunately, there was no one else around, as this could well have been a chargeable offence in Chennai).

Even the most inexperienced of travellers to India learns pretty quickly not to eat at places where no one else is eating, and my flagrant ignoring of the rules was bound to have consequences. Indeed, at 4am the next morning, those consequences made themselves known.

Incidentally, there was no booze, either. Actually, there was nothing to drink except warm mineral water as the guy with the key to the fridge had gone home for the evening ... with the key!

Ordering room service and having the waitress jump in the tub with me wearing nothing but a champagne bottle and two glasses:
All the available bog roll was gone after an hour of the afore mentioned consequences, so I staggered to the phone to call room service for some more. Despite the affirmative response on the other end of the line, I was hopping mad with panic thirty-minutes later, as, still sans paper, I picked up the phone for assistance. Now I don't normally like to get short with anybody, and especially not with low-paid hotel employees, but as the cramps and pressure continued to mount, my reserves of self control were all being directed towards my sphincter, and I really gave the poor guy on the other end of the line an earful (of abuse, that is, not the other).

My distressed mind has blacked-out exactly what I said to the guy, but what ever it was seemed to do the trick. Needless to say, when the knock came at the door only seconds later, there was no naked, sexy waitress ready to jump into the "tub" with me, but rather a scared little man who took one whiff of the room and cut a very hasty retreat.

Snogging Keira Knightly at the Harbourside Brasserie:
Not at the Harbour-side Brasserie, nor even in my dreams, owing to disrupted slumber thanks to soiled, inadequately proportioned bed linen and the afore mentioned nocturnal consequences of an unhygienic chef.

Taken out to an up-market strip joint ... the races, the footy, corporate golf, more fine dining and barrel-loads of booze:
Not quite! Instead, I got to spend three, spine-shattering hours in a stinking-hot jeep in order to have a look at swollen, bloated feet with various (or all) toes missing, putrid, gangrenous stumps from amputated limbs and near starving people trying to manage a living without family, social supports or a house to live in. All this before piling back into the mobile oven for another three hours of fun, all of which was repeated the following day.


OK. OK. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that Donkey's completely lost it this time; that he's way off the mark about those business trips, and that everyone knows that the B&F and IT guys and gals get all those perks because they don't get paid that much. You're thinking that Donkey's probably making a packet for all his hardships, and that's why he doesn't get the jacuzzis, strippers and beer.

Well I've done the sums, and had a look at what a new-grad IT professional makes in one year, and I've used the old net-based currency converter to measure what I'm making by comparison, and I'm here to tell you, People, that to even come close, my organisation is going to have to put me up in a penthouse, and ply me with food, money and days out at the races EVERY DAY FOR SIX MONTHS. I'm owed something here, and I'm not changing one more putrid bandage until I get it!

Just goes to show you how our society has lost it's way, hey?





* Then you’re probably right.


Despite their hardships, people in these parts still manage to have a wonderful time, unlike those across the big wet, who have it easy, but are rarely satisfied. Pic: Hagas

The Family Way

Today I went shopping for a new laptop to replace Billy, who is not quite making the grade at the moment, and while at the computer market, in the furnace heat, amongst the hoards of beggars, samosa cooks, shoe shiners and shifty types who’ll sell you a knock-off copy of anything from Hitler’s Mein Kampf to The Gideon Bible, I was again reminded of what it is that makes India a tough place to live.

You see, India, or more precisely, Delhi, is like your mother’s old Aunty when you’re a twelve year old kid. You know what I mean - she’s about a hundred-and-three and she looks it; she’s all hunched over with a grotesque, protruding spine sticking out of where her right shoulder blade should be. She’s got those hair-raising, gnarled, cold fingers that slop limply into your hands when you’re helping her out of a chair, and of course, there’s that massive mole on her chin out of which grows a long, course, black hair like the one Michael J. Fox pulls out of his chest when he begins to realise he’s becoming a Teen Wolf. And let’s not forget that flower-wilting smell of decay on her shallow breath from the lithium addiction, which you can just make out above the stench from her horrid, never-ceasing flatulence.

So Delhi’s basically like that … but when you live here, in the summer time, it’s not like your Great Aunt who still lives in the country, and whom you only have to see at Christmas. In the summer time, Delhi is more like when she has just had a stroke, and has had to come and live with you. Its so hot and dusty here that your life becomes just as if that hemiplegic old bag has moved right on in, and every time she shuffles by, you can hear the grinding of all the crusted grit that she’s accumulated in the folds of her flaccid, jowly skin, all the way down her useless left side.

Basically, living in Delhi from May to August is nothing short of torture. Leaving the house on any given day during these months is reminiscent of when, as a twelve year old, your mother ushers you closer to that ancient, grotesque dame - you’re trying to pull away, but firm hands are pushing you closer … and closer, and in the end, when your will is completely sapped, your astral self steps out of your body and begins convulsing on the carpet as your physical form leans in to kiss that cold, clammy, leathery mug. And like a day on the steaming, streaming streets of Delhi, once your astral self has re-entwined with your body and its stinging, newly stubble-rashed lips (thanks to Aunty’s sandpaper complexion), all you have left in you is to cower in the corner with frightened, haunted eyes for the rest of Christmas.

But just like Old Aunty Ethel, you know that it’s not Delhi’s fault, and that you have to feel a bit sorry for her. So you try to love her as you should, however with all the arthritis, the flatulence, the medication and the bed sores on her arse, she has become a pretty cantankerous old bitch! She never smiles, she never ceases her complaining and she can be as unforgiving as a sailor’s chancre. Still, you try to grin and bear the abuse and look for the nice things about your aunt. You try to love her, in the knowledge that she may not be a part of your life for very much longer, and maybe she’ll reward you for your patience with a decent slab of inheritance when she’s gone … but the old spinster just will not admit defeat and die. She’s been complaining now for the better part of a century, and although her fragile frame groans with the physical effort of it all, that cold, black heart just will not give in. Fuelled by sheer stubbornness, it just keeps on rattling with the relentless regularity of an autistic adolescent.

So that’s what Delhi is like in the summer time; ugly, painful, uncomfortable, relentless, and with an ability to seek out and exploit even the most deeply suppressed pockets of Catholic guilt imaginable. It’s for these reasons that Donkey is getting out. As of last month, my work at Saving the World HQ is no more, and after putting-in a short stint with the Sugarpuffs Anonymous people, I’ll be rolling on out of here, and making tracks for some higher ground … some very high ground, as it happens. Donkey’s got a new gig, and he’s heading to the roof of the world; the mysterious land of ancient Tibet, and its awe-inspiring capital, Lhasa.

So from early July onwards, don’t be too concerned if Old Donkey’s posts seem even a little more garbled than usual, and if I just wander off halfway through a …

… um … what was I? … oh yeah, a sentence, just appreciate that there’s probably a whole lot of high-altitude acclimatisation going on. Maybe you should just go and make yerselves a cuppa until I get that turn of phrase back on track.

I’m obviously pretty excited to be going to live in a place that I’ve only ever dreamed of visiting, but like many things as you get older, the excitement is somewhat tinged with other, less positive feelings.

Number one on the negative aspects chart is my having to live without the companionship of Mrs Donkey for a while, and that guts me completely! But there are some other, less easily understood negative feelings going on down there in that twisted, bitter, little heart of mine. For instance, now that I have made the decision to move, I’m starting to see things in Old, Great Aunty Delhi and saying to myself, “I’m really going to miss that”, or “I hope I get a chance to visit that before I leave” etc etc.

Glass half full or glass half empty? More like glass half broken, and all the water draining out, and three pieces missing, but I’ll still be banging around in the cupboard looking for a straw.


It's not just the expats, life's tough for just about everyone in Delhi. Pic: Hagas

Exposé

DISCALIMER: The following post comes to you after a considerable period of convalescence, during which I have been receiving post-trauma counselling. This post, prepared as a major component of my therapy, tells the story of my last few, tumultuous weeks.


I am not a stylish Donkey, as you’d note immediately upon clocking my somewhat unkempt, dishevelled form from across a crowded dance floor; initially it might be my fairly unorthodox … hmm, let’s call it, “avant-garde” dance moves, but before long your keen, stylish sense of the world would latch onto, and shudder at my baggy, flared trousers, my untucked, plain, long-sleeved business shirt and my hair style, distinguished as it is by the absence of anything that could even remotely be referred to as “style”.

No, this Donkey is not one to be found watching the Fashion channel (unless it’s 3am after yet another fruitless evening in a dance-club, and the bikini catwalk is about all the action I’m likely to see). This Donkey is in no way stylish, and I am sad to say, is often found wanting when a conversation amongst friends, be they men or women, inevitably turns to clothes, manicures, fashionable cars and penthouses.

I’m not quite sure when it happened, but I guess it must have been about the age of twenty-eight. A day before my 28th birthday, I was sitting around a grotty table at the pub, everyone was three-quarters of the way drunk, Banno (not his real name) was getting-off in the corner with some girl he’d been pursuing for months and who, true to form, he’d no longer speak to in three days time. Everyone else was arguing over whether Chewbacca had a penis, or whether wookies laid eggs, and the only concern anyone had was whether or not to order the steak sandwich or the BLT.

Jump forward to a week later, when at the age of twenty-eight years and six days old, the same players were sitting around a slick, stainless steel table in a neon-lit WINE BAR, and the conversation was all about Quirky’s (not his real name) new red sports car, seaside holiday home mortgages, hairdressers and who receives the best massages, and where. “I’m sorry”, thinks I as I spray my chilled chenin blanc across the polished granite floor, “Did you say massage?”. It was right then and there, that I knew the world had moved on, and this Donkey had somehow been left behind.

And I am sad to say that I remained in that suspended animation for many years. The conversations about grooming, French fragrances and massage continued, and I still had nothing to give. I became a fashion recluse, shying-away from the bright lights of personal hygiene and designer labels, and if ever I got caught in the crossfire of whether Thai massage outweighed the benefits of Swedish, I wondered how these boys, former comrades in arms from the public bar battlefields of Fitzroy, were able to lie still, wrapped only in a towel, and remain completely unaroused, as a naked Thai princess or perfectly-proportioned blond, bronzed Swedish goddess, straight from the hot tub, rubbed oil, seductively, onto their bodies. For this is what I understood massage to be all about.

Obviously it’s not only the male of the species that enjoys a good massage, and when I got married, Mrs Donkey saw the matrimonial union as the time to transfer the pleasure of a trip to the day spa with her girlfriends, to enjoying the experience with her beloved. This was all a bit hard for a poor Donkey to face. “Obviously my wife has a kinky side that I wasn’t aware of”, thinks I, “she must get off on a bit of ménage à trois action with her husband and a leather-clad Thai masseuse”. Call me a prude, but that was quite a bit more than I was willing to be party too, and I’m prepared to bet my entire beer glass collection that my getting an erection from the touch of another woman, in the presence of my wife, is not going to result in a happy ending.

So I became very, very crafty in my methods of avoiding the massage parlour … OK, sorry, I think that’s probably not the correct name for it … in Australia, “massage parlour” has somewhat different connotations, and as a red-blooded Australian Donkey, obviously I never avoided the massage parlours, but clearly my wife was never present at the time, and what I meant here was, not “massage parlours”, but other places where people go to get massages … got it?

So for years, I artfully parried every attempt by Mrs D to get me onto the hard wooden bench, where I would be fondled by a gorgeous, nubile, lathered mistress of tactility. When holidaying by the coast in Australia, I always seemed to be able to convince Mrs Donkey that the only time available for the massage at the day spa happened to coincide with the turning of the tide, and it was imperative that I went out fishing.

In Thailand, I made sure that our four days at the resort were jam-packed with activities, thereby making it impossible to fit the dreaded massage in. In Bangkok, I artfully deflected the proposition of massage by suggesting we go shopping (genius, pure genius!). In the Solomons, I managed to weave a wicked story about a foreigner who’d been driven mad by evil spirits after receiving massage from a traditional healer, and in Beijing, I timed our trip to coincide with a significant number of public holidays, so none of the massage “dens” were open.

Years and years had gone by, and still I had managed to maintain my dignity, and save our marriage, by avoiding the massage bench, but despite the bubble of smug, self-congratulations at my shrewdness, I could tell Mrs Donkey was onto me. She started to make noises to the effect that the next place we visit which has massage on offer, we’re getting one. I realised that there may be no avoiding it this time; Mrs Donkey was keen for some three-way, horizontal action, and I was going to have to either remain cold and limp by sheer force of will, or kiss goodbye to our trusting, harmonious felicity.


Mrs Donkey and I recently holidayed in the gorgeous southern Indian state of Kerala. Kerala is absolutely amazing, and after a year and a half in the barren north of that vast country, the lush, tropical gardens, friendly faces, flawless hospitality, azure beaches, wonderful food and blood-red sunsets made Kerala seem like the Garden of Eden – if there was a paradise on Earth, this was most certainly it!

Unfortunately, what I was not aware of until we arrived, and what Mrs Donkey was certainly privy to when she booked the tickets, is that Kerala is the home of Ayurvedic medicine, a large component of which being massage, and it was offered absolutely everywhere.

The Lonely Planet guidebook describes Ayurveda (knowledge of life) as being a spiritual and medical practice based on the concept of restoring imbalances in one’s general well-being. The massage component of this is like the “jump-start” to health, and combined with a special diet and exercise, one can achieve a daily state of health and relaxation. This sounded right up Mrs Donkey’s alley, so she began harping-on about booking in for a “service”.

I did my best to parry, “Not here, though, it looks a bit touristy. We need to go somewhere ‘credible’ if we’re going to do it properly”, but my efforts were a bit half-hearted, and while Mrs D was having a sleep one afternoon, I resigned myself to fate, and went looking for the Ayurvedic Institute that I’d seen sign-posted earlier.

As I walked through the delightful, palm-shaded streets of the tiny Keralan seaside town that sleepy afternoon, I commenced my spiritual journey to Ayurvedic enlightenment, and began to think positively about what lay ahead. I turned a corner in the narrow street, and entered a massive clearing, in the centre of which was an enormous pool of holy Hindu significance and magnificent beauty. The Ayurvedic Institute looked out upon this, and I knew that I had selected an institution which took its practice seriously. With rising apprehension, I drew a deep breath and entered the jaws of either physical and spiritual enlightenment, or sexual ecstasy and the end of my marriage.

The woman who met me outside was not quite what I had been expecting. Sure, she was pretty enough, but not quite Bangkok-sex-show pretty, but still, I was not put off, and in the spirit of doing this whole thing properly, I signed us up for the full rejuvenation massage, complete with both hot oil and cream.

The next day I held Mrs D’s hand nervously as we arrived at what I reflected could well turn out to be our last hour of trusting, supporting love. We entered through the archway, which had been forbidden to me the previous day, and met with the Ayurvedic “Madam”, who introduced us to the two young ladies who were going to be our “hosts”. One of these two was the woman I had spoken to the previous day, and her companion was similar in her plainness, but I noticed they wore their sarees loosely, and I gulped down a hard lump of fear and apprehension. Behind them, in the darkness of the building, there were other shapes moving around, but I thought nothing of this.

It was time, and to my surprise, the two ladies led Mrs D away from me. I was a little confused, therefore, when two shapes emerged from the darkness in the forms of towering, athletic looking young men. “What’s going on?”, I panicked, and as Mrs Donkey and I were led in separate directions, I felt genuine loss at being separated from my beloved, perhaps for ever.

The next three minutes were like an old World War II film. I was dragged down a dark, dirty, dank corridor, on either side of which were large, iron, cell-like doors with huge latches that bolted them closed from the outside. I was led around the corner into what could only be described as a filthy cell, with no windows and a bare wooden bench as the only feature in the centre of the space. I was ordered to strip. “OK”, I relented, and waited for them to leave, or at least turn their backs, but in the end I had to reign-in my welling tears as I disrobed before these leering ruffians, who then approached to tie a string around my waste, into the front of which they tucked a paper napkin (a very large paper napkin, I might add). The napkin was then woven beneath my legs, pulled up my bum, and tucked it into the string at the back. Completely useless and ridiculous! And as I was ushered across the slippery, oily, dirty floor to the bench, I let out a dignity-swollen sob; my very last reserve of that essential human essence.

For the next hour, I clung miserably to the slippery bench-top, my muscles like walnuts as I tried to keep from falling onto the floor. I shuddered in pain as these two goons smacked my scrotum every time they ran their rough hands up my legs; suppressed a whimper whenever they stuck their hands up my bum; burned with shame as they ran their fingers around and then clinched my nipples. Hot oil and then cold cream – it seemed like an eternity as these rough bastards subjected me to all sorts of depraved violations, and still the worse was yet to come.

I was done-in with exhaustion when I was informed that the “relaxation massage” was about to commence. I was instructed to close my eyes and relax, and as one of the brutes left the cell, the other began gently caressing my entire body with his fingertips, sending me into writhing spasms of ticklish discomfort. By the time he had made his way up my legs and onto my abdomen, only my shoulders and heels were touching the bench as every muscle in my body screamed and I tried to breathe. In hindsight, I think it very fortunate that my eyes were closed, for as he continued to caress my nipples, I’m sure if I had have looked at him, he would have winked at me.

My paper napkin was a sopping, oily mess as my subjugator led me out of the cell, head bowed and my will beaten to a pulp. I crossed the floor like a lobotomised McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as the cruel brute led me into a shower cell and whipped my useless, sodden covering off me in one fluid, final undignifying sweep. He then proceeded to scrub my back with some soap.

They say that even the most repressed, beaten slaves still harbour a flicker of dignity, which smoulders deep within, and which maintains their humanity. And so it was, during this final act of dehumanisation, my flame within flickered into defiant indignation. “Leave me alone – please get out of here”, at which my repressor’s face fell, and he quietly left the shower cubicle.

I cleaned the oily shame from my body as quickly as I could and began wondering how I would escape, and whether or not I would return in the night to rescue my beloved, but as I tried to leave, I discovered that I had been locked in. I screamed in panic, and my heartless captor opened the door and dragged me back to the oily cell. There I removed my towel and dressed in my street clothes in two seconds flat. I ran straight out the door of the cell, along the dark corridor and out of the building, not daring to look back to see if I was being pursued. I crossed the road to the sacred pool, and sat under a tree, breathing heavily as I grieved for the lonely life that lay ahead.

Moments later, Mrs Donkey emerged in a similarly dishevelled state, fear evident in her rapidly darting eyes. We collapsed into each others’ arms and held tightly for a long time, sobbing with relief, and vowed never to leave each others’ side again.

Massage, hey? Not quite the sexual enlightenment I had been led to believe from all my poncy friends back home in Australia. Not exactly the relaxing, luxurious pampering, the descriptions of which I have had to endure through countless, mind-numbing conversations. Massage is a violating, dehumanising affront to a person’s dignity, and should be outlawed in civilised societies everywhere. Promotion of such activities should be likened to pimping and human trafficking, and those who do so, ought to be prosecuted accordingly under International Humanitarian Law.

One thing I have to say in defence of this harrowing experience, however, is that far from resulting in the end of our wonderful marriage, Ayurveda has brought Mrs Donkey and I even closer together, so I guess I must concede that massage is not all bad.




The sacred tank where Donkey and Mrs D were reunited. Pic: Hagas.

Snout in the Trough

When the notorious current affairs programmes of Australia’s free-to-air networks aren’t showering praise on our government’s wonderful achievements while at the same time turning a blinkered eye from various shameful misdemeanours which may make either the government or the network look a bit ridiculous and hypocritical, one of their favourite types of stories that they like to roll-out are the ones about Aussies and their unusual pets.

Sometimes it’s a coastal-dwelling couple with an itinerant seal that comes by for a feed every morning and who saved an entire ocean liner from near catastrophe a few years ago, or perhaps it’s a sheep-dog which was trained to walk on a barrel for a quirky television advertisement for prestige motor vehicles a few years ago and which is now breathing new life into a failing country town as tourists flock to witness it doing back-flips on top of a disused water tank, or maybe it’s a duck who nearly froze to death during a recent harsh winter, and who was given mouth-to-bill resuscitation by a duck-shooter, and who now visits each winter to share a nip of whisky with the newly-reformed, lonely old shooter who once saved its life. Whatever it is, stories about Australians and their unusual pets are a winner for subduing the nation, and always result in the television networks’ phone systems becoming jammed with viewers keen to offer their thanks and praise.

Ironically, these stories often assume pride-of-place during the thirty minutes of cutting-edge journalism (minus twelve minutes for advertisements and three minutes for network promotion) whenever there is rumour of the Government doing something a little dishonest in a bid to discredit the opposition or to scare the nation into re-electing them for an unprecedented twenty-third term. But I digress…

One of these pet stories which particularly springs to mind of late was that of a lonely, old widow living in the country somewhere in out-back Queensland, whose cat was so fat, that it had to be moved around the house in a wheelbarrow pushed by Old Mother Hubbard. This unfortunate beast, despite capturing the hearts and minds of the Australian masses, was so grossly obese that at one point, no doubt at the urging of the camera crew, the owner and her neighbour placed Miffy on the ground, bloated belly down, and the Australian nation laughed as one as his little paws moved back and forwards in thin air, being approximately five centimetres off the ground thanks to his massive, distended tummy.

It’s this image which you need to keep firmly in your mind as you think of another, bloated Australian beast of burden in the form of yer ol’ mate Donkey, who is currently on leave in the Great Southern Land, and who seems to have gone a bit overboard on the tucker since his arrival.

Anyone who has ever spent time amongst Australian alcoholics as they crack open their first beer of the day at 9am will be familiar with the term used to appease their guilt, “Ah well, it’s after twelve o’clock somewhere in the world”. Well it was with logic such as this, a couple of weeks ago, which saw the Donkeys, deprived of such earthly delights in Hindu-dominated India, launching into a couple of flame-grilled Whoppers in Singapore’s Changi Airport, at 5am. This little feast, amply washed down with sugar-laden, carbonated carcinogens, set the scene for a two-week gorge-fest which is rapidly hurtling Donkey towards a prime-time interview on Today Tonight.

It was akin to the white-line fever that otherwise well-adjusted sportsmen and women get when they run onto the field, and become homicidal maniacs. We landed in Melbourne, two seemingly intelligent, reasonably sensible, socially-minded Donkeys, and all of a sudden, all sense of gustatorial reasoning went out the window as we became reacquainted with the delights of our beloved city’s multicultural cuisine, amongst which not a single dish had even the slightest trace of curry spices! First up, it was Eggs Benedict at Kaleidoscope (a café at which the Donkeys fell in love), followed by coffee from Negrita, brunch at Brunetti’s (ohmygawd!), incredible gelato at Trampoline, real-milk shakes from Mule, and then it was off to our first BBQ in what has developed into an unbroken, daily ration of char-grilled meat, all washed down with wonderful, ice-cold Melbourne Bitter, Yarra Valley Sauvignon Blanc and creamy Guinness.

A week later, after just squeezing into an airline seat, we were sampling fresh snapper in Coffs Harbour, and yesterday it was Doyles’ famous fish and chips. This morning, while writing this drivel, I have been sitting in Sydney’s hippest new coffee house, Grind, where I am pleased to say, the Sparkling City is catching up with its windy southern cousin in terms of quality blends.

The Barrister wants me to leave now ‘cause I’m taking up too many seats which could be used by some of the Funky Kats coming in for a double-espresso, but Old Mother Hubbard has taken the wheelbarrow off to move Miffy out of the sun, so I’m stuck on the designer-grit of the polished floorboards, with my hoofs floundering about in the rich-smelling air. Maybe it’s time to start doing a bit of exercise … ah, no hurry, it’ll be dahl-and-rice-only again before I know it.




Something like how Donkey looks about now. This cat was a front-runner in the Australian media for weeks while the Government was being questioned over its inhumane incarceration of asylum seekers. Pic: Google images