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

Boom! Boom! Boom! Let’s go back to my room…

It was lovely being submerged in warm, liquid dark chocolate and having juicy, red strawberries drop into my drooling maw by 60s go-go dancers, but all that came to an abrupt, dramatic halt as an almighty boom shook the bed and room, and indeed Donkey from his slumber.

Still addled by my adventures in Candy Land, and three days on the punishing mountain roads of Pakistan, I was initially somewhat confused, and I thought that Mrs Donkey had just farted in her sleep again. But just as I was working out where the hell I was, and wondering why I had a hankering for Lindt and girls in tie-dye minis and knee-high boots, there was a second earth-shattering explosion which sent me to the floor with a nasty expletive as I discovered that the bed was solid; my stinging forehead informing me that there was no where to hide from the impending collapse of the ceiling.

I couldn’t believe this was happening - we were under attack! I shouldn’t have been surprised; in the last four days, my journey through Pakistan had been brought to you by the term “extreme military hardware”, and the Pakistan landscape was littered with it. Indeed, the first monument to the fresh eyes of a visiting tourist on the way from the airport to the capital is of a massive, stern-looking President Musharraf sitting atop a mountain in full, imposing military regalia, and beneath it, Hollywood-sized letters bestowing the virtue, “Discipline”.

The military theme was further emphasized by a massive collection of surplus military machinery decking out tiny town-squares in even the smallest backwaters of the country. Single-pilot jet fighters were arranged in poses of active flight outside all government buildings, and beside the bazaars, (hopefully) demobilised, camouflaged tanks hulked imposingly, their guns pointing up the main streets as a reminder to all “visitors” that their hosts were ready for any false moves. And then there were my favourites; real missiles mounted on cement buttresses and pointing to the heavens like enormous, military penises the likes of which feature in George W’s wet dreams every night. Add to these ‘monuments to the death of nations’ a sizable military academy in every large town and three ordinance factories, the smallest of which would dwarf Monaco, and it’s not hard to appreciate that Pakistan spends upwards of seventy-five percent of its national budget on the military, even while most of its population are illiterate and losing their children every year to vaccine-preventable diseases.

And there I was, stuck in the middle of a full-scale attack and wondering why my security briefing hadn’t mentioned anything about what I was supposed to do when receiving fire while dressed in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts decorated in humorous pictures of monkeys. “That’d be right!”, I moaned, “Twelve years of suffering under the right-wing military regime of John Howard, without finding myself within even a dull roar of some military intervention, and yet my unwitting membership of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ was unlikely to save me now, all the way up here in this remote border region, miles from any of my wonderful Pakistani coalition allies, who would be the only ones who could save me from the marauding hoards of Afghani militants who must surely be surrounding my hotel right at this moment, firing mortars directly at my room”.

On the floor next to my bed, in a snivelling, quaking mess, I was praying to God for my life, and I even tried a bit of an offering to Allah as well, although in my panic, the only Urdu I could remember was “As salaam alaikum”, so in my final hour, all the Most Holy would hear was me rapidly squealing “Hello”, in a very shrill voice, over and over again.

After half an hour, there had been no further explosions, and I had dozed off until an insistent knock at my door at 8am. Preparing to meet Osama himself, I opened to see my colleague tapping her watch in a frustrated signal of my tardiness. “But … but the explosion? Aren’t we under attack?”, I stammered. She shrugged and assured me that the Chinese were building a hydroelectric dam next door, and that they sometimes have to explode holes in the mountain. She then fixed me with The Stare, which told me in no uncertain terms that I’d I better get out of those ridiculous shorts, and get moving immediately.

So hang-on, maybe it’s fair to suggest that my initial assumption of an Afghan invasion of Pakistan was a bit far-fetched, but in my defence, do our East Asian engineer friends really need to do their practicing for Chinese New Year at 4am? Here I was in one of the most harsh and brutal regions of the world, in a country where children are taught to disassemble and reassemble a Kalashnikov while suckling their mother’s breast, and I’m supposed to know the difference between nocturnal excavation and an enemy attack?. As I sheepishly approached the vehicle under the glowering gaze of my impatient and unforgiving team, I surmised that Pakistan, Donkey and un-forewarned explosions DEFINITELY DO NOT MIX!

Cricket World Cup Fever is one disease that cannot be cured by any vaccine, and it is rampant in the mountains of Pakistan. Photo: Hagas

Lies, Lies, Lies

It doesn’t take the team from CSI Miami to work out that things have been a bit quiet of late, not only here on DonkeyBlog, but all over the blogosphere. I’m not gonna be apologising for all you other slackers at this time, but for mine, please understand that I have been suitably engaged in a great maelstrom of untruths which have been draining me of all the late-night energy I require in order to release the Demon Donkey of a night time.

Y’see, my time at Saving the World HQ is fast approaching its end, and so I have been engaged in that great pursuit of lies, yarns, slander and hearsay known as job applications, which takes considerably more effort and angst than the usual collection of lies, yarns, slander and hearsay that one commits to the page when developing posts for the Blog.

So, after spending sordid late nights seducing my new, sultry companions, such as Terms of Reference (or “TOR”, as I affectionately call her), Key Responsibilities, Desirable Attributes and Core Qualifications, there’re really no ‘porkies’ left in the bag with which to lay down an appropriate story about how Donkey’s most recent wander through a Delhi subway resulted in him attending a swanky, high-society party in Delhi’s most exclusive suburb at which he was hit upon by Ashley Judd.

So I’m really sorry about that, but next week I’ll be in Pakistan managing peace talks between the US and the Taliban Secret Command, and in the quiet hours, after negotiating for village workers’ rights with the WTO, I’ll see what I can throw together.

The important thing is that I still want you to drop by; perhaps, for the newcomers, browse around and enjoy a bit of Donkey Gold, and for everyone else, please leave your thoughts, insults or discussion topics in the comments box … or at least just have fun.

What can I say? Pic: Google images.

Jungle Fever

DISCLAIMER: The Crack Team over at the Sternberg Think Tank have been hard at it with the graphs, projections and international forecasts, and have come up with yet another writing assignment for Bloggers everywhere. The drill this time is as follows;

RENEWAL..just make an emotional statement. Have something to say. Reach into the creative pool and bring forth something inspired or something to inspire. And do it all with a limit of one thousand words.

So I’ve had a stab, let’s see how we go…


Renewal

I look in the mirror, and I do not see the man I once was; the man who walked the dusty streets or muddy bush tracks, who waved to his people, and stopped to discuss the heat, the rain or the sinister, nocturnal movements of foreign soldiers as they moved through the jungle each evening, sure in themselves that they went undetected, and completely oblivious that the women’s’ gossip sped hours ahead of them.

In those days, not all that long ago, I was a huge man. My chest was like a gigantic wine barrel, my arms like the knotty bows of the great pulu trees which shaded us from the intense midday heat, and like that bright, white spirit who was worshipped by the jungle folk, back in those days, my smile was intensely radiant. It was not a smile that was only lips and teeth, back in those days, my smile was also bright, sparkling eyes; it was a great, glistening meadow of forehead; a raucous, convivial laugh; a spine shattering slap on the back. Back then, my smile was bigger than the ocean … bigger than love itself. Back then, I was a great man.

What has happened to that great man? When did he die … and why? Who … what killed him? For he is surely dead. In this filthy mirror, inside this cold, impersonal concrete prison, the man before me is not big. He is tiny, stooped … he is disgusting. The skin hangs from his puny limbs like soaking laundry, and his flabby breasts droop from protruding ribs. His eyes are sunken, and his lips have retracted into thin, humourless membranes, stretched tight across a prominent jaw. It couldn’t be the same man, could it? This could not possibly be the same, great man of the jungle. Such a change could not occur in only one short year. It must be another man.

But with the final, angry flicker of flame left in my horrible, hunger-distended belly, I know that it is me. A year of imprisonment has done this … a year of torture, equally successful in its ability to kill, as to keep me alive in order to prolong my suffering. This is what has made me this way … this is what has turned me from the massive, powerful being of a year ago, into this hideous, pitiful creature. I know what has made me like this … and as that internal flame begins to kindle slightly, I have to admit that I know who has done this … it was me.

Yes, I have done this to myself. It was I, with a drive fuelled by naïve idealism, and stoked with raw arrogance, who left the jungle for this harsh, inhuman existence. It was I who told my people that I was leaving to contribute to a greater good, and it was I who allowed myself to be captured and imprisoned, not in a cell of stone and steel – these can be breeched. From those cells, a man can escape; can steal back his freedom with brute force and cunning. No, my prison is far more impenetrable, because my prison remains with me, wherever I go. It cannot be left behind or outrun. My prison is a prison constructed of my own lies.

And it has been in this hall of horrors that I have dwelt for this year past; this eternity. With brutal irony, I realise that my captor and torturer is paid and fed by my own self-loathing and disgust, and not surprisingly, the weaker I become, the stronger and keener his lash.

I am what I have become, because I have denied what I once was. I am a scourge; an apostate. I have succeeded in convincing those around me that I am both content with, and proud of my decisions, but I have not been able to hide the truth from myself. With the passing of each day, my lie has eaten me away … my muscles, my smile, my energy, my love. I began to mirror my surroundings; I became a horrid, angry, disgusting thing. I turned against those for whom I was once a champion, and as surely as the deadly poison flowing through me, I began to waste away.

“But it is for the best”, I told myself. “It is temporary, and once my task is complete, I will return to the wonderful place - the wonderful person - I once was.

But as I look in this mirror now, I am starting to forget. Was that great man real? Was he really me? Or am I simply dreaming about someone I once read about? That fire; that agony in my cold heart is scorching me now … it is telling me what I know to be true. I must break free from this prison if I am going to escape this excruciating death.

The lies must stop! I must be true to myself. I must return to myself.

I did it today; a lie was swatted from the sky in full flight like a hapless parasite. Many more will follow. Already I notice some colour in those thin, tight lips, and my chest is filling with deep, oxygen-filled breaths, not the rapid, shallow undulations of yesterday. My skin is ripening and my stoop is reducing.

My captor has not left me. He is a wily old wolf, who, with the scent of blood having been so recently before him, will dog my trail back towards the jungle. He will do all he can to block my way, but as I get closer to that lush homeland, I will grow larger and more robust. Soon I will outrun him, and as I approach that living canopy, my friends will hear my laughter … they will remember and they will come to the rescue.

They will shout, “Big fala man, hem arrive finis!” - The Big Man has returned.

Tagged Schmagged!

Okay, Sabrina has tagged me … I’m not really sure how these things are supposed to work, so maybe that’s weird thing number one – I have been blogging for 10 months and I don’t even know what a tag or a meme is! But there’s plenty more weird, so let’s get serious about it … six things about myself that are weird.

1. Scaredy Cat!

Ever since I was a little kid, I have been scared of the dark – now that I’m older, I can tolerate the darkness, but you can bet your life that all cupboards are jammed closed, checked and re-checked before I turn out the light. And Gawd forbid that the shifting house should cause a floorboard or cupboard door to creak open a little during the night. This results in my lying awake in cold dread for hours, lying stock-still so that the attacker can’t see me, and keeping my back to the offending cupboard (because obviously the attacker can’t get me if I can’t see them – got it?). And before you go laughing at me and calling me a sook, I’m here to tell you that Monsters Inc. wasn’t real, people! It was an animated feature for children and families. Closet-dwelling monsters are not fluffy, humorous little tykes – they are vicious, ruthless killers from the demon-depths, who’ll slay you with their blood-stained teeth and dagger-like claws as soon as you look at ‘em!

2. Reds Under the Bed.

I’m a social commie. What that means is that I tend to regularly put myself out, or disadvantage myself, in order to facilitate what I see as the greater good in a social situation. So, for example, I believe in everyone shouting during multiple rounds of drinks - I buy a round for everyone, and in return I expect someone else to buy a round etc etc. I have a firm belief that this is the honourable way to go, and facilitates a pleasant evening or outing. There are two problems with this; a) it’s a very Australian custom, and rarely adhered to by our international brothers and sisters, and b) I only drink beer, while everyone else drinks wine, spirits and/or liqueurs. The result is that I often spend a bomb on any given night out, because I’ve had to shout extra, un-reciprocated rounds and I’ve had to buy all the top-shelf grog. Ofcourse, I could refuse to buy the drinks, or mention to people that it’s their shout, but I live in vain hope that people will perform the greater good by their fellow, thirst man (or Donkey).

Another example of this is my being dragged along, without protest, to the most boring, hard-core dance clubs by my friends, where I know drinking would cost me a fortune (I don’t do ecstasy) and where the style of music doesn’t quite do it for me … but I go … and spend a fortune … for the greater social good. Commie!

3. Repressed, Catholic and Manga.

I love Manga! My parents were pretty strict and didn’t place much stock in spending money on comic books and stuff like that, so I came to learn about Manga quite late in life. I love it so much; the intricate stories, the action, the art, the imaginative ideas. But I am too scared to buy it for fear that Mrs Donkey will see the pictures and think I’m into some quirky form of deviant pornography.

4. Metrosexual Donkey?
I can’t make friends with boys anymore. I have lots of male friends from when I went to school (which is kinda lucky ‘cause I went to an all-boys school – now THAT’S what I call weird!), but as I get older, I seem to only be able to make friends with women. This is fine with me, as I don’t really have much substance to add to a four-hour conversation about football, but it gets a bit touch-and-go when I return home from conferences or field missions, and I relay to Mrs Donkey what I have been up to during the off hours, it’s always, “Mayumi and I went out drinking”, or “Molly and I went out for dinner”, or “Cecilia was great fun” or “Jennifer went off in the sack” … orrr hang on, not that last one. But you can see the difficulty one has when one is unable to create and maintain strong, non-homoerotic, sport- and porn-dominated relationships with blokes.

5. My Own Private Idaho

I’m a friggin’ clean freak! I’m obsessed with it. All week I look forward to the weekend, when I can kick back on the couch to read a book, or sit in the sun to think up stoopid bits of crud to throw onto my Blog, but do you reckon I can when there’s work to be done? If there are breakfast dishes still sitting in the sink, or a rubbish bag to be taken outside, or a dripping tap to be fixed, or a floor to be swept, or plants to be watered … whatever. If there’s anything to be done, I’m all ”scrub my little Dutch boy, scrub!” until it’s all done, and then, at about 6.30pm on Sunday afternoon, I get to relax for ten minutes … just before it’s time to get ready to go out.

6. International Man of Mystery

Hardly international … and let’s face it, barely a man! But I have, for most of my adult life, led very separate identities, depending on what particular activity or with which particular group I was involved. From growing up in a rather privileged home and school, to studying at uni, to working both as a labourer and in a pub, to working with homeless people, indigenous communities and children with disabilities, to saving the world … and now to Blogging. People I know and love rarely know that while I’m doing one, I have another thing going on where I am interacting and relating with completely different people – and doing it more or less with ease (admittedly after a shaky start). Usually someone in this situation would be quite withdrawn, and would try to keep a low profile, but in each of the examples above, I revel in being quite the opposite – I’m loud, fun*, funny*, inclusive, socially coercive, and … loving, I guess.


So there it is. I’m a timid, cowering fool, ludicrously socially unassertive, sexually and literarily repressed, unable to relate to peers of my own sex, and I suffer from both obsessive-compulsive and multiple personality disorders. Bet you never guessed, hey?

I’m supposed to now tag six others to tell us six weird things about themselves, and as Sabrina is one of my only five readers, this could be a bit tough … let’s see.

The Man at the Pub, I know we’re only recently dating, but fancy a go? How ‘bout you, Pomgirl … you Lucy, please? J, you’ll be up for it, No? And The Editor, I’m sure you’ve got a whole plethora of weird stuff to tell us about. Gawd, I don’t know any others, and I reckon at least two of you will refuse … I don’t suppose you’d help me out, Cakey?


* Self assessment only - rarely acknowledged by others.

Pitchfork-wielding outrage in the outer-suburbs

Admittedly it doesn’t happen very often, but very occasionally, while trolling through the paperwork at Saving the World HQ, I come across the odd policy document containing phrases or words which bring a cheeky smile to ol’ Donkey’s lips.

It’s a bit naughty of me, really, but when I occasionally find one of these which stir the ever-smouldering embers in my belly into a lick of flame, causing me to snort mirthfully and break the otherwise crypt-like atmosphere of the office, I feel it’s important to share it with you all out there in Blogdom.

So, the one that got me chuckling away this morning, was in an otherwise stuffy policy document. It read,

“As we know, India is one of the greatest sex markets in the world“.

What? Is it? I didn’t know that! I thought the greatest sex market in the world was SexyLAND. For the uninitiated, SexyLAND is a recent, super-barn-like phenomenon to have sprung-up next to the Bunnings Warehouses, Super-cheap Autobarns, Bathroom Tiles Megamarts and Doors Galores which sprawl across Melbourne’s outer suburban landscape like a cancer.

Since it floated on the Australian Stock Exchange a couple of years ago, this franchise has opened-up in ten massive, convenient locations, each with free and extensive parking and a concealed back door, but instead of marketing hammers, spades, timber, bathroom fittings, paint, barbecues, white goods or doors, like its neighbours, SexyLAND boasts the world’s largest, biggest, longest, hardest, bounciest, stretchiest, fluffiest, shiniest, slipperiest and most comprehensive collection of adult entertainment products, DVDs, publications and other assorted objects which could never possibly be used by human beings … in the World!

Although I’ve never actually had the guts to step foot into one of these Colosseums to Consumerist Depravity, I still believed the advertising … until this morning. It seems the shareholders and management of SexyLAND have hoodwinked us, and all those sexually enlightened suburban men, women and couples (or so the advertising would have us believe) who thought they were selecting from the largest range in the World, would have done better to have turned their salivating leers in the direction of the sub-continent, where it appears the Kama Sutra is taking its rightful place (nestled snugly between nuclear arms and child labour) on India’s international economic juggernaut.

The changing landscape of the outer suburbs

Protected by the ‘Mark’ of Carabas

My all time favourite bedtime story is Puss in Boots. I love the way that clever, cunning little creature has the whole world chasing after their tails, from his rather foolish master, to the even more gullible king and his pretty (vacant) daughter, to the peasants who plough the fields, to the evil ogre whose wickedness would only ever be equalled by a cuddly little kitty in a pair of Cuban heels.

I love the way that, right from the beginning of the tale, Puss is all fluffy innocence and vulnerability as he cries out in mock fright, “Oh Master, please don’t eat me! I’m but a harmless, defenceless animal”, but in the next breath, seemingly with nary a moments thought, he lists off everything he needs - “Just give me a sack and a spanking pair of fine boots, and I shall make sure you never go hungry again” - in order to play-out a curiously elaborate plan to commit medieval impersonation, fraud, extorsion and murder.

Hmm, Puss, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d been hatching that one for quite a while, and such a plan doesn’t quite seem fitting from the recently afore-labelled “harmless, defenceless animal”, but nevertheless, Puss is granted his wish; he is newly shod and sent out into the world to create mayhem.

Mostly what I love about the story is Puss’ smug, self assuredness. The little feline has got all the sass, all the moves, all the smarts and all the cunning of a criminal genius, and you just know that the whole, grisly business would have been conducted with Puss spouting off witty one-liners and casting a mutually roving eye at all the girly cats down by the wharf! Ah, that Puss, definitely the Fonzie of medieval Europe!

But the thing that always jars with me when reading this story, is that nobody; neither Puss’ master, the king, the peasants or the ogre ever once questioned the existence of a talking cat. As well as the talking thing, no one seems all that surprised that Puss manages, in the space of three days, to design and execute a flawless, elaborate plan which sends his clueless master from grim to bling, and Puss doesn’t do too badly for himself, either, becoming a great and wealthy Lord.

It strikes me as a bit odd, and gets me to wondering about how these animals have been viewed throughout history. And it does seem that humans have been somewhat aware, and wary, of the crafty, cunning and possibly magical potential of those outwardly torpid tabbies. In Egypt, ancient tombs have been discovered in which pharaohs were laid to rest with cats, who were said to have possessed the power to transcend the mortal veil and guide the spirit of the great kings into the afterlife.

Or if you like, take, for example, north-eastern USA in the late 17th century, where sex-starved Presbyterian madmen would burn any voluptuous young woman just for having a big, black pussy (sorry, y’knew it had to happen eventually, I thought I might as well get it over with and out of the way). Or perhaps look at the story of Dick Whittington, who, as far as I can gather, was nothing but an aspiring, treacherous politician, whose record, three-times tenure as Lord Mayor of London is to this day mysteriously attributed to the fact that he owned and travelled with a cat, and not “cos of all dem murders ‘e done!”.

Our forefathers certainly had some inkling that the there was more to these fastidious, furry felines than met the eye; something mysterious, and maybe something powerful to be feared. And this, you’ll be happy to hear, brings me to the point of this little reflection.

While I was in Kathmandu last weekend (that has nothing to do with the story, by the way, I just wanted to let you know that I went to Kathmandu last weekend, ‘cause it’s an awesome place), I was staying at a friend’s house, and overnight had a prolonged bout of my regular, recurring nightmare – the one where I am being haunted by ghosts and I eventually try to swallow my terror, and stand up to the fearful phantoms by shouting obscenities at them, only to find that in the dream, and indeed in real life, I am unable to articulate the words. Instead, I scream out incoherent nonsense, which Mrs Donkey confirms makes me sound like the one who is possessed by an evil demon.

Unlike on most occasions, when this dream comes to its babbling climax, I wake up, Mrs D comforts me and then I go back to an untroubled sleep, there seemed to be something about the house last weekend, which kept the ghastly ghouls coming back for me all night. By early morning, I was a wreck, and Mrs Donkey was getting worried. Again I fell into a troubled slumber, and again I was drawn along that dark corridor to the sinister room at the end where the wicked wraiths awaited me, but as I passed through the entrance to the hallway, there, just beside my left foot, sat my sixteen-year-old pet cat, Sammy, whom I had thought to be safe at home in Melbourne with my folks.

Sam stretched, and smiled, inviting me to pick her up, which I did, and at her urging, together we approached the violently shaking, and seemingly angry door. With Sammy in my arms, I kicked it open and went on through … and I slept soundly until late into the morning.

So last weekend, Sammy, sans footwear but displaying a similar commitment to protecting her troubled master as that of Puss, transcended the spirit world, and travelled halfway around the globe to save me from my own mental ogres. Is it just me, or is there a lot more going on around here than we are usually aware of? Thanks for saving me, Sammy.


And there she is, my sixteen-year-old, feline protector, who travelled halfway around the world to save me. Pic: Mama Donkey.

Anniversary

It was a year ago, yesterday, that I arrived in Delhi.

A year ago that a taxi driver told me that there was no more pollution in Delhi since the government ordered cars, trucks and auto-rickshaws to switch over to allegedly, environmentally clean CNG fuel, “Oh no, Sir. No pollution! Clean Delhi!”.

It has been a year since my lungs, day and night, have been subject to the kind of caustic chemicals and airborne particles only before experienced by Dickensian chimney sweeps, “Penny for Christmas cheer, Guv’nor?”.

It has been one year since I wandered out onto the porch on that first morning thinking, “This weather is fantastic!”, and that means it’s been eleven months since I started gagging under the most intense, convection-oven heat, which slowly cooked my life away as the tumultuous, daily grind of Delhi spun me round and round like a pig on a spit!

It has been one whole year that my ears have been filled with the frog-like croak of the raddi-wallahs, as they ride past our house on their rickety bicycles at all hours, crying out to do odd jobs or to collect loose bottles. “Raddieeeeeeeeee!”.

It has been a year that my nightly slumber has been interrupted during astrologically auspicious moments, sometimes at 3am, as couples tie-the-knot to the artillery boom of a mighty cache of fireworks.

It has been a year since my clothes began being ironed on the street outside my home, using hot coals fanned by the passing traffic, and returned to me as stiff as a surfboard, with razor-sharp creases that cut a mean swathe through the high-profile, sophisticated revellers in Delhi’s swanky bars.

It has been a year since I started visiting my shoe-wallah to have my shoes shined; a year since I began sitting on a wooden box under the intense scrutiny of the man’s entourage, trying in vain to ignore the attention as I concentrated on reading the same page of my book, over and over again. Incidentally, I always thought it odd that this man wore dark eye-liner, or khol, around his eyes. I only recently understood that it was his own black shoe polish, not kohl, which he painted on his eyelids and which gave him his feminine appearance.

It has been a year since I have, on a daily basis, had to justify my existence in this country to some bureaucrat, taxi driver, street sweeper or other, despite legitimate visas and a wad of official identification papers in my back sky-rocket.

It has been a year since my morning routine of getting to work saw me sitting in the glorified tin-can that is a Delhi auto-rickshaw, beside bumper-to-bumper cars, trucks, motorbikes, ponies, horses, camels and elephants.

It has been a year since I have battled every day, just to get somewhere, buy something, book a tradesperson, see something or find someone, and that means that it has been about six months since I gained some kind of equilibrium with that battle; sometimes achieving the upper hand, and at others, failing dismally. But the highs and lows have helped me to remember my place in the grand scheme of whichever of the vast pantheon of Indian gods one subscribes to.

It has been a year that I have learned to start a new life, every day; a life which can take you anywhere – to the great heights of euphoria when things go well, or to dump you down into the deepest pits to cower in shadowy sorrow when it all comes undone. It has been a year since I have felt what it is to have a life that is not protected by safety laws, rights or some kind of societal morality; a year since I learned to value what it is to be truly mortal, and to love my life all the more for the fear of having it come to an abrupt end via any of the vast number of dangers encountered during a punishing daily routine.

I know I should be getting used to it by now, but it always kinda freaks me out when I pull up along-side one of these babies. Pic: http://www.luvnpeas.org