Saying No (Brilliant things about Blighty 3)

When we mean no

We say no.

If we don’t know

We say so.

If you don’t know

You Smile

So I don’t know

When you mean no.

If you mean no

your head’s in motion

forgive us but

We take the notion

That you know

But you don’t know

or just mean no

…And we’re confused

Price Tags (Brilliant things about Blighty 2)

Oh to thee the price tag

I must express my thanks

Behind you there’s economy

Supply, demand and banks. 

Now what you represent to me

goes way beyond the deal

You save me from the prejudice

That makes them want to steal.

Their government charges foreigners

near on ten times the price

which then throws down the gauntlet,

for rip-off scams and vice. 

They fight to catch a backpack

as it clambers of the bus

‘cause they’ll charge triple rupees

hoping we won’t make a fuss

They show a sign that says “fixed price”

To lull us into staying

Then make up what the hell they want

For us to soon be paying

They smile as we approach the stall

And pick out grapes and mango

Then fix fictitious kilo rates

In quite the price Fandango  

Oh to thee the price tag

I must express my thanks

Behind you there’s economy

Supply, demand and banks.

Working Women (Brilliant things about Blighty 1)

I’d like to buy my bras from you

Not from the sales men

I’d like to hand my smalls to you

for laundry not to them

I’d like you in the pharmacy

When miming that it hurts to pee

I’d prefer not to be measured by

Another touchy feely guy

I’d rather have you serving food

Than be drooled over by a dude

who thinks that coz I’ve got white skin

I clearly want to sleep with him.

Consider this, my parting plea

and step out of your reverie

and into work you’re needed there

for more than merely cutting hair!

The Brilliant Stuff about Blighty Series

Of course there are always things that people miss when they go away for any amount of time, I used to miss everyday comforts like my sofa during my endless weeks of working away.  In the beginning of this trip, it was all so exciting and new that I didn’t miss much, mainly Haribo and Dairy Milk, simple luxuries so easily taken for granted.  As the weeks became months being without western luxuries became my norm and I began to miss the “doing” things.  I’ve missed Cooking primarily but also riding bikes and horses, walking fast in beautiful countryside and being entertained through performance.  I still miss these things, the thought of soon being able to do them again fills me with a very innocent excitement but a range of more subtle and quite random misses have emerged driven largely by what I, as a Brit by creed and culture, perceive as uncomfortable differences between UK and Indian society.  I have captured some of these in the following collection of poems…

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Done Going Native

I eat with my hands

when there’s no spoon or fork

The pavement’s a sewer

so the road’s where I walk

I ask bus conductors

to shout out my stop

I don’t go in taxis,

in markets I shop.

I bum-wipe with water

it feels way more fresh

I know my Madhya

from Andra Pradesh

I listen to Rahman

On cheap MP3s

a sari’s extreme

but I’m shalwar cameez

I dodge wearing bindi

and henna and stuff

I’m through speaking Hindi

I’m done, had enough

23:13 Bikaner

Stood on the roof

hot wind pushing hair horizontal

plastering pajamas to my side,

I watched them dance below,

two hundred movers

between carts of booming bangra.

The dust storm forked lightening

on the desert edge of town,

forcing its quarry into my eyes,

stinging my pores

Sepia-ising the street uprising.

Frenetic beat and shrieking brass

reverbed against my villa view

and fortress walls

electrified dust enough

to put hairs on ends

in lesser winds

Quite magical then,

the moment when

I first felt

that I was alone.

Indian Beef 3 - Horned Beef

On her altar lays my ear,

I’ve sacrificed the range I hear

for India,

whose horns of air

I can’t compare.

For on our sterile continent

Their use’d be judged incompetent,

and their force reduced to inconsequence

…replaced by silent lights.

Indian Beef 2 - Price Cutlet

I associate

negotiate

with work

where it’s appropriate.

But here they don’t capitulate

Unless you re-negotiate

And after thirteen weeks and eight

I find it tends to aggravate

When I must play negotiate

For every grape and fig n date

Indian Beef 1 - Waste Fill it

A staunch and proud “community”

Believer in “the family”

Knocks our “individuality”

Yet each of you is squeaky clean

In amongst your shit.

Where’s that sense of unity?

When kids are wading through debris?

Do you even bloody see…

That lane is not a pisserie,

A crapperie, nor repository

for all that you may cast?

We may not talk and dance and mate

with our neighbours,

…but we do share fate,

and litter not upon their street

nor spit upon their sandaled feet.

3 Cuts of Indian Beef

Not wanting to constantly moan about India, as so many blogs do, and conscious of what she has been giving, I have been careful to remain complimentary of this country.  It is, however, very hard travelling here, especially outside of the tourist zones which is where I have spent most of the last 6 months.  It has been more endurance than holiday, I have often lay on a bed in a dingy room wondering what the hell I was doing here toughing out the squalor, washing in water that’s smells of sewage, being covered up and unable to tan despite sunshine, having little privacy, having to publically pee on shitty concrete slabs (incidentally I think that’s why the ladies wear an underskirt under their sari …helps with splash-back), being ripped off at nearly every first exchange, being stared at uncomfortably and subjected to horrific levels of continual noise.  So it would be unbalanced if I failed to have a beef about a few things…