desperate for someone to talk to, but whenever I caught anyone’s eye, they looked away before I had time to say anything.
This was extremely puzzling until, on the way to bed, I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I looked like one of those comatose skeletons I’d seen on my first day in Delhi. My cheeks had caved in and were covered with long, tufty stubble, my eyes were dead, my hair was greasy, and my mouth was stuck in a sour downward curve. I looked like hell.
I went to bed and stared blankly into space for a few hours.
I really had turned into one of the living dead.
Despite my ‘meal’, I slept through the entire night without any emergency trips to the toilet and woke up the next morning resolved to stuff myself with food until I looked like a human being again.
I still didn’t trust any greasy or spicy food to stay down, so I had four boiled eggs and a couple of chapatis for breakfast, then set out on my mission to make friends with the subcontinent.
I wandered around for a bit, smiling at everyone, but it didn’t seem to make anyone want to talk to me. Remembering that I looked like a Moonie, I toned down the smiles a fraction, but people still avoided me.
Feeling dispirited, I went into the busiest restaurant I could find for a bite of lunch. I sat down next to a lonely looking man, smiled at him and said hello. He picked up his tray of food and walked to a different table, looking mildly frightened.
This represented a new low. To be abandoned by other travellers was one thing, but to be shunned by Indians – that was just the pits. In desperation, back at the hotel I tried to start a conversation with the boy whose job it was to sweep the floor. He ran away.
The only thing left to do was to write a postcard.
Having finished the postcard, it dawned on me that even if no one else was willing to have a conversation with me, the hotel receptionist would have to. It was his job, for God’s sake. I was paying for a room in his hotel. If I cornered him at the reception desk, he wouldn’t be able to run away, and I’d be certain to get a small amount of conversation out of him.
Having waited for him to take his place behind the desk, I engaged in a surprise attack.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello, sir,’ he replied.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Is everything all right?’ he said.
‘Fine, thanks. Yes.’
I still couldn’t think of anything. Then a thought dawned on me.
‘It’s hot today,’ I said.
‘Yes. Very hot. Less hot than usual, of course. But hot.’
I was just about to give up when an Indian man walked in, with a cotton scarf wrapped around his head and neck, also covering half of his face. He approached the desk and asked for a room in a heavy South London accent. The minute I heard that voice, I knew who it was.
‘Ranj!’ I screamed.
He spun round and looked at me suspiciously. After a few seconds, I saw recognition dawn, and he tore the scarf from his head.
‘Dave! Is it you?’
‘Of course it’s me.’
‘What the fuck happened to you?’
‘I’ve been stuck here. I got a bit ill.’
‘You look like shit. You look like a piece of shit.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
‘I hardly recognized you. Jesus – have you weighed yourself ?’
‘No.’
‘Have you been to a doctor?’
‘No. I don’t need to now. I’m on the mend.’
‘Fuckin’ell. That’s good to hear, man. You look absolutely fucked.’
‘I tell you, I’m glad to see you.’
‘Likewise, man. Likewise. Where’s… whatsername. The fit one.’
‘We separated. Irreconcilable differences and all that.’
‘She left you then.’
‘Sort of. We just… kind of started off on the wrong foot anyway, and I can’t really remember how, but we ended up hating each other’s guts.’
‘Bad news, man. India does that to you.’
‘We always got on fine in England.’
‘Me too. I always got on OK with my family in England. Now they all want to kill me.’
‘You ran away again?’
‘Yeah. I’ve just flown in from Delhi today. I wanted to get down to Trivandrum, but there were no flights, so I came here.’
‘They’ll be gutted. I struck up quite a friendship with your brother.’
‘And it’s worse this time, because…’ he lowered his voice and looked around the room ‘… I nicked a load of credit cards and cash before I left.’
‘From who?’
‘Uncles and shit. They were just getting on my tits too much.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You nicked from your own family.’
‘Yeah, I know, I know. I regret it a bit now. I’ve decided I’m going to spend it all as fast as I can, then go back and apologize.’
‘That’s very moral of you.’
‘D’you think so?’
‘No. Not really. Look – d’you want to share my room? It’s a double anyway, and it’ll be cheaper if we go halves. I could do with some company.’
‘Fuck cheaper. I’m living on borrowed time before I get strung up by the balls. I only came to this shitty little hole because it was the first one in The Book. I’m spending one night here, then I’m off to Kovalam.’
‘What’s in Kovalam?’
‘Girls, man. Girls on package tours. It’s like Goa, but with less hippies, and the season’s about to start. It’s right down south, so the monsoon’s almost finished. I’m going to check myself into a posh hotel and screw as many white girls as I can before it’s too late.’
‘Too late for what?’
‘Oh, that’s what started all this shit off. My dad’s trying to marry me off to this tight-arsed virgin bitch, just
