Mumbai Blues

Schmuck stepped out of Mumbai International and into an inferno.

It was 9am and already the city was hot like hell. A bead of perspiration ran like an al-fresco piss along his pate and into his eyes. Quickly he took a handkerchief from his pocket, tied knots in four corners and places across his head. That was better.

He stepped out and hailed a cab for his hotel. A man walking by shouted something that sounded like "Hey you Chinaman" but he couldn't be sure. The cab didn't have air con - it was like an oven. The bead of sweat was joined by friends on his wide forehead under the hankie.

The hotel was nice - Schmuck wanted a few nights of luxury before hitting the backtrack trail. The bellhop welcomed him to his room, addressing him strangely, pronouncing his name "Kiu Pa" and bowing from the waist. Most odd.

After stowing his clothes - mostly thongs - and having a quick shower, he again felt brave enough to hit the streets to see this city, once a proud symbol of Britain's Empire. But also, he hoped, of a beer for 7p.

He stepped out of the hotel and into a maelstrom. The traffic rules seemed to be based on Darwinian theory - survival of the fittest. Luckily, Schmuck knew how to play by those rules, having been raised in the badboy ghetto of Weybourne. What seemed like chaos to others was like manna, soothing his nerves. His written off Peugeot 106 was a testament to living life literally in the fast lane. And you don't indicate your direction in life.

Dodgy traffic like a bodypopping scarecrow he crossed the street to what passed for a pavement. Immediately he was mobbed. Locals converged on him from all sides. This is how Jesus felt, he thought.

He beat a hasty retreat to the station. He needed to get a rain ticket to Goa. He was approached again, by an Indian man. This one was older and better dressed than the rest. He offered his help to Schmuck, who was feeling the heat by this time, sweating like a G20 policeman watching a home video. Between them they managed to get Schmuck a ticket to Goa. He thanked the man profusely. His reply was a touch odd: "Your Confucius, he say, man with smooth scalp may have no rooftop garden, but his seeds grow strong roots elsewhere."

After four days of being pawed at Schmuck got his train to Goa. Golden sands and palm tees stretched as far as he could see. He had an idle flashback to his previous life - up to his thighs in mud, wrestling a piece of string into a straight line for a building to follow, while the heavens opened above him with the roar of Concorde. Fuck that, he thought, succinctly.

And he was not wrong. The next few days consisted of waking up in a hammock on the beach, checking he hadn't been a) robbed or b) bottom raided and then heading off to buy a can of Indian lager for 3p. He'd met up with a great group of people. or some reason they kept calling him "Miyagi", but he could handle that. His knotted hankie became a thing of the past as his already swarthy skin became used to the harsh Indian sun.

As he lay back upon the sand, his chest hair curl catching the last of the sun's dying rays, he thought about how much fun he was having and wondered: Does anywhere round here show Only Fools and Horses?