Crawling King Snake
Let me tell you about Texas radio & the big beat.............
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wicker basket and looked very evil indeed. When I shook my head, he lifted the lid of the basket and a vicious cobra head snaked out towards my bare arms. Naturally, I turned and ran with all the haste I could muster. I was filled with hate and fear, mostly fear, especially as he had taken off after me, in hot pursuit. I ran like a bat out of hell and managed to lock myself behind closed doors. After a while I began breathing, but I shall never forget the experience.
A subsequent visit to the train station, resulted in my friend Graham and myself booking the 2.00 p.m. express on Thursday 27th December for Bombay. We would be traveling relatively comfortably in a reserved sleeper at a student concession rate. These arrangements were completed on Monday 24th December or Xmas eve, later that night we retired to our hotel room and had a kind of party. These celebrations continued on through the night until Xmas Day and as soon as we could stand up without falling over, which was rather late in the evening, we trotted over to a semi-European restaurant for a late Xmas dinner.
Previous fasting (adopting local customs) in anticipation of this feast, led me to make a pig of myself. I had fried liver, chips, beans, tea, toast, vegetable cutlets, chocolate ice cream and strawberry milkshake. After this huge meal we returned to the hotel to rest.
Boxing Day began correctly enough with me being served breakfast in bed around noon.l lay in bed until 3.00.p.m., not my usual habit I may add, and then I sauntered out for a meal.
The only exercise I seemed to get was the walk from the hotel to a restaurant, although my arms got used lifting all that heavy food and cutlery. I also utilised muscles in my mouth, chewing all that delicious grub. Thank goodness I had read all those Billy Bunter books when I was young and I knew the delights of such an abundance of such tuck. I felt as if the others in the restaurant could see me drooling as my repast arrived on my table.
However on my return this night we ventured out to attend a concert of Indian classical music. This was to be my initial encounter with the higher castes of Indian society. There was a real lack of atmosphere at this concert, although the musicians were very talented, but the immense size of the hall and the scattered attendance, meant the acoustics were very dull. There was no warmth between the performers and the audience. The latter were very restrained, not showing any emotion and constrained by behavior appropriate to their caste.
I was also impressed by the different modes of transport available in India, e.g.,
rickshaws (powered by either man or bicycle), scooter taxis, tong-as (horse-drawn carts), or motor vehicles, etc., most of the scooter taxis were driven by Sikhs, whereas the tongas and rickshaws were manned by impoverished Hindus. On the Thursday, we travelled by tonga to the train station via Old Delhi.
This would be a fine way to remember Old Delhi, if one was never to return, viz; riding in a horse-drawn carriage at an easy pace through crowded noisy, streets. A new adventure awaited us as we boarded the Bombay express. This was a fresh, new experience for me as travelling on Indian railways was unlike a normal day-return on British Rail.
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