Ferengisaikell!

At the suggestion of Yogish Holla, one of the mathematicians here, I woke this morning at about 7 and headed down to the Gateway of India to catch a ferry over to Mandwa, about an hour's boat ride across the bay and mouth of the large river pouring into it. 60Rs. + 60Rs. for the bike. The boat left at 9:15, so I decided to see what was open in Colaba. Cafe Mondegar had a decent espresso, but they were out of Museli without ants. (An ant was running around inside my keyboard just now. Luckily she left and I didn't end up with a computer bug. You may think that I'm making a pun, but according to urban legend, that is the origin of the term. If you don't believe me, check snopes, and either validate your disbelief or affirm my assertion.)

As I was locking my bike, a young man walked up to me and said a prayer for me, tying a red and yellow string around my wrist, and giving me an orange flower and a few small lumps of sugar to eat. After, he asked for a few rupees, which I gave him. So now I have a string tied around my wrist. The color stared bleeding out as soon as I sweated at all, but that's ok. And then when I was unlocking te bike, another Bollywood extra scout came up to me. This time he persisted a little more, so now I have his number and if I get the urge to go and do this, I suppose I could call him.

Anyway, I got on the boat, and they took me across the brown water of the silt laden mouth of the river. I was standing at the rail towards the front and a group of twentysomethings invited me to sit down with them. They were all employees of a shipping company in Mumbai and were out for a weekend in the country. On the ride over, they sang songs, mostly pop songs in Hindi, and I tried to make appropriate noises when I could. As always happens in situations where I'm asked to come up with a song, my mind went totally blank. (Most recently GAEL in Poland, where Sam, Davis and I ended up singing Ring of Fire as the American contribution to the night of international musical merry making in the Polish castle.) Anyway, I hummed and made instrument noises along with them and we passed the time quite enjoyably. A number of large ships were moored in the harbor, and my new friends discussed the details of each.



In Mandwa, I checked that the last boat returned at 4pm, and headed out to the south. The road was pleasant to ride on, traffic was light, and I got a smile from almost everyone I passed. Riding around the city, I heard the phrase, "Ferengisaikel!" shouted as I passed in exclamation of surprise. It roughly translates to, "Check out that honky on a bike!" Hence the title of this post. I didn't actually hear that phrase out in the country. After about 5km, I turned to the left (towards the sea) and soon found myself in a small village. I found my way to the beach, but it wasn't a particularly nice one, although there were some beautiful purple morning glories vining their way out onto the sand. As I was leaving the beach I encountered a woman carrying a huge fish in a basket on her head, which she was quite willing to show off, even after she knew that I only wanted a picture of it, not the fish itself.

Moving on from there, I passed a house with a wall and a gate. On the wall, it said, "Nirrvana," and on the gate it said, "Beware of Dog."

The next village I came to was a center of the local dried fish and shrimp industry. Just thinking about being there smells pretty pungent, so maybe I'll move on a little more quickly than I did in real time (which is not to say that I lingered longer than it took to take a few pictures).



South of here, I had to turn back inland and circumnavigate a large chemical plant. When I turned back towards the sea, I ended up talking to another guy on a bicycle (there were lots of them about) who was interested in my bike. Indian males in general are really interested in my bike. After riding with this guy to his town, I turned around and went back to a little restaurant that we had passed. On the way back, three guys on a motorcycle slowed down and talked to me. The middle one spoke the most English, which was enough that we managed to communicate in the way that people do when they don't really have a common language. They reccomended that I stop at a restaurant at the roadside where a few people sat around avoiding the midday sun and drinking tea.

While Shantish and Tendulkar (which may have been an adopted name, Tendulkar being the acme of Indian crickiteers) made me an excellent lunch, about 15 men gathered around to inspect my bike. They were amazed at how light it was, and they spent a while figuring out the fixed gear thing, and they asked me about the pedals, so I showed them my cleats. As soon as I did this I remembered that it is rather rude in India to point the bottom of your foot at somebody, but they didn't seem offended, and when the same scene replayed itself a few hours later, I tapped the cleat on the ground to indicate metal was there and tried to explain with hand motions, and the guy asked to see the cleat anyway, so maybe it isn't such a big deal in this situation.

The lunch was really good, or at least I was really hungry. If I really enjoyed it it was really good, regardless of what I would have thought of it in another mood, right? Anyway, I think that it would have been good either way. Shantish brought me a steel platter with a bowl of rice, and four little cups of sauces and chickpeas. After lunch, I had a cup of tea. Tea here is generally made by boiling the tea and the milk and adding lots os sugar. I tried to tip and Shantish wouldn't accept it.



Two buildings down the road, the three guys on the motorcycle were sitting at a table out front of some other sort of establishment. They motioned for me to come over and join them. (It took a little getting used to that in addition to the mysterious head wobble, which near as I can figure, means just about anything, the gestures are upside down. As in, if somebody points their palm down and curls the tips of their fingers back and forth, one is supposed to pay attention to the come here direction and no the shoo go away direction.) As I stopped to do this, a car carrying three manager-men from the chemical plant was passing, but then they also stopped and wanted to talk to me. After learning that I was an American, the driver gave me his card and drove off. I took a chair with the three guys from the motorcycle. Less than a minute after I sat down, there was a crowd of fifteen or so gathered around. They were all checking out the curiosity who had sat down in their midst. We determined that I was going to Alibagh and that there is a very nice beach there, and that India is a very nice country and that I do not approve of George Bush, and that India is a poor country, and that the chemical plant produces chemicals and that they are probably poisonous, but that the beach is very nice and I waould enjoy it. Then one man pressed his way to the front of the crowd and was rather upset for some reason. He wanted to see the card that the man in the car had given me, which I showed him, and then he explained some things to me in Marathi, and then the guy sitting next to me motioned as if to dismiss him, or at least that I should not worry about him, and that he was on crack. I wish I spoke this language. Anyway, I resolved the situation by declaring that I was going to go to the very nice beach at Alibagh, which I was glad to hear was only 7km down the road.

Alibagh was a somewhat larger town compared to the villages, a sort of typical beach town in the Indian mold. I rode through it, and after a couple of mistakes, and being told to move along and not stand in front of the police station (which is a large stone structure and I thought it might be an old temple, but was in fact an old fort which I guess is still in use). I generally have no interest whatsoever in not doing what an Indian policeman asks me to do, so I lingered no longer. Alibagh is situated at the mouth of another wide river, and the water was silty, but looked inviting enough to dip my ankles in. The sand was a very nice mix of dark sand and crushed shells, making sharply defined ripples when the waves receded. My recent trips to the ocean have all been on the Pacific coast, where the surf tends to be more significant than in many places, at least many places in Bombay and Alibagh.



I lingered here for a while, and talked to some locals, including a kid named Ashish who looked about 16 and was no longer in school and working at a concession at the beach, but spoke the best English of anyone I met after the folks on the boat. There was a young family of upper class Indians visiting the beach, and the little girl shyly came up and introduced herself to me. Her father was clearly very proud of her for doing this.

After a little while I decided that I should get back to the boat. So I turned back north. A little bit past where I had turned back onto the main road after lunch I passed a man with a pushcart full of bananas. I had passed him earlier on another road and had almost bought some bananas then, but forgetting that there are bananas in ones bag and setting it down at the wrong angle can be a bad idea. This time, I stopped to sample his wares on the spot, and soon found myself in the the middle of a throng of young boys. I bought a round of bananas for everyone. The banana seller remembered me from earlier, and soon figured out my story, which he explained to the boys. They were happy with this, and wished me well on my way back to Mandwa. I took their leave and found my boat. No charge to bring the bike back. On the ride back, I made friends with three guys who had also been out enjoying the not-city for the day.



All in all, it was quite a day.