After some 15 hours at JFK, I was lucky enough to make it on board the lone flight to Mumbai via Abu Dhabi with Etihad, thanks much in part to the GM of Airline Operations, who I have to thank for getting me on board. One piece of advice I have to offer all travellers is that the busier or more manic the airport is, the more people will not show up or miss their flight; always try for a standby ticket, as long as you’re willing to wait you’re probably going to have luck. Thankfully I indeed did and made it to India!
During my flight, I got my fair share of education on the country thanks to the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and will henceforth be using this film as a reference point for my experiences in this country. But with the constant possibility in the back of my mind for days that it was possible that I would miss the Indian part of my trip all together, it would be fair to say that my first 24 hours in the country were somewhat surreal. In fact, when I woke up the following morning – my first decent sleep in a good week – I found myself unsure for quite some time as to where I was and how I got there. Ah, the beauties of travelling around the world, and stopping off in a disaster zone along the way. For those playing a home, the first day of India came a month after I left Australia; easily my longest overseas jaunt since July 2008, just before the website was formed.
Arriving at Mumbai International Airport at 330am, I was greeted by a local driver who was taking me to my hotel in Pune, an area which by map looked little further than Parramatta is from Sydney. However, I was quick to discover that driving around India is by no means a quick exercise (everything here runs on what even some of the locals refer to as “Indian time”… double or even triple even the best of estimates…), especially when almost all drivers don’t speak English and have no idea where they’re going, even when speaking in Hindi to their dispatchers or to locals. If there was one aspect of India that is most frustrating, it’s this.
But it gave me plenty of time to make some immediate observations about the way of life on the road in India, and as the sun came up I even got an idea of the country’s landscape, too. The roads were bumpy and inconsistent, changing from brick to concrete regularly. Speedbumps were a part of even the most “express routes” and larger trucks would go about 2 kph with a “HORN OK PLEASE” sign on their back. One of the first things to notice, and the reason you’ll never get any sleep in transit, are the constant horns and lack of blinker usage. Rather than the “Get the fuck out the way and/or hurry the fuck up” mentality the horn has adopted in Western society, here the horn is more of a polite “please excuse me I’m about to pass you on your right” – almost a replacement for a blinker at times it seemed. Some horns were even comprised of delightful, clown car-esque sound effects. Confusing, but seems to work.
In the back of pick up trucks, people were latched on, catching a ride from one town to another at 430 in the morning, with a heavy fog descending over the windy roads. I spotted more than a few people trying to hitch a ride at all hours of the trip. Road tolls were about 30 rupee, or 50 cents, and naturally everything was immensely affordable in all cities – even at the luxury hotels we stayed in; luxury hotels which were situated right next to “housing societies” and slums.
There was little to separate poverty and luxury in all of the country I visited, street dogs mixing with the people in the streets, and new buildings popping up everywhere. I’m told this is a country constantly in development. Most billboards supplemented this growth, advertising new levels of luxury and happiness in the form of huge apartment buildings. Bikes were a common mode of transportation, though helmets weren’t as frequent. Most road signs were in English; this is very much a bilingual society. All these observations were coming a mile a minute, and with so many horror stories coming from travellers in developing nations, you couldn’t help but feel a little on edge at times, but as mentioned in the …Exotic Hotel, you just have to treat the controlled mayhem like a wave and go with it, otherwise it would crash into you. And indeed I did just that.
As we left the freeway and moved into the rural parts of Pune, I started seeing things like dogs fighting and shitting in the middle of the road, passengers on the back of motorbikes reading books or using laptops (impressive, really), bulls, camels, cows and herds of goats taking up lanes of road, lots of sidewalk urination (including one humorously next to a sign that said “Green Pune, Clean Pune”) a bicyclist holding onto a motorbike for some impressive speed advantage. It was a lot to take in.
It was close to 8am by the time I got to the hotel. Dusk had well and truly ascended over the city and it was clear I wasn’t going to get any time for a nap. But after my first shower in some 36 hours, and a well earned breakfast, it was time to work out how I was going to get to the festival, the NH7 Weekender, a three day event featuring a fine mix of local and international musicians in the heart of Pune, at the beautiful Amanora Park Town.
Having arrived just in time for the second day of the festival, I, the latecomer, was placed at a different hotel from the rest of the Australian contingency, which consisted of five bands (Karnivool, Jinja Safari, Big Scary, The Aston Shuffle and Sheppard), their management, a few government representatives and the people behind The Aussie BBQ – the reason for which we would all be travelling around India over the next 10 days as part of the OzFest initiative; an artistic handshake between Australia and India to promote the Australian culture in a positive light following the bad press over the last few years.
So, my first stop was to meet up with the Australian contingency, fit in a quick nap, my first of many Indian meals and head in to the festival. The rest of this series will be taking you on a journey with the Australian bands as they played a series of shows from the NH7 Weekender in Pune, to the Nokia Music Connects Conference in Mumbai (where the first of three “Aussie BBQs” took place), and onto two shows in Dehli and Bangalore where all but Karnivool performed.
Along the way we shared meals with the bands, saw the cities, and in Delhi we went to the local “Sound School” where local orphans were able to learn and play music. Along the way I spoke to the bands and so in addition to my views on the adventure stay tuned to interviews with all the bands as well as tour diaries. This was certainly a once in a lifetime adventure, and we’ll be bringing you the story from all the angles…
READ THE OTHER NINE PARTS OF THIS SERIES HERE.
