Welcome to Here

There’s a certain airiness to my gait as I clear customs and collect my backpack from the baggage carousel. I’ve been here before. I know what I’m doing. I’m focussed. Confident. And I’m packing considerable quantities of hair mousse.

I’m bloody ready.

I’m also bloody grateful that I had the foresight to book an onward flight to Kerala. None of the hustle and hassle of downtown Mumbai for me this time around, thank God. I’ve bought myself a one-way ticket to a place the Lonely Planet beguilingly dubs “Paradise Found”. Varkala – which to my ear, sounds more like a venereal disease than a quiet sun-soaked idyll. Nonetheless, I can’t wait to get there.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I now have to do. Wait…for ten…excruciating…hours.

In just under an hour I manage to exhaust most of what this terminal has to offer. I’ve peed in all three of the ladies loos. Knocked back one too many beers in the aggressively over-lit (but surprising clean) food court. I’ve gawped and handled an alarming array of Gandhi and Taj Mahal souvenirs. And returned to each of the three toilets in turn for a repeat performance.

I’ve now taken to lolling. I’m in the main departures hall, draped across a bank of plastic chairs, drooling inanely at an overhead flight monitor. I’m trying my best to extract some form of light entertainment from it.  So far, I’ve managed to memorise the time, destination and flight number of every plane scheduled to leave in the next four hours. I wait for the screen to change. I’ve still got page 2 to get stuck into…

Three and a half hours on and I know the movement of every single aircraft coming in and out of this airport. I decide it’s time to move. The plastic chairs, however, have other ideas. They’ve become somewhat accustomed to my company and have now melded themselves to my underside. I’ve literally been here long enough to become part of the furniture. Getting up is now going to cost me my entire epidermal layer.

Saving the sensory pleasure of being skinned for later, I decide to coax myself into a catatonic state instead. I nod off immediately.

I’m jolted awake by the sound of my own name. It’s being boomed out over the Tannoy. I look up at the monitor and realise that five hours have passed. My flight number is blinking angrily. Final boarding. Shit.

I lurch for the gate and make it through in the nick of time. Minutes later I’m cruising at 33,000 feet. And not terribly long after that I’m safely deposited back to the ground in the Keralan capital of Trivandrum. The only thing separating me from my slice of white sandy beach paradise now is a 200km taxi ride. Easy…right?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I’ve unwittingly overlooked one small, but crucial detail – pretty much every taxi driver in India is a certified lunatic with a death wish. And it turns out the one I’ve hired to transport me to Varkala is in pathological category all of his own. For the next two hours I’m flung from one side of the car to the other and bounced intermittently between roof and floor while ‘Sanjay’ careens recklessly along bumpy, winding back roads at an average speed of 120kpm.

My plan was to get to Varkala and check out the lay of the land, before plumping for a hotel. I wanted to take my time and pick just the right spot to stay in. I also figured I’d be able to negotiate a friendlier rate face-to-face. But I hadn’t factored in the sheer toll that 24 hours of non-stop travel takes on one’s body. I’m covered in bruises, I’ve shed significant swathes of skin and I’m positively frothing at the mouth with exhaustion. I’ve also turned a worrying shade of green, courtesy of Sanjay’s white-knuckle driving. If I don’t stop moving soon, I’m quite sure I’m going to be sick.

The surreptitious stares I get through the rear view tell me that Sanjay is also well aware of my predicament. He hits pedal to metal. Clearly, scraping vomit off the seat of his car is not how he sees the rest of his afternoon unfolding. The man wants me out of his car. Fast.

Five minutes later, we’re skidding through the entrance of a very nice looking resort called Bamboo Beach House. Sanjay greets the manager and a bit of “how’s yer father” ensues as the commission for bringing me here is negotiated. I’m then told the huts here go for 1000 rupees a night. I do the math and calculate this to be around £12 - way over my ‘slummer’s’ budget. But I can’t face getting back into the cab, so I grab the key, pay Sanjay and wobble off in search of my room.

I pass out the minute my head hits the pillow.

It’s late afternoon by the time I finally come around. I’m covered in mosquito bites and coated in sweat. Thankfully a cold shower ameliorates both of these symptoms and I bounce out of my hut feeling like a member of the human race again.

I discover that the resort empties out on to Varkala cliff – a stunning escarpment that overhangs the Arabian Sea. The view is simply breath taking. I saunter along taking in the colourful assortment of shops, Ayurvedic massage parlours, yoga shalas and multi-cuisine restaurants that jostle shamelessly for business. As local scenes go, this one is unequivocally throbbing.

With an engorged sun sitting radiantly on the horizon, I head off in search of somewhere fitting to watch it set. The familiar tinkle of a Buddha Bar CD grabs my attention, so I follow it into a restaurant called Abba, grab a table outside and order a Mojito. As the last rays sink under the azure skyline of the Arabian Sea the waiter returns with my order. “Welcome to here” he joyfully announces as he sets the drink down on the table.

I raise the glass and smile. That’s the most pertinent thing I’ve heard in ages. I mean, where else would I rather be right now than here?

Indian Slummer Strikes Back

The countdown to India has begun. Visa and flights are sorted. My old backpack has been dragged down from the attic. And I’ve started hoarding a serious supply of hair mousse.

There’s just the small matter of pulling myself together.

The mottle-faced, dribbling, empty husk I’ve become shouldn’t really be let out of the house, let alone the country. I could effortlessly terrify small children. Time to excavate head from arse. This trip is my “Eat, Pray, Love” moment. I need to get expedition ready.

The next few weeks are a blur. I render smoking, drinking and crying strictly verboten. Hot yoga, Buddhist chanting and a draconian diet of All Bran (nuked in the microwave until it resembles a kind of mucilaginous lava) are my only reinforcements now. My therapist (who I strongly suspect hates me) suggests that wild swimming might be a good way of clearing out my remaining anxieties. I embrace his guidance with gusto and begin a regular regime of early morning dips at the Ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath. It’s late October and unseasonably cold. Needless to say, my friends and family think I’ve gone completely crackers.

But I don’t care. I feel great. I’m finally starting to turn a corner.

Two days before departure I receive an unexpected call from a bloke called Simon. Not the smarmy life insurance salesman I initially have him down for, Simon actually turns out to be a God. I discover that since my flight is overbooked, the airline has had to rejig some of the seating arrangements and as a frequent Virgin flyer, I’ve been selected for an upgrade - I shall now be flying to India in a flatbed! I feel like I’ve just won the triple rollover. I want to kneel down and worship at the altar of Simon. As good omens go this one is major. Any doubts I may have had about the trip have now been promptly skewered.

The big day has arrived and my inner princess goes into overdrive the minute I step into Heathrow airport. My upper class status leaves me queuing and wanting for nothing. I seamlessly sashay from check-in through a fast track security channel directly into the loving bosom of Virgin’s swanky Club Lounge. Within moments, I’m sipping something called a Black Russian, which Jack, the rather striking (but clearly gay) head barman informs me is the pre-flight tipple du jour. Who knew Guinness and champagne could taste this good?

More champagne as I board the plane, turning left to find not so much a seat, but a whopping great big suite waiting to engulf me. I raise the glass to toast my grandma, if only she could see me now…

It’s just over 8 hours before I'm due to land so after take off I slump into my flatbed and sleep pretty much the rest of the way. As we touchdown in Mumbai a small bubble of panic wells up in me as I realise the magnitude of what lies ahead. I’m about to become Indian slummer again. Holy. Mother. Of God.

Here’s to Hilda

Why not, I sigh to my friend Jay when she suggests that perhaps another trip to India might be the fix I need. Actually, it’s the best idea I’ve heard in ages. I stare around the familiar four corners of my bedroom. I mean, it’s not like there’s much here for me to stick around for.

I cast my mind back.

Nine months ago, I had been kicking up my heels (or rather flapping my flip flops) in the Pink Palace city of Jaipur. I was just a few months in to my Indian Slummer adventure and really beginning to find my mojo. I’d become acclimatised to the dirt and somewhat anaesthetised to the intermittent bouts of Delhi Belly. India had officially grown on me. I was relaxed, carefree – I may not have quite arrived at destination hippy chick, but I had moved a long way away from neurotic-bitch-from-hell. In fact, I remember thinking how it was the first time in years that I’d felt truly alive.

Then bam…my world came tumbling down.

It was late at night when my Dad Skyped me with the shocking news. My Nana Hilda had been rushed into hospital. Her prognosis: decidedly bleak. She wasn’t expected to live more than a few days. I was stunned. She may have been 92, but Nana was one spunky lady, surely the doctors had got it wrong? However the tone of Dad’s voice told me that this wasn’t the case. There was absolutely no question about my next move. I jumped on the first plane home. And mercifully, I made it back in time to kiss her goodbye.

Nana had been my rock. My guardian angel. My best friend. When she died, so did a little piece of me. That which remained found the grief simply too hard to handle. 

So I hit the “fuck it” button.

Drink, drugs and drama ensued as I spiralled steadily into an imaginative cocktail of debauched depravity. I totally lost the plot. Two months later I turned 40. And that’s when I completely slid off the cliff, circled the drain and landed in a cesspit of despair.

Since then I’ve been in self-imposed exile. Interned in my duvet. A quilted hostage. I’ve tried to snap out of it. But neither medication nor meditation has so much as perforated my dark armour of woe.

If Nana were here now, she’d be force-feeding me Rugelach biscuits (these delicious, sugary squares of Jewish stodge that she often made for me) until I’d pulled myself together. But since she’s not here – and I don’t have her recipe – I crack out my credit card instead. Can India save me? Who knows. But I owe it to myself – and to Hilda – to go and find out.