“OHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM……..”

“OHHHHHHYOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM………”

I had woken up very early in the morning while it was still dark and, looking at the clock, realised it was only just after 5am. At first I thought the noise was the ceiling fan acting up, a worry which always has the effect of bringing me around like a pound of smelling salts.

For just about every day of the last 6 weeks I’ve spent the last half hour or so before sleep each night staring up at the wobbly rickety blade unit and asking myself questions like: Would you wake up before you were fully or even half-decapitated? Could you even be decapitated by a ceiling fan? How many revolutions per minute would the blades of a ceiling fan lose during the time it took to fall the 3 feet from the ceiling and onto your body? Would the momentum of the spinning blades propel the unit away from it’s original position and away from you? Why do I never remember to Google ceiling fan safety mechanisms and failure rates when I’m on the internet rather than in bed? That sort of thing.

“OHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMEEEYOMMMMMMEEEYOMMMMMMMM……..”

It was definitely coming from outside so I got out of bed, unlocked the door and went outside to see nothing less than a filthy, dirty late-middle-aged hippy sitting cross-legged on OUR side of the balcony, right outside of our window and bellowing this great, loud, reverberating Ommmmm nonsense at full volume.

I had no idea what to do. It was 5am, he was on my balcony making a bloody racket and I was clearly in the right about being unhappy with the situation. But I was wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and the military grade torch-cum-blackjack I’d bought for the trip was locked inside Denise’s bag. Besides, I’d only ever hit beggars with it – it might not even be effective against hippies….

I tried a few distrations – I rattled the hefty padlocking door catch, coughed a few times loudly, nothing. I thought about talking to him but, bizarrely and unjustly, it felt almost rude to interrupt him. And what if he flew into a post-blue-acid frenzy at being disturbed?

I went back inside and sat on the end of the bed while Denise carried on sleeping. After thinking for a few minutes I knew I was definitely wide awake with no chance of getting any more kip so I decided in the end to throw some clothes on, grab my book and sit on the balcony chair next to where he was sitting.

Only then I found I couldn’t read because you’d have these moments of blissful pre-dawn silence (I assumed he was now meditating) followed by an almighty “OHMMMMMMMMMEEYOMMMMEEYOMMMMMM” which nearly sent the book flying from my hands and into the courtyard below.

I tried a different tactic to try and disrupt him – I leant back in the chair, braced myself and…..

FLUBBA-DER-CHUBBA-DER-FLUBBB….

A real cheek-wobbler but he didn’t seem fazed by it. Again, I tried reading for another half hour or so but just ended up seething and skimming over the same page a dozen times. Just when I thought I was going to have to shoo it away with a broom or something, I decided to put on my MP3 player, block him out and try to read without his distractions.

I have to say I wasn’t hoping for any effect other than keeping my sanity intact but he finally looked at me reproachfully after a few minutes of the tinny noise coming from my ears. Of course, I ignored him completely. Filled with confidence, I changed the music to Polysics, turned the volume up to maximum, put the book down and leaned back with my eyes closed. When I opened them 5 minutes later, the hippy was dragging himself up from the floor and mooching back to his room.

Bloody hippies.

Anyway, I read for an hour or so until Denise got up and we made our plans for breakfast after I explained to her what had happened that morning. Knowing that hippies can not only smell material wealth but that they also secretly crave it, I double-checked the hefty padlock before heading out to the hotel restaurant.

The hippy (with mating partner) were of course already there and it goes without saying that we were seated next to them while bitter looks were exchanged. The waiter returned and asked for our order. I glanced slowly up and down the menu and said “Aaaaaah…..I think this morning I’ll have the cheese and tomato Ohmmmmmmmmmm-lette”.

Well, I didn’t really of course – I had scrambled eggs on toast – but it was nice to dream…

Anyway after breakfast, I got down to the usual business of reading the newspapers. To be frank, they’d become a bit of a disappointment since the fun of the Agra horoscopes. If you read The Telegraph and The Hindu Times for a week or so you’d quite reasonably assume that there are only two subjects of interest to the Indian gentleman about town and both are given equal coverage.

Firstly, an almost 3rd Reich “Strength Through Joy” enthusiasm for the proliferation of nuclear weapons and secondly, the cricket which I’m afraid leaves me cold at the best of times. You do however get the occasional nugget of gold and this morning my patience was rewarded.

In a south Indian village, a man had been discovered with two orphaned children (the mother had died earlier that month) and he had kept them locked up in a house for 4 days. The man was an out-of-towner with no relation to the kids and, when discovered, he was rightly given a sound thrashing by the villagers before being dragged to the police station and taken into custody.

However, after a rigorous 20 minute interrogation, he managed to convince the police that he was in fact just looking after the children so that he could take them to the circus. At which point, he was not only released unconditionally but granted sole legal guardianship of the children. They left the police station together and the three of them skipped town later that afternoon. All this was reported in a sort of heart-warming, “all’s well that ends well”, story-of-the-day tone by the paper making it even more mind-boggling.

The rest of the day was pleasantly uneventful and we passed the time in the usual Varkala way which means drinking, eating, reading and sleeping. And sweating.

And next time I check into a hotel I will be asking the manager whether his ceiling fans comply with the US National Electric Code (document NFPA 70, Article 314) and been fitted with a supporting electrical junction box. Oh yes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiling_fan#Safety_concerns_with_installation