Hello,

I read somewhere that the French government had once noticed that visitors on holiday in India had a tendency of developing psychological disturbances and had decided to put a psychologist in each French embassy in India. Apparently, one of those doctors wrote a book called Crazy about India. He explains how people can become really crazy here but once they’re back home they return to normality. It is not hard to see why. India simply hijacks your senses with unbelievable scenarios. Just when you think you've seen it all India will surprise you yet again.

Egmore train station, Chennai. There are two terminals – local and national – joined by a 20-metre bridge. This bridge is crossed daily by thousands of train passengers and is at the same time a shopping mall for anything from combs to vegetables and musical instruments, an area for beggars who have an infuriating habit of deliberately bumping into you, a catwalk for various disabled persons who expose more and more of their body parts the more you try to ignore them when they ask you for money, and home for a few families including a two-year-old girl and her extended family, who, among other daily activities pees regularly in the middle of the bridge.

Restaurant staff and customer ratio. For every typical table in a typical Indian restaurant, you will get: one waiter who takes your order, another who pours your drink, one who gets the food, two kids to clean the table when you're done and another person to present you with the bill. I once caused havoc when the waiter assigned to take my order could not speak English.

The waiter from the neighbouring table had to help with the order but could not take the order himself because we were not in his territory. It would have been much simpler if I had changed my table!

People per bus ratio. We needed to take a local bus to go to the bus station. It arrived after an hour’s wait: full up. Yet somehow, myself, my new travel buddy Diana, and 30 others fitted in with our entire luggage! The heat, the sweat and the bumpy roads were getting to me and just as I seemed to be on the verge of fainting, a loud bang scared me out of my skin. It sounded like a gun but smelt of burning rubber. Both the rear double wheels of the bus had burst!

At the movies. It is very normal for a picture to fade out for a few minutes with the sound still on. Only after the boos of the audience reaches the projection room, do they realise that the screen is in darkness. It is also normal for people to walk out five minutes before the film ends. Maybe they’ve already seen it?

Take care,

Dery xxx