Not quite there yet

Rising from the bed I felt new power within me and eagerly went down to the breakfast room. But after nibbling on the hard boiled egg, fried bread and curry vegetables I was so struck that I had to retire back to my room and lay down again. My stomach was turning, constantly grumbling and gurgling like a cheap coffee maker, commanding me to take a seat in the wash room every now and then.

Later in the afternoon I went shopping for a little bit, staying close to the hotel. Returning from my trip I decided to start the regular diarrhea pills again, in addition to the antibioticum. That was the right thing to do: In the end I could attend an early evening screening of "Om Shanti Om", a Bollywood movie Chetan had recommended.

The projection was about to get started, and I had just gotten up from my seat in order to let some people pass to their seats, when an announcement filled the screen: "Stand up for the national anthem!" A bit baffled I remained standing. And everybody else was standing, watching a washed out film print of a flag in the wind, close up, while an orchestral anthem squealed. Strange! Instead, there was no turn off reminder for the cell phones (and sure enough there would be plenty of beeping and ringing later on). Other than that, like in every big cinema around the world the screening was sharp, loud and cold like a cracking glacier. The movie - very good indeed! Starring truckloads of Bollywood stars in a comedic but still touching story.

Leaving the cinema I felt rather tired and not too adventurous, but then decided to stick to my plan and take a taxi out to the "Phoenix Mills", where a number of nightclubs were at. What I found was a very American-style shopping village: An American Dollar Store, McDonald's (with a slightly indianized menu), even a Subway was there! It must have been very new as one side of the center square was still to be completed by another huge building.

I found the club "Ra", but the bouncer politely advised me to come back a little later as there was nobody inside yet at this point, so I kept strolling around. Although it was already quite late there was a fair number of families in the mixed crowd. People played arcade games, licked ice cream, purchased porcelain, boozed in bars. I returned to the club and - why am I not surprised - found that now the bouncer was overruled by his manager who wouldn't let me in a single guy. I moved on to a second club: Private party. After that I didn't even try to enter the third and last one, just to get my shirt smoky. I had enough of this product of imperialism and returned to my hotel.