“What shall I do now? What shall I do?” 

“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street 

“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? 

“What shall we ever do

 

TS Eliot The Wasteland

February 2017

First things first

But before I start walking anywhere there is some admin to be done.

To the Indian High Commission’s visa centre near Old Street. I am hoping for a small corner of the Raj at this destination: a ceiling fan maybe or at least a rattan chair. Neither is forthcoming and the overwhelming impression is of an airport boarding gate or perhaps the Post office:  I am handed a deli-style number on arrival and dispatched to the chairs. There are no visual displays so you have to listen very carefully not to miss your number. I wonder how the hard of hearing manage.

The friendly official  at the counter who takes the paperwork for my tourist visa, has a smudged bindi on her forehead. She spots my place of work and the tables are turned without warning.  “My mother has multiple entry  visa to UK for 2 years. Does she need to spend 6 months out of the country to re enter?“ she queries. I dredge my 30 year old memory of the Immigration Act and say that I don’t think so but that she should check the Home Office website for clarification. She looks crestfallen at such an unimaginative response.  “Answer not there“ she replies.  At this point all the Government’s digital shortcomings settle on my shoulders but she seems not to hold it against me and bids me return in a few days to pick up the visa. I set off on the No 4 bus for the nearest Victoria Line tube. At Highbury Corner, a female busker is murdering California Dreamin’, my favourite song.

Another necessary act of preparation is immunisation. I am naturally cautious so am embracing everything the NHS has to offer – which, it transpires, is not everything I need. I must hie me to the London travel clinic for an expensive rabies jab. In my childhood, rabies was a disease much vaunted as something from which the UK was immune because of our strict quarantine rules. These have subsequently  been relaxed and nowadays passport-ed dogs and cats stream freely through our borders. Rabies remains a killer disease but I concede that it does not seem to have taken hold here following this loosening of our defences. Nevertheless wild monkeys present an uncertain threat, so I subject myself willingly to the serum which I can feel passing all the way down my arm and into my fingers. I will need two more of these injections before I can relax in the company of wildlife, and even then, not if I should encounter a pig in a rice field, as the nurse informs me gleefully. This would  apparently carry the possibility of contracting the alarming sounding Japanese encephalitis. We agree however that my risk-averse approach to travelling means I am at low risk of this eventuality so I go on my way.

Next stop is medication. I have been advised by some to pack no medicines because all are freely and more cheaply available at my destination. I don’t doubt this, but as I may be at risk from mosquitoes and germs on my way between the airport and a Delhi pharmacy I plump for a range of items, including probiotics, water purification tablets, thin rubber gloves (with no plan of in what circumstances I would use them)  and what must be a lifetime’s supply of anti bacterial  handwash, all of which sets me back more than I intended it to.

Now all I have to do is take my leave. Leave taking I generally find harder than being gone. Time will tell. But all being well, on  Tuesday morning I will be in India. And that feels an enticing prospect.

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