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They made Kalashnikovs here…

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This  extract from “REDISCOVERING ALBANIA” by Adam Yamey describes a part of Albania where much weaponry was manufactured during the Communist era (1944-91).

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“We followed the River Osumi upstream [from Berat], passing an isolated working military camp with camouflaged concrete buildings. The road wound up the valley crossing numerous tributaries of the Osumi. Next to many of these small bridges there were construction sites, which were associated with the building of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline. This will carry gas from Kipoi (just east of the Greek city of Alexandropolis) to Seman (a few kilometres north of Vlorë on the Adriatic). From there, it will go under the sea and resurface at the southern Italian coast south east of Lecce. This gas-carrying modern ‘Via Egnatia’ (or maybe it should be called ‘Via Igniter’) will follow the valley of the Osumi, then curve around Berat, before heading westwards towards the sea. It is part of a huge project to transport gas from Azerbaijan to western Europe.

The town of Poliçan was a pleasant surprise. We were expecting to find a drab place because of its industrial heritage. Far from it: Poliçan was a cheerful, vibrant place. We parked at the top end of the sloping triangular piazza named after the large mountain (Tomorr: 2,416 metres), which dominates the area around Berat and Poliçan.  The piazza, is a right-angled triangle in plan. Its two shorter sides were lined with well-restored, freshly painted Communist-era buildings with shops and cafés.  We joined the crowds drinking under colourful umbrellas outside cafés on the Rruga Miqesia, which runs off the piazza towards the town’s cultural centre and Bashkia (both built in the Communist period). It was about 11 am on a working day. There seemed to be many people with sufficient time for sitting leisurely in cafés or just strolling up and down the street. A girl, who ran a mobile ‘phone shop (on her own), sat with friends at a table in a café near to the shop, and only left them if a customer entered her showroom. A long out of date poster on a building advertised a meeting in Tirana for adherents of the Bektashi sect.

Near the upper end of the triangular piazza, there was a new marble monument commemorating Riza Cerova (1896-1935). He was born just south of Poliçan, and became a leading protagonist in the ‘June Revolution’ of 1924, when supporters of Fan Noli forced Ahmed Zogu to flee from Albania. For a brief time, Noli became Albania’s Prime Minister. However, at the end of 1924, aided by the Yugoslavs and Greeks, Zogu made a counter-coup, and then assumed control the country. Soon after this, he had himself crowned ‘King Zog’. Following Noli’s defeat, Cerova joined the German Communist Party, and later returned to Albania where he led anti-Zogist fighters. He died during an encounter with Zog’s forces.

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Poliçan was important during the Communist period. It was home to an enormous arms and ammunition factory, the KM Poliçan, which was opened in 1962. This produced its own versions (the ASH-72 and ASH-82 series) of the Kalashnikov gun as well as other munitions.  The factory lies amidst cultivated terraced fields on the slopes of a natural amphitheatre away from, and beneath, the southern edge of the town. Workers used to approach the factory from the town by a long staircase. We counted at least twenty-five industrial buildings in the complex, many of them with broken or missing windows. None of the numerous rusting ventilators on these edifices were emitting smoke, and there were no signs of life. The slopes surrounding the factory below were dotted with concrete and metal entrances to underground stores and tunnels. During the unrest of 1997, KM Poliçan was temporarily taken over by criminal gangs while the city was in ‘rebel’ hands. The factory is still used, but mainly to de-activate out-of-date Albanian weaponry. It was difficult to imagine that the peaceful scene, which we observed from a track overlooking it, had such an explosive history.

We travelled southwards through cultivated countryside and past occasional forests, always following the sinuous course of the Osumi. At the edge of Çorovodë, the administrative capital of the Skrapar District, we saw a tourist information poster beside a squat hemispherical Hoxha-era concrete bunker. It portrayed an Ottoman era bridge, which we hoped to see later. In the town’s main square, there was a socialist-realism style monument: a pillar topped by a carved group: one woman with three men. One of them was holding a belt of machine gun ammunition. The base of the monument had ‘1942’ carved in large numerals. On the 5th of September 1942, Skrapar became the first district in Albania to be liberated from the occupying fascist forces. There was a bronze statue of Rizo Cerova in a small park next to the square. Elegantly dressed in a jacket with waistcoat, he is shown holding a rifle in his left hand. His face looked left but his tie was depicted as if it were being swept by wind over his right shoulder.

We ate a satisfying lunch in a large restaurant next to the park, the Hotel Osumi. It backed onto a fast-flowing tributary of the Osumi. After eating, we entered a café a little way upstream to ask for directions to the Ottoman bridge that we had seen on the tourist poster. We were surprised to discover a ‘black’ man at a table, chatting with several Albanians. He spoke perfect English, which was not surprising because he was born in Tennessee (USA). He was teaching English in Çorovodë under the auspices of the Peace Corps.  With pencil and paper to hand, he was compiling his own map of the town. When we told his companions that we were trying to find the old bridge, they advised us that it was only accessible with a rugged four-wheel drive vehicle.

Driving further southwards, we reached the spectacular Canyon of the Osumi (Kanioni i Osumit, in Albanian). It is about twenty-six kilometres long, deep, and narrow. At places where the road came close to the edge of the canyon, we obtained good views. From above, it looked as if the cultivated rolling fields and pastureland had been cracked open. The crack’s walls were steep sided, with dramatic striations of whitish rock. Far beneath us at the bottom of this fissure, the River Osumi flowed around its many bends. Standing at the canyon’s precipitous edge, we could only hear birdsong and water rustling over the river’s stony bed far below us.

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Retracing our steps to Berat, we passed an abandoned building with a fading circular coloured sign painted on it. It depicted a grey cow standing between a woman in a white dress, who was writing on a clipboard, and a man in a white coat such as doctors wear. In the background, a man in an overcoat holding a shepherd’s crook, was leading a flock of sheep towards the grey animal and its attendants. Around the edge of the picture, we read the words ‘Stacioni Zooteknise’, which literally translates as ‘zoo technical station’. The building with its peeling plaster and patches of exposed brickwork had once been an animal husbandry centre.”

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Adam Yamey’s book REDISCOVERING ALBANIA is available from Amazon, bookdepository.com, lulu.com, and is on Kindle

I thought it was a bean

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Is fear of the needle 

worse than fear of the mask?

Without them, we suffer

business care clean clinic

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Many of my adult patients remembered going to the dentist when they were children and having to be put asleep under a black face-mask. This memory instilled in them a life-long fear of visiting dentists.

The day after the 17th of March 1982, when I qualified as a dentist, I was legally allowed to administer general anaesthetics for dental procedures without an anaesthetist being present. General anaesthesia is hazardous enough but without the assistance of an anaesthetist, the risks of problems multiply. I could have accidentally killed a patient on my first day in practice. For the record, I have never ever administered general anaesthetics with or without an anaesthetist.

For a brief while, a few months in the 1990s, I worked in a practice that specialised in treating dental patients while they were under general anaesthesia. The anaesthetics were administered by a visiting hospital anaesthetist, who was assisted by a fully trained anaesthetics technician. The patients, when unconscious, were intubated to maintain their breathing and all the right things were done to ensure their safety. When the patients were ‘under’, I worked on their teeth, as quickly as I could because the anaesthetist wanted to keep the patients ‘under’ for as short a time as possible.

Children were given gaseous anaesthesia through a face mask. Once, I sniffed the gas briefly. It was terrible stuff. It felt as if a knife were shooting up my nose. Most children were, quite naturally, terrified at the prospect of anything that was happening in our clinic. Getting them to accept the black mask with its attached rubber tube was often difficult. The anaesthetist was a friendly man from the Middle East. He would say to the children things like:

“This smells of peppermint.”

The child might reply:

“I don’t like peppermint.”

The doctor would then say:

“I’ve got strawberry flavour.”

“I don’t like strawberry.”

“How about some lovely banana?”

And so, it went on.

One mother impressed me. She said to her child that if he allowed the mask to be put on by the count of three, he could have a treat at McDonalds later. She counted “one”, and the child refused. And, then “two”, but the child still resisted. Then, I wondered how different it would be when she got to “three.”

I was impressed when she said:

“Two and a quarter,” and then “Two and a third”, and so on without ever reaching “three”. Eventually, her child cooperated.

 

I must to admit that although we got a lot of work done on fully anaesthetised patients, I did not enjoy working under these conditions. However, I enjoyed my weekly encounters with the friendly anaesthetist, ‘Dr A’. He was extremely fond of fiery chillies, which he consumed during our lunch breaks. He was always seeking hotter chillies. This was probably because his taste-buds had become partially damaged by his excessive consumption of these almost corrosive chillies.

One lunchtime, Dr A and I were sitting in the staff room with a male anaesthetic technician from an agency. Wickedly, Dr A passed him a long, thin fresh green chilli, saying:

“Try this.”

The young man put the whole green chilli in his mouth and started chewing it. Soon, his face went bright red, and he rushed to the sink to fill a glass of water. When he recovered, he turned to Dr A, and said:

“I thought it was a bean.”

PS: Nowadays, general anaesthetics for dentistry cannot be administered anywhere in the UK except in a fully-equipped hospital.

Albania’s got talent…

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The Albanian community in the UK has been in the country long enough for some of their children to have been born in the country. It would be easy for the first generation born in the UK, who have to attend British schools and mix with non-Albanians, to begin to forget their cultural heritage. However, thanks to various organizations that some of the children of Albanian heritage attend, Albanian language and cultural traditions are being kept alive in the UK. On the 27th of October 2018, I was invited to attend the finals of the, which was held in a school hall in London’s Chalk Farm.

The Albanian Ambassador to the UK, Mr Qirjako Qirko, was one of several well-known personalities who introduced the show in Albanian. He ended his speech with a few words in English. The gist of what he said was as follows. He thanked the Queen and her Government for allowing Albanians to maintain their traditions and language, which is not the case in every other country. The show which followed the speeches certainly demonstrated that despite being far from their traditional homes and many years away from them, the Albanian community is encouraging their children to keep alive the traditions of their forefathers.

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The show consisted of a series of performances by young people whose parents came from Albania or Kosovo. There were songs (traditional and contemporary Albanian as well as renderings of current and not so current popular songs in English). Small troupes of youngsters in traditional Albanian garb performed traditional Albanian dances. Others danced routines that they had choreographed themselves. Several youngsters declaimed poetry in Albanian. Naturally, the quality of performance was not uniform. Some of the young people were dazzlingly competent, the rest were not bad. None of the performers was shy or overtly lacking in confidence. Each of them performed with an enthusiasm that was refreshing to observe. The large audience around me encouraged each of the contestants as they performed on stage, cheering and clapping to the rhythm of the music. The five judges praised and gave friendly encouragement (in Albanian) to each of the performers when their act was over. Three of the judges were for singing, one for poetry recital, and one for dancing. The atmosphere in the hall was joyful and friendly. Everyone who passed my wife and me, greeted us warmly even if they had no idea who we are. It was great to discover that the famed hospitality of the Albanian people has been preserved in its British diaspora.

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Many, if not all, of the performers, who sung or recited in Albanian or who dressed up in traditional costumes and performed the dances of their ancestors, use English in their day to day life. They have given up parts of their precious spare time to learn Albanian and to help Albanian cultural traditions remain vital and vibrant. They set an example that many children of British ancestry might profitably follow.

Through the tongue

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During my three and a half decades working as a dentist, I have been assisted by numerous ladies varying in age from sixteen to over seventy years. ‘Carly’ was one of them. When she joined me in a practice west of London, it was the first time she had worked in a dental practice. She was a quick learner, but far from discreet.

CARLY

When we had a new patient, we recorded the person’s details on the outside of a record card. One day, a smart-looking woman sat down in my dental chair, a new patient, and I asked her for her personal details: name, date of birth, address, and so on. Carly entered the information on the record card. When we had finished, Carly asked the patient:

“Are you M.R.S. or M.I.S.S?”

The lady replied:

“Miss.”

Quick as a flash, Carly said:

“I can’t see why you ain’t married. You ain’t ugly or anythink.”

The lady took this quite well. She could see that Carly meant no harm.

One Monday morning, Carly arrived and said to me:

“Ere, look at this”

She stuck out her tongue, which had a shiny silver-coloured metal stud pierced through it. I was lost for words for a moment, and then asked her if it was uncomfortable.

“No, it ain’t,” she replied, “It makes eating spaghetti difficult, though. It gets caught up on it.”

All morning, whenever a patient sat in my dental chair, she would tap the patient’s shoulder, and then say: “Wht d’ya think?” before sticking her tongue out to display her stud to the person in the chair. Most of the patients were either politely complimentary of just smiled. By now, my regular patients had got used to Carly and her friendly but cheeky manners.

Another day, Carly arrived at work. Very excitedly, she told me:

“You’ll never guess how much I paid for a large pack of prawns at Tesco’s.”

“Four pounds?” I guessed.

“No, just a quid.”

“That’s a good bargain,” I said.

“What me and me boyfriend do,” Carly explained, “is we swap the labels on the packets in the chiller so that we get the special offer prices instead.”

“Be careful,” I advised.

On yet another occasion, Carly arrived at work looking distressed. I asked her what was wrong.

“I crashed me boyfriend’s car.”

“But you haven’t got a license have you, Carly?”

“No, but I was drunk. I got in his car and drove it backwards into a lamppost.”

I am sure that the boyfriend was not pleased because throughout the day Carly was rung up by him on her mobile ‘phone. She would go out into the corridor, but because she was screaming at her chap so loudly, everyone could hear her.

During one appointment, I was beginning to scale (remove the dental tartar or calculus) a lady’s teeth. After a few minutes, while I changed instruments the lady, a well-dressed woman with airs and graces, asked me:

“Excuse me, Mr Yamey, but what exactly are you doing to my teeth?”

Before I could answer, Carly replied quickly:

“E’s cleaning the crap off yer teeth.”

The patient seemed quite happy with this simple summary.

Despite Carly’s occasional rather undignified comments, she was an excellent assistant. Patients appreciated her unpretentious, friendly, open approach and the fact that she was rarely silent. After a few months, when she had gained some experience, Carly left our practice to take up a better paid position in another dental practice. Some weeks after she had been working there, she dropped into our surgery to say ‘hallo’. I asked her how she was getting on in her new job. She replied:

“It’s ok, but they have told me not to open my mouth during the day.”

Picture source: “Der Zahnarzt in der Karikatur” by E Hinrich (1963)

Pull it out…

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After qualifying at University College Hospital Dental School in early 1982, I practised dentistry for another thirty-five and a half years. I never owned my own practice but worked in those owned by other people. I worked in a total of five practices. With exception of one practice, where I worked for less than eight months, I enjoyed the conditions of the rest. None of my ‘bosses’ (i.e. the practice owners) appeared to mind how much or how little I earned for them and how much time I took off for travelling. I am grateful to them for their tolerant attitudes towards my laid-back approach to work.

My first boss, ‘J’, provided gave me a smooth introduction to the trials and tribulations of general dental practice. He was always ready to give me advice if I needed it, but gently encouraged me to take control of my decision making so that I became in charge of what I was doing.

During the first few months of being in practice, I often encountered difficulties when extracting teeth. Maybe, at that time I had insufficient experience to know when an extraction was likely to be too difficult for me to perform. Maybe, some teeth are just very hard to extract. This is the case.

If I got stuck midway through an extraction, I would ask my dental nurse to summon J. When J, who was very skilled at extracting teeth, arrived, he would work on the tooth up to a certain point. Then he would say to me that I should finish the job. He could have easily completed the extraction himself, but he wanted me to do it so that my patient would not lose confidence in me. I feel that this was extremely kind of him and will always be grateful for his sensitive approach. Later in the day, when there were no patients about, he used to take me aside and explain what he had done to loosen the tooth. Thus, I learned how to improve my technique.

As the years passed, my ability to perform extractions, even difficult ones, increased. Often, I would extract teeth that my colleagues would have referred to specialists. Although some of my other dental skills improved over the years, It is sad to relate that what I became best at was removing teeth rather than saving them!

PS: dentists never PULL out teeth; they use various techniques to widen the tooth socket and to split the collagen fibres that hold the tooth in the socket.

Picture source: “Der Zahnarzt in der Karikatur” by E Heinrich (1963)

The lady in blue

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What makes for a great work of art? Well, people differ on the answer to this question. Seeing one special painting in the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia in Palermo (Sicily) helped me formulate my answer.

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The painting that literally caught my eye and grabbed my full attention is “The Virgin Annunciate”. It was painted sometime between 1474 and ’77 by the Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina (c. 1430-79). It depicts a woman in a blue veil seated at a small wooden desk on which there is an open book. The fingers of her right hand spread forwards towards the viewer. Her left hand holds her veil closed. She appears to be gazing towards her right.  Simple, really, if described like this, but it is not.

The painting grabbed my attention long before my brain had time to analyse what was reaching my eyes’ retinas. It was an intense visceral attraction to the image that made me stop and look at it carefully, an attraction that few other works of art have had for me.

When I had recovered from the initial pleasurable shock of seeing such beauty, I began to notice its subject matter, and with the help of an explanatory note next to the painting, I learnt some of the artist’s deeper intentions.

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For example, there is a sharp crease in the cloth of the veil  just above the mid-point of the lady’s forehead. This tells the informed viewer that the Virgin is wearing a special treasured, rarely worn, veil that is usually kept neatly folded in a closet or wardrobe. No doubt, art historians would be able to point out many other meaningful details that the artist has depicted. Despite these aspects of symbolic meaning, despite its subject matter and context, this picture is primarily an object of enormous beauty and graciousness that appeals greatly to something in the deep recesses of my subconscious.

For me, a work of art must first seize the seat, the very source of my emotions in a positive way. If it can do that, then whether or not the artist has imbued it with layers of meaning, the work is in my view a great one. Lest you think that it is only the works of long dead masters that fall into my definition of ‘great art’, let me refer to someone who created more recently, Constantin Brâncuși (1856-1957). Some of his sculptures depict birds or humans as simple, almost abstract, forms, almost devoid of detail. These works evoke the same deep sensations of visceral attraction as the painting by Da Messina, yet they could hardly be more different in all respects from that.

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A work by Brancusi [Source: bookdepository.com]

I am unable to formulate why the Da Messina and Brancusi works chime (and even some extremely abstract works such as those by Modriaan or Sean Scully) with my deepest emotional chords, when others, undoubtedly masterful in many ways like the works of Caravaggio and Barbara Hepworth, do not. I suppose this is what folk call ‘taste’. And, tastes differ greatly.

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Sean Scully

For me, a great work of art must first appeal to me emotionally, viscerally if you like, rather than intellectually. If I can only begin to appreciate a work of art after it has been explained, as is the case with much so-called ‘conceptual art’, then, for me, it is not ‘great art’.

Cucumber sandwiches

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My late mother-in-law, an Indian living in Bangalore, made the best cucumber sandwiches that I have ever eaten. She used fresh slices of thin white bread with crusts removed. Each slice was spread with a small amount of butter mixed with freshly mixed English-style mustard. Then, finely sliced, peeled and de-seeded cucumber was inserted as the sandwich’s filling. The result was both delicate and refreshingly delicious. Having eaten these superb snacks on numerous occasions, I formed the idea in my head that India is THE place for cucumber sandwiches. This led to an amusing incident.

sliced cucumber on white table

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Some friends of ours from England were spending a few days in Mysore, which is not far from Bangalore, where we were based. So, we decided to drive to Mysore to spend a day with them.

Our friends were staying in an old palace that had been tastefully converted into a hotel. After we had roamed around Mysore with them, they invited us to have afternoon tea in the lovely garden of the hotel. When we had sat down at a table, I said:

“This is the ideal place to eat cucumber sandwiches. The best cucumber sandwiches in the world are made in India.”

Everyone was happy to order a plate of these. When we asked the waiter for the sandwiches, he asked:

“You want vegetable sandwiches, with capsicum and all?”

“No, just cucumber sandwiches, no capsicums,” we replied.

Some minutes later, the waiter returned with A plate of sandwiches oozing with a bright red paste filling.

“What’s that?”, we asked him.

“Miner’s sauce”, came the reply.

“Miner’s sauce? What on earth is that?” asked one of our friends.

The waiter simply repeated the words “miner’s sauce”.

After a minute or two, the penny dropped, and I said:

“He means mayonnaise.”

Now, many non-English people pronounce this word as ‘my-on-nays’, which is closer to ‘miner’s sauce’ than the English pronunciation.

“We don’t want that sauce,” one of our friends protested, “Only cucumber.”

The waiter looked confused.

“What, no bread?” he asked.

“Let me show you what I mean,” said one of our friends, standing up and accompanying the waiter to the kitchen.

The waiter returned after a while with a very sub-standard collection of cucumber sandwiches.

Later my wife pointed out that just because her mother made excellent cucumber sandwiches, this was not necessarily the case all over India, as I had foolishly assumed.

Gandhi to Hitler

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On the 24th of December 1940 Mohandas Gandhi (the ‘Mahatma’) wrote to the Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Amongst other things that he wrote in his letter, the following extracts suffice to give the gist of it:

“I hope you will have the time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity who have view living under the influence of that doctrine of universal friendship view your action. We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity. Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms.

But ours is a unique position. We resist British Imperialism no less than Nazism. If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny. Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field. Ours is an unarmed revolt against the British rule. But whether we convert them or not, we are determined to make their rule impossible by non-violent non-co-operation…

…During this season when the hearts of the peoples of Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended even our own peaceful struggle. Is it too much to ask you to make an effort for peace during a time which may mean nothing to you personally but which must mean much to the millions of Europeans whose dumb cry for peace I hear, for my ears are attended to hearing the dumb millions? I had intended to address a joint appeal to you and Signor Mussolini, whom I had the privilege of meeting when I was in Rome during my visit to England as a delegate to the Round Table Conference. I hope that he will take this as addressed to him also with the necessary changes.” (see: https://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/hitler_ltr1.htm).

I do not think that this unbelievable letter ever reached the Führer. However, it formed the basis for a film, which was on general release in India briefly.

G TO H

[Source: MensXP.com]

In 2011, an Indian film, “Gandhi to Hitler”, was put out on general release in India. One newspaper accorded it a rating of half a star out of five. We were staying in Bangalore when it was showing, and I was dying to see a film whose name juxtaposed the peace-loving Gandhi with the war-mongering Adolf Hitler.

Only one cinema was showing the film in Bangalore. It was a long way from where we were staying. We arrived for the 10 am performance and joined a long queue of school-aged children waiting at the box office of the cinema multiplex. When we reached the ticket office, I said to the ticket seller:

“Two for the Gandhi/Hitler film.”

“Not possible, sir,” came the reply.

“Why not?”

“I must sell three tickets before we can screen a film, and you are only two.”

“But,” I protested, “we have come all the way from London to see this film.”

I thought for a moment, and then said:

“Sell me three tickets, and then you can screen the film.”

The seller was happy with this. We walked over to the lift that would take us up to the cinema. While we were waiting, the ticket man came rushing up to us, waving one of the notes with which we had paid for our tickets. He had managed to find a third taker for the film and refunded our third ticket.

Apart from an usher, there were only three of us in the large auditorium. The film was so dreadful that it was quite amusing. The plot had three main strands that ran in parallel. The first was Gandhi and his followers walking endlessly around a lovely garden. One of the followers was the wife of a man, who appears in the second strand. This aspect of the plot revolved around a group of Indian soldiers who had joined the German Army but were trying to desert from it. For those who are unaware of it, some Indian soldiers did actually join the Wehrmacht during WW2, hoping that a German defeat of the British might hasten the independence of India. Throughout the film, this forlorn band of soldiers trudged through a snowy mountainous landscape that was supposed to be the Alps but looked more like the Himalayas. Somehow, quite inexplicably, the woman in India was able to correspond by letters with the soldier tramping through the ‘Alps’.

The third strand of the film, which had no obvious connection with the other two strands, was set in Hitler’s bunker in Berlin during the last days of the Third Reich. Anyone who has watched the excellent film “Downfall” (2004) would be able to see that the bunker in the Indian film is a very crude copy of that in the German film. Unlike Adolf Hitler, the man portraying him in the Indian film is a true Aryan, an Indian. Goebbels is played by a character who looks like an elegant Italian. The Indian Hitler kept forgetting which of his arms was supposed to be lame.

There was an interval half way through the film. We left the auditorium to stretch our legs. When we returned for the second half of the film, my wife and I were the only people left in the auditorium.

Chicken 65

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HAMPI 2a

The state-run Mayura Hotel at Hampi is conveniently located in the midst of the extensive, picturesque ruins of the once very prosperous city of Vijayanagara. The former city was once the world’s second largest metropolis, but it was destroyed in 1565. I have stayed at the hotel on at least three occasions despite its shortcomings, some of which I will describe below. It is only fair to point out that the last time I stayed at this hotel was at least nine years ago. Things might well have improved by then.

On one occasion, we were driving to Hampi from Bangalore, and were running late. We rang the hotel to tell them that we would be likely to turn up by 6 pm. They replied that it would not be a problem: our room was waiting. And, so it should have been because check-out time was 12 noon. Whoever had occupied the room on the previous day should have vacated their room by noon.

When we turned up at the hotel, we were told that the room we had booked was still occupied. We were not pleased. The receptionist explained that the occupants of our room, who should have vacated it by noon, were still using it. We remonstrated and asked for an explanation. We were told that the family that was overstaying in our promised room had also arrived late the day before, and the hotel was kindly letting them extend their stay at our expense.  We were tired and not amused.

The receptionist and another member of staff settled us temporarily in a small bedroom while we waited for our room to become vacant and cleaned up. After a couple of hours, we were shifted to our allotted family room. There were several workmen in the bathroom. They were trying to turn off a jet of water, like a geyser, that was shooting up from the floor. They managed after about an hour.

There were no towels in our accommodation. By now it was well after dark. We asked for towels and were told that we could not have them because the person with the (presumably only) key to the linen cupboard had gone home.

At the end of one of our stays at the Mayura, we asked to have breakfast at 7 am, when the dining area was supposed to open. When we arrived promptly at 7 am, there was no staff too be seen. Apart from us, the dining area was empty. After a few minutes, I walked into the kitchen: it was empty. All of the kitchen and serving staff were standing in a crowd in a nearby room, their eyes glued to a television screen. We learned the reason when, eventually, someone came to look after us. The television was showing the funeral of the much-loved Kannada film star Vishnuvardhan, who died on the 30th December 2009. Vishnuvardhan’s family were dismayed because his loss was not so greatly mourned as that of another star Rajkumar, who had died three years earlier. People had committed suicide on hearing of Rajkumar’s demise. Nevertheless, our driver thought it would be safer if we drove with a photo of Vishnuvardhan attached to the window as a mark of respect. Without it, we might have been attacked!

During one of our stays, we were curious to taste what appears on many South Indian restaurant menus. It is something called ‘Chicken 65’. What appeared resembled breaded chicken nuggets. They were bland and tasteless – very disappointing. 

Some days later, we had dinner with an elderly Dutch couple, who were back-packing around India. It was clear to us that they had had enough of spicy food. We suggested that they ordered French fries (finger chips in Indian English), which, like omelettes and tomato soup, are almost always available wherever you are in India. Their eyes lit up at this suggestion. Also, we recommended that they order Chicken 65, which we assured them was not at all spicy. 

After a while, the chips were served along with a plate of chicken pieces that did not resemble the Chicken 65, which we had ordered a couple of days earlier. Our new friends tasted this dish, and their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. What had been served to them as Chicken 65 was far from bland; it was fiery hot. It seemed to us that the chefs in the kitchen paid little attention to what was ordered by the customers. We later learned that Chicken 65 is supposed to be hot and spicy. What we had been served before we met the Dutch people, was definitely not that dish.

The spicy dish was originally created at Buhari’s Hotel in Madras in 1965, hence the 65 in the name (see: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-hows-whys-of-our-chicken-65/article5042658.ece).

While we were staying in the hotel one visit, a tour group of Italians had dinner one evening. One man, who had had enough of spicy food, shouted out in a hysterical voice: “I want chicken, plain chicken with salt, nothing else, just chicken and salt, no spices, just chicken and salt.” He kept repeatng this, and we thought: “He should be so lucky in this eatery”.

Despite its elements of “Fawlty Towers” hospitality, the Mayura is a lovely place to base a few days of exploration of the substantial  ruins of a once great city.

HAMPI 3