Captain Sindbad Meets Balu the Bear.

I first met Balu in the town of Shangri-la when he was 18 years old, already married with a child, such a bumptious character that his friends gave me warning glances when he cheekily snatched the cap from my head and demanded I give it to him. “Watch out for this one,” they seemed to say but I took no notice and became his good friend for the next 12 years, he had a wicked sense of humour, cracking me up with his mimicry of the dumb locals and pompous tourists.

I knew he was straight, a terrible pussy-hound in fact, chasing every woman unattached, and I told him of my queer sexuality from the start, there was no sexual attraction between us, we could travel together and sleep in the same bed and there was never any tension to mar our sojourn. I was discreet with the few sexual liaisons I’d managed over the years, sex just wasn’t an issue and we avoided the subject, except when he told me of his latest female firangi conquest, (he’s a very good-looking guy with the gift of the gab), which I’d gently decry as immoral for a married man with children. In a town of ashrams, yoga schools and temples I was amazed to see that many white women from 16 to 60 had a hot young Indian guy hanging off them, yoga notorious for squeezing the gonads and making one horny, so after all those asanas a bit of ass was quite welcome.

Balu runs a river-rafting business and often takes me down the Ganges River rapids in his huge rubber raft, or on wildlife safaris in his jeep to Rajiji National Park to see wild elephants and leopards. For many years we went on treks to the top of the Himalayas, to my favorite temple to the Nature Spirits and though he often over-charged me on the cost of things, even cheated me at times, I always forgave him as it was only small amounts of money and I knew he needed it for his family.

When we drove around Shangri-la on his motorbike he would nod in condescension to the townsfolk he met like a grand government Babu and they would bob their heads in return, namaste tactfully, me thinking it was out of respect, later on discovering a lot of it was out of fear, for he was a life-long terror in the town. Riding pillion it never struck me that I was somewhat used as a white-wash cover to his schizo Jekyll and Hyde nature, I was his captive firanghi Maharaja who made him look happening, successful, esteemed.

 

He did have a good side, with sheer hard-work he got his adventure-business off the ground, finding employment for many people, a good thing in 80% unemployed India, and he was known to help many poor souls in distress, taking them to hospital when ill and nobody else cared, arranging funerary pyres for the penniless dead. When the Ganges overflowed its banks last year and flooded the nearby village he tirelessly rowed about in his raft and rescued the sodden peasants from their rooftops, and because of all this the townsfolk tried to overlook his nasty side. He was indeed a jolly character, fun to have at a gathering, he’d tell stories that’d have us pissing ourselves laughing or wowed with awe at the dangerous exploits involved in chasing adventure, and this was why I liked him so much.

The only problem being it was usually alcohol that loosened his tongue, he had a fatal addiction to it, like many of his countrymen, to the ruination of his marriage, (his wife hated his guts and was forever leaving him), his friendships, (every year I visited he had a new set of friends, the old ones having had enough and keeping their distance), his business not as successful as it could be as he often had a hang-over and couldn’t do anything on time), and relations with the townsfolk often on the nose, (he fights with everyone when drunk, enamored of slapping faces for no good reason).

I’ve mentioned many times in my stories how alcohol is really fucking with the general populace in India, it was banned in most states for many years, only lately did the big industrialists and bureaucrats realize they were missing out on much moolah and so all brands of booze now flow freely from every street corner, violence, liver damage, road accidents be dammed, and Indian men guzzle it furiously as if to make up for lost time.

I’d seen him half-drunk many times, he becomes belligerent, abusive, demanding, nasty, fucking awful really and I try to avoid him if I see a binge coming on. Thus I should’ve known better when on my last days in Shangri-la he invited me to a bonfire party at a river-rafting camp 35 kms up into the Himalayas. I’d always wanted to go on one of these camps, like boy-scouts under the stars singing jolly songs, canvas tents all in a row, but being a non-drinker, I didn’t flash that it was actually an excuse for the men to get drunk without the restraining influence of their women-folk.

When Balu pulled up in his jeep there was a mob of men waiting to jump in the back, one of them stepped forward and introduced himself to me, the honoured firangi guest, as Captain Jasinder Sindbad, and Balu whispered to me that he hoped to make a good impression on the Captain who had leased the river-camp. Balu wanted to be the one that got hired to take wealthy groups of Delhi businessmen rafting down the white-water Ganges, so we all had to be on our best behavior. Right on, I thought, maybe the experienced Captain was strong enough to keep everyone in line and the alcohol wouldn’t get out of control.

We tore off up the winding, precipitous mountain road, the Captain in the front next to Balu, me in the open-top back gazing up at the splendid view of the stars. As we rushed along, someone asked me, “How do you feel Toby?” “Fucking fantastic!” I replied, “Look at those stars, they’re so far out!” Everyone laughed and I really hoped it would be a marvelous evening. The guys were all homely family men, so I didn’t have to worry about any sexual tension arising between us, for all my fantasies of hanky-panky emanating from the canvas tents, (I’d always wondered about what went on late at night in these rafting camps.)

At the camp a bonfire was eventually lighted, with copious amounts of petrol, me the boy-scout admonishing their tardy bush-craft, and we all introduced ourselves very formally, Indians loving ritual. A throne-like chair was brought out for me to my embarrassment but I’ve long learned to go with the flow in India and simply do as the locals ask and expect of me, the grand visitor from foreign lands. Captain Sindbad told me he’d indeed sailed the 7 seas, and the men we had found already ensconced in the camp were his ship’s crew, the river camp just being a side-hobby and investment opportunity. One of his sailors introduced himself in fluent English, admitted he’d visited Sydney and knew exactly what we Aussies were like. He was extremely handsome and I was a little flustered as to how I’d remain cool until I discovered he was the Captain’s younger brother, the other good-looking crew members his cousins, and so I felt safe, there’d be no impolite advances, I’ve always been restrained and discreet, not an all-devouring fiend like some I’ve heard of.

The Captain and the crew got busy cooking fish from the river and waiting upon us motley lot until I insisted they join us, it was silly for them to act as our servants. They then all blabbed in Hindi together and I was left to stare silently into the fire, which I love doing so I didn’t mind that I was being ignored. The Captain noticed my exclusion and indicated to his brother to come and engage me in talking “English”. The younger brother was named Arjun and he was studying nautical science, a really smart guy and it was a great pleasure to talk science, philosophy, culture with him, at last an intelligent conversation, mostly in India it’s religious nonsense or sexist shit that gets blabbed endlessly.

His cousin Sandeep, a computer science major, also jumped into the conversation enthusiastically, we all got on like a house on fire, they asked me if they could call me “Uncle” and I told them it was a good fit as I’d ripped off a well-known Aussie breakfast cereal brand-name, Uncle Toby Zoates, as my artist’s tag. Again everyone laughed at my enthusiastic response, things were going wonderfully, we even liked the same music and sang Akon songs together around the bonfire, “Nobody wants to see us together but it don’t matter, no…”

In the meantime Captain Jasinder Sindbad had brought out the whiskey bottles and with dread I watched Balu and his alco friends get progressively drunk. Only the ship’s crew and me refrained from drinking, continuing our deep and meaningful conversation, the boys asking me why I was not married and had kids by the age of 61. I fobbed them off diplomatically, “I just never wanted to, in my country I’m free not to if that’s what I want, there’s too many people in the world as it is. And it’s my personal business, maybe when I know you well enough I’ll tell you.” They kept questioning me as to my sexual disposition, hinting that they knew anyway, and I tried to close the investigation by declaring, “You’re smart guys, you figure it out.”

Balu, half-drunk, sidled up to me and said, “So you’re playing the girl at the party tonight, yeah, everyone only interested in you and you lapping it up?” I winced at his jealousy and exclaimed, “Oh oh, here comes the Rakshas, (demon). Fuck off, for once I’m having a good discussion with some intelligent people. And anyway, I hope you want to go back soon as I don’t want to stay here all night, I’m dying for my warm bed in my clean hotel room.” This seemed to mollify him and he went back to drinking, glass after glass of fire-water whiskey. And again the boys went back to interrogating me as to my mysterious essential nature.

Suddenly Balu and his ugly, dark-faced mate exploded, they’d taken exception to something said and started roaring like enraged bears, hissing, whistling, yelling insults over and over, they jumped in and out of the fire, fists started flying, all my fears realized, they picked up sticks and tent pegs and attacked the good Captain and his crew maliciously. Ten men jumped on them but they couldn’t be restrained, a burning log was picked up and swung about, I tried to wrench it free and got my hand burnt.

 

The melee wrestled backwards and forwards, the fire kicked all over, my bag stood upon and all its contents crushed and broken. The Captain turned to me and said, “This is a bad show!” “Yeah, they can’t hold their liquor. Balu is an infamous drunk, you shouldn’t have served up the whiskey!” “Yes, it was my mistake,” he admitted ruefully.

The fighting went on and on, no kidding, for upwards of an hour, Balu and his nasty side-kick just couldn’t be pacified, screaming, stumbling, hitting out at anyone and everyone, he was cross-eyed drunk, a real nasty bastard. I knew my time was coming, he staggered thru the detritus of the camp-fire and bellowed at me, “Toby, come on, we’re going, fuck these arseholes!” I yelled back, “I’m staying here, you’re too drunk and abusive, there’s no way I’m going with you!” I ran to escape his swinging fists, him screaming in Hindi, “You cocksucker, all you want is ling, (dick), you just want to stay here and suck all their cocks, and take it up the arse, you dirty faggot! Here, you want land, (cock), here’s my cock, suck that!”

And in front of all these men, most of them strangers to me, who we’d been trying to be on our best behavior with, he stepped forward, unzipped his pants and pulled out his noxious penis and swung it in my face.

 

I sat by the dying fire with my hands over my face moaning in horror and disbelief. The rest of the men went into shock, homosexuality is taboo in India, perhaps secretly indulged in but never mentioned in public, and certainly not in an all-male environment where it lurked unbidden. I had never been so humiliated, and certainly not by a supposed friend, a guy who for years I’d helped when he was in trouble, given copious gifts, taught him English, accompanied him on many adventures, it was just unforgivable. The men all whispered in dismay as he stormed off with his one drunken compatriot, continuing to bawl like bull elephants, crashing thru the jungle, revving the jeep over and over, knocking down trees in mad rage, or that’s what it sounded like. They even came back to the camp and started fighting all over again, the nightmare just wouldn’t end and I had to hide in a tent till they finally bulldozed up the mountain path and down the winding road to town, me hoping they’d drive off the edge and be done with it.

If the boys hadn’t worked out my particular bent, by now they had plenty of clues. They could hardly look me in the face, were constantly apologising and insisting I stay in their camp for the next three days where they would feed and entertain me, all for free. The Captain promised me a jolly volley-ball game next day and swimming in the freezing river, all of which I politely declined, asking only for a bed for a few hours and some blankets as I was very cold. For another hour we sat around the newly-stoked fire and again sang jolly songs and when it was my turn to sing something from one of my favorite singers, Nat King Cole, I stupidly chose “Haji Baba” but made up the lyrics as I couldn’t remember the actual words,

“Haji, Haji, Haji, Haji Baba, Haji Baba, he is always in love, he is always in love. Come to my tent, come and be my lover, I’d roam the whole world over, if you’d be my friend, be my friend to the end…”

They listened bemusedly, most of them getting the gist of the poetry, they politely clapped and then quickly went on to sing more incomprehensible Hindi folksongs in out of tune voices. When I finally crept off to my tent, the one I’d hidden in previously, I found the cousin Sandeep in the other bed even tho there were many empty tents he could’ve slept in. I quietly lay upon my cot and pulled the blankets over my head and meditated till dawn, there’d be no hanky-panky this night, no matter what was now expected of me, it just wasn’t going to happen, it was never going to happen in the first place, all I wanted was my comfy hotel room with no complications!

In the early morning I staggered out into the empty camp, the naval crew nowhere to be seen, just a few of Balu’s friends recovering from their shock, even they had swollen ears from where Balu had thumped them. We went up onto the road and hitched back into town, I thankfully rushed to my hotel room and had a hot shower, I had sand in my mouth and great disappointment in my heart. How could that non-friend be such a bastard? I saw him in the next few days, he even tried to smile at me as he rushed by on his motor-bike but I ignored him.

 

Apparently he rung up Captain Sindbad and apologized for his drunken behavior, hoping to get back in good and not miss out on lucrative contracts, such a venal sod he is, but he never rang me and apologized, it seems our friendship was expendable and I left the halcyon town of Shangri-la without saying goodbye. I hope never to see him again, the whole thing putting me off India, true friends there being very hard to come by. (I heard he got drunk the very next day and beat up some hapless soul in town and thus I knew he was probably feared everywhere.)

This brings me to reiterate that homosexuals are treated very badly in India, tortured, jailed, murdered, disowned by their families, their balls cut off and made to be pretend-women if they liked men that much. There must be at least 50 million of them, dykes and poofs, but they remain hidden for the most, underground, meeting in dark parks and toilets like gays did in the bad old days. I’ve met some GLBT types at the gay clubs in Mumbai and Delhi who seem to have come out but they’re rich, middle-class people whose money can bribe their way thru any contretemps. 

What’s really fucking India up is the population explosion, the wall to wall crowds creating filth, pollution, corruption, mass poverty, starvation, disease. I read that India had planned to balance the population by 2045 but now had put the date back to 2065 which means they’ve given up, they’re not serious, they live in the past worshipping animal-headed gods and fucking like rabbits, maybe sex is all that the poor have left to enjoy. Perhaps the Hindus fear the Muslims will out-breed them so everyone has to be married by 21 and having ten kids per family. I’m sure they’re really scared China will take their water and invade their territory and so India desires a huge population like that of China’s with a vast army to match. They certainly need a brave army to take on the threat of Pakistan which has stockpiled many nuclear weapons to threaten them with. Perhaps they fear Gay lib will water down their masculinity and weaken their soldier’s strength, whatever, gays are frowned upon and done away with.

And let’s not forget the fact that the untold millions provide a massive slave labour pool and consumers market, eg. who ever makes soap can sell a billion items a year and be a trillionaire.

Many demand rightly that Indian women need to be emancipated to get the population under control, and I think Gays need liberation too, men and women encouraged not to marry, bath-houses and sex on premises opened up for men to masturbate each other to relieve the sexual pressure ever building up in the populace, excited by Bollywood tits and advertising come-ons; it sure would put an end to much of the horrific rape of women and children that goes on daily there.

 

But no, humanism and rationalism don’t get a look-in. I hope one day a Mahatma Gayndhi will rise up and lead his/her brothers and sisters to freedom and respect and India will be that much better for it. Right now it’s kind of a living hell, so dangerous just to get down the street, (it is still calm and hospitable in the hinterlands and up in the mountains but you have to go thru the cities and towns to get there.)

 

I for one will wish them well, I love the people dearly for most of them work hard and try to be good, they deserve better. The country is not going to collapse into one big out of control homo orgy, as a liberal democracy they will simply be happy, progressive and on their way to being more sustainable if they enact gay liberation.

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Amiria of the Green Tara.

 This is a love-letter eulogy for my friend Amiria. That's her in black on the right making herself a cup of tea at my art show at Newtown Library in 2010.

In my old age I find myself weeping a lot, beautiful music, fond memories, heart-rending news items, uplifting movies, sweet friends gone to dust, oh how painfully exquisite this phenomena called human life is. When I was a young wanderer in India in 1973 an old fakir on the street read my palm and told me I'd live till I was 87 and I thought, "How fabulous!" I overlooked the old sore that I'd thus have to watch my friends leave or die, one by one, and I myself drift slowly into infirmity and possible dementia, (oh wondrous Universe, take me quickly while I'm on the road with my brains intact.)

















For all my queerness, many women played intense, influential roles in my human drama, there were 7 golden females in particular who found a special place in my heart and informed my soul. I've written about one of them already, Nicorette, Queen of the Zombies, maybe the last as I'm now tired and too fucked up to have time for any more Amazons. But I want to write of another of the 7, Amiria, who died recently, still young, beautiful, courageous, compassionate, and my life is depleted by her passing into the vale of shadows.

I met her in passing at the Piccolo Cafe on Kings Cross in the late '80s, we didn't particularly connect but had an affinity, she was a hardcore rock'n'roll gal, punk/metal, intelligent, tough and very good looking, a Maori escaped from New Zealand to try for a new life in Sydney. Then in 1993 my undoing unfolded, I was framed by two ugly, corrupt cops for an armed robbery on my local cake-shop which was my karma for being a bad cake addict. The pigs piled up lots of incriminating, circumstantial shit to hold against me when there was all the proof in the world that I didn't commit this stupid crime but the cops had it in for me because of all my "civil disobedience performance art" and being lazy, stupid dicks, they couldn't be bothered to hunt down the real perp.

One definite piece of evidence in my favour was a water-tight alibi, for at the exact time of the crime I was wandering about Kings Cross and just happened to pass by Amiria where she sat serving cigs at a tobacconists' shop outside the railway station. Thankfully I said "Hello" to which she smiled and returned my greeting. She then happened to look up at the clock to see if it was time for the commuters' rush, 3.45pm, and she remembered this clearly and swore she would go witness for my defense at my gruesomely grand trial. Most people don't want to get involved in others' troubles, especially when it involves the police, yet Amiria was a staunch defender of justice, she had to go to the copshop and give statements to the pigs over and over and she did this with amused elan, laughing at the pigs, twisting them around her little finger, the fools fell for her, she was twice as attractive as the two scrags whom they'd gotten to finger me in the line-up.

When I finally got a barrister Amiria attended his question-sessions unhesitatingly, charming him also, he was more willing to defend me pro-bono when he saw I had such good friends as her. After 2 years of house arrest and mental torture my trial came up and, without me asking her to, on day one when she wasn't needed to give testimony, (the trial was to go for 2 fucking weeks), she came all the way out to Campbeltown on the far edge of Sydney city to lend me moral support, and she was sorely needed. When I showed up outside the courthouse there was a pack of television cameras and reporters creating a huge ballyhoo and I thought they were there for horrible little me but my barrister just pushed me thru them, they parted like a shit-storm, ignoring me, they were there for someone else, Ivan Milat, the backpacker killer.

The monster was being tried in the courtroom right next to mine and all thru my short trial Amiria sneaked into Milat's undoing then reported back to me in whispers what he was like, what was going on, creeping me out and making it hard for me to concentrate on my own fucking make or break deal. The shop-assistant bitches who had colluded with the cops to frame me couldn't agree on the description of the felon who robbed them and so my trial only lasted the morning, Amiria didn't have to take the stand after all, I was acquitted and set free but eternally grateful to Amiria ever after for sticking up for me so resolutely.

And so we were best friends for the next 17 years, she bought me dinner when I was broke and hungry, soothed my nerves when I was having my 21st nervous breakdown and gave me endless gifts of treasures she'd bought at auction, for example my favorite framed print , a white stallion dancing by the sea on a stormy night by Delacroix. She was very headstrong, knowledgeable, and there were times we argued and fell out, over politics, philosophy, love, but always got back together again for we were kindred souls. She developed an especial affection for the Tibetan people and followed their version of Buddhism, meeting the Dalai Lama, working 7 nights a week as a nurse in Emergency at Prince Alfred Hospital and donating much of her wages to the Tibetan cause, establishing a temple in the Blue Mts or helping the downtrodden, ravaged people in their homeland, she was selfless and unstinting, and impressed me mightily with her dedication.

She came to my art show in Newtown to support me as she's always done, without me asking her to and, lucky for me, I took her to dinner not too long before I left on my latest sojourn to India and I got to smile into her eyes one last time. She was the definition of "friend", the Green One, and I will ever look into the passing crowd and imagine I see her and hope I can get to be in her presence one more time. Sydney already palls on me and now, without her, it will be that much harder to bear. The toughest thing in life is to say goodbye to a loved one, but if every sub-atomic particle has multiple histories then the multi-verse is a reality and there would be many versions of "us", so maybe we will meet again. In the quantum flux every particle is connected to every other particle, all is one, we can never be separated anyway. "Farewell Amiria, you are loved by many."

P.S. In the early new year I researched Tara the Green Goddess and was surprised my intuition of Her connection with Amiria rang true for She is the Protector from harm and ill will. A few days before I left India I watched as my last movie "Contact" on cable-TV, amazed at the synchronicity that has indeed followed me thru.out my life. For if you know the plot, Jody Foster gets taken deep into outer-space in an alien machine, thru endless worm-holes, and shown the vastness of the Universe, its infinite potential and beauty, and there she meets her dead beloved father on a sandy beach overhung with coconut trees. He tells her she is not alone, she is loved and will never be seperated from her loved ones for everything is connected and no energy is ever lost. This is very close to what I had written in this Blog, even the beach was similar to Vagatore in Goa where I felt her presence with me. I am a science-nut, as Carl Sagan was, but the rational Mind can't account for some mysteries of the Universe, some times it's inexplicable and magical, without being too woolly-minded about it. And I can't help being blown away by living, conscious, in an awesome world, that contains gorgeous souls like Amiria.

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If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

How I Survived My 13th New Years Eve in Goa.

My ecstatic dancing at the parties in Goa got bottomed out by the news that one of my closest friends in Auz, Amiria, had died suddenly, unexpectedly, for she was only 45 years old and strong as an Amazon, a big shock as she was truly one of my 7 pillars of support, (after suffering a broken leg she got an aneurism.) It's great to stay alive and power on into old age but oh so painful to say goodbye to family and friends while one powers on eternally, (seemingly.) On the beaches of Goa, zooming about the rice-paddy fields on scooters, dancing frenetically at the grungy nightclubs, I thought of her and longed to be with her, just one more time, to speak of philosophy, science, politics, love.

And thus I didn't enjoy Goa so much this season, my thirteenth New Years Eve there, I should've been warned, and what, stayed at home? No!!! The crowds of foreign tourists didn't appear as hoped, a disaster for the locals, like the monsoon rains failing. Those who did come were Russians, not an easy bunch to get on with, chasing the Goan beach myth of freedom and self-expression but too late by about 30 years. And vast numbers of Indians flooded in from Mumbai and the hinterlands, thousands of them squeezing onto beach pub-sites like Shiva Valley on Anjuna Beach, where alcohol was the most desired item on the menu, all India wanting to share in the Goan paradise of inebriated hedonism. While it's interesting to watch the crowds' interactions I do fear stampedes, common in overcrowded India, they have reclaimed Goa from the firangi freak invasions, it's their country, they won it back from the Portugese, why not the hippies as well?

There were lots of parties to go to, small/intimate and big/overwhelming, the cops must have been told to lay off the local party-entrepreneurs a bit as they were scaring the cash-cow tourists away. The State/corporate body tried again to get control of the party scene by holding a 3 day "Sunburn" dance music festival inside a fenced-off compound with CCTV cameras and cops crawling all over to make sure no one was smoking cigs or pot! The crowd of sucked-in middle-class Indians were charged much money to listlessly dance in the hot sun and then go home at 10pm after visiting the big attractions like kiosks that sold laptops and a tent that sold Sunburn festival merchandise: gee, how exciting! The organisers seemed to overlook the fact that sunburn is as cancerous as smoking.

In the meantime, New Years Eve came on and I was sitting quietly in my favourite chai-shop on the beach, all day meditating upon the fragility of life and my friend Amiria, her Maori warrior strength combined with her Buddhist peacenik nature. At sunset I was reading Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth" and while deep inside evolutionary theory I suddenly heard a loud thunder-like clap, "Thwok!" I looked up in shock, an Indian muscle-Mary thug had just whacked my friend Prem, the chai-shop owner, very hard across the face. And then he gave him another almighty slap to which I jumped up and yelled, "What the fuck are you doing?" He had a gang of about 7 other ugly bullies with him, all of them macho queens from some brutish gym, drunk as skunks, brainless, and one of them threatened me to shut up while the beating continued.

Like all gangs of cowards, a few of them stepped forward to also give Prem a hard slap, then the first thug grabbed him by the hair with one fist and with the other repeatedly thumped him hard in the face. I kept trying to step forward and stop it but was warned off, my laptop smashed to the ground with all my other belongings. Apparently this mob of brutes had come to the chai-shop with their own booze and demanded glasses to drink from. They were now beating Prem up because he'd refused them, they had the numbers, the muscles and the blind drunken nastiness to terrorise whoever crossed their path. Then the thug who'd thrown the first punch picked up an iron bar and moved in with murderous glee.

He whacked Prem hard across the back with it and I screamed and moved forward, little old me, somehow to quash the melee. Nobody else came to our rescue, all the men and boys on the beach and from the other chai-shops kept their distance, afraid of a beating from the marauding ape-men. The thug lifted the iron bar and whacked Prem on the back of his head, a loud "thunk!" to which I groaned in helplessness, it was nasty but I could tell it was not yet a killer blow. I stepped forward again trying to think of some way to stop this brutality as it really looked like they might murder my friend in front of me, but the bastard turned on me and waved the weapon in my face, took a few swipes which I ducked, then he smashed all the glass in the counter as a warning to me before he turned back to finish off his victim.

He raised the iron bar for the third time, about to deal a blow to Prem's head that could kill him, I screamed , "No!" and knew that I could not just stand there and let my friend be murdered, I'm from working-class Australia, we are not passive, and I've been in 1001 brawls, as a queer I've been beaten all my life, the violence was nothing new but I was scared shitless, they could brain me into retardation. But at least I didn't run away, I stood nervously by thinking, "Where oh where is Jackie Chan/Sylvestor Stallone/Salman Khan when you need them, and why oh why can't I take on and beat up 7 guys at once like movie heroes do?

I thought that if he really did bring the bar down towards Prem's head I'd have to rush in with a chair as armour, it's four legs hopefully pinning the deadshit down while someone somehow came to our rescue, big hope as their were 7 others swelling their muscles up like bull-walruses on heat ready to attack. I used all my will, like a beam of tight-white light which I projected onto the carnage trying to pacify the furor, I felt the idea of Amiria beside me, her strength, her love and quietude, not that she was there in spirit as I don't really believe in life after death, but the idea of her, what she stood for, what she practiced, gave me strength, gave me power, she was with me, kind of. (I also had a vision of the Tibetan Goddess, the Green Tara, hovering next to Amiria shedding a protective green light upon the scene.)

And I think I crashed the probability wave in my/our favour, I influenced reality, the observer straightening out the uncertainty, for the thug's arm stopped in mid-air, he hesitated, wavered, looked about him as if he didn't know where he was, then just shrugged, threw the bar down and swaggered off with his mob, up the beach, lords of their domain, lord of the flies like. Prem was shaken but not too badly hurt, he had to go to hospital and get 9 stitches in the back of his head, his face swelled up like a pumpkin from all the slapping but he went straight back to work and had recovered after a week, he's a strong guy who has fallen out of coconut trees many times in his life. I myself went into post-traumatic-shock mode and was a bit of a hysterical mess for that same week, giving my good friends a hard time as I was so full of tension.

Maybe I just imagined my influence upon the outcome, the arseholes certainly didn't like witnesses to their violence. But there have been other times in my life where my willpower and voice of authority, "No, it's not gonna happen that way!" turned dangerous episodes to my favour and relief. The bastards were from Poona, had given grief on previous visits, and proceeded to go up to the cliff-tops and catch a taxi to Mapusa where they then beat up the taxi driver and smashed all the windows in his cab. They are such steroid limp dicks that surely some day they will get their come-uppence and get the shit kicked out of them so they never lift a fist again. (Looking into their beastial eyes I saw only stupidity and inhumanity, it turned me off Indians for quite awhile, sad as most of them are good souls trying hard to do their best.)

We called the cops but they never came, quite useless, too busy chasing firangis for smoking pot and looting them, or as portrayed in the media, selling the drugs themselves, caught on video in a sting operation by two Israeli girls who were fed up with the corruption. Alcohol is tax-free in Goa, to attract tourists I suppose, but all the hoopla of protecting us from terrorists is so much hogwash as it's the free flow of alcohol that's causing most of the terror in Goa, road carnage, overdoses, fights, brain/liver damage, domestic violence, the list is endless and the inhuman aliens rule as alcohol is their preferred drug.

We did eventually make it to the big New Years Eve party, as always the best venue being the Hilltop Hotel where the music is cutting, loud and clear, and the dance floor had room enough to move. And I did dance, glorious dancing, hypnotically for 5 hours straight, able to ignore the few minor teenage fights that broke out around me, I'd already seen the worst that India could offer. I danced to the full trance, let my body go in any direction the beat moved me, my muscles melted, my mind flushed, me and the crowd, mostly Indians, dancing atavistically to reclaim our long evolutionary heritage of being one with the world.

All in all it was quite a way to end 2010, a year of artistic highs, (my show at the Newtown Library, my very funny portrait of Vitto which I hung at the Piccolo Cafe and the few good stories I'd written), and emotional lows, (the death of my mother flipping me out more than I could handle, falling out with my brother and losing 7 friends, mostly from my not suffering fools gladly, yeah, yeah, and being a dick.) I survived New Years Eve in Goa, my 13th, only just. Let's hope 2011 really brings me good cheer, love and artistic achievement, no bummers please, I've had my share for awhile.

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