Whirly Twirly

The overhead fans never stop, and their ceaseless motion is caught in reflections and shadows throughout the flat, constantly nagging at the corners of your vision. From certain positions, like the table at which I commonly type these entries, there is no line of sight that doesn't include some glimpse of spinning blades.

It can be quite distracting.

Of course, it's the depths of winter now, and their spin cycle is at its lowest, barely more than decorative, just a gentle nudging of the air. At full pelt, their eggbeater whirl thrashes up a storm that will no doubt be a blessed relief on sticky summer nights; perhaps as much as the sticky summer nights themselves will be after this dank and dismal season.

Still, even now there is something comforting about the fans, something nostalgic and warm. Something emblematic of the tropics. I can't help but associate them with hot places, with mosquito nets and cicadas and shaking your boots out in the morning to dislodge sheltering scorpions. With cheap travellers' hostels in Asia and comfortable houses in suburban Sydney.

Back in October 1989, at the moment when wandering India without a clue or plan or return ticket suddenly shifted from being a charming romantic fancy to what seemed a catastrophically misguided reality, it was, as much as anything, the ceiling fans that saved the day. Well, as a symbolic counterpart to Guy's strength and practicality.

The culture shock of downtown Bombay at 3.30 am was almost enough to put us on the first available flight home. It was hot and smelly and dark, and seemed, but for the rats in the gutters and the emaciated cows, deserted -- until we realised that all those little gift-wrapped bundles we saw were sleeping people, shrouded in cloth from head to toe, like mummies, for a tiny vestige of shelter and privacy. The only waking soul we encountered tried insistently to sell us hashish, which we declined.

We lugged our rucksacks around, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to stay, and eventually found what seemed the only hotel open at that hour -- unfinished, hostile, and priced according to its monopoly status. We paid out what seemed a fortune in rupees -- certainly, we wouldn't be able to afford to stay long at such rates -- and settled into the squalor of our room for the few short hours to check-out time, lying in the warm dark trying to sleep; trying to comprehend the scale of the mistake we'd made in coming here.

Daunted but undefeated, Guy was up and out before I even awoke, and in the daylight things looked, maybe, not quite so bad. By the time we had to leave, he had scouted out the neighbourhood and found us somewhere else to stay.

The Salvation Army Red Shield Hostel sounded unpromising, but it was clean and friendly and cheap, and full of people who knew what they were doing in ways that we so clearly did not -- and best of all it had ceiling fans everywhere. We could lie in our bunks plotting our next move with our Lonely Planet guide, and gaze up at the dusty blades stirring the air, and suddenly the romance of the journey was back. It hadn't been such a terrible mistake, and there would be no need after all to slink back to the comfortable ignominy of home.
Posted by matt at February 3, 2004 06:05 PM