12.5

Life on the street, or at least on the streets around the Taj in Mumbai, had a performance requirement – an “on-stage” effect similar, in feel and excitement, to the experience of playing the wild and unpredictable game of Australian Rules Football.

Only life on the street was harder.

Unlike a game, it didn’t stop.

Here there was no respite – no rest, no relaxation, no wind down jokes with “the boys” after the game, no “home” to go back to. Here Max was on show the whole time, night and day – already part of the continuing circus.

It took him a couple of days to adjust to the culture. He had to learn how to wash thoroughly with a single bucket of water without flashing everything to the crowd… and how to evacuate last night’s dinner within the minute provided before the guy started screaming “chello, chello” and bashing on the door.

There were embarrassing moments, and small victories were not as freely available as on the battlefield of sport, but the buzz of exposure on the slab felt surprisingly, and quite unexpectedly, familiar.

He was alive again – a player.

His confidence began to grow.

Soon he was wandering around the place like he owned it.

Everyone who lived on the street walked around like this – or at least, everyone with legs. Street people, Max soon came to realize, are the proudest people on earth. They each had their own particular style of doing things, their own unique, super-economical way.

Street people didn’t talk about money or real estate, they didn’t boast about their family and their hobbies. Street people sat quietly under the moon and dreamed… of a better, fairer world. When they did speak, it was for fun, often just to tease –

“Come on Maxyman – smoking with us, come on… ”

Every day they gathered on the slab just before sunset, took their familiar positions, and fired up a pipe full of hashish fresh from Afghanistan. It was their social ritual, their evening cocktail. Max was happy to sit and join in but, of course, he didn’t smoke.

As the brilliant light, the calm ambiance, or perhaps the drug took hold of them the boys would become increasingly sillier, and, keen for a laugh, take familiar liberties with each other.

“Why not smoking with us Max – you frightened somebody might see?”

“Police people or somebody?”