Clear like curry

I have been in India for two weeks now, so you could say I'm somethingof an expert. It is long enough to know that passing the papadums withyour left (poo) hand is not OK. But if you are eating rice with your right (eating) hand, you may not help yourself to some papadums withyour right (eating) hand – for that you must use your left (poo) hand. So you see, it is a country full of contradictions. One minute you arewatching the sun set over an ancient Hindu temple, feeling cool marble under foot, soul swooping into the stratosphere - and the next moment two stray dogs will begin furiously buggering each other on one of the shrines. You might be sitting in a five star maharajah's palace sipping cocktails on the veranda, but then a raw sewage pipe leaks and the smell of human turd ruins your pinacolada. Nowhere are these contradictions more apparent than in Bangalore,where I spent three nights after Mumbai with local boys Sam, Nimesh and Model Sam (who is a model). It is the yuppie capital of India, the fastest growing city in Asia, the kind of place where it ispossible to have a "rinsin" time in discos, (their word, not mine), wear mini skirts, smoke, drink, take coke and worship at the alters of Nike, McDonalds and Tommy Hilfieger – but if you choose to dance inthe discos you may get arrested, wear mini skirts you may be disowned, and shag and you will never get married. Clear as chicken tikka marsala?

Keen to impress on me Bangalore's reputation as the Party Capital of India, one night the boys took me to 'Sutras' – the best club in the city. They said, 'wait till you get there, Friday nights it's Kerrazy, you're gonna love it!' I said 'Yes, sounds great', (thinking 'actuallyI want to be spiritual and sit around fires in poor tribal villages drinking chai, not stand by the bar of a shit Indian club with a UV light, some watery drinks and a creepy old Indian guy in the corner perving at my tits – after all I can do that at home'). But keen to impress on them the British reputation for Getting Drunk Abroad UnderAny Circumstances – I went anyway.

As we arrived in the floodlit forecourt of an enormous five star hotel, clacked across the deserted marble lobby, past a bouncer(concierge) and into the club (function room), I wondered whether I had accidentally turned up to a posh Indian bar mitzvah, fully expecting to see room full of chubby 13 year olds in suits skull caps skidding around on their knees and dancing to the Macarena and eating matzah balls. To my relief, instead there was around 12 Indian guys and girls hovering around the bar clutching '2 free shooters' tokens, and several fat middle aged British and German business men somberly drinking cocktails out of coconuts with umberellas and sparklers. Sean Kingston was playing, 'beauuuudiful girls' on the sound system, but strangely no one dancing. I took one look at the empty dance floorand figured 'seize the moment' and was just about to cut some serious shapes, when Sam quickly ushered me into a corner and explained that since New Year 2008 dancing has been banned in all clubs in Bangalore under new laws to curb prostitution. 'What?' I said, 'no dancing, noteven to Sean Kingston?' No, not even Sean Kingston, he said. 'But what about other places?' I asked, 'can they stop you from dancing in the streets, at a wedding, in the shower?' He explained that apparently there was a huge outcry last year after women were banned from dancingfor money in dance bars (Indian style titty-clubs) and in the end, the government was pressured to impose a blanket ban on dancing in every club in the city. Dance floors are cordoned off with yellow tape - a bit like a crime scene - and if you try to covertly shake your stuff, undercover policeman will come and chuck you out of the club and fine you. Well that does make sense, I thought, given half the chance mostwomen will turn to prostitution given a couple of drinks and a dancefloor, right? Sure enough, no sooner had a finished my Cosmopolitan, six policeman turned up, so it was time to take the party elsewhere. This time the venue was the chic roof terrace of one of the boys' apartments. We drank warm rum and coke out of plastic beakers, danced without fear of arrest to MTV India, while 12 floors below us a traditional Indian funeral took place. As me, Sam, Nims, Model-Sam and a few others gyrated to bangin Bollywood and Hindi R n' B, a corpse was laid out in the street, covered with garlands of orange and white flowers, while friends and family wailed, got pissed and danced in the street until dawn.