Meeting a real Gupta

I’m in a suburb with no load shedding, friendly people, very little crime and cheap beer sold in corner shops that stay open until midnight. It’s a great neighbourhood. You should join me. All you have to do is get on a plane to Nicaragua.

Yes, I know I should probably be writing about election manifestos or the horrific prospects of another ANC win, but after seeing close-up pictures of mucus streaming from Julius Malema’s nose as he screamed at the underclass to vote for him if they never wanted to pay for anything ever again, I was overcome by such paralysing antipathy that I turned to a bottle of Flor de Caña, which left me very little time to analyse the political situation.

Speaking of which, did you know “analyst” comes from the Greek word “anal” meaning “your bum” and “yst” meaning “talking out of”? Fascinating thing, language.

I met Mr Gupta on Saturday night. He owns the Maharaja Hotel in Granada. It took me a while to find the place, but nowhere near as long as it’s taking the NPA to find those other Guptas. There was no-one at reception. Just a smattering of Central American carvings watched over by a large wall-hanging of Shiva, the god of destruction. I pressed a silver bell on the wooden counter. It made the tiniest of tings. A minute later, an Indian man, diminutive in stature with the modest makings of an imperial moustache and an unassuming pot belly, emerged.

He was wearing shorts and nothing else. He pressed his hands together and apologised. “I was in the pool,” he said, smiling impishly before leading me to my room. It was like something out of the last days of the Raj, without having the British around to ruin everything. The tiny courtyard was festooned with tropical plants around an oblong swimming pool decorated with tiles from the East. Gentle piano music played discreetly in the background.

The walls were painted orange, Hinduism’s colour that represents fire and the purity that comes from it. Unless, I imagine, it’s your house that’s on fire.

I wasn’t sure what my room represented. The curtains were red and on the wall were six illustrations from the Kama Sutra. Distracted, I had forgotten that Mr Gupta was still there. He coughed softly. I turned, strangely unsurprised to find a half-naked Indian man in my room.

He said his hotel was very safe and I should feel free to sleep with my door and window open. Since it felt as if I had stumbled into the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and half expected to see Judi Dench and Maggie Smith saunter by, I told him that was a splendid idea and wished him a good evening. Later, I remembered I was in Nicaragua and locked myself inside.

The next morning, I considered asking the proprietor if he was perhaps related to Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, the wellknown crime family from Saxonwold by way of Uttar Pradesh, but since he never visibly flinched after catching sight of my South African passport, I thought it unlikely. There was an entire Gupta dynasty that ruled much of India hundreds of years ago. Their descendants couldn’t all be rogues.

Later that day, I was accosted by Julio in the town square. He was wiry, tattooed and wore a ponytail. Unlike Mr Gupta, he was fully dressed. Julio strongly advised that I allow him to take me to the volcano. I tend not to do too much research when I travel because it spoils the fun. It’s the element of surprise that keeps me young. The flipside is that I often get caught unawares and come close to death.

“Volcano?” I said suspiciously. Julio sighed heavily and told me in badly damaged English about Volcano Masaya and how he would drive me right up the crater so that I could look over the edge into a cauldron of bubbling lava. I assumed he was on drugs and we agreed to meet at 4pm.

I hadn’t brought my volcano shoes. Being from Durban, all I had was a pair of slops. I put on my cap to protect my head in the event of an eruption.

Apparently you could walk to the rim, but only fools walk when they can drive. We headed through the old lava fields just as the sun was setting. Julio asked if I wanted to stop at the museum and I said that if I was going to die in a fiery storm of molten rocks, it wasn’t going to be in a museum.

Julio said the volcano had been making more rumblings than usual, which I took to be a good sign. You come all this way, you want to see a healthy volcano, not one that sighs and moans. I urged him on. “Rapido!” I shouted, spilling Toña beer down my T-shirt.

There were quite a few people ahead of us, which I thought a bit rude. I considered elbowing them aside. “Let me through, I’m from South Africa!” Not wanting to become a human sacrifice, I waited our turn.

As the sky grew dark and the stars came out, we climbed a few stairs up to one of the viewing platforms. And there it was.

A grunting, grumbling maelstrom of liquid fire smelling of sulphur and brimstone. It was utterly insane. Any normal country with sensible health and safety laws would never allow this.

Active volcanoes do whatever they please. There’s no schedule. It could have blown its top at any moment. I had never felt so close to death and yet so alive.

We were only there for 10 minutes before one of the park officials started moving us along. I clung to the railing and begged for a little longer. He seemed to think I was a jumper and spoke quickly into his radio. Julio grabbed my arm and dragged me away.

Rolling blackouts and Juju’s nasal malfunction felt very far away.

I had never felt so close to death and yet so alive