The city that never sleeps, probably because it chainsmokes and outlawed beer

Abnormal by any standards, I seemed to achieve freak status in Chennai. This was due, but by no means limited, to three main factors, in no particular order: (1) I am whiter than God's own bed sheets, (2) I am supposedly a lady, and (3) I got no hurs on mah head. This earned me a significant chunk of space on countless camera phones, which were more numerous than the mopeds and rickshaws that clog the streets. Judging by the shear number of stares, I was more popular than Gandhi. Call me Ben Kingsley.

Another object of curiosity was my birthmark, which for those of you who may have forgotten in recent years, like I have,  is superhuge and smack dab in the middle of my neck. The children in Ghana loved it, actually. It deeply troubled my self-proclaimed personal rickshaw driver. Explaining to him that it was natural and caused no pain didn't quite translate, and so I found myself in the markets looking for this magical mystical Indian curing herb which he swore would rid me of my affliction in two months with daily use. It's the thought that counts. Acquired, he made a paste of it and smeared it on my neck. I caught a whiff, and by golly do you know what it was? Turmeric! And here I've been squandering it on my food all these years. He gifted me with the entire jar, so if anybody out there in TV land has any birthmarks they would like dyed a vicious shade of pukey-pea yellow, perhaps in preparation for a hot date, I have just the thing - direct from the streets of India.