Maik is a pirate. He’s ugly – a large strawberry-like nose adorns his face, pockmarked as if by hail – he’s sweet-toothed - loving mangoes and baked bananas - and he’s crazy - his frenzied cackle could fill many a damp, salty flophouse along the equator. And he drinks as if riding on the same adventurous wave. Metaphorically he lives life as if hanging from the mizzen, surveying the horizon for a spout, but literally he lives his life in a small theatre in Berlin.

He works evenings drawing and hauling the scenery of the latest play, and in a way, what with the sawdust and the ropes and the vague sense of magic, he lives a maritime sort of life here too.

But here, in the mid-80’s, beneath the unbearable heat and the coastal city that even then contained over 10 million struggling souls, life was more than rickety illusion in dark, stuffy halls. It was bright with the sun and with the shining teeth of dangerous men and the heat reflecting off gun-metal. In the dark of a theatre, there may be wonder, but there is always a script. Under the Indian sun, life sprawls in dangerous directions.