Ear wax

Chennai-Delhi flight, 31st Jan 2011

We’re high above the plains of India again, migrating back to the Land of Double-Egg-Chicken-Kathi rolls.  I’m wanting pure veg already. 

Actually we’re looking forward to a month of Independence (and self-catering) living in South Delhi.  A whole month of not staying in hotels or lodges, a whole month of not eating in restaurants and rigid bedtimes.  No more of this hippy children falling asleep in cafés-business!  [Last night, having carried her back from the restaurant deeply asleep, undressed her, put her PJs on and brushed her teeth, all  whilst she remained asleep, L surfaced to oversee packing and her blog publication before crashing out again jammed in the crevice between WD and my twin beds] But I can already feel WD getting a bit fidgety – and planning weekend trips to Rajasthan and Agra and…. for more fieldwork and fun.  I think it’s in reaction to the idea of more time in the archives.  So let’s see if Lado Sarai turns out to be a base from which we travel or actually a solid month in one place.

Bit of a stressful morning, too much clogged-up traffic on the way to Chennai airport from Mamallapuram (we didn’t beat the traffic), the airport terminal is in the process of being rebuilt so lots of running around with wheely luggage looking for the right check-in, getting to security with only 4 boarding cards (W was going to stay in the South it seemed) and then interminable getting through security (WD having to unpack his entire rucksack and go through the body search stage twice) but we made it.  Phew!

Driving up and down the Chennai-Mamallapuram road, we’re starting to recognise landmarks along the way.  Development is so rapid in places here that it hardly feels like you’re in India – massive beach resorts,  luxury apartments and gated communities (‘Visioneering the New India’ runs the banner), Japanese-backed industrial parks and public works (bridges, sewerage) are all being constructed as we watch.  The East Coast Road is smooth with smart toll booths and ladies employed to water the new grass by the curb.  Smart but empty air-con buses run up and down the road, but the locals still go on the crowded older buses where fares are much lower.  Salt works and prawn hatcheries, go-kart racing tracks, Dizzee World (an amusement park we didn’t go to) and a boating lake are all points of reference that could be elsewhere in the world.  Except that you’re not and there are still stretches (like along the fishing community’s strip of the beach in Chennai) when you’re confronted with how many people here are still living in terrible poverty.

Every stretch of wall and housing along roads is painted with looping Tamil script.  Some adverts I can read or recognise the logos – Airtel, Vodafone!  Others are more obscure and I can only guess whether they are political (the DMK or the AI-DMK?) or for local electrical stores or shops.  Rather wonderfully, the street sign painters have discovered the highlighter pen, for there is lots of luminous yellow liberally applied for emphasis.  So much remains outside your understanding as a visitor here.  

Feels like we’re starting to descend – ears popping and painful, I can’t hear anything.  WD’s already gummed up with seawater and wax so mumbles incoherently.  A Delhi task is to have a go at syringing them with a bulb syringe (it’s that or send him to the guys with the spikes in Connaught Place…) I love expedition medicine.  W is very spotty – I think mossie bites, but it could be heat rash or even acne – so he’s not looking his best.  He’s also had his mullet chopped into by a barber he and WD visited in Chennai so has the most excellent bed hair. 

We’ve arrived in Delhi ahead of schedule – our American pilot and young Indian woman co-pilot (so many of the trainee pilots we look after from the Oxford Flying School tell me that they’ll end up clocking up air miles for the new domestic Indian airlines) were allowed a short cut, hence the accelerated descent.   People assume we’re living here now as we find a taxi (pre-paid or post-paid?) to take us into town - very different arriving here a second time.  Oh and the pleasure of a huge and expensive coffee – the first proper caffeine hit for over a month – hello again Delhi!