Sandpits and ghats

Om Hotel, Pushkar, 27^th Feb 2011

Disclaimer:  this blog contains excrement-related stories which some may find distasteful.

WM:  So, we’re finally outta Delhi (straight outta Lado Sarai!) and straight into the frankly bizarre hippy culture that dominates Pushkar.  I do realise I’m blatantly ignoring the large numbers of Hindu pilgrims to this most holy site, the town’s people (who remain largely gentle and friendly despite their decades of engagement with the counter-culture) and the Rajasthani traders and peasants who come in, particularly for the Camel mela in November.  L’s reaction was, ‘Mum, I don’t like all these foreigners!’  Not sure if they detract from her novelty value or if we are all looking at them with Indian eyes now or just a tribal thing.  She particularly objected to a group doing yoga on the ghats at sunset and was donkey double-dared to go and join in with W (which they did, and I now owe them both chocolate bars).

I remember coming here in 1988 (and WD in ’91), sitting on the ghats and in roof top cafés and, even then, the freaks did a Pushkar-Manali-Goa circuit.  We’ve spent today contemplating how long it would take to grow a good set of Caucasian dreads.  There are stalls advertising nose piercing – again I’m tempted except it says, ‘No pain, no gain’ which is sufficient deterrent for me.  Traveller café culture is still quite entertaining though.  We ended up on roof top of Baba’s café last night with murals of dope smoking sadhus (which led to a discussion of why Shiva smokes big spliffs) upstairs and real-life sadhus playing pool downstairs, and today we sat in a tiny, ancient hippy café with just a few wooden benches and ‘french’ coffee out of a dirty little pot with the only other customers, an Italian sufi in his 50s discussing religion with a younger traveller and flies.

We’re staying at the Om Hotel (of course) which is run by the most quietly spoken and calm Indian man WD has ever met, (it’s slightly spooking him, as the standard is to conduct every conversation at shout volume or louder) who can’t quite believe we’re only here for two nights, as every other traveller stays for weeks or even months.  W would like to stay for longer as there is a lovely garden courtyard with a sandpit and 3 giant tortoises to find hiding in the bushes.  There’s even a fluffy white rabbit called ‘Cashew’ but we haven’t managed to track him down and there are rumours of his demise from other residents who haven’t seen him for a few days.  L set up the ‘Cheap and Best’ café in the sandpit and the real café guys came for an orange juice and masala chai and scrambled egg.  I can confirm that her café latte is very good.  W dug for Australia and was the happiest I’ve seen him for ages. The walls of the courtyard are covered in morning glory vines and there are woodpeckers and humming birds and geckos.  It’s very peaceful, with hammocks to laze around in and friendly older traveller types who chat to the children and young Israeli hippies chasing their toddlers.  It’s cheap too (but as WD reminded M only relatively ‘cheap’ – he used to refuse to pay more than £1 a night for accommodation) as Pushkar seems to specialise in budget rooms, perfectly nice if a little cramped once the bed rolls are down for the children. 

However, what the Om lacks is fully functioning plumbing (minor, minor detail) so no hot showers which is tricky given it’s still really chilly in the mornings and as soon as the sun goes down.  The children scream and threaten to ring Child Line (with international dialling codes) if we enforce rigid hygiene, so there are a few perfunctory flannel washes and anything more serious can wait till Jaipur.  The other problem was that in our first room (we moved to a much nicer room next to the courtyard for the second night), the toilet flush was so excessive that flushing away the family’s night soil resulted in a faecal spray back in my face.  Next time I shut the toilet lid.

I’m refusing to take night trains (where there are other viable options), so we’d done the 6 hour Gurgaon to Ajmer journey in daylight.  It was all perfectly fine, up to the moment of arrival in Ajmer when trying to disembark the train with our luggage and children turned into a minor riot.  Trains stop for only a few minutes at interval stations, and the Indian way is to push onto the train before other passengers are able to get off.  Rising panic at the surging human tide, blankly denying us a way out, with the children at risk of getting squashed and the knowledge that the Express train was not going to wait for us.... Ultimately we had to shout a lot (I’m still a bit hoarse) and shove through, regardless of running old ladies’ toes over with our luggage (they were the very ones who were completely insistent on not giving way), all very contrary to my normal code of conduct.  At least I’d had a bit of preparatory training on the Brighton Hill School Bus bundle, but scary with the kids.  WD suggests we arm ourselves (swords, knuckle duster or ceremonial dagger?) for the next train journey.  Good weapons are freely available in the Pushkar Bazaar, sold by L-aged boys.

The ghats (steps to water) around Pushkar lake remain as beautiful as I had remembered.  Their religious significance has kept development away from the water side (you have to remove your shoes within 40 feet of the lake) but this also leads to intermittent hassle about buying flowers for pujas  and persistent demands for ‘donations’ to the many temples that line the lake. Early morning is a good time to watch the town washing, fishing, gossiping and preying around the ghats, as well as priests feeding the great flocks of pigeons that swoop across the sky and the feral dogs (Parle G biscuits, W likes them too).  Holy cows and holy cow shit much in evidence on the ghats.  One malicious bovine unkindly head-butted me in the bum, nearly knocking me over into mounds of the stuff.  I’m not sure what I’d done to displease it – maybe the declined religious blessings?  The pigeons also took revenge on L too : I’m still washing the bird poo out of her hair.  She is quite stinky enough without additional extras.  

I’d taken the children down to the nearest ghat (also the one that faces westwards for the sunset) this afternoon to go and do some ‘sketching’.  We attracted quite a bit of attention and ended up with a mini art school in progress, joined by BJ and Sunil (2 likely-looking local teens, chewing paan) who drew me psychedelic cows and 5 year old Maya from Bangalore who had an extreme love of orange paint and the stray dogs.

Pushkar is special because it has a temple dedicated to Brahma (the creator), one of the Top 3 Hindu Gods, but has been rather outdone by the other two (Vishnu and Shiva) in terms of temple dedications.  Reasons for this are not entirely clear – myths about him marrying the wrong woman or being caught out telling a lie offer some possibilities.  WD was telling the children that it’s not strictly-speaking the only Brahma temple (another in Kerala apparently) but was challenged on this point by a local as its uniqueness is very important in terms of attracting pilgrims.  We met a nice man from Wembley who wanted to share his sugary prasad with the children.

WD: Why did we come here? Was it just so that the WPs could tell local boys that they’d been to Pushkar well before they were born, so no, it’s not our first time? WD is here to visit Ajmer, over the hill, with yet more monuments to see. Ajmer has long been a Muslim centre in predominantly Hindu Rajasthan, its old city centred around the dargah to Muinuddin Chishti, a thirteenth-century sufi mystic. There’s also one of the earliest mosques in India on the edge of town in the shadow of the hills, a close counterpart to the Qutb mosque over the road from our home in Delhi. After tea and some hot sweet bread (sirmali) straight from the tandoor, I bought a white skullcap and joined the huge crowds visiting the dargah. Many carried gifts of rose petals to place in the shrine, or orange threads to tie to the tomb’s jalis as the sought the saint’s blessings. I thought I might meet the couple we met on the train yesterday, who were coming to Ajmer to the shrine following medical treatment in Delhi, all a long way from their home in Patna in eastern India. The Italian sufi may well have been coming here for this reason too but odd to see him in deeply Hindu Pushkar – the coffee’s better though.

The Mughal emperors spent plenty of time here too: it was in the fort in Ajmer that Sir Thomas Roe, James I’s ambassador, first met Jahangir in 1616. In the nineteenth century Ajmer was British territory amid nominally independent Rajput states, and there is a similar architectural legacy to that of the earlier rulers. Apart from the clock tower, post office and municipal offices, one of the finest colonial additions to the city is Mayo College, dubbed the ‘Eton of the East’, a boys public school established in 1870. Set up to educate the Rajputs’ sons to be good supporters of the Raj it still thrives for the wealthy elites of the new India. I was allowed in for a brief tour, as it was Sunday, to drive slowly past the residential Houses and numerous sports fields.  I wasn’t allowed out of the car so leant out of the car window to take a few photographs of the Indo-Saracenic masterpiece. The guard was quite impressed by my business card – they like them in India!

Good to be on the move again and in Rajasthan, but – like L – strange to be around so many other foreigners again in tourist-land (Ajmer excepted). But the travellers’ cafes are good compensations: with so many signs now in Hebrew, you can get excellent ‘Arabic’ hummus, pitta and falafel. I know we should stay a bit longer here simply for the pleasure of a garden, relative quiet and modest scale of the place but my research interests drag us elsewhere – on to more noisy, polluted cities I’m afraid, Jaipur and Agra. Sadly, we can't promise W a sandpit there.  There are plenty of temples in Pushkar that in theory would be more inviting of my attention but the two I especially wanted to see are inaccessible to foreigners (I was chased out of one as I hadn’t spotted the sign).

Gorilla girlz

Lado Sarai, 24-25th Feb 2011 

It’s very late but I’m wide-awake. N minus 1 in Delhi.

WD is fast asleep – he’s had another manic day of rushing around, trying to see last-minute things including Firoz Shah Kotla (another fort).  He asked the auto-driver to take him there, who automatically assumed he meant the Cricket Ground of the same name (rather than Delhi’s old city), where there was a World Cup match going on. England play India on Saturday.  M is supporting India, so she’s definitely passed the Tebbit Test.  The rest of us are more fickle and are trying all the Lays World Cup flavour crisps and will decide on that basis – Australian lime and chilli twist, West Indies sweet and hot chilli, Sri Lankan sweet onion, English grilled cheese! And lots more to try!  Chilli tends to feature in all the flavours (for the Indian palate?), even English grilled cheese has extra heat to W’s disgust.   

We went to the Nizamuddin Dargah with the children this evening.  Too light and early to appreciate the full moon, but this, in addition to it being a Thursday night, makes it a special, auspicious time to go to the dargah.  This is a version of Islam as we don’t really see represented much – Sufi mystics and charismatic saints, ecstatic prayers, devotional music (qawwali) and dancing.  M wanted to know why people have religious ecstasy: WD says that it happens when people feel close to their god or the divine, WM says it’s auto-suggestibility (and no less intriguing, for that). Nizamuddin is yet another Delhi village, this time huge crowds pouring through tiny alleys leading down to the shrine and mosque.  It is a very Muslim area: chickens being beheaded on the side of the street, roses and prayer threads for sale, a branch of Karims (a Delhi instititution famous for kebabs, naan, etc)...I loved it and M thought it the ‘opposite to boredom’.  L thought it unfair that women can’t go into the shrine – but we did manage to think of some examples where men are kept out in India (such as the ladies’ carriage). 

Lots of things happen here, often with little warning, and our children have been exposed to all sorts of stuff from headless chickens to self-mutilating pilgrims that they would be unlikely to run into in Oxfordshire, or at least not such an in-your-face variant.  I’m thinking:

Beggars and disability – just this evening: ‘M’dam, look no legs!’, at the traffic lights [strictly speaking not true since he was a single below-knee amputee]; a beggar dragging himself, crawling through the Dargah with wasted lower limbs and tremor (“Mum, what’s the matter with him?”); a guy shaking and muttering incomprehensibly under a barrow, possibly intoxicated or withdrawing, perhaps psychotic, startling the children...

Death – we’ve stumbled across funeral processions on a number of occasions, horse drawn carts, scattered with marigolds, drawing the corpse (wrapped in white, uncovered face) to the funeral pyre followed by mourners.  It’s taken us all a few minutes to realise what’s going on, especially in Tamil Nadu, when the old lady was seated upright...

Slums – as we walk to the Metro, there’s a camp next to the open sewer and main road, of make-shift tents made of plastic sheeting, with babies being carried by tiny children of W’s age and women hanging their washing to dry over the central crash barrier.  L is fascinated by this ‘campsite’ and slows down to watch every time we pass. 

They come back to things, ask questions and are obviously processing it all, hopefully without too much trauma. I wonder what they’ll remember of all this.

Yesterday I fell out of love with the Delhi metro.  The smart cards are not smart, only crap.  Travelling with the 3 children, I carry 4 (W has to have one, as he is taller than 3 foot, the height requirement) and routinely 2 will not work, so yesterday W and L were one side of the barrier and M and I the other, having to return to Customer Care for them to sort out the electronic glitch on the computer, only for the cards to register ‘Error 106 – please contact Customer Care’ at the next exit barrier, again with 2 children the wrong side of the barrier.

The last two days, I’ve spent waiting in for the glazier.  In India, too, trades people don’t turn up when they say.  The children watched mesmerised as he balanced 15 foot up a bamboo ladder replacing putty yesterday. The recycling man’s passing by, calling in Hindi for plastics, glass and paper. Nothing formal and Council tax funded – just a bloke with a trike, making a small living.  I haven’t really figured out waste disposal here.  I think what happens is that there are collective rubbish dumps around the city, where you can take your rubbish and it’s picked through and what’s left, the cows eat.  Or else you see small fires burning alongside the road, releasing choking, plasticated, hydrocarbon fumes. Mostly the plastic just flutters by the roadside, along every path, clogs up drains.  M is vehemently opposed to plastic bags, and will completely refuse to let me or WD have one.  India, having come late to the plastic bandwagon, is taking steps – at the supermarket, there is no plastic option, ‘silk’ or paper degradable bags only.  But actually it’s consumption that produces the waste, as I examine the rubbish we’ve produced over the last month.  Oh and craft projects.

L was deeply offended by girly dolls in Khan Market.  What’s wrong with the Delhi Barbie and Ken (bedecked in sari and sherwani)?

L: They’re so ‘preeety’, they always have fancy clothes and fancy shoes and fancy hair.  Girls shouldn’t be girlee. We want a dirty, messy Barbie like us.

WM thoroughly approves of her daughter's proto-feminist critique.

N’s Lado Sarai home may appear in a Delhi feature in Wallpaper (the lifestyle magazine).  Seems unlikely to the WolfParents, as it’s not been exactly graceful living here, but what do we know about anything?  Thankfully, we don’t appear to have trashed the joint completely, and N was very understanding about our various confessions.  I’ve been trying to find somewhere to dryclean his silk quilt but sadly no such facilities in Lado Sarai...

Next morning: W is aware of his love conquests and claims ‘Radhika loves me best’- especially after she drove half way across Delhi to say goodbye to him (she’s away for the weekend).  I’m a bit concerned that he is working the cute-thing a bit hard (or alternatively hiding his face in my groin, determined not to be pinched).   He wants me to write that next year he’s going to be 5!  Maybe he’ll have a disco party, he thinks. That’s so big, W!  He’s now trying to charm me into getting up, cuddling up to me in bed, “I’d so like to have breakfast, mum. I’m so hungry.” Translation – he needs urgent porridge. Unfortunately, India has induced a state of food paranoia in W.  He’s become far more picky and suspicious, and even foods that he would normally eat, he rejects as they don’t look quite right - the brown skin of barbequed chicken, sauce that is too red or brown on a margarita pizza or chocolate ice-cream that is too dark... He refuses to eat anything at all spicy (unlike L where it all depends on context – spicy crisps, yum yum) or even peppery which makes life tricky and finding ‘normal’ food is really hard, since ingredients here are profoundly different – processed cheese which goes flabby when you grill it, yoghurt that isn’t creamy and smooth... We have found that he will eat Subway sandwiches (they have these here too) with no fillings other than ‘ham’ (bacon ham or chicken ham?), so leave out the salad, dressings, gherkins, cheese...Fear not, somehow we get him to eat just about enough – bearing in mind major food groups and micro-nutrients.  ‘Lassis have protein, mum, but jam sandwiches don’t!’  And he’ll eat fruit (bananas, pineapple, oranges, watermelon) till the cows come home (which isn’t so late here). And there’s always his love of jelabis – fried syrup, basically.  So he’s not wasting away, but sometimes it makes him more stroppy and tired, but perhaps that’s just India and holding his own with his sisters?  He and L are currently arguing about who can be Holly’s doctor, “She has a disease, she’ll die of that disease unless I cure her.  Give her this medicine, L!”  They can have the most wonderful imaginative games and it’s definitely L and W who are the current Play Force (Sergeant Major L, Private W). M often prefers to read or do something different, but may take on a special role (Captain M) on occasion.  He’s back, “Mum, can’t we have breakfast?”  He wants school time too – he’s been learning his sounds and letters and goes round saying ‘V for Vishnu’ and ‘K for Kali’ and he’s more clued-up about clocks and telling the time than L (who’s determinedly not learning this).  I’m sure he’ll be ready for school in September.

So I’ve spent today sorting loads of stuff into suitcases, going to the post office and photocopy bureau.  Everything (including us) is covered in a thick film of grime but it’s impossible really to do a deep clean at this stage in the game. The children are collectively hysterical as Bobeeno has gone missing. He was hanging on the line when we left yesterday, having done a wash of all their cuddly toys (the black water that rinsed off them was positively disgusting), and when we came home, he wasn’t. Hmm. We’ll ask Dipen when he comes if he’s put him somewhere safe, but I’m very worried that there has been a case of monkey napping or trafficking or even drain-diving. Holly and Max are obviously distraught, W was sobbing into his pillow earlier and L has been diverted into making missing posters.  Oh dear! Thank goodness, Holly, Max and Harriet are all safe -  and M, L and W, of course...

Shaggy Dog Stories

Lado Sarai, 21-22nd February 2011

Another very loud wedding downstairs, much more bass than the last one (the windows are shaking), and the all-night whirr and clacking of the diesel generator outside to look forward to....L’s just come downstairs (it’s now nearly 10 pm) in despair of sleeping, so I’ve given her the I-pod with stories to listen to...M and W sleep through soundly (M the next morning, “What noise? No big deal!”). We keep hoping that events are building to a climax (and that the noise will then mercifully stop?), but all the drumming and discordant brass-band and whooping keeps on going.  And even when the wedding ends, then the men will strike the tent overnight.

We’re planning our escape from the megapolis (Delhi is fast approaching a population of 20 million, without counting the new satellite cities, and is catching up with Mumbai and Kolkata’s urban monsters).  WD has pretty much finished with the archives: he’s going back out to Gurgaon tomorrow to look at a photo-archive there and is doing lots of mad zipping around Delhi to take teaching slides, trying to make sure he misses nothing, as well as meeting potential PhD students and, and, and.... He’s looking a bit wrecked and red-eyed this evening, exhausted by the place – so what he needs, what he really needs, is a techno-themed, village wedding tonight. I could tell he was having a bit of a bad day when he got upset by a young woman begging with a baby, who was a bit too persistent with him, this evening.  He’s generally pretty calm about the irritations India chucks up but it gets to him too sometimes.

So, assuming we can get tickets on the shatabdi (superfast express train, i.e. it may travel at more than 50 mph, for some of the journey at least) out to Jaipur or Ajmer for break-of-dawn on Saturday, that’s the plan....Then a bit more time in Rajasthan, and a lot more monuments (including, inevitably, the Taj Mahal) around Agra in the next week, then 24 hours+ on a train to Orissa (Eastern India), a few days or so there and a week in Calcutta, before going to Cambodia for a fortnight and back to India for L’s birthday and Darjeeling and Kalimpong in the mountains as our final fling here.  Lots more travelling – M very keen to get going again (she isn’t keen on cities), L sad that she won’t be having more home-cooking for the rest of the trip (the rest of us are rejoicing at the thought of no more flavourless tomato slop with cheap macaroni and omelettes) but also looking forward to going back to Rajasthan, and W, I think, would quite like to go home (England).  But we’re not planning to come back to Delhi, other than an overnighter near the airport on our way back from Darjeeling in April, and through to Blighty, so I’m doing military logistics – packing bags to pick up as we come through and anticipating the safest, most convenient spot to leave them; doing book post (finding tailors who will stitch WD’s academic tomes into hessian); clearing up here; shopping and finding a suitable thank you present for N (still not back from the mountains). We have discovered we collectively have a massive, 10 bag, 230 kg baggage allowance on the flight home!!!  L was a bit worried that we shouldn’t use it all as it might tip the plane out of the sky  but her great passion for handicrafts and nick-knacks (marble elephants, wooden snakes, key rings...) and cheap jewellery (bangles, pendants, bead necklaces) may significantly contribute. If anybody out there wants a (really massive) bronze dancing Shiva, tribal pottery, a 6 foot stone Nandi, or a wickerwork love-swing, do let us know.

We went to Dilli Haat on Saturday night – a craft market with food stalls from all round India. There was a Comic Fair going on and I can confirm that Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons is a Universal Archetype, alive and well in the New India, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Guy if you haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about) with (mostly) men dressed up as their favourite superheroes or arch-villains.  We managed to eat our way from Tamil Nadu to Rajasthan to Hyderabad to Sikkim, via dosas, shami kebab to momos and still had room for kulfi!  Thanks Fergus for the recommendation. And then we stumbled onto another Craft Fair on Sunday at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.  Craft has a big significance here, partly the mythical status accorded to the ‘Village’ and home-made, partly the development agenda – but it can all end up looking like the same, just another mass produced commodity. Please not another puppet from Rajasthan or shawl from Kashmir.  But then I did feel a bit humbled after chatting to a lady from Himachal Pradesh who was doing intricate embroidered folk scenes, to discover that each cloth took her at least two months of stitching.  (And her embroidery is reversible, the back looking as good as the front) We’d gone to the IGNCA to see a great exhibition of photos by Lala Deen Dayal, an Indian photographer in the 1880s and 1890s.  Lots of fabulous photos of monuments and landscapes, some of which we’ve already visited, as well as studio portraits of Indians and Europeans (the art of the moustache) and princely boasting (tiger shoots, interiors of palaces, polo)...

We met up with Y, one of WD’s current post-grads, at Lodi Gardens, mostly so that the children could play with her dogs again and also so that she could angst to WD about her upcoming viva.  L is completely in love with these geriatric pedigrees – I’ve no idea what sort of breed they are – small, fluffy, black and white with very upturned tails, huskie-lite.  They have dreadful cataracts and consequently, they think she is one of them – small, ungroomed, quite smelly (L, that is) - and have taken her into the pack.  Not quite Mowgli with his wolf pack though - this is South Delhi at its most elegant and swanky and these are pampered pets. We are struck by quite how posh the Lodi estates are, on return visit – it’s taken three months in India, to recognise how one patch of bare park grass can differ so drastically from another.  Y had brought a servant to do the dog care (sort out dog fights, wait for them to cock a leg round the park, hold the leads) and to drive the car around in the rain.  I was concerned that M, L & W might over-excite and over-exercise the elderly dogs and my role was to keep the kids to heel, hold them back from rolling in muddy puddles and biting each other.  

L: The man let me hold his lead. The dog that loved me best’s name is Dilluc. He’s really soft. You’re wrong mum, they aren’t smelly, they’re lovely. Dilluc likes to smell EVERYTHING! They wanted to play in the rain.

WM: Unfortunately, there was an unscheduled thunderstorm (another ‘winter monsoon’) which sent everyone running into the ruined tombs and mosque for shelter.  The romance of the situation was rather spoilt by the crowds and birthday parties, and the inconvenient persistence of the rain.  Having got a bit bored, we made a dash for the very smart Lodi Garden Restaurant (positively the best place to get a martini in Delhi, apparently) and sat in the dim there, dripping and figuring out if we could afford 2 coffees and a Sprite shared between all the kids. L looked at the menu and was very disapproving of the fact that it was all liquor (she was reading the cocktail menu): “I’m never going to drink wine or beer when I’m grown-up, mum” Hmmmm.

We’d been for lunch with WD’s old supervisor and his Indian wife the day before in Gurgaon.  Taking the metro out to HUDA City was a bit like flying (the metro becomes overland at Qutab Minab) with seats the whole way.  There’s a small amount of dirty scrub and the odd ‘farm’ separating Delhi from Gurgaon, but it’s basically one big continuous sprawl.  W very excited to see so many temples (actually they were the fabled malls of Gurgaon), giant statues of Hanuman, tower blocks and huge hospital complexes (the best hospitals in India apparently).  M was deeply unimpressed and carried on reading about prehistory in her Penguin History of India. She had been reading an adult comic about the Dalit experience but she was so tortured by the inhumanity to the untouchables I’ve had to remove it for a few years.

Gurgaon is a city less than 20 years old. It’s where all the international business start-ups and banks are based and is the newest reinvention of Delhi (so many previous cities built and destroyed), its most current face of modernity.  The roads are wide and poorly surfaced with anarchic roundabouts and hand painted adverts for a local pest control firm on every wall. The optimistic (given the considerable distances between sectors) cycle rickshaw wallahs and cows remind you that this is still familiar territory.  G and V live in a flat in a sector that once (only a few years ago) was the rural fringe of Gurgaon.  No longer, but it was surprisingly peaceful sitting on their balcony with the pot plants and a glass of Indian wine. W had been looking forward to some ‘boy time’ as G and V’s son is a week older than him, but it wasn’t really the successful play-date we’d hoped for – he was hiding under a desk as we arrived and things went downhill from there.  The children were fantastic at coping with the strange boy and strange food.  We have discovered W can hit a ball with a plastic cricket bat – where does this eye-hand coordination come from with no obvious genetic precedents?  L did a Marathon around the small dusty park (26 laps) and got progressively more flushed and sweaty and wondered why her legs ached so much the next day.  M supervised small boys’ play (and was incredibly patient with them under the circumstances) and was a picture of social grace under pressure.  It was fascinating for me to meet WD’s old supervisor (I’ve heard a fair deal about him over the years, but never met him) and to watch WD still deferential despite a merging of relative age-differences and roles.  So a weekend spent considering the teacher/mentor/guru relationship.

Next morning: So WolfGang, are we sad or happy to be leaving Delhi this week?

W: I want to go to the Himalayas!  I want to cut them in half with my big scissors (he’s making plasticine mountains)! I liked Delhi ‘cos it’s really smelly.  I got a Delhi metro.  It’s now officially on mum’s bed.  I’m going to take it to Nursery to show my friends and even other people. 

M: Disco because we’re leaving Delhi!  Disco!  (WM: so I think that mean’s she’s happy?) Delhi is a woeful place of horrid memories (of dysentery).  Maybe Khan Market’s okay.  I have to say I much prefer Rajasthan and can’t wait to be in Jaipur and Ajmer.  I’m finishing off my Hindu Gods book at the minute and I’ve only got a little bit of Durga’s tiger rug to finish.  I’m not so keen on N’s place because it’s so loud but I do like Lado Sarai village because it’s got more friendly.  I’ve liked having supper with mum and dad but I think we’ll have more exciting food when we’re travelling, especially when we go to Restaurant Le Posh (as featured in L’s Bollywood film).

L:  I am really tired today because of the noisy wedding last night.  I want to go travelling again.  I want to go to Cambodia. I’m looking forward to my birthday in the mountains.  I’ve liked staying here because we get to eat your food.  Pasta was great.  I expect I’ll live on rotis again when we’re travelling. 

WM: I’m ready to go, or else to stay here another year or two.  I feel like I’m only just beginning to figure out this Super City after 6 weeks here on and off – and that’s only the basics of survival (orientation, transport, food) – but it’s been quite an experience.  London is quiet and under-populated in comparison and I can’t imagine how scarily peaceful Beckley will be.  I’ve enjoyed the amazing relics of Ancient (and less ancient) Delhi and seeing them with WD.  There’s been a formidable amount to see here, even as an amateur, and I’m always of the opinion that the monuments are not so much the point, as the journey there and the strange and curious things you learn of other people’s lives en route. Delhi’s parks and tombs have been a great resource for the children and whilst it’s not perhaps an obviously child-friendly city, hoping on metros and autos has made getting around reasonably straightforward even when we’ve been living in Lado Sarai, on the very Edge of Civilisation. There’s a continual friction between the tectonic plates of aspirational superpower and long-time developing nation. Everything and nothing has changed since I first came here in the 1980s. We’re caught in a strange reversal, fast becoming the poor Old World cousins in this boom city, but with the perpetual and out-dated assumption (even by WD’s colleagues who’ve lived abroad, let alone the villagers here or the auto-rickshaw drivers) that we are loaded because of where we come from and our professional backgrounds.  

We’ve also managed some lower-key, steadier living here, which has benefitted us all, even though the noise and pollution has made things hard.  I have mixed feelings about N’s house.  We feel very grateful for a month of our own space – but it’s been hard managing the unpredictable intrusion of N’s staff (to the extent it hasn’t actually been our own space), dealing with the ever-present dirt (the children look like ragamuffins within two minutes of a fierce scrubbing with a flannel) and domestic disasters (a putty-less pane of glass falling out of the glass doors onto the balcony, the kettle cord being burnt by contact with the hot hob, a quilt stained with pen ink).  So, time to go? 

WD: Mmmm, yes.

Baby Photos (Parental advisory required)





Welcome Bobeeno Tuff Witt! 

Mrs Armitage goes to South Delhi

Lado Sarai, Delhi, 17^th Feb 2011

What a difference a day makes – the rain has stopped, the damp squib of a mist cleared (the Qutb tower finally re-emerged on our skyline) and this afternoon the sun even came out. WolfDad has officially admitted he understands nothing about the sub-continent climate, having failed to anticipate the risk of precipitation in Delhi in February.  His meteorology – based on Geography ‘ A’ level and a passion for the BBC Weather site  - has been completely flummoxed, although Kavita, a friend and South Delhi resident, did say that rain like that, at this time of year, was extremely unusual…  We have flung open the windows again, and are now breathing in deeply the stink of the overflowing drains outside.

WolfDad returned somewhat frustrated from the archives today. The yield:effort ratio is diminishing, he’s unsure where to draw the arbitrary final file and has, for the first time, encountered some suspicion and jobs-worth.  So he came home and we all went OUT to do some field (or park) work.  We made it across MB Road and found the Flower Market, en route to the Mehrauli Archaeological Park.  We are feeling slightly ashamed that these places which are so close to where we are living, have taken us a fortnight to reach.

The Flower Market was rather wonderful – Covent Garden through an Indian lens – marigolds and roses, ‘lucky’ bamboo and  women and children sitting in the mud making garlands.  All very vivid after the depressing murk of the last few days.  Apparently the Mehrauli flower market and similar markets around Delhi are under threat of removal to a more distant location at Ghazipur. 



Metcalfe's Folly

The Archeological Park is a large area of ruins, garden (some of it tended, some of it more wild) and woodland, jammed between the Qutb Complex (which is a World Heritage site) and the main road out of Delhi to Gurgaon.  In contrast to the Qutb, there are no tour buses, no admission fee and much less fancy restoration and facilities, just a guy posing in his white kurta pyjamas in Metcalfe’s folly and kids playing cricket among the ruins. [The Cricket World Cup starts tomorrow with the opening ceremony in Dhaka tonight. Cricket-related excitement is mounting, with India playing Bangladesh on Saturday.]

Jamali-Kamali tomb interior

  We went to see the Jamali-Kamali tomb and mosque.  Jamali was a 16^th century Sufi court poet and he’s buried next to Kamali whose identity is unknown, but variously said to be his ‘brother’, male lover, nom de plume or wife.  It’s a very romantic spot, hidden away even within the park.  The doors of the small and outwardly simple-looking, single-story tomb unlock to reveal the two white marble grave stones, each with a single rose, and the interior of the tomb exquisitely tiled and plastered in patterns of celestial blues.Its power has been sufficient to awaken the imaginings of American poets (there’s a new book of verse, ‘a tale of passion in Mughal India’) and for Time Out Delhi to recommend it as a great gay Valentine’s Day date.  WD was very excited to be able to get in – the tomb is carefully locked up as it’s the best preserved interior of a tomb that age in Delhi (most are bare white plaster, perhaps with fragments of tiling remaining) – and we hadn’t anticipated being able to find the caretaker so easily. Even the girls, usually hard to impress, thought it beautiful.

So having feasted our senses (well, visual cortex) there, we then went on to The Garden of the Five Senses in Saket, anticipating even greater stimulation.  This is a park we’d previously failed to find and had promised L that we would return to discover another day.  The Garden is well beyond the Old City Walls and is clearly from the Mrs Armitage* School of City Regeneration/Development – “What we need here, what we really need here is…” a Ground Force style project full of wind chimes, dodgy public art, a fragrance trail (in India?), broken alternative energy displays, country kitchens, trendy bars and camel rides.  I’m being unfair as there’s some valiant gardening, and it was a joy to see flowers growing, as it’d been a while. Only my father grows nasturtiums in such abundance. What flourishes best under these conditions, however, are snoggers.  Around every corner, we seemed to disturb another furtive couple who sprung apart, looking sheepish.  W’s done a picture of a couple licking each other in his journal tonight. Notices throughout the park told us to ‘Maintain Decency’, a real challenge to the WolfGang...

Lado Sarai is a bit edgy tonight: I can hear fireworks, drumming, fighting and screaming next door. I wonder what’s up?  WD plans to get up early tomorrow to go and take photos of more South Delhi architectural detritus, sorry monuments. So far, the go-getting, 7 o’clock sprint from sleep to productive activity has been a bit elusive as we’ve all settled into the slow morning start – hmm, cup of tea, another chapter of my book, play with the children in bed, make some porridge…

*Mrs Armitage is a Quentin Blake heroine who always has really good ideas (along with her faithful dog, Brakespear) about how to make things even better... A useful related phrase stolen from last year's Trainers' Course, designed to provide 'helpful' feedback without demoralising your registrar too much, or equally my kids at homeschool, 'Even better if...'

Rain, rain, GO away!

Lado Sarai, 16^th Feb 2011

M: It’s raining.  It’s pouring.  The old man is definitely snoring very loudly.  It’s been raining for two whole days and the forecast says tomorrow will be just as bad.  There goes a crack of thunder.  We’re very bored of it.  We want to go out but we can’t as the rain is really heavy, not like English rain.  Here you get soaked in a jiffy.

Outside there’s rain pouring down and the windows are blurry and you can’t see anything much.  There’s the continuous pitter-patter of rain on the flat roof.  It sounds like it does when it rains when you’re in a tent.  In fact it feels just like it does when it rains a lot on a camping holiday.  Except that in the road outside, all the drains are overflowing and there are huge muddy puddles (but we know they’re actually pooey puddles because all the city sewage is mixed in from the drains and the buffalo pats).  It’s so wet that even the buffalo is being kept in his stable.

Yesterday we went out when it had stopped briefly.  We went down the road to the Positive Art Café (WM: the only café) in Lado Sarai.  There were art books and ladies working on their laptops.

W:  We shared a diet coke and a chocolate cake there.  Mum had a cappuccino. The art was very nice. 

L:  Well, the art was quite plasticky and silly.  I did like the smiley faces though. The chairs in the café were cool and comfy and exciting and whizzy.

M: It was a very strange place and you wouldn’t expect it in a place like Lado Sarai.  Mum said we had to be sophisticated and pretend we were in New York and I told Mum that I was sophisticated anyway! 

WM: Surreal outing. (L: what’s cereal mean?)  Yes, somehow a v. expensive contemporary art gallery, with diet coke (only available soda) and quiches at the café, particularly incongruous with the sea of mud flowing down the dirt road outside…

W: The thing was that the mud was getting in my sandals and the puddle water was going in my sandals.  It was really yucky because it was smelly and I didn’t like it at all.

M:  We’re all really bored and having to take up hobbies such as sewing and making Bollywood films.  I’m doing my poppy bookmark sewing and listening to Johnny Cash on Dad’s I-Pod. 

L:  I’m collecting the stuff for the film.  The film’s going to be about this really pretty girl who marries a really strong man and then she gets stolen by a really evil villain.  Our cuddly toys and the strong man (that’s going to be W!) go after them and rescue her!  There’s going to be a fight and the cuddly toys are no use but the strong man wins the fight.  I’m going to be the pretty girl and I’m going to wear a sari, bangles, a bindhi and I’m going to do lots of singing and dancing.  M’s job is to film and direct.  WD’s going to be the villain and WM’s going to be the responsible mum!  I’m still thinking of a really good, snappy name.  I’ve thought of ‘Ashram!’ or ‘Boogie-Don!’ or ‘Razia!’ but I’m not sure.

M:  It’ll be hilarious to see dad as a villain against strong man, W….

L:  W is going to wear a baseball cap and he’ll have a face-paint Rajasthani moustache.

M: He should wear a lunghi and a turban, not a baseball cap.

W: Okay, I’ll wear a turban.

L:  I’ve written the script but we’re doing it as a team and if one of the actors doesn’t like it, or has a better idea, we’ll change it.  I’ve written four songs so far and they’re quite good.

(WM: The first song, to be sung by L about herself, goes ‘Wow!  I’m beautiful ohhhh! Yes!  I’m beautiful – Ohhhh!  Every man that passes me gasps and gazes at me!  Yah!  Yah! La!  La!  Yesssss, it’s true!’  I’m wondering how much irony she intended?)

W:  ‘You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead!’ (getting into role)

WM: Creativity is flourishing here as a necessity, rather than a virtue.  When the film is made and edited we promise to post it.  I’ve even resorted to doing my sampler (brought as a bit of a joke, and untouched until yesterday) – I had visions of myself as Edwardian lady stitching in the shade of a parasol but that hasn’t really materialised…

The kids are working hard at their home schooling.  M has been thinking about water (whilst it tips it down outside) and why some people, including some not so far away, don’t have a safe, clean water supply.  There’s a good Oxfam on-line resource and she’s doing a Water Aid game looking at how we use and waste water at home.  L has been doing medicine safety – and has been going through my medical kit – and has been making symmetrical prayer mats.  W practices his letters and does his own version of his sisters’ activities.

We went back to the horrible City Walk mall this afternoon in desperate need of a wet weather outing but it back-fired: we failed to go to the pottery painting place (I had this idea that the kids could decorate mugs for N, who pots, as a thank you present, but they need longer to fire the pieces than we’ve got left in Delhi, so no go) and then I refused to fork £2 a piece for the rubbish soft play on offer... And L felt more out of sorts, rather than less.  No more shall we go unto the mall…

L: It made me feel homesick.  It felt like being in England, we could have been in Reading or somewhere like that, but it isn’t England and that’s horrible.

W:  I’m drawing my new T-shirt in my journal.  It’s got camels on it. Mum, is this Johnny Cash? 

M:  Tomorrow we’re going to go out to a park, no matter what, rain or no rain.  I prefer travelling to staying in Delhi like this. I know it’d be raining in other places but at least they wouldn’t be under the flight path.

L:  I want to visit Y’s dogs again before we leave Delhi.  No dogs in England love me and lick me like those dogs. “Bananas!  Bananas!  yum yum yum!” Ugh Ohh! It’s Bobeeno and he wants supper! I have to learn opera singing. I am in a rush. Bye bye.

 

The Love Issue

Lado Sarai, South Delhi

Sunday 13^th February 2011

Who’s reading this?  The thought occurs to us from time to time.  Mostly, we’re writing for ourselves as a record of the adventure and the ‘moment’ in our collective family history.  I’m personally enjoying doing a bit more ‘creative’ writing (and attempting to model this for M who struggles with writing, finding it a bit of a drag) rather than the drier, technical meter I have to use for my medical writing.  But we also hope that it’s keeping our family and friends in-touch, beyond what we’d ever manage in individual emails, letters, fuzzy Skype encounters and texts.  It’s important to us all, the kids particularly, not to feel forgotten in that Other World where we really belong – and will return to, soon (too soon? WD and WM sat on the steps of the Mosque yesterday, revelling in the other worldliness of Old Delhi, trying to figure out how we could stay all summer, longer  – but, fear not, we will come back as and when we’ve promised).   We apologise if the blogging is too long or too tedious – dip in and out, please don’t feel obliged to read the continuous output, comment, let us know you’re out there… (We long to hear your news too, however February-ish and full of economic and political gloom it is.  It’s a bit like our need for toast and Marmite…) And perhaps there are other interested or lost-on-the-internet parties out there too? I looked at the blog statistics the other day for the first time and was astonished and slightly alarmed to see that our pages have been viewed in South Korea, Denmark and China.  What must they make of the WolfGang?

It’s very nearly Valentine’s Day (surprisingly a big deal here) so let’s do a themed ‘love’ issue…

We love the Delhi Metro. We rode it from Saket to Chawri Bazaar and back yesterday, 16 rupees (c. 20p) one way. The concourses are huge and clean-ish; it’s speedy and efficient  (compared to an hour in stalled traffic in the back of an auto on Sri Aurobindo Marg, breathing in a lifetime’s quota of particulates this afternoon) ; public information is polite (‘Contact customer care centre for guidance if required’) and you know where to wait for the Ladies’ Carriage by the pink floor tiling (which reminds me of a certain brand of tampon’s branding) and even the unruly men are herded into queues when awaiting the arrival of the next train.  ‘Ladies’ only’ happens in India in acknowledgement of the ‘Eve Teasing’ and worse that women routinely get round here.  Beware the wrath of women where the sanctity of the Ladies’ only carriage is broken – there were reports of a long delay on one busy train, where men tried to ride in the less crowded ladies’ carriage – police had to be called after the ladies took off their shoes and started beating the male imposters.  I love the civilised, friendly, gentle atmosphere: women smile at us, there’s a mutual appreciation of each other’s ‘babies’ (even M is my ‘baby’), people invariably make space for children or older women to sit down.  There’s even interesting targeted advertising: emergency contraception, ‘Toss it’ (still not entirely sure what this product is for, your hair or noodles?) and Lip-Ice (‘Nice Girls Pray, Lip-Ice Girls Prey’).  It is probably the only time I access this female version of India. We feel so sorry for WD riding in the packed next carriage. I love the young urban Delhi women getting out there, with their gazelle eyes and tight jeans, reading text books or listening to their MP3 players.  W was given a pink rose by one of this glamorous breed  – he’s  announced  that he’s going to keep it ‘forever’ and wasn’t in the slightest embarrassed by all their blown kisses.

School girls in the Jami Masjid

We love Old Delhi, Shah Jehan’s city, a bit changed by the intervening years.  The density of the place is overwhelming. Stepping out of the metro and into a street stuffed with a continuous column of people and cycle rickshaws, motorcycles,  porters carrying great boxes and loads on their head, the pavement a chaotic, living river of barbers, beggars and pedlars and tea stall boys, is both thrilling but terrifying, especially with the three children in tow.  Forget trying to cross the road here, even surviving the pavement is challenge enough.  Watching out for our combined 100 digits as cycle rickshaws came perilously close through the narrowest of back streets or dodging vats of frying snacks demanded full attention. The bazaar meanders off in every direction, through tiny dark alleys, with each area a different, specialist ‘department’ – we wandered through plumbing and bathroom fittings, engine widgits, bike repairs, electrical goods and wedding stationery.  We managed to  turn up to the jami or Friday mosque, just as it was closing for lunchtime prayers so had to find alternative distraction in the Jain bird hospital.  This animal sanctuary had an intensive-care ward full of poorly, bandaged pigeons (“Mummy, what’s the matter with that one?”) and a semi-comatose kite being sat on by a less sick peacock.  They really need Rolf Harris.  It made a big impression on M but L was more interested in the naked Jain ‘sky’ monks. WD’s base carnivore needs (fuelled by a session at the Jain Hospital?) were more than adequately met by Afghani grilled chicken and roti. I was a little affronted on our return to the mosque to be made to wear a pink and orange polyester sac, over what I’d considered to be respectable and culturally sensitive clothes – I’d even brought a headscarf.  I was certainly exposing less flesh than the Indian ladies going freely about in saris.  My ire subsided a little, as I realised that every Western woman, regardless of age or outfit, had had the same treatment, and was replaced by mirth at how ridiculous we all looked.

But you do have to wonder about what it is we represent, that is so troubling as to require universal bagging?  M and L are also beginning to question why some Muslim women cover-up (and some don’t) and the degrees of their cover (from the headscarf, to the hijab to the burkha), so we’re into all those perplexing arguments of culture and religion and identity and personal freedoms…Reassuringly, we met some splendidly sassy school girls there who entertained our children no end.

We love Laila o Laila! (a famous song from the 1978 Bollywood film, ‘Don’, starring the one and only Amitabh Bachchan).  Click on the link to check it out on U-Tube. Our L is named for the Layla that drove Majinun to madness in his love for her.  Important to have a legend to live up to, isn’t it Juliet?

We love fizzy drinks (in moderation, of course) – whether Fanta, Sprite, Coke, Pepsi, Limca or Thums Up - the more lurid the colour and sweeter the better.  In the absence of alcohol, nothing else is quite as much fun.  W wonders what would happen if you poured Sprite in your ear or Coca-Cola down your willy.  An experiment we’re not proposing to carry out…Fizzy drinks are first-aid for frazzled and over-heated kids, when more nutritious refreshment is on hold and things look likely to deteriorate fast... An instant sugary, teeth-rotting, diabetes-inducing, perk-me-up that we just wouldn’t succumb to at home, but here makes sense on occasion. 

  We love Mughal tombs (in moderation also though).  South Delhi is full of dead Mughals. I particularly loved Humayun’s tomb where we went this morning.  Humayun is the Great Granddaddy of Shah Jahan and the guy who fell down the library steps, distracted by the call to prayer.  It’s supposed to be the model (WD: or one of the key architectural antecendents) for the later (by 60 years) Taj Mahal. We got up early to try to reach it before the tour buses arrived and before the early morning light deteriorated into the dirty daytime haze, whilst there was still dew (or sprinkler water) on the grass, whilst the birdsong was still vibrant…and just about managed it. Arriving with the merest hint of mist still, the white dome of the main tomb did have a heavenly glow about it, above the ornamental fountains and tranquil gardens.  W and L occupied themselves constructing their own tomb and gardens out of gravel and twigs whilst WD did his photography, getting especially filthy in the process.Their efforts lacked the symmetry and proportions of the Mughal architects but nonetheless had charm.

L and W tomb building



We love the Simpsons.  Of all the DVDs we’ve brought, the Simpsons rank as the top family viewing. We are getting to the stage when almost anything can be illustrated by reference to the relevant episode:  choice of faith (when Lisa opted to become a Buddhist and made friends with Richard Gere), alcoholism, GM food (when Marge was driven to grow her own veg), Hamlet… L was wondering if we’re a bit like the Simpsons – durr! That’d make WD Homer and W Maggie, so I’m not so sure….

And I love the WolfGang - slushy moment of public affection, allowable on the grounds of diminished responsibility, after three months away.  I know that the children’s fighting, and sometime unruliness, is a frequent theme of the blog but that doesn’t in anyway diminish my pride in their resilience and fortitude.  We’re asking so much of them every day and they just mop it all up, leaving me way behind on details of Mughal dynasties, reminding me of Hindi numbers out shopping and teaching me Vishnu’s various avatars. I know I will miss the intensity of this time together when it’s over.  Loving and kindness is the key, to quote my eldest daughter.  She’s on to something there… And WolfDad, you know how I feel about you, even on a bad day when things are really not going right, so I won’t embarrass you - although it’s quite tempting - by putting it out there in cyberspace.  Before this gets more saccharine than orange Fanta, or even Mango Frooti, I’m going to say I’m really happy to be here with you all.

Anyway, we send you lurrrve (minus the flowers and cupids and…) W is making Radhika a card, L is sending tonnes of animated e-cards (check your inbox) but M thinks it’s a silly nonsense. I felt touched (or slightly stalked?) when I received a text valentine –only to realise that it had come from Airtel, my mobile provider.

Lado News

Here is the BBC news:

W has a lowly-worm which tells him eat more!  (L and I have got the giggles about this one).  He also has a bit of a crush on Radhika, a young Delhi princess, who comes in to help N finish his book.  WM hopes he develops less high maintenance tastes as he grows up. 

Today, L has written her own version of the Jungle Book, done further chapters of the Olly Bottbott Avatars and is compiling Great Dates in Family History, and it’s not even 3 pm yet.  None of the rest of the family can match her productivity.

[L fantasy-piece : Loly worm presses a button on W’s neck and says, ”Time for my tea!”  Loly worm lives inside W’s tummy button.  Loly worm is W’s personal tape worm. Loly worm visits W’s tummy regally. By the way I love Loly worm too. Loly worm likes to eat apples, chicken, tomatoes, potatoes, water melon and chocolate. By the way W scoffs water melon I think it’s because hes eating it for Loly worm.]    

M has near-teen moments (“Everything’s all floppy and just brushes over me! It just annoys me so much.  It’s so frustrating!” she was heard to say just now in response to a cross stitch problem).   Unfortunately these spread by contagion which ultimately end up with W stropping off, saying “Fine! Nobody listens to me!  I might as well jump off the roof!” No one is remotely impressed by his borderline threats so he strops about that instead. Fortunately, W responds well to toastbutterjam (especially with Kissan jam, guaranteed no natural fruit) so no need to resort to Prozac.  Even WD has been known to have the odd flounce.  M’s exasperation and tears are trickier, requiring Understanding and the Milk of Maternal Kindness.

[M:  Big important thing – I slept very well for the first time in ages last night!  I’m feeling a whole lot better.  I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep again tonight.  We haven’t fought at all today.  It was a mum challenge.]   

Overall, things are calmer and more settled under the new regime.  M and WM are sitting on the balcony doing our thing, watching the sun sink over the Tomb and park opposite, whilst W and L have played an elaborate make-believe game happily all afternoon within earshot (Max is currently on my mobile phone, “Hiya DJ Moose! Howya doing?” and Holly is giving Bobino a bath and planning his christening) - although bedtimes are still not nearly early enough. 

WM’s current frustration is how to dry double bed sheets anywhere in this dusty, dirty, filthy building without them getting grimier in the process.  She’s in serious need of hand cream as Indian detergents and hand washing for a family are taking their toll on her lily-white hands. 

WD is at JNU (Delhi’s post-grad university), and is due to give a talk this afternoon in a lecture theatre that can seat 400 and has been publically advertised… so he is anticipating a larger audience than the 4 men and a dog (= departmental meeting) he had at Delhi University earlier this week.   He went shopping to buy some respectable chinos at M&S in preparation.  Interestingly, the very same M&S slightly shiny, non-stick, perma-crease trousers as stocked in the Oxford Town Centre but made in South India, are a little cheaper here, but not substantially so… It was then a style toss-up between sandals and socks or WM’s trainers for footwear, and he’s gone for the later.

Lado Sarai is officially Very Noisy.  The street iron welding, overhead flight path, neighbours and Mehrouli-Badaphur main road took second-place to wedding drumming and brass band on Tuesday night.  A huge red and white wedding tent had grown overnight in the square under Fort Buffalo, like a magic mushroom,  but had vanished by the next morning…The groom arrived on a white stallion wearing a white and gold turban, whilst all the young men did lots of jiggy dancing in a very virile and energetic  manner.

Egg competition - novel ideas for eggs needed as egg fatigue sets in.  Boiled, scrambled, fried, omelettes, eggy-bread, poached, pancakes have been done to death.  Soufflēs and baked eggs are not possible as there is no effective oven.  Eggs are pallid and battery-produced (agri-industrial intensification now the norm as the demand for protein soars) but they are an easier protein source for the kids than lentils, paneer or dodgy meat, and more straightforward to cook in the Master Chef kitchen.  The prize will be a year’s supply of Keggz Eggz (v. fancy organic eggs). There are lots of random ‘z’s and double ‘ee’s that appear in Indian advertising english – Dizee World, Eazee Squeezee – that’s the way to spell…

Success! The children and WM ventured out of Lado Sarai on their own for the first time this week.  We are a very long way from Central Delhi (if you think of that as Connaught Place and most of the tourist spots) and even from most of the fancier parks and Shopping centres of South Delhi.   However, everyone had been working so hard at their respective schoolwork that a change of routine was needed.  So we decided to go back to Haus Khas for bagels, the deer and the fitness trail.  M worked on her upper body strength on the parallel bars.  Another playground was discovered – this time with newish play equipment (functioning swings! ), the old discarded into the nearby bushes…The children played Frisbee in their own fashion and it felt good to be out in the sun.  We failed to find Rabbit World (but have sworn to continue the search – there is a petting zoo or equivalent apparently).  However, we did find the village rubbish dump and the marginal homes of families living around it – old ladies knitting in the dust, children skipping with fraying twine and pumping water from the one stand pipe. 

Lado Sarai is warming up to the Foreign Family.  WD was even called ‘sweet’ by the old geezer selling him aloo gobi last night, as they were running through a Hindi Beginners conversation class (“I am from England” “I am from Hindustan”), revision?  We had invitations issued to us by a lady on an opposite rooftop as she watched us all doing schoolwork and our crazy grinning is beginning to wear down a little of the reserve.  We have found where to get our ironing done (not that we do very much ironing); where to get WD’s mobile fixed (you can’t hear his voice at the moment) and where to reserve train tickets.  Time Out Delhi describes Lado as the hip-happening spot on the Delhi Contemporary Art Scene - so I could even go out to spend a big fat wad of cash on Art here, as well as picking up the mouli (Indian mega-radishes)and cornflakes on my way home.  It may not look like it at first glance, but everything is possible in Lado Sarai.