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...