Lado Sarai, 16th 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.
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