Britishers in Bengal

Kolkata, 14-18^th March 2011

Hot, hot, hot (though not hot for India, as WD reminds me).  I reckon it’s at least mid-30s, though the BBC Weather Service says 32 (they must be wrong).  It’s fine when we discard all our clothes and lie around under the ceiling fans, but much harder to keep up any sort of energy to go exploring and tramping round the city.  We’re drinking a lot of water, but still probably not enough to keep up with the sweating.  Washing dries almost instantly, even in the shade.  Even reading detective novels set in the Scandinavian cold isn’t helping much...

Our arrival here wasn’t the greatest.  Leaving Puri was hard, as we’d anticipated, and the early morning dash was complicated by L spreading shit of some sort (the possibilities are quite large here) over her shoes, my lap, her back pack on the way to the railway station when washing and cleaning up just wasn’t an option.  WM had a bit of a sense of humour failure, not helped by the atmosphere in the AC express (chair class only) to Kolkata (lots of rich Bengali families going home after their weekend in Puri), where our fellow passengers either giggled inanely at us, or got huffy about making space to accommodate our luggage, as well as their own...

Arriving at Howrah (Hoorah!) Station, you’re on the wrong side of the Hoogly River.  The Howrah Bridge was closed and the only option was to take a diversion over the other (toll) bridge further south.  WD stood in a queue for over an hour for a pre-paid taxi.  The idea is that you pay ahead of the journey, to remove the hassle of negotiating a fare and the inevitable arguments about using the meter, but because of the detour and the ‘terrible’ traffic (was this really any worse than normal?), the pre-paid component was only to the bridge whereupon the taxi-driver turned on his meter and we still had a big row about the correction factor at the end of the ride... Well worth the long wait in the sun, argument with an impossibly imperious and haughty lady about the evils of queue-barging (the sub-text is that it’s ok if you are sufficiently upper-class) and the guilt of under-paying the taxi-driver (we found out later that you do double what the meter says...)

W has adapted well to Indian
norms of behaviour.

We decided not to go to Sudder Street (where the ultra-budget accommodation and traveller scene is), but to the YWCA instead.  Despite a good location, incredibly helpful staff, kittens and tennis courts, the YWCA in Kolkata did not match up to its sister in Delhi: the fabric of the building was ancient, water was only available between certain hours, rooms were tiny and dark and the whole place had the feel of a convent (WD felt quite uncomfortable at breakfast as the only man in the presence of so many very respectable ladies, and W spent a long time gazing at the huge, gory crucifixion scene that dominated our corridor). So we knew we couldn’t really stay there long, knowledge compounded by the extreme discomfort of the unleavened mattresses.  Whilst the sainthood of Mother Teresa is taken as a given in these parts (she’s well on the way, having undergone beatification), there’s nothing remotely saintly about any of the rest of us...

So, it felt all right to admit to each other that we were having a bad start to being here and that sometimes, beyond culture shock, there is just, simply, cultural impasse.  I hate the pushing and common disregard for others, the shouting and the casual brutality, but that’s just how it can be here and I come from somewhere else. Bad days though are transformed into better ones, by not retreating any further into irritation and frustration, but trying to re-engage in a more positive way.

  Kolkata is an amazingly frantic, overwhelming place.  I thought we’d done the mega-city in Delhi, but this is something else again.  It looks European – the decaying facades of old mansion blocks, Neoclassical and Art Deco buildings, the wide streets and (knackered) pavements – but with the street life, over-population and steamy flora of the tropics.  Traffic is truly hideous here:  far fewer autos than in other Indian cities (and those that do exist are shared autos, only serving set routes), but instead innumerable yellow Ambassador taxis and private cars flowing up and down the one-way grid (which reverses at midday... watch out!), speeding private buses and trams, as well as Raj-era rickshaws (where you are pulled along in two wheeled carts by running men, mostly poor Biharis).  WD thinks that it may be both paranoia and the legacy of just finishing Rosemary Sutcliff’s ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’ but the autos look as if they have steel spinning scythes on their wheels to cut the pedestrians down like war-chariots. The traffic cops wear tight white trousers, aviator sunglasses and helmets (unbelievably camp – think 70s TV series, CHiPS) and are nominally in overall ‘control’ of the situation, but crossing the road here is a game of chance, as the traffic goes super-fast, never slows on principle, air horns continuously to tell you it’s intending to run you over, and there’s never, EVER a sufficient gap for those of us trained to Tufty Club standards of Safe Road Crossing to risk it.  However, since the chickens do have to get to the other side of the road from time-to-time, we are forced to throw caution to the wind, and bravely follow Indians’ leads as they dodge through the swerving traffic, and stick close together, so as to offer a better deterrent – or target? - for the speeding motorists.

The street life is much greater than elsewhere we’ve been – life is lived out, rather than indoors – with pavements heaving with outdoor-sleepers, chai stops, street children, people filling skins (yes, actual animal skins) with water from the street pump, men shaving, chatting or arguing in the shade. You feel constantly dizzy with the density and pace of the human dance around you.  The poor and homeless are everywhere, begging more demanding, and a humane response to all of this poses a real and practical challenge here.  A few rupees in a beggar’s bowl does little to alter anything, including your own discomfort. The children played Pig-in-the-Middle with a smiley street girl of indeterminate age, maybe M’s age, in the park and laughed and played happily with her, despite no common language, overcoming temporarily the barriers that keep people apart. 

Anyway, we’ve moved to the other side of Park Street, to a Victorian Mansion block where the Sunflower Guest House occupies the 1^st and 5^th Floors with ‘normal’ residents on the levels in-between.  It’s gloriously ramshackle, built around a huge open wooden staircase and 1940s lift-shaft.  The electrical wiring and pigeon holes are from another era entirely, but the staff seem laid-back and amused by us.  They initially showed us a larger than standard double room – which was fine, but we wanted a bit more space to play, school and fight, given we’re here till the weekend – so we asked if they had anything larger and they somewhat disbelievingly showed us the ‘family’ room.  It’s a monster room with high 15’ ceilings, and a smaller room off it (the granny annexe?) and two shower/toilets.  It has 5 (FIVE!) double-beds, intended for a vast extended Indian family, so we feel a bit inadequate and spoilt under-occupying it to such a degree. I asked for a ‘discount’ and got one (we’re visiting out of peak-season here), so it’s a bit of a bargain. 

It’s equivalent to staying in the West End of London and unbelievably we’re in a bit of a food desert, stuck between the cheap but supremely greasy kathi rolls on the street, and expensive multi-cuisine restaurant-fare.  We don’t have a fridge, so self-catering is extremely challenging, although we’ve given it a go for breakfasts. WD has hunted down milk, cornflakes, as well as almond croissants and coffee take-out (from Flurrys, a genteel kick-back to Raj ‘tea and cake’, despite its Deep Purple and Clapton music), proving again what a most excellent hunter-gatherer and general provider he is.

Otherwise, we have to make-do, whilst hankering for some undefined meal that we repeatedly fail to deliver. In the heat, no-one feels hungry, yet you have to remember to eat, or else things deteriorate. Tired children (nothing opens until after 7 for supper), table linen, waiters in turbans with a number-badge (forget the over-familiarity of a name), and under-dressed WPs (I’m feeling out of place with no silk sari and gold) don’t make for a good meal out.  Maybe not good, but memorable though.  Restaurant culture here is stuck firmly in a 70s time-warp, and we don’t think it’s intentionally ironic or post-modern as it would be at home: dim (almost to the limits of my night-vision) lighting, leatherette seats in orange, brown flock carpets, Lazy Susans – and food like macaroni cheese, sizzlers and chicken Kiev... Our favourite of these places is called Peter Cat – which we think is just the grooviest name ever.  Who was Peter Cat? We need to know.  The chicken Kiev deserves a special mention – less kiev, more molten garlic butter grenade, all puffed up with a little stick at the top, to detonate only under controlled conditions.

L has decided she likes Chinese food after all, having announced she absolutely hated Chinese food and wouldn’t go to a Chinese restaurant under any circumstances (L: M says I’m contrary.  I know what it means, it means you make your mind up and then you change it. The spring rolls were absolutely delicious at the Blue Dragon.  The fish - it wasn’t for eating – was very fat.) 

There’s always the threat of a return to McDs to bring the troops in line.  One evening, in despair of finding anything else, we enforced a sociological ‘field-trip’ to McDs for chicken McMaharajah and McAlooTikki.  We were surprised to see that it was there at all, since the Rough Guide mentions that it had mysteriously and satisfyingly burnt down soon after opening, in this famously communist city.  The chicken nuggets were okay (for W), the chips extremely salty, but the Indo-fast food hybrids too awful to dwell on, so let’s not.  We’re looking forward to SE Asian food with a vengeance, even if we know that the children will start complaining and wishing for Indian food when faced with more new stuff...

The WPs are in disgrace with the children as we have enforced a slum clearance in their bedroom. Lucky they have no legal rights in this matter. They had constructed a tent city out of blankets and sheets and were planning to sleep in them (great idea - under fleecy blankets, beyond the reach of the fan...) which was offending my sense of ‘domestic’ (pah!) order.  Better to accept our collective nomadic squalor? And for the record, they were not playing at being street kids, but armies...   

L: So, Mum? MUM!  MUUUUUM! 

On our way home tonight, we stopped at the Calcutta Museum to find out if it’s open tomorrow (it’s Holi tomorrow which is a holiday).  Unfortunately, we were invited in to see what was happening.  There was a Spring Festival of Colour and there were women dancing and there was a woman dressed up as Krishna (he’s the God of Love – ohee!).  I had to tell Mum and Dad it was a woman, but M told me first....The dancing was very, very silly I thought.  I didn’t like the music either.  They treated us like special guests:  they made us sit at the front, W had a special garland (so we fought about that) but they put purple powder on all our foreheads (it’s a sign of Spring, for Holi, but I’m not so sure).  Hmm.  On Holi, people tip paint or squirt paint from water guns on you which I’m quite excited about.  If anyone says, “Do you want paint on your head?” I’ll say “YES PLEASE!”  I’m going to wear my stinkiest, oldest, girliest clothes that I don’t like. [WPs: It is highly unlikely that anyone will seek her formal consent.] 

Anything exciting going on in Beckley?  Maybe we can do Holi in Beckley when I come back?  Do any of you think that’d be any fun?  Shall we do paint water-guns?

Some of you may know that we were expecting to see Miss Cow in Cow-Cutta, but I forgot about her phone call last week, and she’s gone to Brazil urgently.  (WM: Point of fact - cows aren’t allowed in the middle of Kolkata). Back on the start of my trip to India, I writ in WD’s diary and it said that he would go to dinner with Miss Cow and after a while Miss Cow wanted to marry him.  But now Miss Cow’s really angry with him because he didn’t come to dinner with her. (WM: Is there no end to L’s extraordinary fantasy life?)

I’m scratching my head and thinking of more gossip.  Do you have any? I think you do!  Well I need to go and brush my teeth, so goodnight. Mum come and read us ‘The Hobbit’.

WD: Kolkata (and yes, it’s still Calcutta too) retains much of the colonial city, the imperial capital, that it once was, however decaying visibly. The colonial past is so much more visible here than in Delhi where the massive New Delhi project that created a vast empty, green centre with wide avenues to the city in the 1930s was so fleeting and indeed so unlike anything in Britain that it doesn’t feel particularly British at all. But in Calcutta there is a much longer, sustained legacy of the European presence – the architecture that we mentioned above, from the late eighteenth century on, the street and building names, the men are still wearing cricket whites on the huge dusty Maidan (unlike all the World Cup international players on everyone’s television screen at present).

Down the road from us is Park Street cemetery, a quiet walled haven from the city outside, with rows of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century monuments to the heroic imperial dead (‘respected in life, lamented in death’ etc.) – soldiers, children, young women – a reminder of what a pestilential city it used to be (past tense obviously). It’s rather magnificent with crows and horrid dogs wandering amongst the Gothic tombs. The finest tomb is ‘Hindoo’ Stuart’s with temple columns and cusped arches: he went native, scandalising early nineteenth-century society by dressing like a Brahmin and amassing a fine collection of sculpture (that’s now in the BM). Sunnier – and earlier – than London’s Kensal Rise and Highgate cemeteries, but the same cult of death. Good film-set.

WM: Phew, Bilbo’s escaped from those horrid goblins...I don’t remember enjoying the Hobbit all that much when my Dad read it to me, never having been much of a dragons-and-dungeons girl, but the WolfGang are transfixed. Maybe it’s the themes of travel, adversity and adventure?

I’m a direct descendant of a colonial Scot who lived and worked as a jeweller in Calcutta around the turn of the twentieth century, and there’s tragedy in this tale too – a maternal great-grandmother bravely travelled from Scotland to India, had two sons (the younger my grandfather), before becoming ill and dying young, never reaching home.  And whilst I’m deeply sceptical of the faux sentimentality and personal journey-theme of ‘Who do you think you are?’, it’s interesting to think just how directly the great project of Empire has affected my family, as so many others.  It feels pre-history though, this colonial period: the crumbling, blackened buildings (one seen with a Banyan tree root system woven into its fabric), still inhabited though ruined, alongside the changing fortunes and growing confidence of Modern India, inversely mirrored by the decline of Britain.

We visited the Victoria Memorial, a white marble ‘Taj’ for the dead Empress, with lovely green gardens and home to great Colonial treasures (including the Daniells’ c.1800 paintings of lots of the places we’ve seen – the best a stormy picture of Rameshvaram, which entirely echoed our own experience), good weapons (for W) juxtaposed next to a photo exhibition of the Saintly Mother Teresa and a very even-handed ‘Calcutta Gallery’ about the history of the place and its encounters with Britain and the West. We especially liked hearing about the life of the Britishers here in the 18^th Century - “they lead a leisurely life and entertain themselves in a variety of ways.  Numerous dinner parties are held, with elaborate menus, at which flicking of bread pills is apparently, a common form of amusement” -  so very like the lives of the Wolfgang, then.

WD: I’ve been out walking a lot, through the busy streets past the pavement sellers of t-shirts and underwear, religious and pornographic DVDs, padlocks, recycled bags; around the Victorian covered market, quickly through the overpoweringly smelly aisles where chickens are slaughtered; past the men typing letters on ancient typewriters (remember them?); the men drinking tea from small unfired clay cups and eating puri-bhaji from a moulded leaf plate. I’ve always walked around cities, not just because I’m too stingy to use taxis, but because I like seeing a place from the ground and getting to know your way around with a rough map in hand. This does of course mean I get a bit carried away and walk ridiculous distances in the heat, long past the moment when a route is actually interesting. Foolish when it’s just me, but not so kind when the others are coming too.  

We all went on just such a mad escapade yesterday looking for another branch of FabIndia to stock up on more block-printed cotton, pukka wear for the memsahib and mini-memsahibs gone native in the heat. The pavements were a disaster-zone of fragmented and expelled paving slabs, and exposed cables and wiring, and other hazards. The desired address seemed to be perpetually a little further when we repeatedly asked... This was definitely urban adventure walking at its ‘finest’, an extreme sport demanding constant vigilance, stamina, sweat and with points deducted for losing a child in the crowds or getting run-over at the junctions and survival as the end and only goal.  We enjoyed a splendid view of the underside of one of Calcutta’s new flyovers as we stumbled along past the intense humanity of the roadsides and the blaring traffic. The children were impressively stoic (maybe it was just impossible to hear their complaints over the noise of the traffic?) and we were once again reminded how wonderful and what doughty travellers they have become.  It’s hard to imagine transporting them anywhere more difficult and different to their home environment [Downtown Lagos next summer? Or I’ve heard Libya’s attracting foreign visitors this year].  Eventually, we reached the AC of our destination, spent a lot and took a taxi home.

Lesson learnt? No, I’m a city-walker and if distances are long – as they are to head south to the Kalighat temple – then there’s a bus or the Metro. Figuring out the right route and finding your way is part of learning about the place. For an excellent account of contemporary Delhi by another city-walker, inspired by the romantic French flaneurs I believe, we recommend you all read Sam Miller’s Delhi: adventures in a megacity, a terrific view of the eccentricities, irritations and wonder of modern India.

WM: Well, I think WD and the rest of us will be forced to take it easy tomorrow, as it sounds as if everything closes down for Holi.  Hard to imagine a city like this closing-down, but still... We’ve seen the queues for whiskey at the English Wine shops and have failed to buy our own, let alone paint and water guns.  Underprepared?

Return to the Z

Puri, Orissa, 10th March 2011

Back in the heat, and it’s getting hotter (37 by the weekend, according to WD’s forecast) and humid again.

We took a 25 hour train from Delhi to Bhuvaneshwar (state capital of Orissa) Tues through to Weds pm, and awoke in another country, recognisable as India but different again, not Tamil Nadu, nor Kerala, or any of our other reference points. We travelled through the flatlands of dusty UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, witnessing under-populated (relative to the rest of India) dry farmland with trees in brilliant flaming blossom, open-cast coal-mining and steel works (Tatanagar looked particularly attractive), drawing closer to the East with more Areca palms and rice paddies as well as armed soldier patrols up and down the carriages (there is an on-going and long-standing insurgency between the Maoist Naxalites and the state here, only occasionally reported outside India).

We had struck lucky with the rajdhani. WD thought he was booking an express train – the WPs refused to spend more than one night on the train, while the Wolflings had pleaded to take the train (not the plane) – but it wasn’t just a super-fast, AC-throughout, reasonably new train (i.e. cockroaches only, no big fat mice) but even in 3rd class, you were catered for on an excessive scale and got bedding. We’d brought our own jam sandwiches and oranges, thinking we might subsist on those and platform food, but instead were brought regular trays of snacks, bottles of mineral water, thermoses to make our own tea, veg or non-veg meals... Apparently this is standard fare on the rajdhanis which serve the Delhi-state capital routes, where stops are quicker and less frequent than on standard trains and platform hawkers and beggars forbidden from entering the train. W thoroughly enjoyed the cheese sandwiches, mango fruity and chocolate eclairs (he seemed to end up with all the toffees, I wonder how?) so Indian Railways appears to meet his exacting needs better than his own parents. Everyone slept well, after an exhausted fashion, even WM sharing her middle bunk with the Wolf-boy himself whose sticky body-heat on this occasion was less enticing than in the cold winter night of a Rajasthani train journey.

We were sharing our berths with 2 middle-aged Indian ladies, both travelling alone. One was very friendly, had lived in London for 4 years whilst she had a scholarship to the Slade, and was now working as a sculptor between Orissa and Delhi (where she was also caring for her sick dad). She enthusiastically showed WD pictures of temples she’d recently visited in Western Orissa. The other was less forthcoming (though the children were fascinated by her thinning hennaed hair, pink mobile and a shiny carrier bag from the Ministry of Fashion ‘connecting stylish people’ – of which L was hyper-critical!) She ran into problems with the officious conductor, who berated her for not having photo-ID (she only had a photocopy) which you’re supposed to have if you’ve bought an e-ticket (even we knew this), and threatened a ‘double fine’ (twice the fare for the full journey – she was only going half way, so four times the price of her ticket). The entire carriage joined in the argument (so much shouting, stabbing bits of paper with fingers, phoning a friend for advice and general drama) taking the woman’s side so there was a general sense of camaraderie against officialdom which culminated in the arrival of the Superintendent. We really got the sense that everyone was really getting off on the confrontation in the absence of better entertainment. The Superintendent carried with him a quiet air of authority (3 gold stripes on his jacket and a substantial pot-belly also conveying his seniority), calmed everyone down and we suspect that he let her off ultimately, without anyone losing face. Whether or not, some baksheesh quietly changed hands, I have no idea.

The longer we are here, the more we are aware of just the extent of petty and vast corruptions here, and how it affects life. Everyone has a tale to tell – whether it is the ‘smoothing’ of resident’s permits or export licenses, the horror of finding out that you are in tax arrears when your accountant had been paying bribes rather than your actual tax bill for years, or the huge difference (thousands of rupees) between the cost of a public administration building a house for slum regeneration and the actual cost of the materials and labour; the tales of foreign engineers in despair at the state of major infra-structure projects where all the money has disappeared leaving nothing for the health and safety of workers, or politicians buying the votes of illiterate peasants by feeding them well the day before an election, to the ongoing media saga of the ‘2G scandal’ (which I don’t understand, but seems to boil down to the crores of rupees lost to corruption in the state sell-off of telecom licenses...) Whilst we haven’t had to deal with official corruption here to date, the culture of demands for money for no obvious benefit to the ‘customer’ (again, largely an alien concept here) permeates everything – money demanded by toilet attendants to use their filthy, untended toilets; multiple road blocks and ‘development taxes’ of a few rupees by villages on the way to a tourist attraction; auto-drivers who purposely take you to the wrong place (folk arts emporia, rather than a direct from producers craft-village) to get commission from anything you buy.

M: I liked the train journey because of the bedding, you got 2 sheets, blankets and pillows, everything you could possibly need. I read an awful lot. I read Doomwyte (another Brian Jacques) and started Halo. Reading is so much fun at the moment because it passes the time. I did 3 sheets of maths with mum. And I slept. The food was really weird. Lunch and supper were 3 courses – we had tomato soup and breadsticks, second course was dal and rice and paneer or chicken curry and roti, and pudding was ice-cream. The time passed really easily – I’d read and sleep and stare out of the window.

L: It was long on the night train. We mostly played but I did do 4 maths sheets. It wasn’t so cold but it was A/C. I better go because I am about to fall asleep.

WM: The Wolfcubs should receive the top commendation possible (Most Excellent World Travellers, Order of the Bath?), taking the long journey happily in their stride. Only the Wolfparents could be heard to say (quietly), ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ and ‘I’m bored!’

We spent one functional night in Bhuvaneshwar, staying at the state-run tourist hotel. As ever, this seems to translate into a run-down state of affairs and general indifference to guests, if not overt hostility: I worried what was going to happen when WD asked for a fifth pillow for the fourth time mid-India versus the Netherlands cricket world cup match...

WD, what’s on your mind?

WD: Supper and beer.

11th March 2011, early next morning, listening to the crows....

Crows and carrion are ever-present here in Puri. Sitting on the roof top yesterday evening, it felt like we were staring in a Hitchcock remake as they sat round the surrounding wall, watching us intently and perhaps not too kindly as they mourned the loss of their friend who’d earlier been decapitated by the weather vane...The crow’s remains were then thrown over the back wall to be fought over by the packs of mangy feral dogs (and their innumerable puppies) that live in the rubbish piles between here and the beach. So lots more animal behaviour to observe, beyond that of the Wolfpack itself...

WD: Where were we? Ahh, yes, Bhuvaneshvar yesterday. I left the others sleeping awaiting their complimentary ‘bed-tea’ and went out to see some temples. Orissan temples are quite distinctive and huge, and the region makes a good counterpart to my Tamil interests: temples are both active religious sites and archaeological monuments, the sculpture’s great and there’s a rich local tradition of folk art and handicrafts. There are huge numbers of stone temples built between the 7th and 13th centuries in Bhuvaneshvar alone, so I’m only planning to see a few representative examples. Two seen, back on Saturday for more.

Rather than staying in the big city we took a taxi to the coast at Puri, stopping off at two places on the way. One was a big white Buddhist stupa built by a Japanese group in the 1970s up on top of a hill, looking out across the flat green countryside. It was strangely busy with domestic visitors, including some from Gujarat who were charmed by the children (we met the same family who yelled ‘Aunty! Aunty!’ at WM across Puri beach a few days later, and embraced us all as long-lost relatives). The sugarcane juicers were busy and you could buy all sorts of useful plastic toys at the site, but what the attraction was eluded us.

Down at the bottom of the hill is a small park with the archaeological reason for this peace stupa’s location: one of the very earliest inscriptions of the 3rd century BC king Ashoka and a small sculpted elephant. The inscription describes Ashoka’s reputed change of heart from aggressive conqueror to peaceful patron of Buddhism, and the Japanese stupa was erected to commemorate this and oppose nuclear proliferation, so the sign said (India take note).

The other site we stopped at was the village of Hirapur, a beautiful, quiet place with
narrow thatched streets and people playing cards in the shade by a large lily pond surrounded by palm trees. On the edge of the village is an unusual temple, a small stone circular structure open to the sky. Inside the walls were lined with stone images of the 64 yoginis, all independent goddesses standing on their identifying animal vehicle: a tortoise, bull, buffalo, scorpion. At the rear, opposite the entrance was the most important goddess, covered in red silk cloth, daubed with red powder and with flowers scattered before her: Mahamaya, ‘the Great Maya’. Our one liked that. It is quite a strange and wonderful place, so unlike other big temples. The male priests made it quite clear that no animal sacrifices were performed in or outside the temple any longer, but I can quite imagine that is a recent development. Tantric practices celebrating the power of the goddess alone and sometimes involving taboo-defying rituals (blood sacrifice, eating with the left hand, and more exciting x-rated things) have been prevalent in eastern India (Orissa, Bengal, Assam). We can reconvene with goddesses who like goats in Calcutta next week.

WM: I’m a bit concerned that our children have been over-exposed to religion recently, as W and L have spent yesterday and this morning inventing their own world religion (to be known as Nemunoer). Maybe this is healthy as they have twigged how dubious the basis of many (all?) religious belief systems are, or the start of a new cult? Could it catch on, do you think? I’ll let L explain:

L: The religion is practically about health, safety and wealth of noses. You go and pray to Nemu (the god of noses) in his temple (which is a paper stand up). You don’t have to pay for blessings. W is making him a fort as he’s quite a warrior and a good fighter too. He sends a fire-ball if he sees an army approaching which kills the lot of them. But he doesn’t fight very much. Did you mention he’s half a clothes-peg? W you could draw his throne here? Do you want to do that? I think he needs a pilgrimage souvenir shop. What else does Nemu need? (WM: Definitely no tantric practices)

WD: Puri is one of the great pan-Indian pilgrimage sites, up there with Varanasi and Rameshvaram. There’s a big long beach with the town spread out along the seafront. I came here twenty years ago and managed by accident to be here during the annual rathyatra or chariot-festival when huge wheeled vehicles, covered with brightly coloured cloth hangings, carrying the gods are dragged through the wide streets. It was a lively time to be here. One of the other reasons I remember enjoying coming here was to stay in the Z Hotel. It’s a foreign travellers’ haunt in an old building (a Maharaja’s beach house from the 1920s) with high ceilings, polished floors and a huge table on a terrace around which everyone congregates in the evening. It’s set in a walled courtyard and from the roof you can see the sea and look out over town. So here we are back again and it is just as pleasant as I remember. The average age of those staying has increased (it’s not just us) as has, I suspect, the PhD count. It’s a calm, soporific place that I know it will be hard to leave on Monday – let alone getting out of the door to see local things of interest.

WM: Yes, I think we’ll revolt and refuse to go to Kolkata. The WolfGang are waking up gently this morning – last night there was a noisy Krishna devotion over the road – so we’re all lounging around, naked or wrapped in sarongs, not quite ready to get up or take control of the day... Maybe it’s just the languid heat, the large simple, white rooms with just a fan, mosquito-netted beds and a desk, the sea air or the eclectic company, but we (the Wolfgang) like this place. M likes the big spacious room and loves sleeping under a mosquito net. W is very happy as there’s 4 year old Daniel from Tunbridge Wells to play with – oh the pleasure of some full-on biffing and boy play! He’s equally happy as he’s here on a 3 month trip with his parents (mum’s a textile designer who works mainly with Rajasthani handicraft producers) and is fed up with his baby sister.

W: We’re playing Lego with a boy called Daniel. It’s a very cool game – I’ve got 2 ladies – about us making a hotel with a roof-top terrace. Yesterday we went up on the rooftop with him and chased big fat crows.

WM: W and Daniel are now onto playing armies – they are wrapping themselves and Max up in loo roll to make armour and helmets, sticking felt-tips in their sashes (for swords), and have removed the cardboard inner tubes of the loo rolls for telescopes. Oh the pleasures of having other small children around...

The WolfPs like the high-brow ‘dinner party’ atmosphere here, where all the guests tend to eat together and chat around the one long table: there’s an elderly couple from Paris, one of whom translates between English, French and Hindi and who are particularly interested in Post-Colonial Indian Literature; an Australian academic couple (who work in Kyoto in Japan) who are en-route to a conference on Gender and Conflict; there’s a beautiful German girl travelling solo around India for the first time, recounting her time in an ashram in Kerala and letting WD plan the next leg of her journey and WM sort out her diarrhoeal medication [she had been prescribed a PPI, a prokinetic, loperamide, an antibiotic plus anti-protozoal agent, ORS, pro-biotics and a mucolytic by a local doctor – excessive possibly?]; an old, pony-tailed, raison-skinned American hippy who has been coming here for ever (in the 60s and 70s, Puri was on the trail for the availability of legal bhang and opium, here intended for Shiva worship, although his interest may well have been different); a pregnant German architect doing her PhD fieldwork on slums and urbanisation, writing her notes over breakfast and a large group of bossy, middle-aged American women who tell me my children are ‘darling’ but haven’t yet got down to finding out what their agenda is (spiritual, charitable, church-related?).... So, lots of white folks with opinions on India, and ironically the best escapism from the place since we’ve been here.

It’s good to be somewhere completely new (for me, not WD) - but I recognise our weariness. It’s hard sometimes to keep interested and open to new stuff, rather than reading a book or chatting to fellow travellers. We’re all (with the notable exception of L) a little below physical peak performance. W has a horrid, fruity cough post-cold, and although he’s not febrile, I’ve started some precautionary antibiotics as there were a few crackles when I listened in. So he’ll probably still have a cough but diarrhoea as well in the coming days. I now have his original cold – a cold in the hot really makes no sense...M has had her first diarrhoea since her amoebic dysentery at the start of the trip, and is anxious understandably (but not terribly unwell), so is back on the dioralyte. I’m also having to keep her away from the rolling news coverage of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami - she’s definitely reached the next Piagetian stage of ‘moral’ development (thinking back to distant undergraduate developmental psychology) – and needs answers as to ‘why?’ and dealing with the injustice of an uncertain universe is exhausting parental work. WD has had a RTA – don’t fret, only a minor prang whilst he was riding a bike down the road to see the local temples, with another bike (he gave the useless lady rider one of his best glares - she obviously hadn’t done her Cyclist Proficiency Test) – nothing broken, but a stonking bruise developing. He hasn’t shaved for a while, so looks deliciously seedy.

Only L remains at full capacity. She went off to visit a Craft Village with WD this afternoon wearing her comedy sun-glasses, ready to do business buying nick-nacks. She came back with a little painted God house. And she remains prolific: this morning, she has written a history of the Mughals for her Travel Guide and is now making a fantasy map of dragons’ lairs and trolls’ houses (I’ve just started reading them ‘the Hobbit’, which may explain this new development).

13th March 2011, still in Puri but packed to leave first thing tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Juliet, and Helen for tomorrow.

We’ve mostly had a delightfully idle time here over the last few days (except for WD who zipped back for more of Bhubaneshwar yesterday) with lots more playing , going down to the beach and sitting around the big dining room table...People have nervously been watching news or checking the internet for updates of the situation in Japan. I can’t decide if you feel somehow beyond news travelling or a better world citizen, but have been trying to explain nuclear power and plate tectonics to the children. Apart from this, everyone (in the Wolfgang) is feeling perkier and seems fitter. Daniel’s dad had some monkey trouble earlier today and has started his rabies jabs and more Crow deaths are the other dramas at Hotel Z.

Puri beach has provided good amusement: watching low key cricket matches and trying to explain the basics to a Spanish woman who’s been travelling in tribal areas in Orissa, tracking the chai-wallah on his bike as he rides along the sand, watching the ridiculous camel (so-called for its tassels and plastic flowers, he looks horribly self-conscious, carrying Indian tourists up and down the beach) and small masseurs contort large men into strange positions, the children building the Himalayas...

I made it out of Puri today as we all went off with WD on a local bus to Konark, known for a monumental temple to the Sun God, Surya, and its erotic sculpture. It’s been really hot and sweaty today and the ride on the local bus was as squashed and bumpy as you might expect. WD got asked lots of meta-physical questions (such as, ‘But what is your share of God’s Creation?’) by one intense gentleman, which took some deflecting and L and W both fell asleep on the way home, both threatening to slump out of a window or onto the floor which took a different kind of deflection.

The site was heaving with Indian domestic tourists, mostly from Calcutta for the weekend. M failed to notice the rude bits (phew) which are interspersed between elephants, rampant lions, nagarajas, dancers and drummers. We all got a bit irritated in the heat by the constant demand for ‘one photo’ with people grabbing us and trying to physically arrange us as exotic additions to their family groups, and having no regard for the children’s resistance.

My highlight were the little toads living in the jug of the public toilet block...

So the bags are packed again and we’re off to Calcutta on a train at the crack of dawn. It’s sad to be leaving Puri but we need to keep going as there’s colonial architecture, academic contacts, tantric temples and appointments with L’s friend, Miss Cow, to keep. We’ll be in Cambodia in 9 days which marks the end of WD’s ‘real’ work in India and the start of the ‘holiday’ phase! I think that this is a bit of an arbitrary distinction, given we’re likely to be seeing some more temples (just a few) in Angkor, and since our flighty lotus-eating existence over the last 4 months could be construed (by some) as one long holiday....Hmmm. But there’s Holi (a colourful, drunken festival involving the throwing of paint and coloured water) and the Super-Moon (largest moon in 20 years) to look forward to next week, as well as Calcutta.

Taj Gunge

Agra, 6-8th March 2011

WM: So we came, we saw, we had ‘awesome’ banana-chocolate lassis (of which, more later), we left... M tells me Julius Caesar said something similar. Everybody had psyched themselves up to deal with the anticipated nonsense that comes for free with Agra. And it lived up to the hype by-and-large, but there were quiet, unexpected moments, among the throngs, too.

We arrived by taxi, having stopped at Fatehpur Sikri (Akbar’s imperial city) on the way.  Fatehpur Sikri is another mainstream place full of tourist parties, but arriving with the turrets and pavilions revealing themselves from the mist and driving through the ruins to the main gate was nonetheless thrilling.  There’s inevitably much more than we could possibly see in a day’s visit, particularly since the younger children’s enthusiasm for monuments or sites is inversely proportional to the time they spend seeing them. So I spend large chunks of time sitting in shady spots, finding alternative amusements for them, while WD takes his photos and actually looks at the buildings.

Fatehpur Sikri is full of people shouting and pestering you persistently and demanding your attention and money – guides (official and unofficial), touts for shops and cafés, pedlars, beggars, boys wanting to ‘buy’ your ASI ticket off you in exchange for postcards (I suspect to sell on to other tourists, undercutting the official entrance – although they denied this).  Akbar built his own Jami Masjid with an important saint’s shrine at its centre – M and WD took a look.  The rest of us inspected the huge bee colonies high up on the concavities of iwan (gateway) and sat in a shady corner, watching the comings and goings of the mosque and talking to the boys working the foreign crowd.  I had an interesting chat to Ali, a 12 year old working for his uncle in the ‘tourist’ trade both in Fatehpur Sikri and Agra. Once we’d established that I wasn’t going to buy anything, go to his uncle’s shop or sell him my ticket, we settled down to talk about family and school and foreigners, and he tried to teach me Hindi names for body parts (he thought I should know them as a doctor).

 We then wandered out of the main complex, trying to find an older mosque that WD wanted to see, finding instead the hammam and narrow village streets.  You sense that tourism here is confined strictly within the renovated walls of the palace complex, and that our presence outside those walls was both intrusion and curious. Mostly we just concentrated on keeping out of the overflowing open drains and not stepping in the multi-various animal and human detritus.  I’m regularly struck by the squalor of public spaces and yet private spaces, even within poorer areas, are generally swept and clean – and don’t really understand the dichotomy.  Wandering around the ruined city outside the main palace complex, similarly you are alone, the crowds having stepped back onto their AC buses and the quiet seems a miracle.  Buffaloes are taken out to the fields through the old, cobbled streets and ruined walls.

Back on the highway, and in need of lunch, WD was close to losing it with both our driver and the complacent owners of the tourist restaurants that line the route.  Our driver was happy to stop – ‘a good restaurant’ (he almost certainly receives commission for delivering us there) – only for us to refuse to pay the outrageously inflated prices.  Motorway cafés in the UK can charge a premium, but 400%? After repeated requests for a truckers’ dhaba, our driver eventually disbelievingly pulled over, to let us eat roti and dal at a reasonable price.

Agra is a large, noisy industrial city in its post-Mughal incarnation.  Like in every other big Indian city, traffic congeals along every artery.  We opted to stay in Taj Ganj, the old quarter just south of the Taj, mostly so that we could walk to it and have, if not a room with a view, at least a view from a roof top (if you peered round an inconvenient tree).  Taj Ganj is traditional back-packer territory, grafted into Shah Jehan’s planned cavansarai.  It remains a ‘budget’ option, pretty grubby and full of restaurants whose lack of food hygiene is a certainty, rather than a likely possibility. Taj Ganj reawakens microbial paranoia, which has been surprisingly dormant in me for several months (since our last sorté out, travelling in North India indeed...) – if we make it out of here without gastroenteric complications, I’ll be surprised... 

WD had memories of his best-ever lassi 20 years ago (banana and chocolate...) and sought out the very same café (Joney’s – about the size of the children’s play house at home) and indeed café –proprieter (Joney, who says so many people tell him they have come back 20, 30 years on to see him and have another lassi).  There were about 4 crammed tables full of home-sick Koreans eating noodles and a beardy Canadian who told us about his adventures, a manky cousin of Keith-the-marmalade-cat’s pursuing hand-outs, a cooker with geological scale grease-deposition, walls signed by passing travellers (L&M added their own scrawl).  However, the banana-chocolate lassis were indeed very fine (as good as WD’s recollections), and M rated the mango ones too! 

The Taj Mahal is the most beautiful building in the world, or at least that’s the orthodoxy.  [It also has very fine urinals complete with sandstone Mughal arches around each, or so WD tells us].  For me honestly, over-familiarity with the reproduced image, a previous visit, hungry children, as well as the considerable hassle-factor diminished the wonder – and honestly I have responded more positively to other Mughal monuments that I’ve seen for the first time on this trip (Humayun’s tomb and the Jamali-Kamali interior come to mind).  Having said this, M was in rhapsody seeing the Taj for the first time, and I did catch myself going out onto the guest house rooftop just to peer at it reverently several times a day, just to observe its changing aspect.

It is also interesting to see the encroachment of Hinduism right up to the gate of the Taj Mahal, a ‘Muslim’ monument.  Temples have been built around the perimeter, impromptu shrines have sprung up on the river shore immediately below it, devout Hindus gather to pray whilst queues pass them going into the Taj. Peaceful co-existence?

We’d set our alarm clocks in order to see it in early light and before the queues got too monstrous, but having queued separately for tickets and security checks, the point of this was a little lost.  Foreign tourists pay 750Rs (>£10) to go in, two-thirds of which goes to the Agra administration’s pockets, making it by far and away the most expensive outing in India.  Indian tourists pay 20R (and the monkeys come over the wall for free), but for our money, we’re handed a bottle of mineral water (you’re not allowed to take food and drink, books, paints, mobiles, juggling balls, etc  into the monument and tickets are for single entrance only) – oh, and are also permitted to use the toilets for free.  Children are free, which is good, but don’t qualify for water, nor are you allowed to buy them additional bottles, so their non-person status to the authorities is pretty clear.  The WPs’ irritation with this sort of nonsense seems much greater at this point in the trip.  I promise to write a stinky letter to the ASI. Think of the John Burningham  book, ‘Would You Rather...’ : would you rather your dad had a shouty row with the ticket office, or your mum complained to the Government?’  We were definitely embarrassing parents on a mission in Agra, as WM told the security woman off for chatting on her phone whilst she inexpertly frisked her (if we’re going to go through this farce, let’s at least do it properly?) and WD had a run-in with the toilet attendant, who had hidden the sign saying that foreigners did not have to pay toilet charges, in order to extort money off them. 

I am aware that our blogging about monuments often ends up in discussion of toilets. This probably reflects the non-professional part of the team as WD can generally be relied on to have some more interesting thoughts beyond sanitation.  We did have a great hour or so looking at the Taj from the inside (till W could wait not a minute longer for his breakfast) but the beautiful stone and marble work, the stunning symmetry, the glory of the tomb, may all be less memorable than the tourist anthropology – Russian lovelies doing a pouty photo-shoot on every available plinth, nuns shyly having their pictures taken, the tour group team snaps – everyone having their picture taken to say  ‘I was here’ (including us).

  M: Well, I thought the Taj Mahal lived up to my expectations (except for the toilets where the man was greedy – it said ‘Foreigners no charge’ and then the man was charging 20, 50 even 100 rupees to go to the loo when I was there).  I liked the idea of having a ‘foot’ picture – it was for Toby.  Toby and Dad did it when they were here before [WM: there’s an infamous photo of Toby’s big toes in front of the Taj Mahal from a previous fraternal visit in 1993]. I didn’t like getting up early.  The queues were fine though.   I liked where we stayed because I liked the view of the Taj Mahal from it, and I liked the people who were looking after us.  I went to Agra Fort with Dad.  It was amazing, much, much nicer than the Red Fort in Delhi, because we could enter more of it and it was older architecture, not just Shah Jahan, but Akbar and a little of Jahangir.  My favourite bit was probably where Shah Jehan was imprisoned, beautiful marble work, each bit covered in precious stones.  I think we stayed long enough and I’m glad we went to Bharatpur as well.

L: It was boring. No, it wasn’t – don’t write it was boring, mum.  It was very nice. I liked the symmetry and it was quite beautiful.  I see why people make a fuss about it.  I got tired though and wanted my breakfast.

WM:  My favourite moment in Agra actually happened our first evening in Agra, when we wandered down to the bathing ghats (the area of river immediately below the Taj Mahal).  We were so close to the Taj that you could see and hear the throngs up above us, but in every other way, it seemed so far removed as we walked down a little lane, past small homes and animals, boys coming back from mosque, old men chatting with the sun low in the sky.  The Yamuna river wasn’t dry and we sat on the steps, watching as the boat man ferried customers across to the other side, and could see goats and cows being herded on the opposite bank.  Of course, everyone wants to see Great Wonders, like the Taj, and it is inevitable that they act as tourist nectar, but that just catalyzes my urgent need for space and peace, both of which are achievable just metres away from the Taj Mahal itself.

Rock 'n' Roll Pythons

Bharatpur, 4^th March 2011

A few family call-outs, first:

Happy Birthday Granpa Antony!  We hope you got our cards!

Good Luck Annabelle and Nick tomorrow in the Bath Fun Run – we’ll be cheering you on from here!

WM: On the first day of WD’s new regime of More Fun (and maybe one or two less monuments?), we got up early to go to Keoladeo-Ghana National Park, ‘one of the world’s most important ornithological breeding and migratory areas’ (according to the Rough Guide).  When I say early, I mean at about 7 and then sat around waiting for porridge for about an hour.  So as completely rubbish non-birders, with only a pair of toy binoculars between us and a collective inability to move anywhere quietly, and having arrived here just as the peak season finishes (and the wetlands dry up), we decided it might be a ‘lark’ (!) to go and see (or, more realistically, not see) birds somewhere other than the RSPB reserve in Otmoor.  Transport around the park is by foot, cycling or cycle-rickshaw.  We set off in a little convoy of the children in a cycle-rickshaw (which M drove some of the way), WM and WD on staggeringly uncomfortable Atlas bikes and our naturalist (is that right? A naturist is something else, WM) on his bike. It was great, cycling along in a straw hat, playing at being Jules et Jim.  Oh, and spotting the odd bird. We peaked a bit early-on, finding sunbathing rock pythons sitting under some bushes, next to their hole.  So much snake (more even than Alice Cooper) and so like Kaa in the Jungle Book, I was a little concerned they might think W or L a tasty snack.  I’ve watched ‘Anaconda’, (a truly terrible film, about mutant giant snakes that predate humans) rather too recently on HBO cable, but the children were hypnotised.  We saw wild boar, mongoose, chital, nilgai and sambar deer, as well as a jackal, but not L’s  jungle cat.  Bird-wise (in case, Laura or Tom are reading), we saw snake-necked darters, noisy adolescent painted storks, spoonbills, cormorants, egrets, white ibis, purple and pond herons, kingfishers, spotted and Scops owls, green bee-eaters, green yellow-footed pigeons, common grey hornbills... Apparently, a tiger had been present in the park a few days ago, having made it here ‘on holiday’ from Ranthambore National Park, only to be darted and taken home.

We’ve survived the start of our anti-malarials, in anticipation of going East.  I was advised Nutella would help the children take theirs, but I didn’t have any Nutella and a spoonful of jam did the trick.  No interesting Larium dreams to report from any of us yet.  A side-effect listed is ‘increased crying’ and sleep problems – I’m not sure I’d be able to judge this objectively.

Back on the road, the intensity of physical ‘togetherness’ is rachetted up again to an even higher level of intimacy, not necessarily desirable... W has definitely the cheesiest feet of any four year old ever, but L tells me her bottom is stinkier.  She’s got a cold at the moment and wraps up snot parcels for me and follows us into the bathroom saying, “I know what you’re doing!  You’re making babies!” (No, WD and I are just brushing our teeth.) M needs her ‘space’ (physically and emotionally) so tends to end up with a bed or mattress to herself, whilst L and W wriggle and kick and roll over each other all night (pre-, during and post-sleep) if they share in Dr Seuss-style (‘We play, we play, we play all day.  We fight, we fight, we fight all night’), so the usual outcome is for one of them to end up sleeping with us.  But I’m writing this on a lazy Saturday afternoon, as the sun streams in, off a flowery veranda and the three children and I are happily occupying the same space (WD has gone off to Deeg), everyone busy with their own thing (M is playing Spider Solitaire, W is making plastacine Rock Pythons and L is constructing an educational work book for W) but comfortable and calm in each other’s company.

And at this three-quarters point, we start to think of Coming Home, while still wanting to extract the most out of our remaining time. There is lots to think about.  What will we want to eat?  When will we see family and friends?  What will it be like going back to school and work?  We all fantasise we’ll bring some of India home. WD wants to set up a petrol-drum tandoor in the back garden so he can make rotis and L wants to open a chai stall because Beckley hasn’t got one.  M wants to bring back a bamboo flute so she can play one, like Krishna, as well as her more standard metal flute.  I want to paint our house blue, like the houses in Jodphur, and the girls would like village-style murals in every room, and W proposes to bring Loley Worm home with him. Stool O, C & Ps all round on return, I think. 

WD is home from Deeg and planning his trip to UP tomorrow. He finds his own prejudices about the folk of UP confirmed by our guest house host, who says he's happier and feels more at home travelling 800km to Jaisalmer than 10km over the state border to Uttar Pradesh. "See!"- he's triumphant. So how was Deeg?

WD: Fabulous! Another palace, yes, but set in a beautiful formal garden with rows of fountains (sadly not working), lakes on two sides and elegant pavilions neatly arranged symmetrically. There were a few locals enjoying the well-watered grass and fragrant flowerbeds in the low afternoon sunlight; I was the only foreigner there. A bit of a slog on a local bus to get there, when tired after python-spotting this morning, but well worth the effort. The bus was crowded on the way home and I struck up a conversation with two students who were keen to know what I thought about India and had lots of questions about Britain: how many states are there? what car did I drive? how much did I earn? Very friendly and such conversations can always make a dull, uncomfortable journey in India an unexpected delight.

Dial 101 for fire

Bharatpur, 3rd March 2011

I’m sitting outside our room in the dark, waiting for the Wolfcubs to calm down enough to allow themselves to sleep.  L has just managed to call the Indian fire-service, by mistake, as she tried to turn on the flashlight on WD’s mobile. Prior to that, she’d trampolined onto this laptop, whilst jumping on our bed, but no harm seems to have been done.  Does the whole business of growing-up basically boil down to learning how to manage sleep and fatigue (and maybe a few other bodily needs)? 

M has had a bit of a wobble this evening – I think she’d been stressed at the idea of another rail journey (after our last experience) and tired of being different, feeling people are laughing at her and not understanding why.  I so completely empathise.  I had been pretty apprehensive about further train travel – we’d done team strategy for all eventualities (‘W, do you know who the station master is?’) – and tire of being the highlight of a boring afternoon in the Hindi Belt.  Fortunately this particular 3 hour train journey didn’t involve any scrum or mishap, just pleasant company, good snacks and endlessly repeating village scenes through the open window (women in brilliant synthetic headscarves of citric yellow or Fanta orange working in the fields of mustard or ripening wheat, hay ricks, buffalos...). WD and I read the Times of India – spectacular headlines like ‘Did Berto foot the nip-tuck bill for bunga-bunga girls?’, ‘Colin Firth to visit India?’ and minimal coverage of other world news, beyond the assassination of a Pakistani Minister, a Christian who opposed the Blasphemy laws there.   We did draw an audience in the reservations hall, where we trying to get onward tickets, and then outside trying to fend off the over-eager auto-drivers.  Calm down everyone, it’s only the WolfGang!

L and W, whilst equally exhausted, have had a breeze – playing on the train, L helping W to write his ‘novel’ (Booker Prize 2012?) and to learn some basic ‘literacy’ (she’s on an educational mission, watch out W!), rollicking around, doing their journals and having a shower, showing no apparent signs of tiredness until the bedtime moment came.  Still, it’s quiet in there now, good probably? 

WD has had a last minute change of plan.  The thought of another dirty, hassle-full North Indian tourist city wasn’t enchanting anyone - to the degree he was contemplating diverting completely away from Agra but the girls are insisting that we do go to the Taj Mahal (they’ve read the Shah Jehan comic and are completely, completely sure they must see this monument to love and maternal mortality), even though the WPs think it might be quite cool to have been India for nearly six months and not go there...But WD does need to go to Mathura and Vrindavan (the landscape of Braj, Krishna’s birthplace and homeland) for research/grant-justification purposes (as well as  academic curiosity), which lie north of Agra, so we are heading in that direction anyway.  So we hopped off the train a stop early at Bharatpur for a few quiet days and WD can do his fieldwork daytrips from here rather than Agra, and cut the time we spend actually staying in Agra to a night or two.

The Jungle Lodge is a low-key budget option in a quiet backstreet of Bharatpur.  It costs a sixth of what we had been paying in Jaipur, but still has clean sheets, towels, functional hot water, a menu of toasted sandwiches and watery dal, and a garden (not a jungle), full of daisies, shady trees and a dangling bees’ nest.  You sometimes wonder exactly what you’re paying so much more for, as you go up the scale.  Usually a TV and lots of subservient men in berets.  The Madhuban (where we ended up in Jaipur) was a pleasant, modern surburban villa, turned ‘heritage’, full of affluent, older Europeans on organised (shopping) tours of India.  Not the place for the WolfGang to run wild:  WD doesn’t cope well with the loss of autonomy such places inflict on you (like a ‘complimentary’, well sort of, taxi to the station) and the children had to turn the volume down a bit, for the ladies having lovely cups of tea (china cups with saucers) in the garden.  Its location, up a quiet residential street, meant we were a way away from alternative food and supplies, having to depend on the hotel’s expensive menu or drive into the noisy, hectic town centre for alternatives.  The first night we misjudged completely, and all went to bed hungry (though I/WD sneaked a teaspoon of peanut butter when no-one was looking – how sad is that?).  Our poor children were understandably upset and could be heard demanding ‘one chapatti’ into the dark – the begging call of street kids here – to no avail.  

Jaipur was quite hard work in general.  We had an underwhelming afternoon visiting the old city which looked not the famous pink, but a miserable dirty brown, full of traffic and chaos, and the Palace at its centre scored only a 4/10 (and that was mostly on the basis of its imaginative weapons displays – we liked the excesses at play, where ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and various other messages were spelt in daggers, cross-bows and shields). Maybe we are now a little blasé about our Rajput palaces?  Mostly I think the weather (stormy, low cloud) and family mood collided in an unhelpful way.  Good things about Jaipur – family autos (where the back has been removed, to add a row of seats facing backwards so you can watch incoming buses and two-wheelers just about manage to break in time) and Raoul (a five year old British Asian/Italian from Battersea, staying at our hotel) who provided intense play satisfaction for L and W.  His mum, Sunni, had a memorably explicit Kamasutra-theme enamelled choker which WD and I could scarcely tear our eyes away from.  We wondered what the Punjabi relatives had made of it.

Our day trip to Amber (the fort-power base of the Rajputs prior to Jaipur, 12 km out of town) was so different.  The sun was out, our mood was upbeat, we’d beaten most of the tour buses there (in a knackered old gear-less auto, that didn’t make it up any sort of incline without the WPs getting out and walking) and laughed at the slow and ungainly descent up to the fort of fat white tourists on the back of hard-working elephants with sad eyes, an unlikely army. Amber Fort has an imposing location, and looks fabulous - just the place for a game of ‘Far Pavilions’.  

We got caught up in a toilet tariff-scam.  WD and I were very peeved to have to fork out 10 rupees a head to use the loo, having just spent 200 rupees each to get into the site.  We pay an inflated foreigner rate (anything from 4-20 times more than an Indian tourist).  So WD was arguing the ‘if you’re charging international prices, then foreign tourists will expect facilities like toilets to be free’-line and was told to put it in writing in the Visitor’s Book.  When I asked for this, all ready to make a crusading public health case (about the necessity of FREE toilets for children/menstruating women/people with diarrhoeal illness/men with prostatic issues...), the ‘in-charges’ got quite touchy and gave me a refund rather than allowing me to make an official written complaint.  Not sure if this was simply to avoid losing face, the very opposite of an organisational culture welcoming feed-back or if we’d uncovered more widespread corruption?  (Apparently the pay toilets should only have been 5 rupees a head...)

We went to the Anokhi museum in an old restored haveli just down from the Fort to learn about block-printing and natural dye-processes. The contrast between the tourist scrum of the Fort and the quiet back streets where the museum was located could not have been more dramatic – goats being driven out to graze, old ladies chatting in the shade, a crazy Esher-like stairwell, babies being washed under the water-pump...The children had a go at block-printing and enjoyed the precise, sharp thump you have to deliver to get the print perfect.  M plans to go back to do one of the 2 day workshops there in her ‘year-off’.  W, however, was more concerned that Granpa Ian might need some Anokhi French knickers from the shop. (We’re not sure why he thinks Granpa Ian, in particular, might specially like them?) We had to fend off two health outreach workers, obviously on an immunisation drive, who were very determined that W should be added to their under 5 stats and were on the verge of dropping an oral polio vaccine dose into his mouth, before we intervened (Sam the Honest Nurse at Manor Surgery had got there first).  No informed parental consent needed here.

Grumpy Wolflings in the Pink City

Jaipur, 1^st March 2011

WM: Today the three junior members of the wolf gang are particularly snappy and growly with each other, and refusing to cooperate about any tiny (or larger) thing.  We have squabbled our day away. M even has an odd scratch across the back of her neck, which we're attributing to L trying to saw off her head in the middle of the night, without any other obvious explanantions. Maybe it's the weather (overcast and gloomy), maybe it's just a readjustment to the reduced physical living space and travelling, maybe it's just March madness? They have refused to do a collective blog, each wanting to do an individual one, even if it’s meant lots of repetition which I’m not allowed to edit away. But it’s interesting to hear it from their unique and different perspectives.

Sundae-fest by M

 Since leaving Delhi on Saturday, it has been the usual rushing round India, trying to see everything all at once...

Pushkar was a nice place to spend a couple of days even if only two.  We were staying in a friendly hotel called Om Hotel.  There were tortoises which I very much liked but we only found out about them on our second day staying there when we changed rooms from a not very recently done up one to a much nicer one,  located by a hammock.  Mum and I spotted a hummingbird and they said there were two of them.  There was also supposed to be a white rabbit but no one had seen him for two days.  The thing that made the animals so special was the fact that they were free and not cooped up in a cage, even the humming birds.  Leila and Wilf discovered a sandpit which was a great success;  they spent pretty much 1 out of every 2 hours in the sandpit.  My favourite meal in Pushkar was falafel and hummus with a pita bread to go with it. I’m a great fan of Israeli food.

                Leaving Pushkar so soon felt weird after spending almost a month in Delhi. We’ll get used to travelling again I’m sure and things like sharing beds and cold water don’t bother me anymore.  On our way out of Pushkar we came across pilgrims with pots of the sacred water from the Ghats of Pushkar. They were dressed in bright orange.  Dad said that pilgrimage isn’t just about devotion to god but can be for other causes too. 

                Arriving in Jaipur was a little like getting to Jodphur, only bigger and dustier. Dad has been here three times and he wants to see the Pink City and the Palace museum and the Amber Fort.  I went to the Albert Museum with him yesterday.  Daddy had gone there to see the building not so much the artefacts.  I liked the demon masks from Sri Lanka though and there were some really famous sculptures, my favourite one was from Bengal.  There were some miniature paintings from Rajasthan.  They were scenes from a poem of love.  It started off with a lady and man meeting, then they became boyfriend and girlfriend and then they got told off by their parents who didn’t want them together and they met again and the parents changed their minds and let them marry.  Then the last picture was them having sex.  YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                There is a white rabbit in the hotel we’re now staying to make up for not finding the one in Pushkar.  We gave it chopped up cucumber sticks and he crunched it up happily.  He gets fed carrots by the gardener.  The  MadhuBan hotel is a bit chi-chi compared to other places we have stayed.  Meals are very expensive and everything is just a little more high-class than we’re used to.  We went swimming in the plunge pool yesterday .  We didn’t last that long in it because it was soooo cold.  Mum and Dad said it was too cold for them to even consider going in.  

                Last night, after going to the Albert museum, we went for dinner at a South Indian place.  Mum said they did very good sundaes and so we were allowed to order one.  Having never actually had a Sundae ever before (I’m not sure if mum and dad have), it was quite a surprise.  W decided to have ‘plain’ scoops of ice-cream.  I had a small Gold Rush which was chocolate and coffee ice-cream with butterscotch sauce and chocolate and almond sprinkles.  It was a good choice because I’m not sure I could have managed a large one on my own.  I would have rather had no pink wafer though, but I ate it anyway.   I enjoyed my idlis and vadi as I had been missing South Indian food (not dosas though).

                As today is the first of March, my friend Harriet Hare is going mad according to the line, ‘Mad March Hares’.  She calms down occasionally but we’ll have to watch her closely for the next 31 days.  March madness has got into the younger two also as they have gone bonkers.  L has borrowed mum’s phone to pretend to be a robot controller.  W is the robot, but not a successful robot as he doesn’t follow L’s instructions very closely and sometimes rebels.

Space Girl Chawawa by L

Me and W have just been playing a really silly game where the president of India phoned me up and said will you be the second  Kalpana Chawawa (she was the first Indian woman in space)?  I said maybe, and then he kept on phoning me until I said yes.  W is my robot and whenever I phone someone up, he head butts me.

 We are staying in a fancy hotel with shimmering lights and huge buffets.  As we went to the Breakfast buffet, Mum said we had to eat as much as we could as it was expensive.  I ate toast, cornflakes, omelette and guava juice.  Mum and Dad have got a queen size bed, and it’s got 4 posters but W and I still have to share a single bed.  It’s not fun sharing with W as he kicks me all night. There’s a fancy swimming pool too that’s freezing and a white rabbit in the garden.  He likes eating lots of carrot and cucumber but he takes a long time to eat it.  We like feeding it and looking at it.  Dad says he looks like he needs lots of love because I haven’t seen many people approaching him.  Me and W think he should be called Madlyn (WM:  L insists it should be spelt like this, I’m not sure about transgender rabbits). 

What’s more gossip?

Errrr......Ummmm....

It feels really good and fun to be travelling again.  I loved Pushkar and I’m missing it right now because Jaipur is a big, noisy, dusty city.  We got lost in the auto coming home last night, and I fell asleep although I was pretending to still be asleep when Mum was getting me into my night things.  Dad tickled me so I couldn’t keep my eyes closed, and Mum talked about something funny so I had to laugh!  Dad has really warm breath and so it partly awakened me. 

Teeth!  I’ve lost some more.  It’s the second one in India.  I think I’m going to lose more in India as I’m aiming to get to eight, that’s my target.  It had only just started getting wobbly on the first day and then it fell out on the second day so it was a bit of a surprise.  It was a surprise to the taxi-driver too because it was quite bloody.  The Indian tooth fairy was a bit more reliable this time and gave me 50 rupees.  I’m not sure what I’m going to spend it on but mum says there are good nick-nacks in the Old City in Jaipur.

M and Dad went to the Albert museum but the rest of us sat in the park, drinking Minute Maid and eating raw peas which a man gave to us.  There was a little boy who wanted to play with us, so me and W ran round in circles trying to attract him, but then we tripped over each other and laughed.   Mum paid her debts (from the Donkey Dare in Pushkar – we had to go and copy the Yoga tourists, it was quite embarrassing, infact extra embarrassing!) and she bought us a little chocolate bar each. 

We went for supper at a posh restaurant where they did ice-cream sundaes.  Mine was a chocolate ring-a-ding!  It had cream, a cherry, vanilla and chocolate ice-cream and 2 pink wafers.  It was quite nice but very filling.

When I woke up from the sleep, Mum told us that there was something outside (which was actually a stall with someone trying to sell puppets) but Mum said that the minute we stepped outside, the man would attract us with a puppet and do a puppet show and then ask for money, so we mustn’t encourage him.   I wonder if he’ll be there tonight. 

We’ve done school this morning.  What have you done?  I’ve been doing clocks and my five  times table.  We’re going to go and meet Dad for lunch.  Mum’s not sure what it’s called, but she’ll check before we go.  I think it’s called Nazarat.  This afternoon, we’re going to go and see a Palace in the Old Pink City.

Better go – there’s nick-nacks to be buy...

Oooooh!  My hips! By W

 There was a cow who was going down to the holy lake in Pushkar and they’re not talking cows, just we could tell she was saying ‘Ohhhhhh!  My hips!’ because she had 2 legs down there (on one step) and 2 legs up there (on another step) and she was really bumpy, the way she walked down the steps.  We were staying at a very nice hotel in Pushkar, called ‘Om’.  It was nice because it had turtles and it was meant to have a white rabbit, ‘cept it didn’t (only the hotel in Jaipur has a white rabbit).  And the other good thing was the sandpit!  And it was lovely the sandpit.  We played in it at our last day, we made a big strong fort of India, but after breakfast we left, so we didn’t have time to do any more.  It’s a shame there’s not a sandpit here, mum (Jaipur).

What we done today mum?  Oh yes, we went to the Jaipur Palace.  It was very nice cos it had a café.  It was busy when we came, but it started raining and everyone disappeared and it was just us and 2 other people.  I liked the weapons very much and I thought it was called ‘arms and legs’,  only it was called ‘armour and weapons’.  It didn’t have any arms, but it did have lots of weapons!  My best weapon was the really long sword, it was longer than me and it was longer than your arm actually.  I think it was for cutting off loads of peoples’ heads.  Actually no, I think it was for showing off.  The other really, really fun bit to do was charging mummy’s bottom.  She went really far, and then I charged into her bottom at full speed.  I said ‘Charge!’ when I went, she knew I was coming but she didn’t hide.  And I saw an elephant ambulance and it was a very big one for carrying poorly elephants.  Usually they carry people, but I think there's one for pandas too.

And we’re at Jaipur at the minute.  And it’s about the end of the day.  Everyone’s very tired.  L and M are playing Lego, but they were fighting but now I bet they’ve sorted it out, cos I can’t really hear the shouting.  At breakfast, we had cornflakes and I had 2 boiled eggs (the yolks were nice and runny). At the minute we’re writing the blog on the swing.  Daddy’s very tired cos he didn’t have any breakfast because he left very early in the morning.  He went out to do photos and to see lots of the Old City.  We did school.  I don’t have very much to do, just the cards and drawing and colouring-in.  I can do really cool writing.  Mummy only had 3 of the (alphabet) cards, and I had the rest cos I knew all the sounds of those ones.

I think we should go in, cos I think it’s going to rain again.  Others, do you want to hear my blog?  Have you sorted it out, others?