16th September

Wednesday is my morning off, so I spent it going through my history essay. I have finally got on to the controversy over the age of recruits in to the covenanted service. Around about 1879 the age was dropped to 17-19, effectively excluding all Indians completely. There was a fairly sustained nationalist movement here over it, and the age was eventually raised again in face of it. I find it interesting that the early Indian nationalists didn’t want to get rid of the Raj, they merely wanted it to be more sympathetic to Indian issues. Most sources seem to say that they actually preferred British administration, because at least it was ‘fair’.

I met Lauren in Barista at Kamla Nagar for a wee coffee and a chat before Hindi. I have some books to pick up from the library as well. I love the lack of copyright laws here. I am getting a commentary on Foucault, one on Habermas and Said’s Culture and Imperialism. I am going to have a lot of books to ship home come May next year.

I went to get my books, and they are in book form. Bound with red fabric and marbled paper. They even have little ribbons on the spine so you can keep your page. Complete luxury. They look like a nice edition that you would get in Blackwells or something. Totally worth £6 for all three. If anyone wants a book for Christmas, let me know!

Hindi today was pretty difficult. We went over the future tense and some other stuff. We were all brain dead by the end. I like how he goes “you are always right!” after he has asked you something and you manage to answer ten minutes later with much prompting. I can now say I want to go to the metro though, and I feel ‘I want” is going to come in very useful. I asked what ‘to have’ is and he told me I ask too much. That doesn’t bode well I feel. I asked Egle later and she said there isn’t a verb ‘to have’ in Hindi, but she isn’t sure. Seeing as she studies Hindi for her degree, I think I may never find out what ‘to have’ is, or isn’t.

We left hindi slightly early to make the five o’clock bus. We have decided that we can’t cope with another night of hostel food and so are going to Chinese Bowl. This place is a gem. 40 Rs for a plate full of fried momos (like big dim sum) and another 40 for a bowl of Thukpa (sort of noodle soup with lots of carrot, cabbage and other veg in it: incredibly tasty and incredibly healthy). And the portions are HUGE. You can hardly finish half the plate. It doesn’t look like a very nice place from the outside, but inside is more food than you can ever hope to eat, all made with too much garlic (which Is a good thing). So, having eaten ourselves to the point of pain, we went home.

The hostel had an orientation meeting on tonight, which I find slightly ironic as we have now been in the hostel for almost a month. It was basically the provost telling us to not waste water, respect each other’s privacy etc. She did tell us about the SWA, or Student Welfare Association. This is an elected body of representatives in the hostel who take care of the mess, culture events, sports and lectures. I think Amanda might take up the representative of the UK post. It would be good to have some say over what goes in the mess though. I want spinach! The one day we had it was heaven on earth. Once more would make my year. And some chicken that wasn’t biryani or bone would also be nice. Some of the girls voiced some complaints as well, the main ones being about the cats. There are about five cats in the hostel who eat the pigeons and the mice. They are a bit scruffy though, and I can see why the girls don’t like having them around. But to be honest, I don’t really see what can be done. So long as there are pigeons, geckos and mice to eat, the cats will be there. If we got rid of these ones, then more would appear in a few days. One of the girls also complained that there were carrots in the food sometimes and she doesn’t like carrots so they should be got rid of. Ridiculous. The people here can be such babies. Pick them out for God’s sake!