17th September

Got up and went to Fielding. I wish I hadn’t, I think it is a pointless exercise. Spent the entire lecture reading Foucault instead. I am really getting into Discipline and Punish. When I understand more of it, I will let y’all know.

Decided to go the history library via the canteen for tchai. The tchai man laughs at me every time I come in, but I know now that this is a good laugh. Everywhere we go frequently, people laugh. So it must be good, right?

Got kicked out the library because they wanted to sweep under the desks. Very annoying, but it meant I got in class early enough to get a seat. First time in a while. Everyone leaves their bags on the seats ages before class begins, so usually you have to sneak into the ancient history room and nick their desks.

We are finally moving on in history: on to the army. Beginning to look at the creation of martial races and so on. I have a whole pile of reading to get through once again. Thankfully I am almost finished my essay for this, so I will hand it in on Tuesday. Then I can start my other essays for English good and proper. I still need to find my Plato book…bah.

I went to the doctor today. My first experience of an Indian doctors. I was looking for a multi-vitamin recommendation, as there are so many brands and what not it gets confusing sometimes. She asked to see the spots on my legs and declared it was the heat. So that is encouraging. Role on the cold! I didn’t get my multi-vit though…it would have been too simple to get such a thing. The uni health centre is huge. It is a full-on hospital completed with ENT, Ophthalmology, X-Ray and Gastro-intestinal Depts. I was pretty shocked, as from the outside it does resemble a shack. Turns out some trees hide the multiple floors from view. When in India, take nothing at face value.

After history we went back to the hostel and had lunch and worked on our essays before Hindi. We are going out tonight, so all are pretty excited. We were going to go to Reggae night at Living Room, but it is Colin’s, an American friend, birthday tonight. So we are going there. First off though we are going to the Habitat Centre once more to watch another film and a panel discussion about the hijab and different attitudes towards it. It should be really interesting, and is a great chance to go to the American Diner as well…

The film was really good. It was half an hour long, spilt between a girl in France and a girl in Iran. The girl in France was very conservative, and she said that the French government’s ruling over the hijab in schools had made her suffer and feel victimized. In comparison, the girl in Iran very bravely stated that she didn’t like the hijab but she had to wear it outside. Inside, she had her own space in which to smoke, to have her hair short and to wear whatever clothes she liked. But outside, she had to cover her hair. she tried to show she didn’t care for the hijab by wearing see-through scarves or hats instead of proper hijab, but this was quite dangerous for her. It was very insightful, the different meanings the hijab holds for people. Afterwards there was a discussion with Patricia Uberoi and Urvashi Butalia, among others. It was really very good. One of the women was a practicing Muslim who said she did not wear hijab because she interpreted the Koran as not saying women had to cover their hair, but instead talking about general modesty for both men and women. One of the other panelists was also very interesting, and talked about the islamophobia that is growing in France and the issues of religion when pertaining to women. All religion tries to restrict women in her view, which is probably correct when you think about it. Urvashi Butalia was very good as well: she is a world-renowned feminist activist, and can speak very well. She too wondered about the different ideas of choice in these sorts of situations for girls like the one in France. All in all, a very intellectual and feminist evening. There were a lot of men in the audience, which surprised me. If this was on at home, I doubt there would be that many.

Afterwards we went to the American diner to forget our troubles in a gluttony. I had chicken pot pie, which was amazing and tasted like things your mother makes, even if the pastry was a bit dry. It had courgette in it. So exciting. Lauren and Amanda had burgers and then had desert and managed to eat themselves to the point of pain again. It was really quite funny. It is like small children, especially Lauren: her eyes are bigger than her stomach. I am definitely bringing Euan there; he will love it and the American size portions.

Colin’s birthday extravaganza was a little mental. We only stayed for forty-five minutes or so, as Amanda felt ill. But in that time we had managed to dance to Chor Bazari and sing Total Eclipse of the Heart about ten times. There were laser lights and a DJ and everything. Tanya said you could see the lights from the hostel, which is quite impressive. Caught a glimpse of the other Americans who are apparently all here, and one was wandering around with his shirt off for no reason whatsoever. How very douche.