My road has reached new levels of filth. Usually it is men pissing every five feet (gotta love the smell of urine in the morning). But today, all was surpassed by this. He was just lying in the middle of the pavement, clutching a little photograph torn out a magazine. He didn't care that he was maybe twenty feet away from one of the huts where some kids live with their father. He didn't care that it was two in the afternoon, that the street was busy and full of traffic and people. I mean, could you not at least wait until night time or something when kids and people wouldn't have to see it?? Completely and totally disgusting. Tanya told me about one of her friends who lives in a PG (paying guest) at JTB Nagar. Every night a guy would be outside their window jacking off and they didn't want to do anything about it as they were too afraid to shout out. So Tanya decided she would stay the night and see what the fuss was about. She said that when you see something like that, it makes the entire thing so much more disturbing. She called out to the man when he was under the window and asked him what he thought he was doing there? And he zipped up and left. She thinks he had just never been told off and didn't quite know what to do about it.
It made me very angry to see this guy. I get angry with the men peeing everywhere as well, as I know that should I decide to squat down in the street I would probably be beaten. I am slightly proud of this area. It is, as these things go, actually quite a nice area. Most people here are friendly and just trying to get on with their lives. I don't want some man to deface it.
I have decided, in my wisdom, that I am going to force my parents to walk up my road when they come. I would like them to experience the fear of death you get every time one of the massive green buses roars up next to you, or a motorbike swerves like they want to hit you just before changing direction. The lack of pavements, the pavements with the open sewer running down the centre, the men peeing, the Hindu temples, the rubbish, the dogs, the rickshaws, the soup kitchens. Everything teeming with people and animals and flies. I think if they do that, they will know a little bit of everyday life here. Far more than they will ever get in the South. In the South there are pavements, all without sewers. There are less dogs, no cows and no manual rickshaws. Even the buses are a bit cleaner. There is open space in the South that isn't a rubbish tip or over-grown jungle. There is no evil smelling river. From Connaught Place on, it is a different city.
I only went to Dryden today, but I had to hang about in Kamla Nagar as I got a book photocopied on Platonism and the English imagination. I am writing one of my essays about this in relation to the developing of English literary theory by Sidney, and maybe Johnson. I am unsure about that one yet. Spent most of the morning in Coffee Day with Tanya, not well spent as these things go. I need to start these essays. I have very little time to do them in. Three weeks will hopefully be enough. AGH!
I also think I need to start eating a bit less. When I thought about it, I realised my diet is mainly carbohydrates (ie. rice) and curry (ie. potato and lentils) and iced coffee. Where is the fruit? Nowhere. I might try and replace lunch with lots of fruit. I need to buy a knife though, as you have to peel fruit here so as to stop you from getting some form of disease, though I don't know which one.
Decided to go out to AIM to do a bit of reading. They still have no pomegranate tea, so I got an iced latte and then a caramel mocha instead. (See how well my eating less junk went in the past three hours?) Picked up two apples on the way home as consolation for my lack of fruit.
Before dinner we all got called into the lounge room for an orientation meeting. It basically seemed to be girls complaining about things. The first complaint was that the mouses were going missing from the computer room, and also that there were scales missing from the gym. You have to ask yourself why someone would nick that kind of thing, especially in such a closed community as this one. We also have to elect a representative from our country to SWA, the Student Welfare Association. We think we might just draw straws. One good thing though is that you get to form a mess committee to try and draw up new menus and make sure the food is ok. Which means: SPINACH! It is going to be so exciting. We get a freshers party as well, though I somehow doubt it will be like my freshers in Edinburgh: full of alcohol and with members of the opposite sex allowed in your company. Lauren is complaining that there are too many women and that it can't be a party without men. It is like we are in a sorority. We get a party on Monday as well for Id (no idea how you spell it). It is all going down...
Tonight we started watching a film called Train To Pakistan. It is quite an old film, from 1999, but it seems even older. It is about the refugee issue following Partition, and how border towns that may otherwise have remained neutral, became affected with sectarian violence. It also demonstrates the completely ineffectual leadership given by district leaders, who would rather drink whiskey and have a quiet life than get themselves involved. We didn't finish it though, as Lauren almost fell asleep and went to bed. I stayed up reading, but I wish I hadn't as I am knackered now.
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