29th August

I can’t quite believe I have been here for four weeks now. It feels more like four years. I have grown very used to this place, and my room. It is just like being in Pollock. Perhaps the holiday mentality just hasn’t left me properly. It may be that by October I am going to be incredibly homesick and fed up, but for now I am finally settled. I have routine, I have the places we go to hang out, I have coffee shop staff who know me when I come in and the man over the road who just laughs and goes ‘panni!’ every time I come near his stall. I know the way home and I know my way around the University and to Kamla Nagar. I know how to find the silver streets in Old Delhi and I know how to get from Central Secretariat to Connaught Place along Jan Path. I know the bus to get to and from the Lodi Gardens. These are things I know, and the knowledge makes me feel a lot more at one with this teeming and huge city. I may have only seen a fraction of Delhi, but now I can find myself in this fraction, the exploration no longer feels so hard.

We were meant to be going to the museum today, but Lauren and Amanda got an assignment last minute. Tanya and I spent the morning in her room looking at photos of her home, Shillong, which is apparently the ‘Scotland of the East’. It certainly looks wet enough. It is a small city in the same area of India as Assam and Darjeeling, at the foot of the Himalayas. It quite hilly, and there are lots of waterfalls and lakes dotted around. It is also very green and fertile looking, probably helped by the massive amounts of rain they have there. I have to say, it does look awfully similar to some of the places I have been in Scotland. I think I would like it in that area of India, probably a great reminder of home and far easier to deal with. We really want to go North, possibly in October, but that is when the family are coming, so I don’t know if I will get to. But I am determined to go at least once at some juncture. Darjeeling is a 24 hour train ride I think. It is a long way, but then I have spent 36 hours traveling before, and some of that was on a bus. I feel the standard of carriage we could get for our money will be generally higher than the Croatian rail service’s anyway.

After lunch, we all went to do a bit of work and ended up pissing around for a bit. At five we got ready to go out. I am so excited about the dancing. We are going to a club in the South called Urban Pind, and apparently tonight is House Music night, so we are expecting a lot of cheesy bangra. First though we are going to be very sophisticated and go to a lecture at Gwyer Hall on Indo-Pak relations in the wake of 26/11.

An ex-army guy who is now part of a defence strategy think-tank gave the lecture. He was very interesting and a great speaker. It was quite enlightening how he stated that there is an unquestioned belief in India that Pakistan are the enemy and that they themselves are directly responsible for the Mumbai Attacks and that it was in fact a political tool that could be used again. There was no mention of Laksha-e-taiba (spelling?) and the role they played. Terrorists based in Pakistan, as far as I am aware, carried out the attacks, but that does not mean they were government-sponsored.  He talked about what deterrents were put in place on both sides and the reality of nuclear war resulting from any further antagonism. He was adamant however, that there would and could be no progress if Pakistan and India did not cease their respective hostilities and sit down to talks. He was very supportive of diplomatic progress and the idea that talking it out would solve a lot of the problem so that Pakistan could become more immersed in the South Asian culture without feeling the threat of becoming subsumed by India. All very illuminating.

After the lecture we went out to dinner to a place called Flavours in Defence Colony, which is a really posh bit of town in South Delhi. It was an Italian restaurant, and while I am sure so many would be shocked and say “But you are in India! How can you eat Western food?!”. The answer is: when we are in the UK, it is considered novel and exotic to go out for a curry or Chinese because we eat Western and Mediterranean style food every other day. So, here in India, where what I eat every day is effectively chapatti, rice, dhal and aloo something or other, the idea of Western food has become novel. And so, we went out and I had my first plate of Western food since I have been here. Lauren and I shared a pizza (with ham and artichokes!) and some pasta and prawns. It was amazing. Fairly expensive I suppose, though the bill was a bout a thousand each, so that is 12 pounds for a main and two cocktails. So really not bad, I guess. It is all relative.

We made it to Urban Pind by half past ten and got in for free as Amanda met the owner the other night and got us on the guest list. When we first arrived it was fairly quiet, and we went up to the roof terrace and got the most expensive food/drink item I have had yet, which was a Long Island Ice Tea for 500Rs. That’s basically as much as it would be at home…annoying. This club was incredibly western however. All the girls were in tiny skirts and dresses, exactly what you would have for going to Cav or The Garage back home. We were conservatively dressed by comparison. We had been asked earlier to be in an African Hip Hop video, as they wanted white girls, but when they said ‘dress sexy’ we knew it was a lost cause. We are trousers all the way. After cocktails we danced on the floor downstairs, but I had to go and sit back down after ten minutes as my chest started hurting really badly. It passed in about five minutes though, so we were back on the dance floor with a vengeance. They played a lot of Western music mixed with Indian music. For example, they played Lady GaGa’s Poker Face mixed with the tune from Kaminey that goes ‘dundaduuuuh danadanadana’. They played Chold Bazari as well, which is Lauren’s new favourite song from the movie Love Aaj Kal. We danced like crazy people for about three hours. There were some very sleazy Indian men, including one who kept on leaning to talk to me and putting his hand round my waist at the same time, which was not wholly welcome. Everyone does the bollywood moves you see in the films as well, it is amazing to watch. In the end we couldn’t keep up, and piled in to an auto at half one to go and collapse at home. It felt so nice to be out though, and to have made an effort to look good and wear make-up. I had great fun. Sometimes, even though I despise that sort of music generally, you need a night of crappy music and ridiculous dancing to let your hair down and have fun.

I think I have had a pretty awesome birthday weekend.