23rd November

Well, I had my exam today, and I think it went fine. Thankfully, Fielding and Mandeville didn’t feature overly much and I could answer on just Swift, Dryden and Pope. Had a bit of an episode though trying to convince the office people that despite not having a roll number, I still needed a place to sit and that I was indeed meant to be there at all. One of my professors, Udaya saw me wandering the corridor looking for someone vaguely official to plead with so I could get a desk and laughed at my plight. He seemed to think it all too inevitable that two minutes before I was due to sit an exam, no one knew what to do with me. I guess I should have expected it. One professor who teaches paper 1 told me to just sit where I had done for his paper. Despite never seeing me before. How obvious do you feel it was that I didn’t take paper 1, and that he, as teacher, should have realised this??? It isn’t like I am hard to miss, being the one white person in the department and all. Udaya is right though: it was totally inevitable.

After the exam I went to meet Lauren for a hot chocolate in Barista. They have an interesting new winter menu full of spicy hot chocolate and the like. It is bad when you get excited for hot chocolate flavours but you know. Tried to play scrabble with Lauren but I started to win so we had to stop playing. She is so competitive sometimes, it is quite funny. We were hardly ten minutes in and she was already annoyed at her lack of letter luck.

Went to Hindi and learnt all about going via things, so going to England via plane, for example. Hindi teacher told us all about Corg (I don’t know how to spell it) in Karnatakh, where we must go. He is full of these random little anecdotes about different cities or foods or religion. It’s the best part of the class when he tells us a random tale. You really feel that he wants us to see as much as we possibly can. He is also very old, and yet has traveled very widely and intends to keep doing so. Lauren thinks he looks like a very old and wise tortoise.

After Hindi, Lauren and I met Nitin to go to the Tibetan refugee colony up our road for some dinner and a general wander. We ended up going to the wrong Tibetan refugee camp (yes, there are two within a mile of each other…) and then spent about half an hour trying to flag an auto to take us back the way we had come to get to the other one. As we were trying to flag the autos, I was hit in the stomach by a motorbike. It was quite sudden and I hardly realised what had happened until I noticed that the motorbike had come to a rolling halt as it had met the resistance of my body. The guy had no lights on (of course, this being Delhi in the pitch dark) and just mumbled sorry before speeding off. All I can say is, thank Christ the theory that no one here goes fast enough to do any harm is true. The front of the bike just hit me in the side of my stomach and sort of spun me round, but I was fine at the end of the day. Lauren and Nitin didn’t even notice. Thank god Nitin didn’t, as he would have had a heart attack. He is one of these nice but slightly chauvinistic males who probably agrees whole heartedly with the opinion that females should not be allowed out after dark lest they get themselves into a Situation.  I had just a small bruise, but it knocked the wind out of me and I was glad when we finally managed to hail an auto down.

The other Tibetan refugee colony is down a tiny alley way and is a complete world away from everything around it. There are little pagoda style temples and prayer wheels and loads of shops selling incense and Dalai Lama endorsed goods. Sort of like the Che Guevara coke I saw in Monaco. Very weird. We went to a restro-hotel called Wodhen House that was really nice, and I wouldn’t mind staying there. Marie and David have stayed there before and said it was quite good. Certainly the food was pretty good and very affordable: 65 Rs for a bowl of Thukpa. Not bad. On our way out though we saw three massive dead rats lying on someone’s doorstep, neatly arranged in a row. That was slightly unnerving, but at least they were dead.

 

22nd November

Studying for my English exam. Not cool. Not much going on. Didn’t actually leave the hostel today but did get an On The Go take out delivered. Chicken and onion sandwich and tomato bruschetta. Aint no taste like home. I have really no idea what the exam tomorrow will be like. Slightly worried by Tanya’s shocked reaction earlier when I told her I have completely disregarded both Fielding and Mandeville because I couldn’t be bothered. Also, they don’t seem to have cottoned on to methods of studying here bar memorizing everything in a text. They don’t make notes, or correlate their ideas. They just read the text and then read other people’s criticisms of the texts. Where is the freedom of thoughts? Where are their ideas? Tanya’s friends all look at me weirdly when I say I would rather say what I think rather than what other people think. It is a big part of my degree, to think for myself. Very weird how different people’s approaches are to the one subject…

Also…ONE WEEK TILL GOA AND TWO WEEKS TILL I HOOOOOOOOME!!!! CANNOT WAIT FOR THE COLD!!!

Ben left us today for Gujarat. It is sad that we wont be seeing him again until January. It is strange how good friends we have all become, but then, when you have so much shit to deal with (real and metaphorical), you cant help but form a bond. He is actually going on a pilgrimage with his monk friend before he goes back to UK as well. The monk is taking him to a chanting festival. I am not sure what it involves, and nor does Ben, but he thinks it could be interesting, or at least, weird enough to be a laugh later. A week of quiet contemplation or chanting isn’t my thing though. My grandfather was on the phone to me and I told him Ben’s plans and he had a minor panic as to whether I was engaging in such foreign activities.

AIM café has put up Chriistmas decorations. They are quite cute. We will need to give them a card I think. They have been the thing that has kept us sane throughout this year. The cute boy with the pony tail that giggles every time we come near him has been MIA for a wee while though. I hope he is ok. I would enquire, but I think it would lead to miscommunication and too much confusion while they tried to work out what food I meant…

This afternoon we went to a conference on the development of the study of Tibetan history and culture. It was very interesting, and very much pro Free Tibet. But the thing that made it special was that we also saw and heard His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He is a smiling man, with large eyes and a strange way of speaking that is very measured and slow, as if he is considering every phrase very carefully. He said that the conference and the participation of so many Tibetan, and non-Tibetan, scholars and students was proof that there is a consensus of a separate Tibetan state with a separate culture and history to China. He made the joke that he was the Dalai Lama of Tibet, and never of China, despite the current geographical reality. He was actually quite funny, his happiness came out in his speech. He spoke for some time in Tibetan as well for the benefit of the Tibetan students, and finished the section with “And all of that is Top Secret!” and started laughing. It was a good experience. Just to be in the same space as one of the most influential men in Asia and the world was quite overwhelming in its own way. I have never before been in the presence of a World Leader like that. He stressed the need for a finding out of the truth of Tibetan heritage and culture, as people needed to know what Tibet really means, and not just some abstract idea. He also talked about Buddhist scholars developing Tibetan Buddhism as a more authentic Buddhism. It was very interesting for the essay Lauren is currently writing on Buddhism. We met our friend Sunni afterwards. She has seen His Holiness several times, but this is the first time she has ever heard him speak in English. The last time she saw him, she was with a Thai monk who took her along to meet the Dalai Lama, who she said would bow to the monk every time he saw him. She had become emotional during his speech. I wish I knew what he had said in Tibetan. It had sounded less measured and restrained. More a call to arms as it were for the scholars in the room than mere observations. I remember he came to Glasgow when I was 11. Apparently my friend Gavia went to see him speak. I remember the advertising for it: lots of a blurry photo of him in a meditative posture and a mic. I was maybe thirty feet from one of the most powerful fugitives in the world. Quite a claim in itself. 

Had to buy a jumper on the way home. It is getting cold in the mornings here. You don’t want to get out of bed at all. It must be like 10 degrees in the mornings and at night now. Not pleasant in a place that has no insulation and no heating facility. The walk to the shower in the morning is getting harder every day. A good fifty feet to walk soaking wet and wrapped in a towel having had a lukewarm shower. 

16th November to 20th November

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t been updating myself every day. And my memory is terrible. That and I seriously feel like I spend my days doing much of the same things: eating, sleeping, watching terrible Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington films, being in AIM café and the gym. What a sad little life I lead sometimes. It is because of these damned exams. When you are supposed to be studying it is difficult to justify a blog update. So here I am doing what every good student does best: breaking the conventions of the supposed increase in work the closer you get to an exam and instead writing this thing. Two days beforehand. Well done Claire.

A number of vaguely interesting things happened this week though, so I will tell you about them and spare the crap. It is strange, I am reading 18^th century fiction for my exam on Monday, and in Fielding especially there is a concern as to how to write a novel and what the function of the writing should be. So there are many prefaces and such like throughout texts telling the reader that the author will pick out the most interesting pieces of a ‘history’ for the reader, and not recount the whole. Swift makes fun of this in Tale of a Tub with his huge number of Digressions and preface sections to show that these things are unnecessary and just a mark of a bad author who cant think of anything to say except to explain his supposed intentions every five pages. Ironically, I am currently doing just that. So, without further ado:

 

1.   Lauren and I went to Dilli Haat finally on Monday. Dilli Haat is a closed off bazaar in south Delhi that is a mock-up of a traditional style market. The only differences (oh, so minor) were the entry fee (!), the wide spaces, the lack of dogs/cows/rickshaws/litter/sewers/motorbikes/tuc tucs/vendors/beggars, and last but not least, the greater proportion of the people in there were white. All the vendors spoke wonderful English, which unfortunately allows them to hassle you all the more effectively. It is just so frustratingly amusing when they yell at you ‘Yes madam! I have carpets/boxes/camels/scarves! You want the pink! Pink, I think you want!’ And then when you walk on by they follow you for a few steps waving said pink item and going, ‘Look only, just come see, what price you give me? I make cheap price for you!’ I did have to buy a few things as presents, so we were forced to stop in one of the empty stalls and be accosted by so many different scarves at once it was on my third attempt that I managed to pin point one long enough to buy it, as they kept heaping stuff on top of the merch they already had out and then taking it away. So confusing. The good prices promised were not so good. I think that might have something to do with the large number of white women in the place buying pashminas and Kashmiri cushions. We realised that we hate tourists. We don’t like being spoken to in English and ignored when we try Hindi. We don’t like not getting a fair price with haggling. We don’t like not being taken seriously when we say we are students of Delhi University and live in Muckherjee Nagar. We don’t like being lumped in with the other ‘Britishers’. All referred to as ‘You People’. It is ironic, as we are just tourists in all reality as well. I did manage to get some presents though and we got this lovely peanut brittle stuff from a nice man who let us try all his sweets for free. That perked us up. The autos outside were a laugh as well. They too decided that if you are a white girl coming out of Dilli Haat and going for an auto then you are a misguided and naive tourist who thinks they will attempt the quaint native transport that looks like such fun. They were trying to charge us 200 Rs for a fifteen minute (at most) journey to Central Secratariat. They giggled when we said we had come for sixty in a sort of ‘Oh ho! The girl will try to haggle! How nice!’ kind of way. Not cool. We had come for 60 Rs, which was already overcharging us by 15 bucks according to the meter. Went a bit further up the road though and got one for 50 Rs. Damned tourists.

2.   Wednesday night was Colin’s last night with us. It is a real shame, as we really do like him. He is a massive American, but a good soul and fun to be around even if he is a bit ridiculous. He is going on a general trip and then home to California. The Americans are all here only for one semester unfortunately. We went to dinner before hand. Found an alright restaurant around the corner from our street called Rambel. Had lamb for first time in aaages. It was good to have meat. Afterwards we went to Colin’s place, which must be the most untidy flat on the earth. Sat around and drank and talked and listened to music. Ben brought one of his mates that he had met in India beforehand who was from Paisley and had even worked in a factory in Inchinnan. Couldn’t believe it. It is such a small world. it was sad to say good bye to Colin. I hope we keep in touch. I am sure him and Lauren will, she was his favourite I think.

3.   On Thursday went into history class and had to stand around for ages waiting for our professor to get started. We are having essay discussions and I asked if I could go first, pretending I had an appointment. Truth is I just can’t sit through that. All the students just read their essays out or reiterate the same facts. They are just chronology machines. Do I know the exact date of the Peel Commission and who all were members? No. Do I know why there was a commission and the purposes and consequences of said commission? Yes. But some of the other students just seem to learn facts and then when challenged at all as to what they actually THINK any of it means, they just clam up. Not very conducive to a ‘discussion’. I also couldn’t be very much bothered with the class after being told that I looked sleep deprived by one of the boys and then being asked where the other ‘2 or 3’ were. It went like this: Boy – “Is there not usually two or three more?” Me – “Sorry?” Boy – “You know, tow or three more….uh….usually there are more in class than just you” Me – “Is everyone else in here not taking part in class??” Boy – “Oh yes…never mind…I mean…I cant remember their names…” Me (slightly irritated by now that he hasn’t just come out with ‘white people’ and got over it) – “You mean the other exchange students?” Boy (visibly relieved) – “Oh! Yes! You people! There are more!” The immortal phrase: “You People”.

4.   Managed to disconnect myself from Vodafone. It took a long time and was very stressful. They didn’t believe that I wasn’t Lauren for some time and then when they finally decided I was in fact, not Lauren, having my own passport and all, took ages to find any of my details on the files and delete them. They weren’t very satisfied with my excuse that I was going home. I just knew that if I said I was getting cheaper net then that would have invited three hours of being told about the possible plans I could have to make it a little cheaper for me. Last time we complained something was too expensive per month we were offered a personal loan ‘at very good rate’ because we were his friends and he trusted us to pay him back on time. It was very weird and not too good.

5.   Went for dinner at Bercos on Friday night. Ben is away tomorrow to Gujarat, so won’t see him for a month or so. The food there is alright I have to say, and Gin and Tonic is only 100 Rs. Lauren and I ended up drinking a few of them in quick succession, then had strawberry daquiris, which were gooood. After Bercos we traversed the outer circles of Connaught Place searching for a place called Live Bar. It turned out to be behind B block. It is a very stylish bar-restro with a great DJ who has a penchant for MJ and old hip-hop and funk. They also have a live band, who can not only play and sing well, but do requests. We had Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, ‘La Bamba’, Elvis…ah. I was in my happy place. Lauren and I were all for a dance but there is unfortunately no floor there. Major fail point, but you cant help but bop around madly in your chairs. At one point though, the guys all went outside for a smoke and Lauren and I were left with The Couple, Woeter and Laurriane. It was terrible. She was all over him. The poor guy tried to make conversation but Laurriane had a point to make: she kept on turning his head to look at her and giggling like a little girl. So they just made out. I had to pee as well, so poor Lauren was sat with that to look at for a good minute. I felt bad, but it had reached desperate stages and I couldn’t help but go. It was a bit rude. I mean, sure, have your romance and stuff, but if there is one other person with you at least have the goodness to try and make conversation for the two minutes they have to suffer. Either way, we had a great time. Though the drink is very expensive, I think we will be back, we enjoyed it so much. I will need to bring Iain and prove that Delhi isn’t all Bollywood and bad fusion music. 

7th to the 15th November

Is it bad that I can’t really remember what is happening anymore? I got sick again. I actually have slept probably 2/3rds of this entire week. It is very naughty of me. Hence why this update sucks ass once again. I need to get out of the habit of sleeping and more into the habit of writing. Or you know, studying for my exams…However, apart from my vomiting and work avoidance, some of the highlights included:

1.   Ben went to hospital on Monday. He had a fever and wasn’t feeling particularly great so they took him in and shoved him on a drip, as they seem wont to do with all Westerners. He was in St Stephen’s hospital near Kashmere Gate, which is a more upscale hospital but nothing on the same scale as Max Super Specialty Hospital. At least his room was clean and so on. We went to visit him on Monday evening and he seemed to be a lot better, but they still hadn’t told him what was wrong with him. He had some pills that I asked my mum about on the phone while we were there and she pretended not to know and then called me back later telling me they were malaria pills. By this point Ben was out of hospital though. It is slightly worrying that they didn’t tell him they were giving him these things and also that he didn’t need them at all and yet they gave them to him anyways.

2.   Spent all of Tuesday in Select City Walk mall with Lauren. It was such a waste of a day, but we had a good time. We tried on stupid dresses in all the shops, I got purple jeans, she got a new dress and a back pack, we had coffee and ice cream. All most enjoyable. We also went to see The Time Traveller’s Wife, which was all right and very upsetting. The dialogue was more than slightly cheesy and stilted and the little girl was bloody annoying. It did manage to make me sob hysterically however, but that doesn’t take too much effort if I am being honest. When we came out the cinema my face was red with tears and we went for dinner. The men in the restaurant gave us the drink menu as soon as we walked in and asked if we were ok. They seemed to find it very funny when we ordered some restorative cocktails…

3.   Turns out my laptop is somehow partly responsible for the bad internet signal in AIM café. This made me very upset at the time, especially as Ward and Ben were teasing me about it, and even the owner asked me to stop using it. Skype is a bit of a lifeline for me. I know I should be content with being able to speak to people as a lot of people don’t even have that, but being able to see them is important to me. It isn’t the end of the world as will be going home soon, but it is a bit peeving and annoying.

4.   Went to Living Room café on Thursday night to say farewell to Amanda. She is leaving for Goa on Saturday (so soon!). The food is really nice and the music and atmosphere seems good too. it would be good to go in a smaller group maybe, as the full force were out to say farewell. I got a bit drunk, I must admit, as I hadn’t had lunch and then ate a lot of rich food and drank a lot of alcohol and my system said ‘NO’. However, after being sick I managed to rejoin the party and even had a cappuccino with no further ado. Lauren however on the way home got struck down with terrible food poisoning, probably the prawns we had eaten. She must have got the one bad prawn, the poor girl. All the way home we had to stop the rickshaw a lot to let her vomit. Not nice. She took a ciproxin though once she was in and is fine. Ciproxin = magic pill.

5.   Friday night before Amanda leaving and we got take away from On the Go and watched District 9. It is a strange documentary style film about aliens coming to live in Johannesburg and they set up a slum. It is a vague allegory for apartheid, and there was a lot of fuss about it when it came out as it does paint Nigerians in a slightly bad light, not to mention the entire population of Johannesburg and their treatment of migrant or refugee communities. I would recommend it to people though. It is essentially an alien shoot-em-up film, but it does have a wider meaning behind all the gore that is evident and not lost in it. The way it has been shot was also interesting, gave the whole thing a new angle.

6.   Amanda left on Saturday morning. We all got up early to wave her tearfully away and then went back to bed. She texted us at about half four in a panic though as none of the taxi drivers knew where the yoga centre was, but she calmed down and asked for directions and this morning she messaged to say she was alright. We tried to call last night, but her phone was unreachable. Apparently the signal is really bad where she is so I guess we won’t hear much out of her.

7.   I have exams in a week and I am not prepared AT ALL. BAH. I hate this shit. Damned classes. I have also seen three men shaking themselves after pissing today and although it ain't as bad as some things I have seen, I still don't want to see it and it doesn't put you in the best of moods... 

6th November

Today is our hostel party. Cannot believe we are even going to participate in the charade that will be.
Before such shenanigans, Lauren and I decided to go and see 10 Days That Shook The World in the university. We have discovered that there is a student’s union near the Art Faculty. It has a book shop and a fair trade clothes shop and a canteen. It even has music practice rooms up the stairs – none of which we knew until today. The film is being shown in one of the upstairs rooms. Lauren’s classmate Ameet is coming with us. He is one of the ones who told her that women must not ‘roam’ after dark. He loves her dearly. He pulls his chair up behind her in class and everything.
When we got to the room however, it turned out that it was possibly a secret Indian Socialist society who was screening the film, and they had secured only one copy in Hindi. Not helpful. While we can follow the Bollywood movies, I reckon Russian revolutionary history is beyond our capabilities. So we left after about five seconds. The guys running the screening took our numbers though and were very enthusiastic about getting an English copy to show us so that we may join them as comrades in arms or whatever. They loved that we were studying history, and approved very much when they found out our teachers were the Marxist ones in the department. I am quite up for joining a secretive Indian student socialist society. Probably entertaining if nothing else.
Once we had shaken Ameet off we went to the book shop for a little while and I ended up buying more books that I didn’t need. I got a very interesting one though that is a collection of a reporter’s writings on violence against dalits in India. I am looking forward to reading it, but I fear what with all the work I should technically be doing, it may be after term ends that I finally get around to it.
The hostel party is apparently starting at half five (read half six probably…), so we just went home after the book shop and got ready. Amanda and Egle have both disappeared into the south rather than be caught at such a display of girliness. It is a bit ridiculous really, they should just have sucked it up. We get special dinner and everything.
Lauren just turned up at my door looking poe-faced and quite cute in my blue dress and her little black pumps. Not really Alice…but meh. Nor am I a great Jasmine. Slightly self-conscious about the fact my stomach is out at the moment anyways. I should have done more sit-ups methinks. My gyming has been down the drain since my parents came. All their fault…bah…
The party was slightly terrible. First the Freshers had to line up and BE JUDGED by guys from the International Men’s Hostel. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like an object. Thankfully Lauren and I had given up on the costume idea after about five minutes and were wearing normal clothes or else I would have felt even more self-conscious. Christ, first the Barbie them and then this…it is not particularly ‘empowering’ is it? Maria, the hostel Presidente, ran everything very tightly, though not overly smoothly. The best part of the night was the food (obv) and the band. This old guy was their mentor and he had come along. He was wearing an old 70s style shirt with a polo neck underneath and he was quite taken when Lauren announced she would like to play the mouth organ. He despaired with us against modern music and then got his band to play Coldplay because it was one of the few British things they knew. It was a sweet gesture. Apparently we can go the International Men’s Hostel Freshers party tomorrow night. I wonder if we are allowed to judge them? Think I might skip it though, as I don’t want to have to put others through this rigmarole. Blah. I actually made it to the finals of the ‘Miss Fresher’ competition as well, but unsurprisingly was beaten by a blonde Russian girl dressed as a Barbie. Sigh.

2nd November to the 5th November

02/11/09-05/11/09

 

OK. So I am hugely behind with the blog once more. Don’t blame me please – I am sick and have been running around trying to work. So here is a round up:

 

1.   Lauren managed to get her nose piercing changed in Kamla Nagar. It is a slightly bigger piercing, but the stud itself is smaller, so she is happy. It is yet to get infected, which I think is bloody impressive.

2.   Spent a lot of time in AIM on skype this week to various people, and now I miss home terribly. It is only a month to go, exactly one month from Friday, and I am thinking about it all the time. It is very distracting. I am reminded of it more seeing as Amanda will have left for Goa in two weeks. It has all gone so quickly in the past month!

3.   Went to see Michael Jackson’s This Is It. I actually quite liked it. I am not a massive fan of MJ, I like the old stuff and all, but I enjoyed the film quite a lot. His show would have been completely and totally spectacular if it had happened. It was great to be able to see him rehearse as well, because even though it was only small rehearsals, you could tell that he was still a brilliant dancer and singer despite his age and apparent frailty. A good way to spend 5th November, but I do miss the fireworks. I can't really complain of course as there were fireworks on Monday for the Guruji and Diwali was all about the explosions.

4.   Finished my army recruitment essay. I find ideologies of race interesting and all but my god does it get wearing after you write effectively the same essay twice and just replace ‘Covenanted Service’ with ‘Bengal Army’. It is interesting though how much martial races have stayed with us as a concept. Look at the Gurkha scandal in the past year – the very existence of Gurkha regiments, the symbolism of Joanna Lumley holding up the dagger – they are still a martial race if ever there was one.

5.   I think I have a cold. It is most depressing, especially when it is still 27 degrees during the day. Everyone is telling me it is suddenly winter, but they lie. At home it is like 8 degrees! I am in a t-shirt! I need to get used to the idea of ‘cold’ though, or maybe I will get many colds. Urgh.

6.   Tomorrow is my hostel freshers party. It is ‘Disney Princess and Barbie’ themed. I am going as the easy option: Jasmine from Alladin. Lauren is going as Alice in Wonderland, and Amanda is refusing to come on feminist grounds. I admire her dedication.

7.   Have now seen a man shitting in the street. I have completed my bodily functions in the street tally! Yay…

1st November

We woke at about half six in the morning – the time we had said we would set off yesterday. Evidently not happening. I feel like I have inhaled the desert in the course of the night. Lauren slept right next to the dying embers of the fire, so god only knows what she actually inhaled through the night. At least I can be pretty sure it was sand and maybe some thorns.
We decided to leave the camp early and skip the camel ride home. We don’t have time to hang about and wait for the men to get a fire going and make tchai and then get our camels suited and booted. The road back to Pushkar is fairly obvious anyhoo. There are great big ferris wheels at the moment in the town that act as a great land mark. We found the road with no difficulty anyway (it was the only road) and just walked along it for forty minutes or so until we came to the field with all the animals for sale in it again. The walk was pretty pleasant actually, even though once we were back in the field we were immediately surrounded by men trying to sell us necklaces and the odd camel. Who is going to emerge from the desert and buy a camel?? Especially when wearing jeans and converses, a backpack and a look of exhaustion??
We struggled back to the hotel through the absolutely packed out bazaar. It is only half past eight, and yet the place is swarming by the Brahma Temple with people buying sweets and wreaths for worship. We somehow managed to get past, but were way-laid again when a street procession of some swamis doing poi and twirling sticks went past accompanied by a jazz band. All very weird.
Decided to try nap for a bit but it wasn’t really happening so we had some breakfast and went out into the melee once more to find some bangles and things for presents. There is a great bangle shop here, I think it is called ‘Shree Banglejee’, which effectively means ‘Sir Mr Bangle’, though my hearing might be a bit off when I asked. We needed to catch a taxi to Anjer station at half past two to make the 350 train, so we didn’t spend long outside as we needed a long shower to remove the ingrained dust and thorns. I get the feeling I will be picking thorns out of me until next week.
We got the train fine and it was completely uneventful, though we did get ice cream on it: the privileges of the upper class carriage. We even managed to take the metro back once we were in Delhi. Thankfully we all have a day off tomorrow for Guru Nanak’s birthday, so we wont need to get up and do anything too early on.
All in all, my trip to Pushkar was good fun, but weird at the same time. I didn’t know how to react really to the beggar children who had been dressed up as Krishna, or the five-legged cows covered in tinsel, or the lecherous priests. It was strange. For some it seemed an incredibly holy place, but on the other hand it was so completely involved in selling itself as such for the tourists that it was hard to feel like you could do anything without being scammed. And that is not so nice a feeling. The food and shops were great of course, as they all cater for tourists and so the menus are all health foody and hippyish. I was glad I went to see it, and glad I went on the camel. But I don’t think I could have coped with much more of it. Maybe if you go at another time of the year, when it is not also the camel fair on or when it is not such an auspicious time to bathe. Maybe then it will be quiet and quaint enough that you can deal with the craziness surrounding you.

31st October

Happy Hallowe’en dudes!

Here in Pushkar, everything seems to just get even busier. We found a small haven though in the Honey and Spice Café, as recommended by our new bible (the Lonely Planet – without it we would be lost). The café is run by an Israeli (there are a lot of them here also) and they do rose jam and toast. Pushkar is famous for it’s rose jam apparently. Amanda bought some, so now we can have rose jam and lemon curd for breakfast! We will feast like kings! I have to say, one of the things about Pushkar is that we have eaten incredibly well. Because they are catering for backpackers, every café has really nice falafel and salads or museli because the market is lame Europeans like ourselves.

This afternoon we are going on a camel ride. It is all very exciting. Ward has organized the entire thing. We are meeting at 5pm and taking camels out into the desert and then camping overnight. There are 29 of us going – a ludicrous number, but oh well. We will see. Before camels though, we decided to get some more Christmas shopping in. I managed to find the stall with the Kali beads on it again. I have been searching for it since I first saw it on the first day. I haven’t seen these beads anywhere else. They are bone and have skulls carved into each bead, like Kali who wears a necklace made of human heads.

We all assembled at the hotel for the camels, but lo and behold! There are no camels. Waited an hour for any sign of a camel, and then a man appeared saying he was the Camel Man, and that we should follow him. We followed him into the Mela, where there were five camels. Five camels, 29 people. I see a problem! It seemed these were just the taster camels, and we were brought to a field beyond the Mela full of horses and camels waiting to be sold. We stopped at a large group of the camels and began to pair off. I paired up with a French girl called Marchellen (maybe…) and we sat on the camel. The camel saddles are just pillows placed between the humps so your legs spread out quite a lot and there is nothing to hold on to. You just have to hope and clutch at the fabric of the cushion. A camel standing up is an interesting arrangement to watch. Aactually being on it though is bloody scary. The hind legs go up forst so you have to lean back to stop yourself being thrown forwards and off the camel. And then the front legs come up and you get jerked the other way. Once you are up there though and ignoring the lack of things to hold on to, it is great. A bit strenuous on your pelvic muscles, but no more than riding a big horse would be. They are such large creatures as well. Our’s must have been 10 – 12 feet off the ground. My mum called me at one point. It is a bizarre feeling being on a camel in the desert at night answering your mobile. We were in the full moon light as well. To be honest, not bad for Hallowe’en so far.

We trekked for about an hour before coming to this little space of ground which was our campsite for the night. We were slightly apprehensive though as there was nothing there. We got off the camels (also tricky as the front legs go down first and so you feel like you will be thrown off again and then the black legs come down afterwards) and built a fire with the help of the camel drivers. One of them gave me a Hindi-English phrasebook and just stood with the rest of them saying ‘yes!’ at me. I flicked through the phrasebook but I had no idea what they wanted. I tried to ask where food was and they just said yes some more. They moved onto ‘camel driver tip!’ after a while which was far less ambiguous, but we ignored them as we were already paying an awful lot of the privilege. And there was nothing there any way. We were promised tents and food, and so far the camel men had managed to light us a fire and give us a cup of tea. Thankfully Woeter had brought a bottle of terrible Indian whisky with him and we started passing it round. We are an odd little group: Americans, French, Brits and Dutch. The French have their band, and the Americans have theirs. And we Brits seem stuck in between people not speaking English and people who were being too American at times to bear. I cant count how many ’Fuck dawg!” ‘s and ‘Fuck My Life!’ ‘s there were, but there were too many for sure. Eventually the French started calling for us to leave and get our money back, but a truck appeared out of the blue with our tents and cooking equipment. I am so happy they came, if the hadn’t we would have had to walk back. It is only an hour or so, but I would have been unhappy with our lack fo a sense of adventure or patience. Once it finally appeared the food was amazing. Just what we needed – hot! As we ate the camel drivers danced around our fire in their terrible embellished jeans.

After dinner there was call for alcohol, despite it being illegal. However, much like Prohibition, there are speak-easies in Pushkar! We sent a delegation of Woeter, Lauren and Ward to bring us back some beer. They all climbed onto the same motorbike and set off with one of the camel men. I have no idea how the motorbike coped, but apparently Ward lost his fli flops at some juncture along the way. When they reappeared some time later, they were on two motorbikes. We asked Lauren what had happened, and she said they had gone to this shack with bars across the windows outside of Pushkar and had had to argue a lot for the price of the alcohol. Then one of the men of the speakeasy decided he would help Camel Man back, so offered his motorbike. But once they had started out it became apparent very quickly that the man driving the new motorbike was drunk, and so Ward told him to sit on the back and he drove the rest of the way. Despite not having a motorbike license. They somehow managed to get back safely with three crates of beer, so it was all good. Once we had had the beer, as with the whiskey, everything looked a lot rosier and we began to enjoy our campfire and someone brought out a bongo drum (of course) and we had a singsong and it was all very lovely. The Americans got to be loud and ridiculous and the French got to be quiet and relaxed. The only issue was that every time you went out for a walk to use the loo or whatever, you got covered in these little thorny thistles. They embedded themselves in the fold of your clothes and your shoes and they hurt like hell. I was finding them in me for days afterwards.

The men had set a tent thing up for us with blankets and mattresses, so me and Marie went to bed at about two in the morning. The other stayed up smoking and laying around the fire. An interesting Hallowe’en, even if not quite what I usually do.

30th October

Lauren and I got up early this morning for a nice wander around Pushkar before the midday heat. I unfortunately am now ‘appropriately’ dressed with a t-shirt with a round neckline. I am slightly annoyed I don’t have more vest tops, but Lauren is holding up the fort on that front.
We went for some museli and dahi at Café Enigma: a small backpacker café round the corner from our hostel. It was damned good museli actually. From there we went on a nice wander round the bazaar and ended up spending ludicrous amounts of money in this one particular shop that had clothes of dreams in it. they gave us free tea and offered cigarettes we spent so much…I did get lots of Christmas gifts though. However, I will admit that I did buy myself an awesome little purple dress that is embellished with stiching of peacocks and flowers in deeper purples. It is lovely, and I feel like a doll in it. Technically only cost about twenty pounds, but that is a lot of money here. It is great though. Lauren got one too, except hers is a steel grey instead.
Went to meet the others at the Mela. There is a moustache competition on this morning, but it was so crowded with tourists taking photographs we could hardly see the moustache despite it being two metres long or something. It didn’t even seem to be much of a competition – more just men with grand moustaches standing in a row charging 100 rupees a photo. Far more impressive was a ten year old girl walking a tight rope with a flower pot on her head, but no one really cared about her.
So we left the Mela. I couldn’t really stand watching a sea of massive cameras and socks in sandals. Went to Laura’s Café – another backpacker café with a great fresh vegetarian menu. The food looked great. I was still full of breakfast but Ben had a spring roll that was incredibly fresh and full of nice veg. Laura herself is also a lovely young woman, who will try and accommodate anything you like. Including huge groups like our one.
Lauren decided to get her nose pierced right now. We went to the barbers who took us down the road to his friend the jeweler. The jeweler sat Lauren down and took out piercings for her to choose. She chose a plain silver ball. He took out some pliers and a file and iodine then sharpened the end of the piercing stud down to a point, held her face and stuck it straight through her skin without any further ado. It was very quick and relatively painless looking. I was very impressed. I was almost tempted to get one, but I don’t have so much faith in the iodine-sterilising arrangement…
This afternoon was spent wandering around until we hit a café called Cool Blue Café. Had a spot of lunch and then decided we would climb one of the hills to go up to the temples there. There are three hill temples that you can see from the ground in Pushkar. We went up one and I have to say it was quite nice and peaceful up there in comparison to the complete madness seething about below. And there were no priests. Absolutely brilliant.
Before dinner Lauren and I went on another wander. We walked down through the main bazaar and every few feet a guy would take our picture or make some lewd comment. I really don’t like the men in this place. They are just so much more brazen than in Delhi. We got some banana crumble cake though from the wonderful cake stall next to the main gat. He sells ‘special’ cake too. Ironic: the holy place full of opiates.
Speaking of opiates, the girl who was mean to me last night sat up and drank the illegal alcohol and smoked weed with the men who run our hostel. And I thought that this was a holy place. Doesn’t she have any self-respect? Tch…
For dinner we went to Sai Baba’s. it is a little buffet style restaurant that has live music and dancing on in the courtyard. The food was ok, but it is the atmosphere and the performance that you actually go for. There were two little boys who were just brilliant wee singers. They looked very cute in their white pyjamas and turbans.
Apparently we are going on a camel trek tomorrow. Tomorrow is also Hallowe’en. I am slightly sad that there is no dressing up for me this year, unless I had decided to come as a generic Indian person, in which case I should win a prize.

29th October

Spent ten minutes convincing the guards at five in the morning to let us out the hostel. I hate these damned rules.
We made our train on time. We are in the fancy AC chair class that I have been in with the family. Spent most of the journey asleep or eating – the best things in life. We didn’t get a rose this time. Perhaps only certain trains give roses or maybe they were just rolling out the red carpet for the maharani. The train took 7 hours or so, but there was a delay of about forty minutes. You pass through Jaipur, so I think Pushkar would be a very pleasant little day trip from Jaipur, if anyone is considering going to Rajasthan.
We got into about ten traffic jams on the way up the hill to Pushkar itself. It is incredibly busy: there are camels, trucks, people, bulls, etc all over the roads. Have already seen about ten tourists armed with massive cameras. Does not bode well for a quiet weekend.
Our hostel was the Maharaja Guest House. It is pretty decent rooms, fairly clean, though the bed sheets have a few interesting stains and the blanket looks like it was bought in the late seventies and hasn’t been washed since. The bathroom was spotless though and they did alright food and good tchai. Though, as with everything, they worked on Indian Standard Time. So tchai, (a wee cup of tea), took about half an hour to produce. There are rules for foreigners painted up on the walls of the guest house. There is to be no public displays of affection between sexes, no inappropriate behavior, no alcohol and no shoes near the sacred lake. The sacred lake is in fact a series of sacred gats, as there is no more water in the lake. They await some rain to bring it back.
Went for a wander and was accosted by friendly seeming men offering me sacred flowers: the marigolds the use in garlands here. You have to go and put them in the lake as a pooja offering. When we found a gate down to the main gats we were accosted by yet more nice men who led us down to the gat side and then started doing prayers over us. We didn’t want to get up and leave as they might have gotten offended. So I sat holding my sacred flower and coconut and repeated his mantras after him. The priest (for he was a Brahman it turned out) then gave me a tilak dot (the red thing on the forehead) and tied a sacred red thread round my wrist and then said ‘donation now ma’am’. I began to laugh, and told him he could have fifty rupees. He laughed also, and said what importance was money, why fifty rupees when it could be five hundred. After all, money was not important, except obviously to him. I told him that five hundred rupees was in fact, too important to give to him, and gave him the fifty. He told me I was too much like an Indian girl and then tried to give me his number. Some priest. Amanda’s had not even got so far as the thread before he asked for cash, so she was unconsecrated. Lauren’s had asked her for money but in an aggressive way, telling her Brahmans needed money (mine had said tactfully that the money went to charity to help the poor of Pushkar, of which there are many). So she gave him no money, and he cursed her family name by name instead. I got the better end of the deal at least.
After the lake we went wandering across the town to the Mela. The Mela is the fair ground erected in honour of the camel festivities going on. We got offered a camel for ten thousand rupees by a thirteen year old in a fake beard and moustache. Amanda managed to convince him instead to let her ride the camel for a few minutes for thirty rupees. It looks a little unstable. They really are weird creatures. Every time I looked at them I began to wonder how in the hell something like that even evolved. Completely bizarre. As she was riding many people came up and started taking our pictures. Because there weren’t enough white tourists to take pictures of. There are even some of Lauren holding people’s babies. In order to escape, we went into the fair ground to go on some rides. I decided not to, as they sparked and looked like they might collapse. Went instead with Amanda into the Mela itself, where a traditional band were playing. After ten minutes a girl appeared on stage in the traditional Rajasthani dress of the mirrored top and skirt (much like my own) and did a dance to an old bollywood tune. She was a very energetic little dancer, but it did feel a bit weird to be in a crowd full of men watching this thirteen year old twist about the place. Eventually the crowd became too much for us and we had to go. It is completely packed in this place. And you never get a moments peace to yourself. Everyone is coming up to you trying to take your picture, give you sacred flowers, take your money, hold your hand and so on. Lots of women started shaking my hand for no apparent reason, which was very nice of them, but some of the younger ones were too scared to ask and so would run by me and give me a slap on the arm on the way. It was better than the men though, who either try to scam you or drive into you with their motorbikes before taking a picture and making a rude comment.
Speaking of rude, I had a slight trauma. When we got back to the hostel after dinner one of the Swiss girls who I did not know at all came up to me and essentially told me that I had embarrassed her, that I was dressed like a whore with my breasts hanging out and that I should be ashamed of myself as I was in a holy place. I was shocked. For a start, I had been wearing two vest over the top of one another and had had my big blue scarf wrapped round my entire upper half all day, and of course I was wearing trousers. So unless my lower arms have somehow transformed into my chest, I think I was completely fine. I was dressed far more conservatively than some of the girls I had seen on the streets. Her attack was just vicious. The way she said it as well was very malicious and I was left speechless. Thank god Lauren was there to witness it. She asked the girl if someone had said something, if someone had been looking or something. But no, no one had said anything. The girl had ‘been in India longer than we had and knew how it worked’. She also accused Lauren, who had been wearing a vest-scarf combo, of being in the same boat as me. She then turned round and stormed off. We were gob-smacked. I have never been spoken to in such a way by anyone for a long time. As soon as she left I felt like smacking her. How dare she! She had been sour faced all day. According to Lauren as well she had on the train been very snide in her remarks and had been quite aggressive, even to her friends. Evidently we had just been having too nice a time for her to cope with. We got Amanda in who had to be restrained from storming into her room and yelling. She eventually went on in anyways, but the girl was sitting there in just her knickers and Amanda couldn’t cope and left. Two faced so and so. Ah well. Better a ‘whore’ than a bitter and mean two-faced idiot.

28th October

Spent today trying and failing to write my essay. I don’t think I will get it done by the time we leave tomorrow, which is annoying. I will have it to look forward to when I come back instead. I have to say, it is looking very similar to my Indian Civil Service essay – if you only replace ICS with Bengal Army and throw in ‘martial race’ occasionally, you are about there.

Lauren and I went to Connaught Place to try and pick up a few things. I want a present for my friend Gavia for her birthday and then some Christmas presents. I managed to get both these things, but I also managed to buy two dresses and a pair of harem pants. Not good! That night market is bloody dangerous. It makes me feel slightly better that one of the dresses is a shared dress – Lauren and Amanda are going to use it too. and that Lauren bought the same amount for herself. That night market is dangerous. It was quite funny – we went into to so many men’s shops trying to find her a man’s shirt. Every one we went into were completely non-plussed as to why this girl wanted to try on a small men’s shirt rather than acting like a decent person and sticking to the women’s selection. Very time she went into the changing room the shop assistants started giggling.

After wandering around and spending too much money, we went to Flavours for dinner. We are meeting everyone coming to Pushkar from Europe here in an hour. Seeing as we came early, we got a splate of antipasti to share and some beer. Once everyone turned up we properly sat down to eat. It was nice to have some food together and meet the other people coming before we left. All the French are coming and some new Lithuanian people. One, Aga (I think that’s how you spell it) was really nice and wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt that I appreciated greatly.

Realised while we were out thatMinaxi has no idea that we are leaving at 5am tomorrow for several days, and so the guards won’t let us out. Not good! Phoned Marie to see if she can write it in the night out book at least, or else we will have no chance of taking that train to Pushkar. Minaxi is going to skin us when we get home, but oh well. I don’t care right now. I am fed up of all the ridiculous rules we have to attend to all the time. Bah.