Plain Tales From the Raj

The Last Day of this city (Until I come back in May of course)

2010-04-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

So, this is our last day. It is finished. I handed in my last paper. I made it perfectly clear in cool and calm tones that my exchange program was over. All I need is for them to hand in my marks. And that can be done over email. I have cleared my room. I have a bag full of stuff for the Didi with a daughter who is 'just you size Di!' I have fobbed my caffetier on to Nandini. We have arranged a farewell luncheon. Soon I will get my deposit back. I will have put all my crap in the bin or somewhere equally able to take it out of sight and out of mind. I am actually GOING.

Tonight we take the train from Delhi to Lucknow, arriving at some unholy hour of the morning in a new, and apparently hotter, city. Lucknow: the scene of the siege of the Residency and the battle for Awadh (Oudh), the relief led by Colin Campbell of the Highlanders (I think). I have studied it intensely anyway. It is called the Golden City, or the Constantinople of the East. I will update while there.

I don't really know about how I feel about leaving Delhi. This is the last time I will see many of the friends I made here. There are a few that I believe I am going to see again at some point in the future. But for the most part, I wouldn't bet on it. And then there are the people who have just been a part of my life. Made it a little bit simpler. Minaxi ma'am hitting me on the back when I have forgotten to sign and her infectious bubbling laugh. The Didis outside our room, laughing with each other and at us. The professors we have come to respect. The man in the History Dept canteen who laughs at us when we come for tchai. The tailor on Bangalo Road who always says hello whether or not you have something for him. The men in Barista who know our names. AIM cafe - our haven, our oasis of calm in a dust storm. The Koreans laughing at us every time we order anything Korean, always taking an active interest in our lives and giving us free tea when we are sick.

And then my friends. Egle, our crazy Lithuanian who cannot accept her own successes as successes and who has the right consciousness to work for a better and fairer world. I may see her again - she wants to work in the UK. Ste, the lovely Swiss girl with such long blonde hair, I will see again in the North East. She can wait. Stephanie, Samuel, Gulshan, Guillame and Brunelle - the Frenchies. Will I see them again? Who knows. I hope so. Sam and Guillame's dancing will be burned into my memory forever. Paris looks a lot closer to the UK when you are in India. Then the Dutch, who I will see again, who are traveling with us. They don't need to be thought about yet. There is Wouter and Lorriane: two very lovely people, very active, Wouter with all the precision of a military man and Lorriane with turquoise harem pants to match her eye shadow, both obsessed with children's toys especially the squeaky kind. Sansanee our mad and adorable Thai friend, who is probably going to drop out of University again and go off to live with monks or have a baby and name it Galaxy. Rachna, the shrieking Mauritian. Mehrnoush who oozes womanhood in a way we can only ever dream to do. Elham who has painted me. If I ever go to Iran, it is going to be for them. Elmira, one of the most driven young women I have ever met, the poet and sweet heart. Karima, my next door neighbor, who opens the door every morning and evening to hear the prayer call come over the buildings. Saloni, sweet and fresh and very much up for a laugh. She too has the activism to change her situation and that of other's around her. And she can salsa. Nitin, the chauvinist English student who is so obviously going to be a professor it hurts. Tanveer, who is going on her first flight to Paris soon. I hope it takes her further. I have managed to have some of my most interesting conversations here with her. I am so glad to have found someone as like minded as me. She gave me a book as a farewell gift on gender poetry. Nandini, I will see again. Next summer, in fact. And she will be here in Delhi when I get back. Her good bye can wait just a little longer. Anjalika, one of the most enviable women in this place, with perfect hair and skin and face and a brilliant laugh. She laughs at everything, even the things that are not funny.

ah. What will be will be.

2010-04-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

I had an incredibly odd evening on Sunday.

I went with my friend Elmira to LAP at the Hotel Samrat, an exclusive members-only night club/lounge bar that is owned by some Bollywood star. We went on the invitation of the corporation Elmira is having her internship with this summer. I was slightly confused as to why we, completely unimportant students, were being invited to some corporate big-wig night. I did have the thought that maybe it had something to do with us being firmly within the 'young and female' category...Elmira had assured me however that it was all very much above board and they were giving us free alcohol and transport anyways. I am always up for trying new things, and seeing as I will probably never have the chance to go to one of these things again, I thought it could do no harm.

LAP is not what I expected. You would think such an exclusive and hyped place would be buzzing, or at least, incredibly opulent and jaw-dropping when you walk in. Instead it was mediocre decor, not much ambience what so ever and some absolutely terrible lighting. You could barely see two feet in front of you, which was maybe a good thing, as when you squinted through the gloom you got a look at some of the 'high points' of the decoration. These included a brown-grey chandelier and some mock-Victorian Raj style paintings of some quite ugly women. Unfortunate. The bar tenders knew more than your average however and could mix a very good mojito I quickly found out. The drink was free, so every time you finished one they brought another to you before your empty glass had hit the table. Can't fault the service on that front. I didn't eat any of the food on offer, though Elmira said it was lovely. I really should have eaten the food, as I hadn't had dinner (idiocy) and proceeded to drink a LOT. More on the effects of that one later.

Aside from the slightly disappointing setting, the most interesting thing about the night was the company. Men old enough to be my father (or older in fact) in IPL cricket shirts schmoozing away with each other. All were Danish or Scandinavian, most based in Singapore, all very rich and all very intelligent. I found one who was half British and spent the evening mostly chatting to him about home and life in India. I found it all very odd. All these middle aged men making small talk with Elmira and I and a few other pieces of far posher Indian totty scattered throughout the room. Two of the Indian girls I managed to chat to were air hostesses. Is it just me, or is that horrifyingly inevitable? Possibly it was all in the name of corporate big-wigging, but I did feel like I was probably only there to provide a polite foil to some drunk Danish's posturing and some eye candy. I think the greatest moment came when one of the men was telling me about he had taken up skiing at 37 (he was no longer 37, most definately the past tense) and then asked me if I liked skiing and I said I was able to ski and had learned a few years ago. This led to a "Ahhh when you are young I am sure it is easier" which in turn brought on a "And how old are you? You are a student, yes?" My triumphant "Actually, I am only twenty. PRACTICALLY A CHILD (you lech)" made me smile and them raise their eyebrows so high they nearly disappeared into their receding hairlines and quickly excuse themselves. Most satisfying.

The cab ride home was what did it for my stomach. I had had four glasses of white wine and two mojitos, no food since lunch and more disheartened leches than I could handle in one night. Was quite, quite sick. Yummy. First time I have been sick from alcohol in quite some time. it meant I didn't have a hangover the next day though, which was just as well, because if I had done I wouldn't have been able to start my essay at all.

Said essay is still occupying my time and becoming more and more urgent every day. Gah.

On a different note:

On Saturday I will leave Delhi. It is, just about, over. I am going to be travelling, but you know...no more Delhi for a month. It hasn't really sunk in yet.

Ciao.

Emma's visit in slightly more detail than the bugger all I have already given...

2010-04-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

I can finally get around to telling you all about Emma's wonderful visit.

Out of all my friends who proclaimed they would be following me out to India, Emma was the only one who actually didn't spend all her money on something else. Evidently the lure of my company and the myriad of shiny things was just too much to pass up on. She was only here for ten days, which really isn't enough time, but then I am realising that ten months really isn't enough time to see everything, never mind little over a week.

The trip consisted of:

1. [To be said with a loud and obnoxious posh English accent, over and over again. Repeat at top of voice in the presence of English students on their Gap Yah for added effect and thus added hilarity] "This one time I was Literaaaally in Buuurma...and I just CHUNDERED all oover a monk! Yeah I know, I know...out on the laaash the night before...Best night of my LIFE!" (We modified it for the Dharamsala high-monk contingent). Hilarity. Particularly as Dharamsala had not too few Gap Yahs.

2. Went to Agra for the fourth time. Spent a disproportionate amount of that time in Costa coffee trying to cool selves down. Emma agrees: Agra is not somewhere to go to twice if you can help it, let alone four times. At least I am damned sure I will never ever go back there.

3. Dharamsala was amazing! It was very Alpine and the hills had red rhododendron bushes on them and the houses were built into the hill sides. There were little prayer flags everywhere and then the huge gold brass prayer wheels and the multi-coloured houses. It was very peaceful, very clean and very enjoyable. I bought a lot of stuff, including a fairly ridiculous Kashmiri embroidered and fringed hippy handbag that I am sort of proud of. Lauren and Emma went all out and bought Kashmiri hand-embroidered scarves - most posh. There was a lot of Buddhist regalia, including a lot of life size photographs of the Dalai Lama and Obama. I almost felt like nicking one to bring it home for Frances. Unfortunately His Holiness was not in residence at that point so, quel suprise, we couldn't turn up at his door step. We did wander round the temple complex that he lives in however. There were a couple of white guys carrying out ritualised prostrations in front of one of the temples. Lauren went on a rant about how Buddhism is a rejection of ritual. She knows a lot about it, and I don't, so I won't try and replicate what she said exactly here as I will get it wrong. Either way: ritual has no base in Buddhism. One night we managed to completely freak out a man in a wool shop by trying on all his hats, making ridiculous comments about the wool animals, and generally by giggling insanely at every single little thing we or he did. In the end he was giggling as well and he became our new best friend. He seemed a bit drunk and it was maybe just as well; three giggling and hyper white girls in a woolen goods store is never easy to deal with without some Dutch courage. The Tibetan refugee museum was very good as well actually. It is very interactive, with a lot of photography and relics from Tibet brought by the refugees now living in Dharamsala. The whole town was full of refugee rehabilitation programs, like tailors or coffee places run by them. Some of the refugee stories were absolutely terrible. Many walked over the Himalayas to come to Dharamsala or somewhere similar. Imagine walking in all that snow for days on end with no equipment. Think of the frost bite if nothing else. There were bloodied shirts the prisoners wore in the Chinese prisons. All very educational, enlightening, and highly depressing. But you got the impression that they knew that people needed to be educated about the whole thing, not just yell 'Free Tibet' because it is a popular thing to say.

I am very glad we went. I wish we had stayed longer.

4. Emma managed to stay well until the last night of her trip. Apparently her mother declared she had dissentry and then that she had Dengue Fever. Interesting. I think, from my own experiences of having had said illness many many times in the past eight months, that it was good old fashioned, top-grade Delhi Belly. Most unfortunate, but definitely not life-threatening with the twin elixirs of Ciproxin and Coca Cola to immediate hand. Got to love Christine's worry for her. Evidently India is a killer. It was very unfortunate though coming back to the all too familiar sight of Emma lying on the bathroom cubicle floor being sick into a bucket. I felt for her. I knew her pain. I doubt that helped any, but at least I was aware of what she was going through as it were. She also managed to pick up a drive-by grope that night (in Muckherjee Nagar of all places where usually there are very few problems with the men...) which was incredibly unlucky and probably didn't help the stomach trouble any. Men on motorbikes are bastards and never ever to be trusted. Not a good evening in many respects.

I highly enjoyed her being here. I wish she had stayed longer and that we could have travelled more. However it is possibly best she didn't, not just due to the illness, but also because she would have run out of money. Oh, the shiny things...:D "Chundered" is our new phrase-du-jour. It never stops being funny, ever. If anyone reading this hasn't yet seen the genius of the Gap yah video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKFjWR7X5dU

Welcome to a small piece of my life in India. We get a lot of these.

A Diversion

2010-04-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ok. So I know I need to post up on Emma's visit. And I will. Tomorrow. In the mean time, I have a diversion.

My friend from Lithuania has had various panic attacks for the past week. Her degree is coming to an end, she has to write her final paper, she will be leaving her boyfriend to start life away from here, and she is unsure as to what she will be able to do with herself next year. On top of this, she has decided she hasn't 'used' her time in India properly.

The situation in India for an awful lot of people is not wonderful. You only need to look out of my window and notice the half-dead donkey carrying bricks over to a woman in her torn up saree with her semi-naked child scrabbling around the building site in the dirt in the 38 degree heat to see that. And she is possibly one of the lucky few - she has a job. Her child is alive. There is a donkey carrying bricks rather than her doing it herself. She is earning money. She has clothing. Her child is with her.

My friend has decided that she should have used her time in India to do NGO and charitable work. She feels that she has wasted her time by not trying to engage in some social uplift program to help some of the less fortunate people in Delhi. She thinks that it would all have been of far more use to have gone and volunteered in an orphanage entertaining the kids or teaching English. She says she feels guilty about coming here and not doing something like that. Guilty about studying, living as she does, in the environment she does...guilty about not having 'done something' with her time. Her anxiety over this has made us feel it too. Why didn't we DO something?

I have an issue with this attitude. She didn't come here to work as part of an NGO or mission. She came here to complete her degree in Indology. She came here to study Hindi, Sanskrit and Sociology. She came here to be a student.

Whenever my friend talks of her home in Lithuania it isn't ever very positive. She describes the situation as fairly dire for her countrymen and women, especially in the terms of earning money or getting a job. She completely supports their leaving to go to the UK or America or wherever else to get a job, as there is just nothing at home for them. As far as we can tell from her description, Lithuania is also ugly, boring and devoid of any attractive prospect whatsoever. Even the housing is terrible. But my friend doesn't seem to see this bad situation in the same way as she sees the situation in India. India is somewhere she feels she should make a difference because she 'can'. But Lithuania, despite all the problems with her home, can be happily abandoned because she feels she can do nothing. She doesn't want to work for any social uplift organisations in Lithuania. She wants to leave as fast as possible. She doesn't even want to try and work there. She says she will go an waitress in the UK (with a full undergraduate degree mind) rather than try to work in her chosen field in Lithuania.

The poverty of India has had an affect on her, yet she doesn't seem to acknowledge that there is poverty in Lithuania that also demands the attention of compassionate people such as herself. Also, she is a student. She came here to study, not to work as part of a NGO.

There just seems no sense in her feeling guilty because she does occupy a position of privilege over a lot of people by the virtue of her purposes here. By going and volunteering at some charity teaching a class full of kids English in the back water of Delhi, she might impart some knowledge of English to these kids. She might brighten their day. And don't get me wrong, I think this is important. But I can't help thinking that it would also be taking the position away from an Indian girl who could have done it. That it is teaching English, when maybe they should be taught Hindi. That in all reality, it will probably result in these children being able to say 'Hello! Ten rupee!' with better enunciation rather than anything else. Because at the end of the day, her individual effort, though admirable, means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things, as she would be leaving any way, and the men in government would be left unchanged. The information on the situation for a lot of people would be the same, the legislation on their situation the same, the reality of the situation the same. She would have joined the ranks of all those well-meaning people who felt they could 'do' something for a third world group, who actually furthered the cause of cultural imperialism, took jobs away from the indigenous labourers who really need the jobs, and left the rest powerless by not imparting the knowledge of how to teach and carry on the services they provided for three months. Of course those three months or whatever will have been better than the three months without them, but once these do-gooders leave with their sense of self-satisfaction nice and full, the people they 'helped' will be once more helpless.

To make a lasting difference there needs to be legislation, the support of people in a position of power, the teaching of teachers with a particular focus on the needs of their particular location, the creation of jobs, indigenous social uplift organisations, more awareness of how the privileged in society can make the lives easier and provide more opportunities for the poor and the oppressed. There doesn't need to be just a vaccination campaign, there needs to be doctor training and a local medical centre that is open all year, built by the local labourers, using local materials. There shouldn't just be an English language class, there should be a school with local teachers, once more built by local labourers using local materials. If local materials aren't possible then they should be subsidized by the government. If those who would teach don't have the ability, then they can be taught by those who do so that they can return empowered, not enthralled.

She is compassionate, a sympathetic and aware young woman who is not blind to the world's evils and inequalities. She could make a difference if she were to finish her degree and become a sociologist who worked to disseminate information on these issues to the rest of the world, to the people in power. To make others aware to that they who do have such powers may use them to actually change the situation. Why is this a thing to be guilty of? To have an ambition for yourself? To know that in your own reality, your priority is to get your dissertation handed in and that might mean you can't go to an orphanage for a couple of afternoons to entertain the kids? That dissertation, that degree will place her in a position of power - she might actually be able to change the lives of the children she mourns, not just entertain them for a few afternoons and leave their true location in society unchanged.

And maybe I am cynical and a horrible person. It sounds like I completely disregard the effort of individuals in this sort of thing. I don't. I admire them. But there is no sense in not wanting something for yourself. For your happiness. Because it might empower you to REALLY make a difference.

2010-03-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

I am on to a new essay. Woolf now. On whether or not gender is a fantasy. I think it is. Thoughts?

The cricket was great. I even understand what an 'over' is now. Ben spent the entire match explaining everything that was happening to Amanda, Saloni and I, so we now vaguely understand what is going on when the men hit the ball and it goes out the park and that is a 'Sixer' and all that what not. Most educational. The match was between Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians (surely a little too obvious?) and I have to say, even with my limited cricket experience, Mumbai were easily the better team. They beat delhi resoundingly by a margin of 100 runs or so I think. What was nice though was that the crowd really didn't seem to care about which team won or lost. They cheered everyone's successes equally, winced with every mistake, went wild whoever hit a 'sixer' (check me with the lingo). What was also a pleasant change to my only other experiences of major sports events (read: rugby with everyone hating everyone else/football with everyone hating everyone else AND drunk men throwing unnamed warm yellow liquid down on you) was that every time there was a good hit or a catch or whatever, all the guys would go completely crazy, stand up on their chairs yelling and singing and break out into Punjabi dance. I swear, any opportunity for the Punjabi dance is taken here. I will miss the breaking out into dance as soon as a drum beat (internal or not) is heard regardless of where or who you are. There were whole families out together, and the atmosphere was really nice and exciting, but not at all in a threatening way. The only off-putting aspect of the whole thing was the teams of white girls at the side of the pitch in hot pants who were the 'cheer leaders'. My friend Egle (being tall and blonde) has been asked to be a cheer leader before, but she turned it down despite the money. And I can see why. These girls didn't do much cheer leading as far as I could see. They spent their time on a podium and every time someone from their team scored a good number or something they would gyrate and shake their hair for five minutes or so, at which point all the younger guys would be pressed up against the fence filming them with their phone cameras. Not entirely brilliant for the cause of women everywhere and all that. It was actually really not nice to watch. But then if these girls wanted to be used as sex objects for four hours then I guess it is their choice. Even Egle, while refusing to be a cheer leader, has agreed to be paid 3000 rs to sit in the front row of a game and be in some of the film of the match in a 'look white girls come watch our players' kind of way. I think she might just be angling to meet Shahrukh Khan though, as he owns the Kolkata Knight Riders.

In other news, my friend Emma is here! It is most exciting, though she is leaving tonight. In fact the reason I haven't written anything here for a little while is because I have been too distracted running about with her. It has been amazing and I will be sad to see her go. I will give a fuller update on that one tomorrow I think. So until then.

2010-03-17T02:21:00.001-07:00

I have finally completed my Wordsworth essay. Possibly not to a satisfactory standard, but it is there on the page anyways. So I am taking an Opportunity.

It was the International Men's Hostel night the other day. It all started out quite nicely. My friend David was hosting alongside this woman with brilliant hair who was apparently a radio show woman. He looked like one of these wierd paintings you get from the EIC Raj of officials 'gone native' in a red kurta and white pajama trousers and these woven leather shoes. If you had placed him on a brocade chair, given him a hookah and stuck some ships in the background you really wouldn't have been able to tell him apart from these old lunatic orientalists from days gone by.

The cultural program they put on was a bit slow in organisation terms, but the actual acts were generally very good. There was a Sri Lankan tribal dance that we all really liked with two guys wearing loin clothes and blue paint all over their bodies. The Ethiopian guys did a dance as well, which was very fun to watch as they all shook their hips and shimmied. I have noticed that there is a great love of shimmying here. All the Indian men do it as well. Many is a time that we have been dancing and then find ourselves backed into a corner as soon as a Punjabi song comes on as all the Indian men are shimmying at us. It's like some bizarre mating ritual. If they had peacock tails they would be up and wafting. Actually, it all reminds me so much of those wee birds of paradise you see on Planet Earth with the black feather fan with the bright blue stripe. These wee things back their mates into a corner, confuse the hell out of them and then swoop. Perhaps these guys think that is evidently the way to go about things. Getting back to the show, there was also a Sufi band that played some really nice stuff. They were very good, it was a shame they came on at the very end when everyone was starving. Ben, David and our Mauritian friend Kaveesh also played a few songs on guitar and singing. David and Kaveesh sang, and they are both very good it has to be said. They played one nice relaxing reggae number from Mauritius that would be great to listen to in the summer in the evenings and some Beatles and John Mayer. It was really well done.

Bit annoyed with Marie who has broken up with David for the umpteenth time and who decided she had to leave when David came on as it was all too difficult for her to bear obviously. We all told her not to come when she had started going on about not wanting to hear him or see him or even be in the same building as him, but she had insisted on coming just so that she could create some drama. It has now got to the point that we get either angry or bored of the Dutch people's ridiculous friendships/relationships...ah well. I am sure they will be back together in a week or so. And then the whole rigmarole can begin once more...

Unfortunately the lights all went when we were meant to get food. So everyone ended up a bit grumpy as they were hungry and in the dark. Finally got food however which perked things up and by eleven the power was back. Which meant it was time for dancing! We got in tow with our Ethiopian friend from history and the other guys who had been dancing earlier (one of whom was evidently styling himself on Bob Marley so much it hurt) and some cool Nigerian guys as well. All of them were really good dancers and we had a lot of fun careering about with them. Amanda and I ended up so sweaty it was disgusting. Not as bad as Omar though. Omar is our friend from Paisley (of all the places in all the world, he even knows where Inchinnan is!) and he sweats so much when he is dancing it is like he is on E. Either way, a good night was had by all, and the dancing went on till half one in the morning. My thighs hurt by the end of it. The 'bird of paradise' thing happened A LOT at first, but once we insinuated ourselves into the African group we were well protected. Some of these Indian men are just bonkers.

In other news, I found a tiny spider on my bed the other day. What was far worse though was that the spider could JUMP. It could leap an inch or so under its own tiny steam. I nearly cried. I was very good though and manage to immobilise it (read: bash it to death with a large book) so that I could pick it up with tissue and chuck it in the bin. I was really proud of my near-lack of freaking out. I didn't even scream. I do however think every little itch or twitch on my skin is a spider. Continuing the bug theme, there are these giant bright acid yellow wasps everywhere and they are really huge and scary. I don't even know what happens to you if they sting you. Goddamned spring. Makes everything be alive. The mosquitoes are back as well. Sigh. Slightly nicer wildlife: there was a small falcon on my balcony the other day. It's the smallest I have seen. There were about thirty eagles swooping about inside our hostel last week too. Most exciting and slightly menacing.

Had a really interesting talk this morning on Indian foreign policy in the years after Independence. Talking about the non-aligned movement, and the personal role of Nehru in the whole thing. He basically decided India should not go into military alliances with the US or USSR block so that he could use both countries for aid and for economic and social links instead. It is quite interesting how the relationship with China deteriorated in the period and how that basically put-paid to the non-aligned movement in practice. Also quite interesting how these countries viewed the coming of the Hydrogen bomb and the atomic bomb as well as the sure path to the destruction of humanity. Ironic that for a government so convinced in earlier years of the evils of nuclear weaponry, India is now a nuclear power and quite keen to make the rest of the world, especially Pakistan, know it. All under the dubious excuse of 'self-defense'. I might try to write an essay on Indian foreign policy as the relationship with China and the USSR is really interesting, especially since the USSR's neutrality during the Indo-China war of the 1960s basically cut the USSR off from the People's Republic, acting in the interest of a capitalist democracy...

Tonight we are going to the cricket. It is Delhi vs Mumbai. I have never been to a cricket game before now, and I hope it is worth the hassle. The cricket here is much shorter than the stuff at home. Sort of on a par with a football game. All us Europeans are going. Shall be a fun outing. I don't know the rules of cricket, but I am sure there is no problem with that. I will cheer when everyone else does. I have been interested in seeing a match actually ever since ShahRukh Khan brought it all to international attention after he denounced the IPL's decision not to elect Pakistani players into the teams for 'security reasons' and the Shiv Sena went completely bonkers as per and attacked cinemas showing the actor's latest film in Mumbai.

Other than all this, I am so excited for Emma coming on Friday. Her father is evidently a well-respected cheese as people from his company base here in Delhi have been calling me sorting out how Emma will get to and from places and offering me services. Its all very civilised and I am tempted to abuse their offer of a car to ferry us around the city. Then again, might be more hassle than it is worth, considering how terrible traffic in Delhi is.

Ah well. Enough for now. Wish us luck at the cricket. Dilli Jao!

Tiny Trip Up North

2010-03-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

A bit late. But there we have it. Wordsworth is currently eating my eyes (or so it feels), and I have decided to take a well-deserved break and update.

05/03/10

Tonight was the North Eastern students Guest Night. I have to say, it was far more organised and professional than our own Grand Shambles. But then, that wouldn't have been hard in all honesty. They followed about the same schedule as we did, with a welcome address, cultural program, dinner and dance. Their chief guest was Deepak Pental, the VC of the University, who, I am sure those of you who remember my earlier blogs will see no change in my opinion, was characteristically late and completely boring and ineffectual. He is such a drab man. Nothing in comparison to all the turbaned stature of Navjeet's father. He exudes 'imperial'. Deepak exudes something along the lines of 'a wee cup of tea'. He is small, wears drab brown clothes (the male equivalent of your granny's), has a droopy expression, a weak smile, unmemorable voice and action, shuffles, and is quite saccharine and silly. He isn't even old. I could forgive an old man. Not a middle-aged one. Sigh.

So of course, he was late, and I had to sit waiting for about two hours getting my legs gnawed to pieces by mosquitoes. I still have the scabs. Not cool. Our mess men were wanderign through the crowd keeping everyone sustained with veg croquettes and fizzy pop though and they laughed when they saw me there. Eventually everything got started though, and the night opened with the cultural dress show. I was most taken with the different Naga and Mizoram dresses. The Naga dress is a patterned woven scarf/skirt that is sort of like a kilt in size and function. It come in varying patterns, depending on the tribe to which the wearer belongs, and whether it is a particular festival, or if it is a married/unmarried woman. They have long strings of jade and ivory beads as well. The Mizoram dress has tall head dresses of flowers and pompoms and peacock feathers. One of the head dresses had two prongs sticking out the sides with long strings of green beads and this one was for more auspicious occasions. After the cultural dress show, there were various dances from the states, including a brilliant one that is done at Assamese New Year. There was a group of boys, all using their own instruments to make the music and singing the lyrics (there was one particular one, Raj, who could REALLY sing, and who I would have happily listened to all night), and then the girls came on to participate in a group dance. It was very joyful, and there was one move that did remind me sort of the funky chicken. The Naga and Mizoram dances were fun as well, lots of stomping and jumping involved. Some of the girls put together a Western Revue dance that was also really well done. They had obviously practiced for a while, as they could even all do the Beyonce Single Ladies dance. I was impressed. After the dances, the girls had got a local group in, The Skinny Boys, who were all either North Eastern or Korean (they tend to be the other cool kid group around here) and who were all girls. They were really very good, and the lead singer and the drummer were particularly good. It was a really nice way to wrap up the programme and wait for dinner. After dinner we had paan (got to love paan). I have learnt to ask for mitha paan now if I ever want sweet paan. Though I tried it with the betel nuts for the first time and I had to spit them out as I couldn't even try to chew them they are so hard. By the end of my second one my teeth were a nice red colour. Thankfully, everyone else's were too, so it wasn't a massive issue. After the dinner there was a DJ (a good DJ at that!) until half twelve and we danced like loonies for about two hours. Met a few more really nice girls, including one from Assam who does physics, and who offered me to stay in her house if I go to Assam in May.

I left feeling incredibly happy. It was probably better than our own Guest Night.

Also, note on the fashion of the North East girls - they know how to dress. Buggered if I know where they find these clothes, but god are they fashionable. One girl was in a black, blue and bright pink swirl pattern chiffon playsuit. A playsuit! A chiffon playsuit!!! In DELHI!!!!

All is not lost.

HOLI

2010-03-04T04:22:00.000-08:00

Today is Holi! HAPPY HOLI!!!

A word of explanation about Holi:

Holi is a festival where people defy usual social boundaries and come together to throw water and coloured powder at one another. It is effectively a religiously sanctioned paint fight. Men drink bhang (a special lassi made with hash) and everyone eats these special sweets that are sort of like baklava and generally has a very good time. The festival is a play act of Krishna and Radha’s paint fight. Krishna supposedly asked his mother why Radha had such pale skin in comparison to his dark skin, as he was jealous of her complexion. His mother told him to go and paint radha a new colour if he was so jealous as a joke. But Krishna went and got some paint powder and covered Radha in it, causing her to retaliate, and so for the Holi play to happen. And that is why people celebrate Holi by throwing colours at each other.

Holi seems to be the time when the world goes mad. As soon as the girls got their hands on the colour, they went wild. Soon we were looking like those modern dancers, completely covered from head to foot in colour. It looked fantastic. And then someone managed to work out how to turn the hose on. And then people started playing in the fountains, and then the water was being poured over everyone, and so all the colours ran into one another. Some people managed to get so wet they got clean by the end of it. I was still a sort of pinky-red-purple colour by the time we were done. It was great fun. Everyone came together and just let inhibitions go, chucking colour and water and running around like loons. The pictures we have are brilliant.

The world outside was mad as well. We were actually locked in the hostel until half four in the afternoon for fear of our safety at the hands of bhang-fuelled revelers. Amanda and Shaina had wanted to go out to JNU in the morning, but they weren’t allowed onto the street. Thankfully we had more than enough fun by ourselves without going out. Lauren and Amanda went out at half four to get some juice and they said they met some men who were obviously completely high and were being verbally quite aggressive and scary. It made them realise that the hostel had a point about not letting us out. All the men who usually don’t speak to girls would have been so high from the bhang that they wouldn’t be scared of us at all. On the contrary, they would be violent and aggressive.

The other thing about Holi is that the colour makes you tired. Everyone who hasn’t had the colour on them says that the tiredness is just an after-effect of running about in the fresh air. But it isn’t the same sort of tired. It is an exhaustion that is mental as well as physical. You can’t think about anything, let alone try to do work or read. You just sleep. We slept for about five hours each and then woke up only to eat and go back to bed. I got no work done today. Not for want of trying, I just couldn’t concentrate at all. Incredibly weird feeling.

Despite the strange narcotic paint, I feel that Holi needs to become a regular feature of my life. I am going to make everyone play it on the Meadows next spring. It is just too good to not keep it up.

28th February

2010-03-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

Have spent the entire day today trying and failing to work in my room. The internet is killing all attempts to do anything however. Also, it is getting hot. All I can cope to have on my in my room is a cotton dress or perhaps my cotton pyjamas or salwaar. Anything that actually sits on my skin is becoming unbearable. It is still February, and yet it is already 27 degrees during the day. And it is no longer cold at night – I can happily take a rickshaw home at night in only a long sleeve top. This all bodes very ill for the coming months.

Egle and I got an auto rickshaw to the metro later in the day and she managed to fire water at a group of boys. We felt so proud. Pay back for the week we have had of running away from every man and child lest they should have a water bomb on their person. I don’t mind water really, or even the paint, but I mind anything else. My friend Sajedeh was hit by what she thought was just a water bomb but she later discovered that it was mixed with urine! A whole new level of human degradation right there. I think I would feel so violated! Uninvited bodily fluids!

In the evening we went out to the Habitat Centre for a civilized Holi celebration with dances, singing and food. There was a strange sort of dance-enactment of the Rada-Krishna Holi fight complete with dancers with huge peacock feather fans strapped to them so that they looked like they had a peacock tail. There was no paint throwing. Instead, 70 million marigolds must have sacrificed themselves for the night as people were chucking the petals around instead to simulate paint. I was there with Lauren, Ben, Elmira, Egle and her boyfriend Carlos, and another girl from France who sounded peculiarly Australian. It was sort of awkward sitting there feeling like a complete gooseberry every time Elmira disappeared and I was left with Lauren and Ben being awkward with each other. Nonetheless, it was a nice thing to go to, and I felt vaguely cultured by the end. After the showe we went to Mocha Café in Defense Colony. I had never been before, and I have to say it is really nice. It is a Moroccan atmosphere, with lots of different kinds of coffee and shisha on offer. We got a ‘Casablanca’ shisha that was apple and mint flavoured. The whole place is fairly reasonably priced as well for somewhere in Defence Colony, and it was really relaxing to be in. We spent a long time in there just sitting and smoking shisha – a pleasant alternative to our usual nights out to Urban Pind or wherever. I am not sure what it would be like in the day though, and it is definitely not a place to go if you are a bit older and not hippy-inclined.

On our way out the café I got hit smack in the side with a water bomb. Thankfully it was only water, but I did have a moment of panic remembering what Sajedeh had told us. Lauren and I just headed home – we had been told that the guards were letting no one in post-11 pm due to Holi dangers but we had realised this was just foolishness as what could they do? Let us sit out on the pavement? (And of course we were right – we were let in no problem.) Ben went off to JNU for the night as he is celebrating Holi there tomorrow. I think Shaina and Amanda are going to go to JNU tomorrow to celebrate as well. Elmira and Egle went back to Carlos’. They are going to a farmhouse in the South of the city for this big expensive Holi party. I am kind of glad we are just staying in the hostel, as it means that we will be able to get some work done hopefully once we have finished playing.

Hostel Guest Night, or the Grand Fiasco

2010-03-02T03:52:00.000-08:00

I agreed to help in our annual hostel gust night, being a good little hosteler and all. At first I had been approached to host the damned thing, but I had said no. Amanda had told me about her experience of the Diwali party and how they had expected a script and all sorts from her, and seeing as I have impending essay deadlines, I just didn't think it was feasible. However, my friend Tanveer then came to me saying she would host it, but would I help her by announcing a few things. I can deal with announcing things, so I said yes. What a mistake that turned out to be.

Tanveer asked me to write the welcome note, and she would write the introduction for the chief guest, Professor Upinder Singh, daughter of the Indian PM and a history lecturer at Delhi University, and everything else that needed writing. Unfortunately, Tanveer buckled under stress mid-week, leaving me to run around writing everything else. I ended up setting the program for the whole night, getting the acts organised into an order, chasing everyone up to make sure they were ready and even printing off the damned programs. I had everyone who was anyone chasing me, from the Provost to the culture committee (who should have set the program themselves seeing as they were the ones in charge of the night from the off). I managed to get everything done in the nick of time, but I felt like I was being run off my feet. Obviously there was nothing that could have been done. All the girls were like headless chickens, the Provost had been completely uninformed of how things were going till the last minute and so felt she could change things at the last minute, the President of the hostel was shirking all responsibility including the writing of her own speeches which she got other girls to do after I point blank refused and then avoided her for two days, and Tanveer was for all intents and purposes MIA. The only person to offer much helpful support was our new resident tutor, who knows Crispin (what historian here DOESN'T know Crispin??), and who was good enough to look over what I had written a couple of times.

Trying to get the damned thing started was hard enough. None of the acts appeared assembled, Tanveer was nowhere to be seen, and despite my repeated attempts to check that the music was ready for each piece I kept on being told to give two more minutes. How and ever, the night finally kicked off. So I said my welcome note. Tanveer appeared and said her introduction and acted the entire night like nothing was wrong and that I was like a clever child who followed her directions well. Throughout the cultural show I had the Provost hissing in my ear asking me to speed things up and then to make the girls move to a particular piece of stage or sing louder or whatever else she thought was wrong. Despite my obvious powers of telepathy (...) I was unable to satisfy each and every demand and in the end got quite confused. Every time I announced an act there would be two minutes of kerfuffle while the girl who had assured me she had all the music cued and ready to go found the music. Elmira said it was hilarious when I said that "'ready' must be a euphemism for 'not ready'" to the audience by way of explanation of why I announced things that did not appear. The President Maria got really angry with me when I suggested she perhaps should hand out all the committee certificates later on due to time constraints (I had no knowledge of how long each act lasted, and nor did anyone else seem to for that matter, which was interesting when we had allotted the show one hour only) and she told me I was ruining the entire thing for her. Fortunately I was vindicated later when everyone agreed with me that it could have been skipped and that it was as boring and stupid as all hell.

One thing I learnt while presenting this madness was that I am good at being a host, but no good at improvising acceptable anecdotes to tell in between acts. All I could think of amidst the shambles was how much like a convent the hostel was, and how many of the occupants appeared to have no common sense or concept of reality. I couldn't have dared come out with "So this one time Lauren flashed a nun..."

Some of the acts were very good. Mehrnoush did her Iranian dance - the sexiest classical dance known to man bar belly dancing (ah the irony of an Iranian woman dancing sexily in public when it is illegal in her own country), and the Bangladeshi girls' dance was very professionally done as well. Saloni's salsa and the Mauritian dances stole the show, as everyone thought they would. The African girls' dance was very good as well, and they had painted their faces in a very funky way with loads of white dots. The fashion show (or cultural dress display should I say - apparently 'fashion show' is a term degrading to women according to our Provost) was nice as well. Lauren looked great. Amanda and I had constructed a completely mad Queen Elizabeth outfit complete with ruff for her.

I could have cried for joy once the whole thing was over. I went upstairs with Amanda and tanya, had a shot of Old Monk for the nerves (you know it is bad when you are breaking out Old Monk. Old Monk is our version of Tesco Value Gin) and went back down to eat. The food was amazing, and the dancing was great fun. I managed to forget all the silliness of the night pretty quickly. We were reminded of the fact that we live in a prison though when the party was abruptly ended at 11 pm sharp, lest we stay up past our bedtimes. It really is truly ridiculous. The guards then started herding the guys out of the hostel, prodding them in the back.

The night was great fun and frustrating. Fun because of the company, the silliness, the dancing and the general camaraderie. I now know so many more people in the hostel by name having spent several days trying to corral them into some kind of order. It was frustrating because I had been left to do so much more than I had anticipated, had therefore done no work, had managed to piss off several people because I couldn't cater to every little whim as it rose up, everyone had to leave by 11pm and there was no drink involved. Thankfully it is the last large event in the hostel calendar so I need not worry about being preyed upon for anything like this ever again.

I sound sort of annoyed by the whole thing. I wasn't. I was happy when afterwards people came and told me I had done well and had been a good host. I just wish they could have taken on some of the responsibility themselves. It has also taught me never to organise anything with Tanveer ever again, as she might be unable to cope and thus leave me up shit creek.

The other interesting thing about the night was Ben's roommate Manjesh. He told me that he hardly recognised me, having not seen me since the start of our time here. Apparently I am 'Indianised'. Am I? I asked Iain and he said that I was certainly a little bit more tanned than usual, which was totally helpful. I find this slightly funny as I was wearing a halter-neck purple dress with a completely inappropriate cleavage: The Indian Look.

Out of the winter, and into June

2010-02-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

So it is the end of February now. Winter is about to end tomorrow with the celebration of Holi. Already it is unsafe to go out in the streets unarmed with a water pistol or a bit of paint. We are like massive walking targets for the water bombs of men everywhere. I don't really mind water, but I do mind anything else. One of my friends got bombed on Friday with a water-pee mix. Pee! It's a whole new level of human degradation and obscenity. We were afraid to begin with, but now there is the added dimension of uninvited bodily fluids being in contact with me. Imagine if it happened on the way to a lecture! What could you do? What if it was half an hour from your place? Half an hour of stinking to high heaven of SOMEONE ELSE'S URINE. *shudder*

I am worried by the weather right now. It is reminiscent of a beautiful June at home. June. In February. It does beg the question: So if this is like June, what is May going to be like? I fear there might be a return to the dripping days of August. I need to get out of Delhi I think.

So new things in my life since I have been in Delhi:

1. I now know the girl from AIM cafe's name: Yuang. It only took five months to ask.

2. I am taking three very interesting courses this semester: Gender in Literature, Romantic poetry and India After Independence. More on these later. Everything in the department seems really organised this time around though, so that is a nice improvement. I am not sitting exams this term as I really feel like the whole thing was such an unnecessary palaver last time. So it will be essays a go-go.

3. I like guava jam.

4. Continuing the fruity theme, I ate a new fruit. There is a fruit here called chiku (they have it in South America too, and it is called Sapodilla I think) that looks like a small dirty potato. I found it at breakfast and picked up and took it to Tanveer who seemed to think much more of the small potato-ish thing than it's appearance would suggest. You cut a chiku open, and inside there is flesh that is quite like an over-ripe pear in texture, soft but a little grainy. And it tastes like caramel. I think it is possibly my favourite fruit alongside pineapple. You don't eat the skin, you scoop it out, or if you are picking one up on the way home, eat it off the skin. And they are addictive. You can easily consume five of these wee things in about as many minutes. They are incredibly sweet and go well in porridge. I have a vague idea to make jam out of them to send home, but I really don't know how to do that. I had never seen them before in my life. that was strange for me, as in the UK we have access to so many international foods, and one so tasty as chiku, I thought I would at least have heard of it. Someone is missing out on making a killing. "Chiku! The fruit that looks like a potato but tastes like caramel!" I can just see it now.

5. I have taken up Urdu classes. We are trying to learn how to write it. It is a beautiful script, called Nastaliq. I am rather bad at it though, as it does all look worryingly like the same squiggle, just in different positions round the page. Still, if I can at least write my name, I will be happy. Thankfully Urdu the spoken language is just a Persian version of Hindi, so I have not too much issue there.

6. I cut my hair, I take vitamins, and yet it still falls out. Actually, that isn't that new is it?

7. Trip to Chandigarh: Went up to Chandigarh with Lauren to stay with dad's friend Navjeet and his wife Meenu and Navjeet's parents. His parents are lovely, though they are both fairly bonkers in their own ways. His dad was quite imperious and obviously incredibly proud of his city and university. He showed us round everything and was anxious that we didn't have to even think in case it was an effort for us. He had decorated the flat they lived in himself, and it was full of plastic and real flower arrangements, strange mood lighting, decoratively arranged soft toys and paintings. There was a cupboard that turned into a mirrored bar and a blue tooth controlled music system. In the room we were sleeping in, we had a lamp made of hermit crab shells all sticking outwards, a green light above the bed, a monkey hanging from the toilet ceiling and a dress-up magic wand pinned to the wall, leather square cushions and a tiger print quilt. It was an eclectic mix of old cat lady and 70s pimp. His mother was constantly asking us why we didn't eat more, and talking about desert in a furtive and giggly way. We loved her, she was such a character. The made us feel so welcome in their home, despite never having met us. Chandigarh itself is a nice city, quite odd. It doesn't feel like India. It is clean, open and green. it feels American actually. Everything in it is built to a convenient and well-organised plan and everything is very new. The lake there is lovely to walk round, and you could take a pedalo out on to the water. I think I would go back for a relaxing weekend if ever I felt I needed to get out of India but couldn't actually get out of the country.

8. Other small things that come to mind: Small child being hung out of mercedes car door to shit in the street; being asked if I was Mulsim and married by a rickshaw driver; the tchai in my Urdu classes with huge amounts of ginger in it; zazie in the metro; the new urinal on my road everyone now pees on instead of in; new friend from California Shayna; seeing a rickshaw do a somersault and smash right next to me; two monks on a moped; Chinese New Year with Vietnamese nun chant and Ladaki dancing; Wouter and Lauriane's new flat and the tea we attempted; learning that putting bitter chocolate in tchai mix helps everything.

So. Here we are. Back in the present more or less.

A note on Delhi winters

2010-02-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

A note on Delhi winters:

Everyone explains that winter here is the period from Divali to Holi. How and ever, when I left India for home I was still only ever needing to put on a light jacket at night, and during the day it had become bearable to wear jeans and a cardigan. However, when I arrived back to the metropolis with Iain, it was freaking freezing. It was drizzling, maybe 5 degrees during that day and misty. Oddly reminiscent of a slightly bleak October in the UK. I was stunned. I was cold for perhaps the first time in India. I hadn’t taken heed of all those who had warned me that Delhi would get cold and that I would feel it too, no matter how hardy the Scots race is and so on and so forth. It was so cold that walking on the stone floors without socks was painful.

None of the buildings here are designed for the cold. So it could in fact be colder IN your room than out of it. The hostel is effectively one big concrete block, so no heat is trapped in the rooms. Ineffective in summer and too effective in winter, this led us to being freezing at night to the extent of having to wear all our clothes in bed as well as all our duvets. In the worst weeks of January I habitually went to bed with:

5 woolen jumpers/hoodie

1 t-shirt

1 pair wool socks

1 pair leggings

1 set fleecy pajama bottoms

2 duvets

1 blanket

1 set wool gloves

1 scarf

Top that if you can…

You didn’t even want to go and have a shower and get changed at all. The showers were for the most part hot, which was a life saver, but even so, we were quite content to let ourselves get dirtier and greasier lest we should have to strip off a layer. I think Amanda epitomized this. She is unashamed to admit that she hardly changed her clothing at all or washed much at all, save her knickers. Lauren came up with the affectionate nickname of ‘Maevis’ to describe Amanda’s new found love of all things a bit baggy, comfortable, and woolen. There was a period where she was wearing a dusty pink chunky knit cardigan and a little white chunky knit beanie, and I have to say, ‘Maevis’ suited her.

We wondered how the rickshaw drivers coped. A lot of them didn’t even have socks on. They all covered their faces with a scarf to try and keep out the wind. The only other change was that some seemed to have acquired perhaps a wool vest to go over their shirt or perhaps, if lucky, an old moth-eaten jacket. If I, wrapped in as many layers as could fit under my wool jacket (got to love wool) was cold in the rickshaw, what the hell were they feeling? It was like a reversal of the month of August – then I wondered how the rickshaw men coped with the sweltering heat and humidity.

It occurred to me on various occasions that the winter in Delhi, while comparatively unextreme compared to the ones at home, would kill a lot of vulnerable people. There is no flu vaccine. But that is the least of the worries of some poor person who lives on a pavement and who has to gather pieces of plastic to make a fire. Except they might not even have been able to given the fog density. You could hardly see two feet in front of your face. I read on the BBC a feature article about the homeless in Delhi. Apparently some government scheme was trying to move some of them out from under a bridge in an effort to ‘clean up’ the city. The journalist had interviewed one or two of them, and they sounded completely desperate. The government was moving them out and leaving them to find some other bridge to colonise, or else to just get on with a slow, cold and hungry death.

Seeing the little kids in just a shirt, or the rickshaw wallahs in their summer clothes, or the people clustered in a tent around a dung and rubbish fire forced me to consider them so much more than in the heat. At least in the heat they won’t suffer cold and all the ailments it brings. At least then, running around without your sandals on it not a problem, as even the ground is hot. Sleeping outside might even be considered preferable in the summer months. But in the dark, mist and cold, it must have been truly awful to be one of these people. And all we felt we could ‘do’ for anyone was to try and make sure we had biscuits to give the kids and an extra five rupees for the rickshaw wallahs, because Christ knows they deserved it. And perhaps then they could buy some socks. Personally, I would probably have spent it on alcohol.

Slowly but surely...

2010-02-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

Slowly but surely I am catching up with myself.

Iain's trip to India:

1. The guest house we stayed in was down a back street in Karol Bagh. You have little idea how happy I was that I decided we would stay in a five star place for the final two nights just so that we had heating. The floor was cold stone, they over-charged for what you got and the bathroom was shared. Not overly romantic. Not that this was an issue as we were generally so tired after a day full of running about like idiots trying to fit everything in to the tiny amount of time Iain spent here.

2. Had my third (twice was enough) trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort. I am now entirely sure I never need to see Agra again. And yet, I am going to be with Emma. Sigh. Stupid Wonder of the World being beautiful and accessible to me...

We did find a Costa Coffee though in Agra. For all those who would declaim me for being excited about a Costa in India when I should be stopping at a roadside tchai wallah for authenticity's sake, I say this: Agra is a hole. It is a complete state of a city with more rubbish than is usual (and that is saying something for a country with negligible waste disposal at the best of times) and a reputation for giving all who go there some form of food poisoning. So a Costa is a clean oasis in a desert of dust, discarded plastic, and flies. Don't judge me until you go and see for yourself.

Had my first ' you hold my fat baby' photo experience. Most gratifying. I felt more white than I had done in a while.

3. Had a bit of a freak out in Jaipur airport. Thought I might have to go home for a moment or two but I was probably just a bit tired. that's what three a.m starts can do to a girl.

4. Iain and I explored Delhi with the assistance of Lauren and Amanda. It was nice to be able to show Iain all of the little hangouts we have and prove to him that it ain't all bad once you get used to it. He particularly enjoyed Cafe Turtle and a very posh restaurant in South called Bakura. It is in the Maurya Sheratoun and it is incredibly expensive but highly worth it. The best tandoori food you will have in Delhi as far as I can tell so far. Iain even had them pack the lamb we shared and brought it back to the hotel to munch on as a midnight snack while we watched Up together. We also went to Karims: a tiny little conglomeration of kebab shops in Chandni Chowk beside the Jama Masjid. The naan bread there was absolutely divine I have to say. Amanda and I had a lovely almond, date and paneer curry called 'Karim's Special Veg' that was incredibly creamy and very unusual. We were practically scraping the bowl with the naan to try and scoop up the last dribbles of the gravy. I also took him to AIM cafe. After he had left for home, the nice girl (who I recently found out is called Yung) complimented me on his hair and thought it was very sad he wasn't here any more to keep me company. All of my friends in the hostel that got to meet him were incredibly impressed with him as well. Apparently we match one another. How cute. How nauseating.

It was very embarrassing at the airport saying goodbye to him. I was sobbing hysterically and getting a lot of odd looks from the Sikh gentlemen who were exchanging pleasantries beside me. It was such a deflated feeling once I got back into the hostel, but life in the convent goes on.

Iain seemed to cope with the poverty and everything he thought would get to him incredibly well. He even (shock, horror) had a good time. I think he liked the Lotus Temple and the food the most. He is a huge fan of modern architecture, so it isn't too surprising. He left with many presents, wall-hangings and tchai. I am happy he came, and even happier he enjoyed himself seeing as it was so difficult to convince him to come in the first place. He says that he has been inspired to travel more now that he has made the leap, which makes me very glad, as I love to travel and explore new places and revisit old ones. You can't ask for more than that really.

I am a terrible blogger.

2010-02-04T20:11:00.000-08:00

I promised myself I wouldn't end up getting too far behind with this thing. And yet here we are, in February, and I am still on about the pre-Christmas line up. No more!

I was going to talk about Islay, so here are some things I feel are highly evocative of the trip:

powder snow sinking in and dusting over the sand so the beach turned as white as they sky and only the mirroring sea was distinguishable; the tree that looked like a man from a distance; the iron ship hull on kilcomman beach that I hadn't even realised existed because the tide is never that far out; the snow-seagull; parsnip crisp soup and clootie dumpling in Ardbeg; waving to every driver we passed; brakes failing in the snow; shortbread and tablet made by my dad's elderly patient and Gordon's mum; Gavia sprawling over everyone's bed; Robin attacking me and making me fall over and nearly flash everyone; the white dog that looked like a cross between a bear and a powderpuff; an entire smoked salmon; looking over the Loch Indall and seeing Jura's hills covered in pristine white snow.

A weekend of wine, food, whiskey, the sea, the snow and general meandering throughout Port Charlotte. I have decided I will have my 21st there.

Christmas was wonderful. It was a white Christmas I think for the first time in 10 years, if not longer. I was so completely happy that day. I had my pink and blue silk saree on that I wore for Divali and I felt pretty good, even if I did keep standing on my sash. I got many amazing presents, including a brilliant canvas shopper with a foil printed Tunnocks Teacake on the front, thigh high leather boots, a leather jacket and a plastic badge that resembles the posh lady with the purple poodle out of the animated version of 101 Dalmations. Once more, the ladies won outright at Articulate and Iain said some vaguely inappropriate things as is his wont when surrounded by my family. I enjoyed it very much.

Between Christmas and New Year there was a bit of a blur of activity. I got ready to leave and spent time with people as much as possible. Grace left for Ghana. I had my last milk Oolong in Tchai Ovna for the next few months. It snowed some more. My parents and I spent a brilliant afternoon in Mugdock Country Park. The branches had crazy ice formations on them that made them look like the were frosted with sharpened glass.

New Year's Eve was also a success from my point of view. My last night to see my friends for the next five months. It was sad to have to say goodbye again, but not nearly as bad as the first time. I am glad I went home to see them all, even if I was running from one thing to the next and didn't get to spend proper time with anyone. We spent the night dancing to terrible 80s music and eating various muffin concoctions, including a feta and sun dried tomato variety that was surprisingly moreish. I drank the champagne my Great Gran had kept for me, but stopped after the bells so as to be able to drive home the next day. On New Year Day I had to go to jack and Susan's, my grandparents' friends, for a wee bit and pay my respects to the relatives before I was off. I was sad to leave my Great Gran again. I really missed her last semester. The letters she sent me were so uplifting and depressing all at once. It isn't nice to leave the people who are in your life. My little cousin Hannah wore harem pants and an Oriental collar jacket. That night we had a family dinner, watched the last ever Dr Who and cried over David Tennant and the lack of time.

On 2nd January, I made my way once more to the sub-continent. This time, Iain was coming with me.

And I almost didn't make it. At Heathrow I was told I had no ticket, and had to buy a new one. You can imagine the moment of panic, I am sure, upon being told the flight you had booked for two months was in fact not booked in any way, shape or form. Thankfully the ladies at the Air India desk were sympathetic, and I got on the flight nevertheless.

So. That was home. I am glad I went, and upset that I had to leave everything again. The holiday was too short, but I nearly went straight back to the airport when I returned to Delhi, so perhaps if it had been longer I would have refused altogether. The people in this place are what keeps me here. I know I am having a good time. I know I am lucky. I know I am seeing and doing things I would not have the chance to do at home. But in all reality it is my friends, the people I have met here, that I want to stay here for and not just treat it all as some strange extended holiday that I could back out of. I want to be able to stay with them as long as possible. I will see my friends, family and boy again, but I might not see these girls and guys for years, if at all. And that is definitely worth the stress of walking down our road after dark!

Home part 1

2010-01-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

Home Time Part 1: Pre-Islay

When I reached terminal 5 at Heathrow airport, I have to say I instantly felt scruffy. We never look our best after early morning flights, and in a terminal surrounded by chic business commuters and other people who can afford to travel BA, I felt positively tramp-like. So one of the first things I did once back on British soil was, aside the obligatory Sunday Observer, go straight into Accessorize and buy a new pair of tights to replace my worn out jersey churridars. After I had them on I felt infinitely better and cleaner. I wandered terminal five for quite a while. I am resolved to fly BA home in May, as this is just too nice a welcome home to spare for the sake of thirty quid.

When I got back to Glasgow airport, I was incredibly excited. Speaking to my mum and dad and Iain on British telephone lines was exciting enough. When you come down the lifts to the baggage reclaim you can see the arrivals greeters outside. And they were there: the family and Iain, waving crazily. I could hardly stand it and practially ran to get my bag, but sod’s law, they were amongst the last to get off the trolley. Mum told me later that I had been gone so long Iain was anxious and kept saying “Where is she? Where is she? It can’t take this long…maybe she went the wrong way…” When I finally was reunited with them I had to take the executive decision between crying mother and crying boyfriend and went for my mother. She is the person who gave birth to me afterall, and also the person I am most careful not to offend for fear. Being able to see them again was one of the happiest moments I have had in a long long time. Iain was crying. It was incredibly touching. Even Euan looked more than happy to see me. Once I had hugged and kissed everyone we went home to our house and I had my first taste of bagel with melted Red Leicester cheese. Amazing. It was beyond words how wonderful it was to see them all. I was so knackered though I don’t think I was much good at conversation. My mum told me I looked gaunt and that my hair had definitely thinned. Wonderful to hear. Apparently I am a lot thinner than I had realised. Even my pyjamas were a bit baggy, and they are elasticated.

The next day, irony of all ironies, I spent running to the loo. I got food poisoning in Terminal five from Wagamammas. Goddamn noodle soup… this was made worse by the fact that I had to do a grand tour and visit all of my relatives. By the time I was coming home from Gran and Grandpa’s I thought I wasn’t going to make the twenty minute journey back. I almost didn’t.

Seeing everyone again was amazing. I gave out everyone’s gifts and so on and they were all happy. Old Gran was especially pleased to see me I think. We are going for lunch with her on Wednesday, and I cant wait. Grandpa was hilariously trying hard not to tell me that I was as brown as a (insert racist term here).

At first it was a bit annoying. Everyone had school and work and all my friends were sitting exams in Edinburgh. So I was kicking about the house a bit. It was amazing to see Susan again. Her mother died right before I came home, so I was feeling particularly glad to see her and finally give her a cuddle. But I had arranged with my mum to go for lunch with Old Gran on Wednesday. When it came, we took her into the town and to Fifi and Ally for champagne high tea. They have beautiful presentation: a lovely white vintage tea tray thing with berries and cream arranged around it, not that it wasn’t appetizing enough already. She hadn’t been in the town for about fifteen years she said. It was a great day to be in. The sky was clear, the Christmas lights were all up on Buchanan Street and everything was looking festive and clean for once. I have to say, picking this time of year to come back to Scotland was a brilliant idea. She was a bit overwhelmed by it all, but we got her back in one piece.

That evening I went through to Edinburgh to see all of my friends and spend some time with Iain. They were all in the flat to greet me, and it felt lovely to see them all again together. Frances had come all the way from Italy. She is a doll and I was so happy to see her. I was surprised to learn that this was the first time in quite a while any of them had been round at the flat. But more on that one later. Kapil even made a curry in the spirit of the occasion.
The next day Iain had to go do some work for his courses (more on that one later as well) so I went out to meet Robin for coffee in the morning. It was lovely to see him again and catch up. Seems he is becoming quite the armed forces party boy. After meeting Robin I went to the library and saw my boo and Rachel again for a little while, before repairing to Emma’s for Christmas market time.

Every year in Edinburgh there is a German Christmas market at the National Galleries on Princes Street. And every year, there is mulled wine and a man who happily gives stolen (German Christmas cake) away for free. I bought some to bring back to India with me and make everyone in the hostel try. It is one of the most amazing things in the world. o fruity and heavy and yum. We bought some mulled wine spices as well to make later on. Cannot wait. Ran from the Christmas Market to Starbucks to meet Iain Alex. I hadn’t seen him either and so was overjoyed to see him. Gave him his Om UV t-shirt. I hope he actually wears the damned thing seeing as it took a total of four flights to get it to him. Time was cut short however as had to go to see Peter Pan with Frances at the Lyceum (you can pack a LOT in a day if you just try). About twenty minutes in, Frances leaned over and asked me what a pantomime is. I could hardly believe it. I hate panto, but I had gone with her as she had been so insistent and she had come all the way from Italy for it after all. This was a classy panto as well, with proper wires for people to fly, no has-been comedians and no ‘Buttons’ or ‘Widow Twanky’ characters. But she didn’t like it. I think she was too hyped up for the real play of Peter Pan, not something where everyone sounds like they are from Leith and small children yell out at random points and the story line is effectively brutalized. I enjoyed her reaction more than the production.

After the panto, (gosh wasn’t I festive?) I went back to Emma’s to have mulled wine. Iain Alex joined us and we watched Dil Bole Hadippa! A wonderful film that is effectively the Indian version of She’s The Man. I have converted them to Bollywood. Now I will have support when Kapil goes on one of his rants about Bollywood.

The next morning I got up super early and Frances and I went back to Glasgow to meet my mother for lunch. We went to Rogano and sat in the bar, had champagne cocktails and amazing fish soup with rouille and croutons. The coffee with tablet there is one of the things I look forward to most about being back home with the rents. The family were really pleased to see Frances again as well, as they think she is the bee’s knees. She brought various exciting chocolate products as well from `Italy, so she couldn’t have gone wrong. Mum made a huge dinner of beef Wellington as well, the right way this time thankfully. My stomach decided to revolt on that one the next morning as well, but it was well worth the half hour I had to spend on the loo. I find it so ironic that being at home made me sick twice in one week – far more frequent than in Delhi.

The next day Frances and I spent in Glasgow looking for snow boots and going to see Where The Wild things are. I enjoyed the soundtrack and James Gandolfini as the voice of Carol. I didn’t really get the inane squee that many other people seem to have gotten though, as I had never read the book as a kid so I don’t think I was in the right frame of mind. But oh well. I still enjoyed it, just not as much as Frances. Afterwards we went back through to Edinburgh. She left for Italy the next morning. I was sad to see her go, but not as horrifically upset as last time. Saying goodbye to folks does get easier as it goes along.

I came back to Glasgow on Monday. For the next five days I stayed in Glasgow. I saw Grace again for the first time in a long while. We drank obscene amounts of tea. Tea is becoming a definite feature of the different stages of my day. Went round to Susan’s for dinner as well and had pasta for the first time since late October or something. Most exciting. I met my Grandmother and we went shopping together as we always do in the week before Christmas and got an ace leather jacket from topshop. Once again, I began to feel slightly bored…I was left at home with not much to do. But I managed to fill my time in somehow.

The next installment is: Islay. Where the whiskey comes from.

2010-01-14T22:17:00.001-08:00

Installment 1: Goa

Lauren and I went to Goa together for five days at the end of semester. We stayed in a beach shack guesthouse called Hotel Paradise at Anjuna beach, of 1970s and 80s acid parties fame. Goa is a beautiful place. The coastline is fairly unspoilt, bar a few petrochemical plants (just swim up stream!) and the towns are few and far between. There are not too many cars, as most people prefer mopeds to negotiate the windy, single-track roads and byways. Unlike most of India, the Catholic presence in Goa is far more evident: in the little immaculate white churches, in the roadside shrines covered, ironically, in marigold garlands, in the terraced town houses. All the people we met from Goa itself were good natured, happy, and anxious that we should see Goa as the tropical paradise it really was. There are a lot of white people living in Goa. Possibly they are relics from the acid days, and you can tell just from speaking to some of them, that this is not a prejudiced assumption. Instead of detailing each day, I will try to summarise the things that stuck out most in my mind about the trip:

1. The sea food. I know I think about food a lot. It is generally one of the things on my mind at nearly all hours of the day. And, having lived on pretty much vegetable soup, radish and lauki salad and porridge for a month beforehand (so depressing), the sea food in Goa was an incredible prospect. On our second night we had a whole lobster each, cooked to perfection in garlic butter, for under ten pounds. I had tiger prawns and calamari, all fresh from the sea that day, all cooked to perfection. Anjuna beach is typically very busy with tourists in the high season, but in early December it is perfect. There aren’t too many tourists, and so there is more availability of fish, and the prices are lower. I don’t think I had eaten so well in the four months I had been here. Not only that, fresh fruit juice was everywhere, there were ladies selling coconuts on the beach for 15-20 Rs a pop, and loads of stuff was vegan/vegetarian and, above all, fresh. That one week restored my faith in food.

2. The drug casualties. There were groups of middle-aged to aging men and women on the beach, all looking a bit too brown for their own good. They all wore ridiculous clothes. One man I saw in a red cloth thong (I was later horrified to find out he came from Scotland). Women tended to wear incredibly tight mini dresses and biker boots. There were a lot of biker boots. And everyone had that ‘rave’ style clothing: halfway between hippy and acid house, with long elfin hoods and zigzag hemlines. One older man came up to us on the beach and just stared at Lauren as if she was an alien and then yelled “Oh my GOD! You are SO WHITE!!” He then proceeded to tell us about his history book that would help rewrite a lot of modern history and solve various conspiracy theories. He even invited us back to his beach shack. We ran away to the other end of the beach to avoid him. Another man, a little younger and a lot sleazier, asked me if I knew what exactly I was taking a photograph of (a palm tree filled beach scene to make everyone at home incredibly jealous, or so I thought). I said no, I had no idea it was famous for anything in particular. He told me that I was taking photographs of one of the most famous party places in the world, and that once he had known several thousand people to party there at once. “Even Dr Hoffman attended,” he said sagely, expecting me to be impressed with these higher echelons of partying. He was less smug when I told him I had no idea who Dr Hoffman was. I hope it made him feel old. Or at least, too old to be hitting on me. On a different occasion, Lauren and I saw an old woman wandering the beach in purple tie-dye spandex looking a bit too dazed and confused. She was a sorry sight. A lot of people obviously just stayed in Anjuna. And why not? It is beautiful and has so much of what they love. Every single beach bar plays awful trance every day, all day, in homage to the Glory Days.

3. The beaches. They were beautiful. Everything the Bounty advert had promised came true. They were smooth, palm tree-lined stretches of golden sand. The water was warm enough to go in without flinching. The heat of the day meant you had to get in to swim just to cool off. There were hardly any rocks, and hardly any seaweed. All you had to watch out for were lots of little hermit crabs that were washed up in the surf. Every beach had its quotient of beach shack restro-bars, all playing either trance or Bob Marley. The latter was generally preferable. Each restro-bar had its own sun loungers, so you could sit and order from the comfort of your lounger and someone could watch your stuff when you went in swimming. Patrolling the beach are men and women, all selling something or other. Many of the women are carrying great baskets on their heads with pineapples and coconuts inside. They give you the coconut with the top hacked off so that you can drink the water, and then they will hack it up again so that you can eat the cream inside. Other women are carrying huge bags of jewelry hidden within the folds of their saree. We eventually caved into these and bought one anklet each off two different women, to try and be fair. The women would approach you and introduce themselves and then tell me that my friend was “White like chicken!” or “White like milk!” (sense a theme?). They would warn me in strong tones: “You are sister? No sister…well…your friend, she is so white, like milk. You must keep her out of sun. Very dangerous for her. You must do this.” A few of them were incredibly wily and funny women. One sticks out in my mind called Tanya, who sat and talked with us for about half an hour on everything and anything and somehow managed to steer the conversation to her anklets every thirty seconds and then would giggle when we tried to avoid the question. The men wandering about gave massages. I have to say, some were a bit too enthusiastic to give massages to us, but some were just plying a trade. I witnessed one incredibly fat and hairy man covered in gold jewelry and a huge moustache in just his underwear getting rubbed down by some poor little old man. It was more than slightly horrifying.

4. I had my first Ayurvedic massage. Not by a wee man on the beach, but in a salon called the Orange Salon in the Villa Anjuna hotel. It was very nice and relaxing, though the woman laughed at me for asking if I should take my bikini top off or not. It was also a bit more than awkward when, once finished, they sat us both in a steam room together to drip for a while and then led us to a shower together too. When we got in the steam room, it was incredibly awkward and we just had to laugh to keep from imploding with the ridiculousness of it all. I had never envisaged that Lauren and I’s friendship would take such a personal turn. Apparently this always happens to her, a naked embarrassing moment, and I should have known better. Ah well. Nothing I haven’t seen before.

By the time we left Goa, there was a noticeable increase in the amount of Brits on Tour. I think I wouldn’t have liked it so much if it had been too busy. On the Wednesday it was the flea market in Anjuna. People from all over the state come for it, and it is a major tourist attraction. Stalls selling spices, teas, cheap rave clothes, designer leather goods, and every kind of jewelry you could think of, all shouted for attention. It was quite overwhelming. I got Iain a silver cuff for his Christmas, but we eventually had to leave and go get in the water just so that we could escape the bustle. The other issue we had was that there was no street lighting or beach lighting in Anjuna. To get to a beach bar for dinner, one would have to walk across a good stretch of unlit beach: not something recommended for young women. If only there had been some more lighting, I am sure our stay would have been perfect. We were knackered by the time we left. We hadn’t had much sleep, not due to partying, but due to the beach shack we stayed in. it had a thatched roof. You could hear every little shuffle of tiny feet in the night. It might have been geckos. It might have been mice, Worse, it might have been rats, cockroaches, or snakes. We didn’t know. All we knew was that occasionally there would be a scuttling sound right above our heads, or in the bathroom, that would freak us right out and make it impossible to sleep for fear that as soon as you closed your eyes a snake would drop onto your face and a rat would munch on your toes. I was sad to leave Goa. It was a tropical paradise. You could see why it is becoming an incredibly popular place for tour packages. The perfect dose of winter sun, cheap and good food and parties.

I think if I went back though it would be about the same time. It was the relaxation post-exams that I needed before heading home for Christmas. I was completely ready to go home. I have been looking forward to it for weeks and weeks. It is not that I don’t like it here. I do. I was just ready to go home. To see the family. See Iain. My friends. Glasgow in December rain. The German Christmas Market. Things you don’t think you will miss, like cheese. (Real cheese is non-vegetarian, and paneer doesn’t count as real cheese.) Home time will be my next installment.

BACK BACK BACK

2010-01-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

Well, apologies are necessary I guess. I completely ignored this thing throughout my Christmas holiday, despite having some interesting experiences that I am fairly sure I could share and no one would be too bored by it. So in the coming days, I will devote one blog entry per Awesome Moment and we will see if that does the elapsed time some justice.

23rd November

2009-11-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2009-11-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-15T01:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-15T01:17:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-08T21:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

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.

18th October - 27th October

2009-10-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

There is little point trying to track the past week and a half, so I will just summarise right now and get us all up to speed before I leave for Pushkar.

1. 5 Muslim widows were beaten and stripped in a village in the North for being labeled witches. The village had women with supposed spiritual powers to find witches and named these widows as some. What makes this incident different though is that someone managed to catch it on camera. The BBC had thirty seconds of the footage on their website; it was quite shocking actually. Widows are generally targeted in Indian society with discrimination, but little is done about it. This video has cause outrage however, as no one can ignore it when it is all over the internet. It is strange that these sort of things happen still…the whole village turned out to see these women be ridiculed and abused, and did nothing to stop it. they didn’t all actively participate, but they at least obviously accepted it.

2. The weekend was a bad weekend for me and men. Apart from Saturday morning, when I got to speak to Iain on skype for the first time in a while (which was brilliant), the male sex did not show themselves particularly well. Firstly, on our way to AIM, Amanda and I saw yet another (or maybe the same) wanking man at the bus stop near our hostel. Just lying in the middle of the pavement. We could have screamed; we were so angry and frustrated. That bus stop isn’t quiet – little children use it to get to and from school! Any one could have seen him! I mean, if you are going to do it then for fuck’s sake go down a back alley or something! It ain’t like we have a shortage of them! Or at least, somewhere other than at the freaking bus stop! So angering. In the evening we went out to Brunelle’s for a drink as it was her birthday a few days ago. She has a friend called Samuel who seemed to have interesting ideas about me, and Guillame told him that I had a boyfriend. However, later in the night once we had returned from our dub-step night (more on which later), he was sitting with me outside and then asked me what my views on commitment were! I told him that if you were committed to someone, then that was it. He asked how that could make you happy and I said that if you love someone and they make you happy then there is no issue as far as I can see. He was a persistent little one. Telling me about how long it was since I had seen my boyfriend…urgh…the French…why must they be sleazy! Worse than Frenchie though was the men at the Dub night. The music was surprisingly good for a Dub step night in Delhi, but the club was terrible. Full of men who spent the night groping us. Horrible! I have never had so many gropes/attempts upon me made in the space of two hours in all my days. The men at Urban Pind at least have the decency to ask your permission to dance with you. These men just decided to take their chances and cheap thrills. It was so nasty, and some of them were quite violent about it. Not impressed. You can imagine my mood when I had had to deal with all this and then came back to have amorous French man try it on. It was all topped off on Sunday when I had a bag full of peanuts lobbed at me by two guys on a motorbike. It hurt like hell. Turns out nuts are quite good ballast.

Bastards the lot of them.

3. I got an A in two of the three essays I have handed in! I am so happy about it.

4. I am off to Pushkar on Thursday! There is a camel fair in which loads of camel traders come together and try to sell their camels. First though they dress them up in pompoms and ribbons and race them. What more can you want from a festival? It is a return to Rajasthan as well, so I will hopefully be able to acquire many more shiny things…will be good!

5. It has finally dropped below thirty degrees. I am shocked. At night I need a sweater. I think I may actually have caught a cold from shock. It isn’t good for my diet though, as now everything isn’t a massive effort due to the heat so I will have stop eating so much ice cream…not good!

Episode Five - the best one really...

2009-10-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

SO here I am at the end of the saga. It was spent lazing around Delhi, and few notable things happened. Except for one particularly traumatic experience. I was picking up a saree blouse I was getting made at a tailors in Connaught Place and they asked me to try it on to make sure it was ok. So I went upstairs to the changing room, and, knowing that it could be one of those situations I might come to regret, I looked all over for spy holes. I couldn’t see any, so I took off my t-shirt to try the blouse on, and just as I took it off I happened to glance upwards. What I had thought was a fan grate was in fact not really, and there was a man staring down at me! I was completely shocked and yelled ‘Fuck Off!’ but he kept looking while I put my top back on as quick as I could and came out the changing room and started to yell. How dare they! And then they had the tenacity to deny it had ever happened! Telling me it couldn’t be true and that I needed to calm down! Twats. I just couldn’t believe somewhere on Connaught Place would allow that sort of thing. My mum was really angry as well. I yelled for a bout five mintues then went outside and began to cry. Some men came up to me to see if I was ok and told me to go tell the police. Their concern restored my faith a little bit, but there is no point going to the police because it’ll just be a big palaver and even then a shop full of men and one white girl kicking up a fuss: who they going to listen to? I was so angry. Absolutely furious. Mum and I got an auto back. The man who got it for us told me not to cry. I like how people use ‘baby’, or ‘sister’ or ‘didi’ here as terms of address. I was furious for a good hour afterwards. Told Amanda and she shared my fury, which helped. Me and mum had a green tea body wrap booked in as well, and I think that helped calm me down. They sit you in a steam room and cook you for ten minutes. I had to sit with my eyes closed breathing through my nose or else I thought I would choke. And then they cover you in green tea mud, and then wrap you in a sort of electric blanket, and cook you some more. They also give you a head massage. All most relaxing. The icing on the cake was the cup of green tea they gave you afterwards. My skin felt like a baby’s as well. It was great. It was very annoying, when we went out later that night for dinner, I couldn’t help but feel scared of the fan grills in the ladies’ loos. That night Amanda and the Dutch and Egle joined us for some drinks in the hotel. My parents approved of them I think – none of them are particularly insane, and all much older than me, so better at holding themselves well in conversations with new people.
Today, the last day, is Diwali. We got up late and went to the Lodii Gardens for a wander. There were only a few families out having picnics…I thought there would be more, but I guess it would be kind of like going out on Christmas Day for a picnic. Mum and Dad much preferred this bit of Delhi. It is hard to believe it exists really when compared to everything around it. Euan got hungry as well, so we went along to the American diner and he had half a fried chicken and cheesecake. So at least he had one definitely good meal. We just went back to the hotel and swam a lot afterwards and then got ready to go to the Imperial hotel. The Imperial is an old hotel from colonial era, and has been recently renovated. It is beautiful. I would love to spend the night there: so luxurious and opulent! It was covered in white fairy lights as well, which made it even more beautiful and extravagant feeling. I had on my new saree, which makes me feel like a princess. It is pink and blue silk with golden highlights throughout the fabric. I had it on myself, but the lady in the Lalit loos showed me a different, and better, way of doing it that stopped it falling down all night. I was most grateful: I like how older Indian women just commandeer you if you are in a saree and treat you like their daughter for ten minutes while they fuss over you. It is very maternal and a good feeling. I got compliments on my saree all night actually, including from the restaurant manager in the Imperial, which made me very happy, as I felt great so it was nice to know I didn’t look half bad too. It is definitely getting an airing when I get home!
Sunday: the rents went home. I got up for a last swim and then we just sat and chatted. It seems that India has made an impression. Mum wants to come back and go to the North East and to the South. I think Dad wants to come back too, but I am unsure about Euan! They said that they agree with me when I say that this place makes a mark on you – you can’t help but feel differently having been here. Even if it just makes you think twice before throwing away a plastic bottle that can be used for water again because you have realised where the rubbish will end up, it does make a distinct impression.
I can’t quite believe that the rents have left actually. When they went on Sunday morning, I was nearly in tears and mum was crying again. It wasn’t very nice. But I have had such an awesome time with them. It was so god to just get out of Delhi finally and see a bit more of the country and have a deserved holiday. I am also glad they came out here and saw where I am for themselves, as there really is nothing I can say that can ever fully communicate what it is to be in this country. It felt very weird not to be leaving to go home with them though, just like any other family holiday. I am finding it hard now to get back into the daily grind, especially as it is still holiday mode for a few people, and so many of my classes have been cancelled in favour of celebrations for various diwali-related things. It has made me miss home as well. I have been here almost three months now – it is a long time to go without the familiar. So to have the family here was…weird, and brilliant and also sad, as I had to remain and they went back home. I guess the fact that I have the hostel and so many friends there is very lucky. Though I will miss the Lalit beds…

The Saga Continues....Episode Four

2009-10-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

Got up at half past five to fine dead black beetles all over. They make a satisfying crunch noise when you stand on them though, so I don’t really mind. Had a cup of tea and a banana in preparation for our tiger-finding mission. Our guide seems very nice, with purpley hennaed hair. As we went out into the forest, I felt infinitely better. There is dew on the grass, mist (not smog) hanging in the dawn air and there is so much foliage. Everything is incredibly green. There are hardly any flowers even – it is all just greenery. As we traveled through the forest we passed through greenery into open spaces with dark, low trees in golden grass, all of which could have been hiding a tiger and I would never have known at all. You can hardly see ten feet never mind an animal that is adept at hiding itself. It was hardly as if we were stealthy anyways: we were in a large jeep making tones of noise. We did see a lot of black-faced monkeys, tiny, fluffy spotted deer and these huge deer quite like red deer at home. There were loads of birds as well, the most exciting of which was the kingfisher, which was an incredible blue colour. There were partridge as well, which reminded me of the painting we have in our hallway back home of the bird on the old wooden wheel. I think it is a partridge…Unfortunately, in all our excursions into the jungle, we saw no tigers. We heard one eating it’s lunch, we had one fifty feet from us having a nap, and we saw one’s fresh tracks in the road going to opposite direction from us. Our driver on the last day, Shakeil, was completely insane and tried his level best to find us a tiger, which meant driving like a complete maniac over rubble and dirt tracks as if they were the smoothest racecourse in the world. I think I damaged my lower back quite a lot at some junctures as we slipped and bounced over rocks at a vast rate of knots down a mountain side. He was ‘a character’. And yet, despite all the excitement, no dice. I didn’t really care – I hadn’t expected to see one, though it would have been brilliant if we had. It was good enough just to be able to get out and go for these drives through the forest and breath in the fresh air and feel the cold of the morning and the wind. A complete escape from the city. I can see why the Gurgaon couple take their chance and come here as often as they can. I would too if I had the money. All the waiters in the resort want me to come back anyways. They found out I could speak a little Hindi and that I study at DU and now I am a local interest. Every one of them when I was alone would open with ‘So you are the girl at DU yes? You speak Hindi?’ It was quite sweet. One took it upon himself to try and teach me a little more conversation, but I failed miserably, as per. It took me a good thirty seconds or so to actually work out what he was saying, and then another thirty seconds to reply, generally with bad grammar. Even the safari guides and drivers got wind of it. one of Shakeil’s opening statements was, ‘So you are in DU…’ and my dad started to laugh. He thought it was hilarious that I had become so popular so fast. I have made a few informal promises to go back one day with my friends, but I somehow doubt that I can seeing as it was a four star hotel and I don’t have that kind of money really. I was disappointed not to see Ranthambore fort though, so maybe I will come back for that. There were troops of pilgrims going up to the temple inside the fort to Lord Ganesha. We found it slightly strange that they happily travel, sometimes in the dark and on foot, through tiger country to get to the temple. That’s devotion for you.

We left the countryside to go to the capital of Rajasthan: Jaipur. Jaipur is the ‘pink city’ that has the Amber Fort. It was painted pink for the visit of some British royal, and has just stayed that way ever since. I would like to see Jodhpur as well: the ‘blue city’. That is one thing about Rajasthan – everything is colourful. Before we left Ranthmabore we visited a craft house where they were making beaded wall hangings like my yellow one back at the hostel. They are so colourful and strangely intricate and all over the place. We also saw a camel dressed in purple and green ribbons and pompoms. Most cool. Jaipur appears to be a concentration of all these crafts. The city is heavily reliant on tourism I think, as it was a very commercial city, with a lot of beaded textiles, umbrellas, gems and carpets for sale all over the place. We were staying in yet another lovely Hilton hotel, right on the artificial lake. The lake was made to showcase a particular maharajah’s water palace, which is now being made into a restaurant. The food here is superior to Agra though, or perhaps I am just more well-disposed. We are only in Jaipur for 36 hours before we catch a flight to Delhi on the Friday morning. As such, we rushed around from half eight in the morning to half five at night with hardly a breath to spare. First we went to the Amber Fort. It is absolutely massive and painted a kind of butter yellow. The current maharajah still lives in the most modern portion of the fort. Not bad for a defunct monarchy. They are incredibly rich though, as they own a lot of the land around Jaipur and have lots of gem mines. They also command a lot of the proceedings of tourist trade, seeing as they still own the fort and the city palace for themselves. We took an elephant ride up to the fort, which was absolutely amazing. I had so much fun up there. It was a wee bit bumpy and we kept getting sprayed with water from the elephant. The equivalent of an elephant sneezing on you really. Boys ran beside us trying to sell us mock turbans and photos of us on the elephant. One told me I looked like a Bollywood star, which was quite sweet. I was slightly disconcerted though when our elephant driver made like he wouldn’t let us off the elephant if we didn’t give him two hundred rupees tip. Slightly difficult when your parents have all the money and they are on a different elephant at some distance from your own. Also, some of the drivers had metal spikes to drive the elephants with that they had dug into them behind their ears to hide the cuts. I didn’t like that very much at all, and was more than a little disturbed. It reminded me of the horses we saw in Agra: one with a chunk of its flesh hanging off it with barely a scrap of muscle keeping it hanging limply on, and another dead under the rickshaw cart it must have been pulling.

We wandered around the Fort, and I have to say you can see how rich the royals are in Jaipur by the way they preserve their monuments. The Fort and the City Palace both had beautiful mirror work everywhere and 24 carat gold flake ceilings and so on. There were golden paintings as well, and we were shown into a painting workshop where, of course, we had a demonstration that happened to include showing all produce for sale. They were very good artists though, so dad bought a wee painting of some elephants. Went to a vegetable print factory and carpet makers as well. I have realised that if you book a driver they will inevitably take you to as many as these ‘craft demonstrations’ as possible. I imagine they get one heck of a commission if the tourists they lead along buy something. We ended up buying silk pyjamas for ma and pa, and a purple print dress for me, all made to measure. My dress is for someone with a far larger chest than I, however, so I will need to get it altered. We also bought three rugs of pashmina and silk. They are beautiful and a good two grand or so cheaper than they would be in the UK, so a good investment, they are being shipped though, so we will find out in two weeks or so if we have been conned. One of the highlights of the day though was the observatory. It was a kind of park with huge astronomical instruments in it for making all kinds of measurements, from the time to the position of the zodiac. It was a very European looking park actually, in its own way. It was nice to wander around and sit in. Our guide was very informative about it all, but I have forgotten quite a lot of it unfortunately. The instruments were deadly accurate though, despite their age. After the observatory, dad and Euan went back to the hotel. Euan is still feeling a little bit delicate unfortunately. So mum and I hit the shops of course. This city is famed for its attraction for women who like to shop. We went to Bapu Bazaar, an excellent clothing bazaar that had loads of the Rajasthani traditional skirt and blouse outfit, all covered in mirrors and beads. I ended up getting one in blue and pink, with beads, sequins, shells and mirrors all over it. It is totally mad, and I look like I have dressed up for a party in the whole shebang, but in stages I think it’ll be really cool. Hopefully… Also got some silver antique earrings and mum got a silver bracelet. So a good day had by all in the spending stakes. Euan even felt well enough to eat dinner. So we are all returning to rude health. I would have liked to spend longer in this city. It reminds me of the interesting parts of Delhi except with wider streets. The streets are all decorated at the moment as well with purple and red cloth hung over the street lamps and there were fairy lights. Alongside all the stalls selling flower garlands and fireworks and the pink painted buildings, it was a very colourful and welcoming looking city. Tomorrow we must get up early once more for our flight to Delhi. I am glad of the flight – it means we don’t have to spend 6 hours on a train and instead more time in the Lalit’s pool!

The Familial Saga Cont'd, Part 3

2009-10-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today was my first, and possibly only, experience of first class train travel in India. I was slightly amused to see that the ratio of white people to Indian was greatly increased here. I have to say, it was quite pleasant traveling first class. You get a lot of space, meals, tchai (though they don’t make it for you, like they do in second general class), a newspaper, and a rose (a welcome but slightly useless addition). The rose made me think of TB and the plague. Possibly we are meant to smell it on the station platform to protect our upper-class noses. There was a mahaaraani on the train as well. She was very glamorous and had booked two seats together so that no one could go near her. I think this may be my only brush with royalty ever.
Once at Agra a new driver met us at the train station. I am actually quite glad of this driver, as Agra is a hole, and so being able to get through it form the comfort of a curtained minibus is highly preferable to the alternative of being exposed to Agra city in an Auto. As before, there really is no way to describe the horrifying prospect that is Agra. I just don’t understand why that city, the home of the Taj Mahal of all places, had become such a dump. And coming from Delhi, I know what a dump is. Agra is like the worse parts of Delhi rolled in to a city. Our hotel however, was a beautiful paradoresque Hilton that sat just outside the main city of Agra. It was like an oasis of calm greenery amongst all the dust and rubbish. I couldn’t quite believe somewhere like that could exist in Agra when I saw it on the net beforehand. We dumped our stuff and went into the pool. I am getting used to this pool malarkey. Mum is feeling a bit delicate again. Not so good.
This afternoon we went with our very helpful guide Amu to the Taj Mahal. The family were all blown away, as you must be when you first see it, but I didn’t have the same sense of awe I felt the first time. I think because the sun wasn’t great for some reason that afternoon, so the marble wasn’t shining as brightly as it could, and also the huge amount of tourists. When we went up inside the structure there was such a crush of people and the queue went on for absolutely ages, right down the steps to the point where you take your shoes off. Euan was feeling a bit funky as well, which didn’t really help proceedings. After the Taj we went to Agra fort, which was more interesting than expected. It was beautiful inside, with mirrored rooms and gold plating all over the place. There were fountains everywhere, no longer running unfortunately, but they once ran with rose water apparently. We wandered through Agra fort (which is lived in by monkeys it seems) for an hour or two until Euan began to complain of cramp. On the way back we stopped off at a marble workshop where they still make marble in the style of the Taj Mahal. There was a huge showroom downstairs that had all these beautiful tables and vases and things in the marble. One table had blue semiprecious stones arranged into intricate rose patterning. I would have loved to have had it. Unfortunately, the price tag was a bit above our range, so we bought two coasters: one with an elephant and one with a parrot.
Had food in the hotel. My first steak in three months. It was quite exciting, but I don’t think it was cow…probably buffalo. A new meat to add to my list of ‘Foods I have Eaten’. We are only here for tonight, which is completely fine by me. There really is no more to do in Agra than the Taj and the Fort. I am glad I got to see the fort this time, as last time we just left straight after seeing the Taj. I can now safely not come anywhere near Agra…until Iain comes here...
This morning Euan is most definitely out of it. He spent last night being quite sick, which is not so good. So we are no longer going to Fatipur Sikri. It is an abandoned city outside of Agra that was built by Akbar and then abandoned, probably due to lack of water. I would like to have seen it. We passed by it, and it is absolutely massive: a perfectly preserved and unused city in the middle of nowhere. Very weird. We needed to travel for some time before reaching the station at which we get the train into Ranthambore in Rajasthan. I can’t wait to get out into the country side proper. The roads here are so dreadful it took us about 2 hours to go 60 km. You keep getting stuck behind trucks, or camels, or buffalo. We passed through some pretty villages though, and took some interesting photographs. On the train, we were in 3rd class A/C I think. It was like second general class, but with air con and a bit more space. I am quite glad mum and dad get a small experience of what the trains are really like here for the most part. The journey is like 3 hours. So we will get into Ranthambore in time for tea. Euan is still sick, but mum has recovered. Going vaguely well. The train passed through a lot of desert land or just scrub. It is so completely unpopulated and untouched. So strange in comparison to the crush of the cities. Ranthambore station is like something out of a novel. There were wild boar kicking around, cows, women and naked babies cooking their tea on the platform, holy men in bright orange bands and not much else. It was completely hectic. We drove out of the main town and out into more scrub land. There are hills here as well, which is also very strange coming from somewhere so stubbornly flat as Delhi. Our hotel is called the Tiger Den Resort. It is lots of little cottage type things grouped together. It is really nice actually, and has a pool and then a buffet style canteen where you can also sit out and have drinks if you like. It is quite hot though; so sitting outside is a bit uncomfortable. Decided to test this pool immediately and it proved to be excellent. I am trying to take advantage of the swimming as much as I can, as I won’t get another chance I fear until December when I come home. After the swim we had a bit of food. Euan has recovered enough to eat plain chapatti, which is better than nothing. After dinner we were sitting out and got talking to this older Indian couple. The lady turned out to be a lecturer in DU in English Lit at south campus! Small world. They live in Gurgaon, so they are evidently minted. Their talk showed it – all about golf, their ‘little place in the himalayas’ and how they came to Ranthambore in order to escape the city on occasion, like it was a completely regular and unremarkable thing. They were very nice however, but my dad resented them not offering him some of the massive bottle of Johnny Walker they were taking drams from. There were all these little black beetles everywhere, which apparently come in with the harvest and then die. We happen to have come within their ten-day life time, and so we were covered in them by the time we went in to sleep. It is nice to be in the fresh air and away from the dust. Makes you realise how bad Delhi is for my lungs.

Installment Part 2

2009-10-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Woke up obscenely early with Amanda and went to the Lalit for a morning swim before breakfast. I have got all my clothes and things together that I need, so I am waving farewell to the hostel for the next week or so. It feels good to be finally leaving for a holiday. I have worked my ass off for the past few weeks and I deserve this break. Hopefully everyone is feeling a bit better than they did last night.
We got to the hotel and met my dad and went swimming. They don’t seem to care that Amanda is not in fact a guest. Swam for ages. It was great. The water is just amazing after so much grime. We even got our legs out and sunbathed for a wee while with no one staring or even in our vicinity. Loved it. Then had a (hot!) shower and went to breakfast. Breakfast here is far superior to lunch, and I feel thoroughly dairied out. Tried to get masala tchai for mum but it failed miserably. Evidently only plebs drink masala tchai. This hotel is lovely, I will forgive them their lack of tchai. Euan has already made friends with a chef.
Spent the morning at the Lotus temple. The Temple is a Baha’I sect temple, which originated in Iran I think and was heavily persecuted. It seems to support all religions really, and uses an amalgam of their teachings to inform its own. The temple looks like a giant white marble lotus flower – it is really a beautiful piece of engineering. It is surrounded by pools and gardens as well. Inside, it is incredibly echoey and spacious. There is a service held every five minutes it seems for the benefit of tourists more than actual worshippers that covers all the major religions. There are marble benches inside for you to sit on. I was annoyed that I couldn’t just wander around inside, you have to sit and pay attention to the service instead. After the temple we went to Khan Market for lunch at Café Turtle, which my father highly approved of and Euan was able to eat pasta at. My mum seems a lot better as well, so I am happy. After Khan Market we continued our journey into the rich south and went to City Walk mall in Saket. It is just like a very upmarket and clean Braehead. Wandered the shops and mum got a lovely dupatta from FabIndia. Amanda and I found a travel agents as well and bought out tickets to Goa. So excited. My dreams of lying on a beach with a pineapple replete with cocktail umbrella are drawing ever closer. I think today was a far better success than yesterday. We went for dinner in a revolving restaurant round the corner from the hotel and Euan was once more able to eat – meaning he was happy and didn’t moan as much. The restaurant has a motorized floor, so you get a brilliant view of central Delhi, especially of Connaught Place, which looks almost negotiable from up here. All my good work will be undone tomorrow in Chandni Chowk maybe, but I hope I have shown that Delhi has a lot to offer whatever your tastes.
Discovered a new cocktail: Berry Spicy. Sloe infused gin with ginger and strawberries. Most tasty.
So Old Delhi is the order of Saturday. We took the metro to Chandni Chowk despite dad’s many protests over taking a taxi instead. Once he got out the metro though, he understood why. The streets here are always packed with cars, rickshaws and people and are narrow to boot. A taxi ride here would be a pointless exercise in staying still. We took a manual rickshaw up to Red Fort. A twenty rupee ride that quickly became 50 rupees as soon as we turned up. Not in the mood to argue though, as I think the ride will be traumatic enough for the family. I have never been to Red Fort (I am such a bad Delhiite), and so I was really interested to see what it was like. It is absolutely huge, all of red sandstone and quite similar architecture to the Jama Masjid. When you go in there are loads of little shops lining the corridors selling glittery jewelry and other tourist trap souvenirs. I find it strange that there are shops in the monument, but apparently a lot of the army still use the buildings in here, so I suppose it is more of a working place rather than just an attraction. We wandered around the gardens and different buildings for a while, a lot of which were decorated white marble like the Taj Mahal. Amanda joined us as well, which was nice. We are swimming later once more…it is too good to not take the chance. Family complained about how hot it was and I found it quite funny, as this is very pleasant weather and not too hot at all in comparison to what it has been. I can walk around with my hair down for god’s sake. Took another, slightly pointless, rickshaw ride across the road to the entrance path of the Jama Masjid. Littering the path were stalls selling Muslim iconography and beggars. One had clubbed feet that looked gangrenous. Not great. Euan is having a hard time adjusting to these things I think – most of his complaints surround the beggars. It must be difficult for someone his age to come to terms with although, so I can see how he could find their presence a bit threatening. We got into the Jama Masjid without incident though, and the women amongst us were wrapped up in the ridiculous bright pink smock things. The man on the door bluntly told us they were only for white women. As if we weren’t conspicuous enough. I would like to see what would happen if a white Muslim woman tried to enter and they told her she looked immodest and tried to cover her in a bright flowery sack.
After the mosque we left through the gate leading into the melee of Chandni Chowk proper. As you go out you turn into the fireworks market, which was packed out for Diwali. There are buckets of water everywhere to be dodged, in case one explodes. If it did though, we would all be buggered as there is no way those buckets would do any good, everything is too tightly packed in. if you continue down the fireworks stalls, then take a left, you are in the silver market. There are lots of little silver stores and then bigger emporiums where everything is obscenely expensive. Amanda, mum and I had a wee look, but the guys started to complain very soon. Euan had had enough of the dirt and the difference, and wanted to return to the clean familiarity of the hotel. Dad, due to his asthma, was finding it hard to adjust to the high levels of dust and smoke caused by hundreds of people eating/drinking/smoking/driving/cycling/living/cooking etc in a tiny alley way meant for no more than twenty people and definitely no motorbikes. So we had to negotiate our way back to the metro. To be fair, today is the busiest I have ever seen Chandni Chowk. Sure, it is busy usually, but Diwali seems to have tripled the shoppers. It’s a shame we didn’t get to the spice market though – I would have liked mum to have seen it. Thankfully, she seemed to quite enjoy Chandni Chowk, so not a total loss. I am glad they saw Old Delhi as well, as most tourists do not venture in here, much to their loss. It is the reality of Delhi: over-crowded, vibrant, dirty and full of brilliant little treasure troves of silver and sweets.
Felt amazing to go back to the hotel and get in the pool and wash the grime of Chandni Chowk off of our skin, Me and Amanda could get very used to this routine.
Tonight we went for dinner in the best restaurant in Delhi, apparently. It is called Bukhara, in the Sheratoun. Bill Clinton has eaten there apparently. It is a Punjabi style kebab restaurant, with little low tables and cushioned stools. It has a very nice, chilled out atmosphere and wasn’t too obscenely expensive for the best restaurant in the city. I had a really nice chicken kebab thing, but I have to say dad’s lamb leg was the official dish of the night. If I ever go back, I will have to have it. However, there is too much food, so I suggest going having eaten bugger all for two days or else take a friend and share. We got complementary dal as well, which was much appreciated and very tasty. I don’t know if it can be called the best restaurant in the city, as I have not been in them all and it wasn’t mind blowing food, but I reckon it is pretty high up there.
Tomorrow morning we leave at an obscene hour for Agra, so I think that will be another installment in the saga.

FAMILIAL INSTALLMENTS PART 1

2009-10-19T01:03:00.001-07:00

So, I haven’t been here in a while due to many visits from home. I have been running around like an idiot for the past two weeks working/touring/relaxing/safari. The blog did not come first. In order to address this, I figure that one BIG entry is a good way to get the whole story out in one and begin once more into the old routine of things.

So where do we begin?

We begin with Kapil.

Kapil is one of my friends from Glasgow whose family are originally from India. Every year he comes out to visit the family that he still has here, and it just so happened that he was coming out for Diwali and would be staying for a few days in Delhi. We arranged to meet in Connaught Place, as Kapil seems to know nothing about Delhi or anything in it. So Connaught Place: you would think it was easy for his aunt, who lives in Delhi to find. But apparently not. So there was Amanda and I standing there looking like twerps for some time before he appeared with a small woman in a glitzy green saree (the aunt). As soon as he appeared he fished out the letter Iain has written me from his trousers. Apparently in an effort to save on paper, it has no envelope and is instead sellotaped together. He is a strange one.

Had argument with Kapil’s aunt about his curfew. We met at half six, and she was saying she would pick him up at quarter to eight. I find it hilarious that here in India, the man’s world, Kapil has an earlier curfew than the Indian girls’ hostel. We managed to get his curfew all the way up to 8.45! Rebels…Apparently Kapil’s family are of the opinion that he is incapable and will be attacked and/or raped if left to his own devices for more than two hours. We suggested sending him home in an auto and that was met with much consternation. I think I made a bad impression as a corrupting influence. We went to dinner at United Coffee House and Amanda got what was possibly the worst sandwich in the world. It was two pieces of white bread with green paste between them. Not nice. It was like baby food. Restored Kapil to his worried family at the appointed time. Met his aunt, uncle, mum and sister, all of whom had packed themselves in to his uncle’s car to collect Kapil, just in case of something happening…They all seemed very nice, though I am annoyed with his sister for eating jaffa cakes that Kapil apparently brought with him to give me.

Spent the next two days doing assessments. On Wednesday night however, we managed to convince the girls to come out with us to Urban Pind. There were seven of us: Amanda, Rachna, Nandini, Mernoush, Elmira, Anjilika and me. We all went to the American diner beforehand and then piled all of us into one auto rickshaw. There were nine people in that thing. It almost refused to start, but we got it going and we made it no time, all things considering. Danced for the whole night and had a brilliant time. Found it funny that everyone was commenting on how nice my dress was when it was actually a skirt. The girls say they will come out with us again: success! I think they just needed to realise that going out in Delhi isn’t a huge issue and that the city is quite safe when you are a bit savvy. Also, in somewhere like Urban, there is never going to be a problem as it is just so full of internationals and very nice people. It has great atmosphere – something a lot of the clubs at home could do with a bit more of.

THURSDAY: THE DAY OF FAMILY.

Met Kapil briefly in the morning to say good bye till next time. It was nice and weird having him here. It has made me miss home very much. I got gossip and stuff from him, and it feels strange that I am outside of it all.

IN OTHER NEWS: my family came today. I was so stressed out about it. I just wanted them to like Delhi so much. This is a difficult city to get along with. So I can sort of understand why they would hate it, as I did. But I don’t want them to: I like it here now, and I want them to see Delhi beyond the nice façade of the South but also to like what is beyond that, not just how dirty or poor everything is. I wanted them to see Delhi as I do: a city of contradictions, frustrations and also beauty and excitement.

Seeign them all for the first time in so long was amazing. It felt so weird and also brilliant. Their hotel is incredibly grand as well, I was a bit bowled away by the whole encounter actually. It was brilliant to see mum and dad again. Spent some time setting out a vague plan of action for the day and had one of the most expensive lunches of all time in the hotel. Apparently their first impressions are good: I can see why being in this place. It is a beautiful hotel. They are staying at the Lalit near Connaught Place. The doormen wear huge golden turbans and namaskar when you come in…it is all so grand in comparison to what I am used to.

So I may have lost the battle for my rents to like Delhi…I brought them to where I live. My mum came up stairs in the hostel and declared it a prison. Before this though, I had come out of the metro intending to take a rickshaw as usual and the policeman had waved a screwdriver at us before advancing on the rickshaws to burst their tyres. Not a good impression for mum and dad. We then walked up the road to AIM café. Also maybe not a great plan. Saw three men peeing and smelt the evidence of many more. The open sewer didn’t go down well either. As I said to my dad, “I know what dysentery smells of now” and he replied “Yes, so did I, but I never thought I would have to smell it again.” Not brilliant… They liked AIM café though; a haven from the street. They met Amanda for the first time as well, and seemed to really like her as well, which is good.

Went back to the hotel for a swim and a chill out. I think everyone is a bit tired and overwhelmed, which is fair enough. The hotel has a brilliant swimming pool on the third floor out on a veranda type thing. It is blue tiles with these funky green and red lights playing over them – looks so cool. It felt amazing to be in the water and be able to just swim and be cool and get the grime off of my skin. Amanda is going to come with me tomorrow morning and we will swim and feel clean! Cannot wait. Finally, my quest for a pool is temporarily over. Took the rents to Satyam Bhavan, a south Indian joint on Connaught Place. The whole thing was very stressful. I don’t think they expected Connaught Place to be such a dump. Especially at night, when it is full of beggars and the rubble is difficult to negotiate. It was made worse by my mum being sick. I hadn’t thought it would take as little as an afternoon to make one of them succumb to the delights of Indian food poisoning but there we have it. Euan didn’t like the food in the place either, though he liked the sweets. So not a total loss, but pretty close. Felt a bit crappy by the end of it in the taxi they insisted that I take home. So stressed. It was such a shock to see them again and then for all of it to go sort of wrong…I don’t know. It was maybe not a great first day.

So maybe I should split this entry up? It is turning into a bit of an epic.

Will the family survive the night in India? Will my mother’s food poisoning be relieved? Will everyone else get it instead?

FIND OUT IN OUR NEXT EPISODE!

3rd October

2009-10-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

Watching shit at 1 am appears to also work quite nicely as a cure for insomnia. I managed to sleep right through till the morning. I was shocked and infinitely glad. I need to today to finish my Plato/Sidney essay and do a little bit of reading for these internal exams. I am still completely unsure as to what is happening there, but we will see what comes of it.

Went to the gym for a bit with Amanda and then got bored and ended up doing some yoga instead and then the power went.

The power has been going on and off for a good few hours. First it was the water, and now it is the power. The unfortunate thing is, is that it is about 38 degrees outside. And with no fans on in your room, it is unpleasant to say the least. I am currently making patches of sweat on my clothes where you shouldn’t really get such things. My cleavage and my legs, for example. I feel like I am sitting in a puddle. It is truly horrible when you go to shift position and your legs are so slick they just slide off one another. Urgh.

It is also wholly terrible for working: the essay being on the laptop with no battery that I cannot charge. Bah. Trying to read over my Swift and Dryden notes instead, but to be honest it is really just sending me to sleep. The other problem with heat: sleep is bloody tempting – you just can’t actually have any of it. so you lie there and kick around and it is just so depressing.

Gave up and went to AIM. We spent the whole afternoon and most of the evening in there. There was internet, electricity and fans. What more can a girl ask for? It was actually very sweet – one of the women gave me a cupcake with sweet potato and apple icing for free. I have no idea why I merit such things. Possibly, because Amanda and I could keep the business afloat through our consumption alone. It was very sweet of her, and also very yummy, I would pay for that cupcake. I think they are opening a Korean restaurant next door, which will be awesome. Not only will we have the café, if we feel like something more substantial than noodles out a packet or sushi then we can just pop next door to the rest of the family and have some dinner! I was looking at a book of Korean food as well and most of it seems to have some amazing health property. Like ‘this beef soup with ginseng cut into nice shapes will cure cancer’ sort of thing. Sounds good to me. Food that is tasty, pretty and cancer-preventing: all a girl could ask for.

When we got home we tried the stay up tactic once more. Except tonight the movie isn’t even comedy. It is a film about stop-losses: soldiers who are recalled in America despite having served their time. It was supposed to be gritty, but I don’t think I had the level of interest necessary for it. Ah well.

2nd October

2009-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Last night was the worst night’s sleep I have had in memory. Here is my night:

Went to bed at 11 and woke up as chirpy as anything at 1 am. Decided I must be too hot so got up and got some water and walked about for five minutes. By this point, pretty sure I am not going back to sleep any time soon so went downstairs to TV room. Six other girls in the TV room watching films. I sit in with them until 3.30 am. For a while I chat to some of them about religion. Tried to explain scientology, which was fun. They had no idea that Tom Cruise was one, but once I explained it they said that it made sense, as he is crazy. They were shocked and appalled about John Travolta though. After that enlightening conversation, I went back up to my room to try and sleep. Sleep still wasn’t happening, so I went on Facebook. Since it was half ten or whatever at home, loads of people were on. I asked Gavia her usual insomnia coping techniques and her advice was fanfiction. It was not so bad though that I felt the need to resort to rambling tales. Instead chatted for a while and then decided another attempt to sleep would be made. The attempt once more failed. Switched comuter back on and wrote 500 words of my essay straight off that I am incredibly happy with. Surprisingly lucid at 4.30am. Went for another walk to try and cool myself down and tire myself out. A shining example of how bad it is: a girl was in the gym at 5am. I decided to join her and tire myself out with a ten minute walk on treadmill. Finally managed to sleep at half past five, and then woke up chirpy once more at 7am.

NOT NORMAL.

I usually need like twelve hours sleep at home or I am a zombie. Today I have had three hours of sleep and yet I am up and at ’em. I do not understand it. I have even been to the gym AGAIN this morning to try and tire my body out. I should not be able to run 5 km on three hours sleep. I have even written most of my essay. I just do not understand.

Stayed in the hostel all day working. Managed to do a bit more as it was a bit cooler. It is never good when your night is more eventful than your day is.

After dinner Amanda and I went to the TV room and watched some films. I brought my cookies and sat munching most of them. They are amazing cookies: oats and everything. I am going to sit in here until I can stand it no more. I feel that if I tire myself out enough before the first attempt at sleep it may go better.

Had a chat with Elmira this evening about SWA and the new president. Apparently she got in a fight with our Provost about Elmira. She had called Elmira to her room saying that every day Elmira would have to come and take down points for an agenda that she had thought of for every meeting. Elmira didn’t know what ‘agenda’ meant and apparently this disqualifies her from being in SWA. Elmira also pointed out (when she knew what was meant) that she doesn’t have the time to come to the girl every day and take down these notes and that she should make note of them herself so that when SWA meets everyone can contribute straight off. And that was that for Elmira. The girl said she was out of SWA! The president of our hostel union doesn’t have the power to fire people from the union – everyone was elected. Just because Elmira didn’t have time to take down her thoughts! So the president told the the Provost Elmira was out, and the Provost pointed out she couldn’t do that, as Elmira, as we all were, was elected. And apparently the girl went crazy and now the Provost is saying if she doesn’t calm down then she will hold new elections. We had no idea she was so power-driven. It is true that whenever she has spoken to me she has been very serious and sour-faced – as if she were president of India, and not a student house for girls! All our SWA is for is to make life easier and better for ourselves; it isn’t to run a tight ship! Elmira also told me that she had the hair fall problem as well, and started using henna to condition her hair every month or so. It doesn’t dye her hair because it is black, but I think if I put it on my hair for only 45 mins or so it should be alright. I used to use henna when I was younger. You get it in blocks in Lush, and then make a paste with it that looks ever so slightly like manure. Ah well, if it stops my hair coming out I don’t mind. We have all decided it is the water. It made Amanda’s eyes burn the other day. It is full of god knows what. With all the pollution and the acidic water, my skin is buggered as well. I have spots! I never had spots…and my skin is really rough. One of the nuns who has been here for 8 years now has black marks on her skin that have developed due to the pollution. How horrifying is that?

I stayed up and watched Hot Chick: an awful film about a girl and guy who swap bodies due to some African voodoo earrings. It was entertaining enough however and to be honest, at 1am, who cares? My artistic appreciation has gone out the window. This had better work...

1st October

2009-10-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

I have discovered the cure for insomnia is mojitoes. I slept from half two till half eleven today. It was glorious. I hope it keeps up, though maybe not the half eleven part as I technically have a lot or work I am not really doing.

Despite the late start I have managed to avoid work all of this morning. Not very good going by me. I just can’t seem to get down to it. I am finding it really difficult to get my argument together. I want to be able to talk about Sidney in such a way that combines what I have said about Plato so far and neo-platonic theory without sounding like an idiot/jackass. So far, this is proving difficult. Every sentence sounds terrible and I forgot how to spell ‘influential’. Never a good sign.

After lunch decided that half the problem was the scenery and went to AIM café instead of the hostel. My room feels like it has under-floor heating for most of the day anyway (there is a brief period between 4am and 6am when it is normal) and my bed ALWAYS feels like it has an electric blanket on it. There is no way to get cold…its terrible to work in. And even if you open the windows, it is just as hot outside so there is no change, and all you get is some pollution. Last night in the rickshaw we were stuck on a road between some trucks for a little while and today my silver bracelet that I cleaned only the other night is rusty brown in colour. All due to the air which we breathe. Yummy. I may as well start smoking 20 a day; I hardly think it’ll make much difference to the mass amount of smog I am taking in daily.

I managed to get a bit of work done in AIM finally. I have finished the Plato section, and begun to talk about Sidney. So we are on schedule for finishing by the weekend, although I already know that won’t actually happen.

Tonight we are going out to Brunelles and Guillame’s flat to have dinner. They have been very sweet and invited us round, as they are going away on Friday and want to spend time before they go. I love their flat – so nice and homely and studenty. Marie is going to come with us, as she is slightly better today compared to last night. When we met Marie she told us she had been sitting in Barista all day and had ordered almost everything off the menu. A pleasant change to the puking.

We bought lots of crisps and some pomegranate juice in payment for the food. Brunelle was typically French and made crepes for us with cheese and ham with courgette or else you could have apple chutney and nutella or jam. Absolutely amazing, and so much to eat! I think I ate my weight in crepes and nutella. It felt like we were at home. Such a nice feeling. We sat and chatted about everything and anything. The girl from South Africa was there as well and she told us about South Africa: about Johannesberg and the area she lives in, which is more countryside. Apparently it is very unsafe for girls to go out, and there is a lot of violent crime. She thinks that the tourists don’t see it, as they only go to Cape Town or on safari. She was very enthusiastic about her home though, despite the crime being so widespread. I would love to go to Africa I have to admit. Brunelle and Guillame think they will go and stop there on their way home to France next summer. I doubt I would be able to do that, and I don’t think I want to go to South Africa particularly. I would love to go to Botswana, Kenya and Ethiopia however. See all the great ruins of the ancient Ethiopian civilization. It would be wonderful, but I feel more money is necessary and travel companions are definitely needed. Perhaps one day…

30th September

2009-10-01T22:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Ladies’ Night! EEEE so excited. I am feeling that mojitoes are a sure fire cure for lack of sleep.

I got no sleep last night again. It was another 1-3, 6.30-8.30 job. I was so pissed off when I got woken up by the bloody stalker with a “GOOD MORNING!!!! REPLY PLZ!!!!” text. Absolute twat. I could have done with an extra hour to focus my mind with. Now I can hardly concentrate because I feel like I will go to sleep. But when I lie down I just start to drip with sweat and then I can’t sleep, as the sheets are wet within minutes. It’s awful.

One good thing about this insomnia malarkey is that I have been going through books at a vast rate of knots. I have finished Raymond Chandler’s Big Sleep today. I love a good detective thriller. It is a great book: full of classy one-liners and women in hemmed stockings and fur-collared coats and men in sharp suits and cigarette cases. So stylish and so well written. Some of the metaphors he uses are just such brilliant images. So sharp and so witty. We want to know if there is a film of it. Anyone know?

Amanda and I went to AIM again for a while. We can’t stick the hostel right now. We have managed to convince Lauren and Marie to come out to Urban Pind with Egle and us. Marie is not feeling so great: her sleeping is worse than mine, she has been ill for a while, she has lost her wallet and spilt water all over her brand new mac book. Not a good week. But tonight we can just go out and ignore everything.

It was quite nice: the old Korean woman in AIM came up to me and told me the house on my screen saver was very beautiful. It was a picture of home, and it made me feel very proud and want to go home a bit. Ah well. I will get the December version…cold and grey rather than covered in flowers. Ah well…summer time will be good.

Came home to the hostel to get ready to go out and Marie has gotten sick from something she ate. It is such a shame: she was really looking forward to coming out and forgetting everything for a while. And now this: so unlucky. I feel for the poor girl. I gave her some piritin to try and knock her out. If she can sleep a bit it might be better.

I have decided to wear a dress and get my legs out. Insanity. Got a lot of stares on the metro, but they are still more concerned with Egle and Lauren being tall blondes and all.

We skipped dinner in the hostel and got a Lebanese platter at Urban Pind instead. It was amazing. We are doing this again for sure. We kept being given free mojitoes we hadn’t asked for by an overly attentive waiter. In the end I couldn’t even finish my third one. Poor show. It was enough to get on the dance floor, however. We met a few guys from the Congo who were great fun and we danced with them all night. There was a girl as well who could do proper Bollywood style dancing, not our pissy attempt. She was great – so stylish and fun. One of the reasons I love coming here is that everyone is so friendly and talkative. You meet so many interesting people. Felix and Julien from the Congo, for example. We met a guy from Chicago as well who flirted a lot with Amanda, but who unfortunately did not press home the advantage and come dance with us. It is great to meet so many people from all over. It is one of the reasons I like the hostel as well. I know girls from all over the world: Mauritius, Afghanistan, Iran, Trinidad…people I would never have known probably at home. Lauren decided to go home early as she is getting an early train to Darjeeling tomorrow. So we put her in an auto with some pepper spray. It is good that you can generally trust the autos. She texted us as soon as she got in too so we knew she was alright. We stayed out till 1 or so. No club stays open after that time anyways. In the rickshaw on the way home there were loads of lorries surrounding us and the pollution must have been awful as my silver bracelet is now a horrible brown colour. Not nice.

My stalker still hasn’t given up. Apparently I should not judge a book by its cover, but I reckon I have judged pretty fairly on this one. Stupid, annoying man.

29th September

2009-10-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

I have discovered a Neo-Platonic philosopher called Plotinus that I really feel I should have read earlier.
He denies that art is a pale imitation of a more perfect nature. Instead artists struggle to invest bare matter with form and beauty. This beauty allows the artist and viewer to transcend the sensible world and discover the ‘real’ world of Forms with the ultimate goal of unifying with the One (or God). He said there were two parallel worlds: one the intelligible world of Forms, and the material world, which is a changeable image of the intelligible world. In other words, all nature is an imitation of an ideal that exists outside time and space. The goal is to get your soul to transcend through the apprehension of beauty and unify with the One and then there is ecstasy. In a way, art is more real than nature, as art goes back to the foundations of nature: the intelligible world.
I always get a sense of satisfaction when I get to use the phrase ‘outside of time and space’ in a sentence. It’s like Doctor Who. I am easily amused.
Spent today reading in the hostel, and then reading in AIM as well. I have decided I am not ready to actually write this essay, especially considering how much I have realised I need to do in order to understand Neo-Platonism. My version ain’t everyone’s version. I think my version is close to Sidney’s though, so that is at least comforting.
I still can’t sleep very well. I am averaging four hours a night. But those four hours are coming at random moments. Last night it was 1 to 3am then 5am to 7am. Not overly pleasant. I met Marie again in the computer room and we had a long chat about life, the universe and everything. Which is exactly what one should do at four in the morning: you are at your most coherent…
I have acquired a stalker. About a week or so ago I went to the Vodafone store and outside it a man came up to me and asked me if I was a student. I said yes and he said he was one too, and had seen me around the Arts Faculty. He asked for my number (they have no sense of personal information) and I said no. So he gave me his business card and offered me a lift home, which I also refused. I didn’t think about it again, but this afternoon I have had several text messages from supposedly the same guy asking me to meet him. I have no idea how he got my number. Lauren thinks he must work in Vodafone and got it that way. All her stalkers have been Reliance employees after all. I think they must have given it to him for a fee, as he wasn’t in any uniform. I hate the complete lack of private information here. If it carries on I will tell him I am going to the police or something. I am just ignoring for now.
Bah.

28th September

2009-09-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Kapil is here in a week. How very strange. Better get writing my essay that will never seem to come closer to ending.

I was shocked this morning when Lauren appeared at my bedroom door dripping with sweat and proclaiming that she had been running. She dragged me into the gym and then ran for about ten more minutes before getting a bit bored and then fiddling about on the other machines. Amanda came running as well for a wee while. They managed to stay in there a good twenty-five minutes or so. I was shocked. They never come into the gym with me. They must be feeling amazing, or else the lack of health is making them feel the need to move about a bit more.

After the gym I tried to write some more of my essay and failed to do so. Decided that going to AIM would ultimately aid my studying. It did not. Ended up chatting with Lauren and then getting sushi to try. AIM have Korean sushi. It comes in tuna, gimtee (not sure what this is or how you spell it, all I know is that it is Korean) and tuna-gimtee mix. Whatever gimtee may be, it is very tasty. And this is the first time I have had fish since I have been here. It was brilliant to taste the fish. I think it is pickled, which made it extra fishy. The sushi here is triangular, with seaweed wrapped round a triangle of rice. The fish with some pickled vegetables is inside in a layer. We ended up getting one each. One between us just wasn’t enough when there was so much craving of fish involved. One day we will make it to the sushi and sake place in the south of the city. One day…

I have realised I have eaten a lot of pickled things in the past few days: pickled meat and pickled fish. I would never eat these at home, but here they are just splendid. The meat is a god-send whenever I just want something to chew on with a flavour other than sweets or fruit. And now pickled fish. Very odd.

Decided to go into Connaught Place to the night market for some jewelry to send home for people’s birthdays. When we got there though, everything was closing up or was already closed. And it was only half past six! Everything here is open till nine usually. We completely forgot all about Dusshera. Of course everything would be closed. We did managed to find one pair of earrings in a nice shop for Lauren’s friend. We also got Lauren walking boots for Darjeeling and Amanda some trainers for the gym. After wandering around aimlessly we decided food was in order and went to Piccadelhi, the amazing place we went to at the PVR Plaza that has the English Pub in it. We sat in high back leather arm chairs that creaked and had pasta and a greek salad. It was great to eat something other than Indian food. There was even chicken in the pasta. Lauren even managed a desert, which was impressive. Amanda and I had Irish coffee – not the best I must admit, but good enough to get you going.

When we got back to our road the place was full of people milling around getting free food off the stalls and there were fireworks in the distance. The effigies I saw earlier on were gone, and they are probably now burnt. In Calcutta they burn loads of effigies apparently, perhaps because it falls in with Durga Puja as well, which is a celebration of the Goddess Durga. Loads of little girls have been going around with sweets and garlands on, as they are given presents as a kind of living image of the goddess. Dusshera celebrates the victory of Lord Rama over the demon Ravana. It is a ten day long fast, which then culminates with lots of feasting and burning effigies of Ravana and his son and brother. It is mostly a Northern Indian thing I think. They also hold plays of Rama's victory in the nine days leading up to the main event.

We just stopped to get juice and then went in. I had to contend with the fireworks for sleep now, but they are nothing in comparison to the heat.

27th September

2009-09-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

The temperature has gone up again. It is back to the high thirties all this week. Bye bye to sleep. I hate not being able to sleep other than in the hours between 1 and 4 am. At least there are lots of other girls up at half four in the morning. We all suffer just the same. Especially Marie, who has now been having two hours sleep a night for the past two weeks. She says she will have to start taking sleeping pills. You can see the difference on her face as well.
Went to Kamla Nagar to get lunch at On The Go. This place is amazing. If you merely negotiate the building site next door to it, then you can enter a world of potted plants and bruschetta. I had the Italian tomato and basil bruschetta. I don’t think I have been that happy with a piece of food in long time. The bruschetta was crispy and garlicy, and the tomatoes were ripe and there were a lot of them. Perfection in an open sandwich. After lunch we went to see if we could find the elusive FabIndia that apparently exists somewhere in Kamla Nagar. After walking for ten minutes we came to a new row of shops that we have never seen before. And there she was: Fab India, the holy of holies, on a deserted street in a strange place. Inside the shop was not deserted. It was full of women and men trying to find a kurta for whatever occasion. We really shouldn’t be allowed in this shop. Ended up buying a piar of black cropped pants, a burnt orange oriental style shirt, some iridescent purple salwaar (to go with my green pair) and a purple and gold kurta that looks like something out of a scifi film. Not good! Did I need these things? Technically I needed the tops. Amanda and Lauren got a lot of new things as well, so I don’t know if I feel too bad about it. There was a beautiful purple and lilac patterned kurta with mesh sleeves that I really fancied, but it was 1200Rs. Too expensive for me, but perhaps not for mum and dad… The sarees in Fab India are beautiful as well. We have been told that you should wear a saree on Diwali. We already have some though, so we are well prepared. All the girls in the hostel are going to wear them. I have to say I am curious as to what the Sri Lankan saree will look like. It is draped in a different way to the Indian saree.
After our retail therapy, we made our way back to the hostel to work for a little bit before dinner. I have managed to nearly complete my essay on Swift, and begin my essay on Plato/Sidney. I am worried about the Sidney one though, as I just don’t know if my argument is going to come together in the way I want it to without going well over the word limit. I might have set myself too broad a challenge. But we will see what comes of it.
I finished reading Anita Desai’s Fasting Feasting tonight as well. I have to say, it is a very good book but it feels unfinished. I don’t know if the reader is meant to be left with a feeling of frustration and the sense of incompleteness, but I couldn’t help but think that the ending was a bit of a cop-out. The book is very interesting in that it explores the nature of female hysteria and different attitudes to food. The use of food to perform ritual, to soften your emotions, to punctuate your day, keep you alive, kill you and to keep you happy or angry. She gets to the heart of the weaknesses of middle-class society in India and America very well. Her characters, her protagonists anyway, are also very weak people. You don’t like them very much, although I did like one of the main protagonists in this book: Uma. Parts of her story were incredibly upsetting, and while the story of the other protagonist was also upsetting, I just couldn’t identify with his coldness and didn’t feel particularly much in consequence.
After dinner we tried to set up Cabaret on the projector screen for everyone to watch and failed miserably. It was a shame, as so many girls were up for it, but no matter how we tried we could not get anything more than the sound to come out. So instead we went to bed early in preparation for a not very busy day tomorrow, it being a holiday. It is Dusshera tomorrow, and there are huge effigies and tents up in readiness for the festivities along our road.

26th September

2009-09-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

Feeling a million times better today. Even went out to AIM and had the old favourite: pomegranate shake. It was great; it stayed in and everything. We did a little bit of work in AIM until Lauren got too uncomfortable and we needed to go so she could lie down. I have started getting cramps in my stomach as well, but I think it is just confused that it is being filled and not immediately rejecting it now.

Ben has decided he is going to Calcutta on Monday. It is Durga Pooja just now, and the city celebrates it more than elsewhere. I think it has something to do with Kali, but I will check that one out. He is going there by train, and then on to Assam and Darjeeling. It is an epic journey: 20 hours by train to Calcutta and then god knows how long to get home from the North East. A few of the others are going with him: Ward and Colin are flying out, and then Egle and Marie, and maybe Lauren, are going to go meet them mid-week in Darjeeling I think. I don’t know if Lauren will go though, seeing as recent events have taken a big toll on her health in general. It sounds great, but Amanda and I have too much work to contend with to even think about going. I think I will go in March next year once the winter fog has lifted again and the hill stations open up properly once more. Ah well…I suppose I am getting a free trip to Rajasthan in a week or two, not too much to complain about…

This afternoon Nitin took us out to see Di Bole Hadippa!, the latest bollywood extravaganza. He calls it a ‘masala movie’: it has all the right ‘spices’ to make the perfect movie – romance, action, comedy, thrills, etc. Sounds perfect for us. AND there are songs and dances to keep us happy. Di Bole Hadippa means ‘my heart says yippee!’ according to Nitin. How can it not be good?

It was brilliant. There was singing, dancing: a massive budget obviously. It looked great, and made us all want to go out dancing right then and there. The film is about cricket. There is an old cup match between Lahore team and Amritsar team, and India lost the last match. So to ensure that they win, the team owner brings his son, a cricketer, home from England to coach his team. A dance troupe that stays in the town has a girl who can play batsman better than most men can. She tries to get on the new team, but is turned away for being a woman. So instead, she uses the dance troupe makeup to make her self look like a Sikh teenage boy, and of course gets on the team. However, it is all complicated by the English/Indian cricket coach then falling for the woman-cricketer in her usual garb as a woman. I have to say, the beard and so on really did change her face. We all loved it. I am pretty sure that Nitin and his friend think we are either idiots or just laughing at their culture, which we are in a way. Perhaps a bit of both. But it is genuine enjoyment. It wasn’t quite as good as Love Aaj Kal, but it did have Charlie from Kaminey in it so it was certainly better on the scale of hot male leads. I really have to find out that actor’s name, as Lauren had an ex called Charlie and she finds it weird that this Charlie is hot and so we need to find another name for him. His name in this film was Rohan, but that is just too silly.

Aftewards we went to CP to find somewhere to eat. We ended up in a brilliant South Indian joint near PVR Rivoli, just up from block A. I am going to have to bring the family there perhaps, as it is apparently where you get some of the best authentic South Indian food in Delhi. And I have to admit, it was amazing food. I am so glad I am able to eat now. We got three different dishes between us to try, as we didn’t know anything. We got a coconut masala dosa, a kind of lentil pancake and an uddapham (I think). The coconut dosa was probably my favourite. If you don’t know, a masala dosa is a kind of thin pancake, a little bit like a crepe. It is stuffed with spices and usually potato and onion and such like, though obviously this one also had coconut in it. You eat it with various sauces, with your fingers. It is an incredibly satisfying meal and you get great masal dosas at the PG men’s hostel across the road from the main university gate, in case you are ever in the area… The portions were huge as well, so we couldn’t finish it. Nitin thought we would have to order more, which was possibly a little insulting. I think he thinks we eat all the time and that is why we were so sick this week. It was served on banana leaves as well: most authentic. There were south Indian sweets down the stairs as well, and there was one particular one made out of milk and coconut that is a bit like fudge that was absolutely divine. It was a shame though, as the spice and everything was too much for Lauren and so we had to go home to bed. Next time, we will make sure we are well enough to withstand both dinner and sweets. My fingers smelt like coconut all the way home. Far nicer than the usual grime. It makes me want to eat coconuts on the beach…ah soon…

25th September

2009-09-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Breakfast was attempted…breakfast failed. I think the bus into uni did it. It was very bumpy and I felt terrible afterwards.
Called Lauren. Apparently the doctor is nowhere to be found and she has had to tell several nurses to go away and not take her blood without his permission. They told her that she should have an ultrasound and liver test as well, but gave no reason. We think it may be a money-making scheme, as Marie was a little bit sick and they gave her one despite the fact she quite obviously had absolutely nothing wrong with her liver or ovaries, she was just a little off colour. Amanda has gone to be with her right now and find out when we can get her out of the hospital. I will go after class.
Class didn’t happen. I am disappointed: Shirshendu is usually really good about taking all his classes, but perhaps something unexpected came up. Since I was feeling a bit crap after throwing up some of my attempted breakfast, Tanya, Nitin and I all took a rickshaw to the hospital to see Lauren. While we were there another nurse came in to take blood for no reason. Lauren asked her several times to get a doctor to explain and she just shook her head, advancing with syringe poised until Lauren ordered her out of the room. This has happened a few times. They also won’t take out her IV despite the fact she no longer needs a drip apparently. So she cannot leave until the doctor gets here, which will be at 11. She looks a lot better. I think she must just need to sleep now and keep eating.
Of course, 11 came and went. We asked the nurses when the doctor would come and they said ‘half an hour’, which means some time this afternoon. So Amanda and I left for Kamla Nagar, as Amanda wanted some new jeans. We found a nice pair in the Levis shop for only 2000Rs. I hate how you walk into stores and the store attendants do not leave you be. I find it really intrusive: I just want to be left alone to look for myself! Not have everything pulled out and displayed for me, as I am not going to buy it! They have no concept of ‘having a browse’. It gets quite frustrating sometimes, and in the end you just want out the shop so that it will end. We got the jeans however, and then went to On The Go for Lauren. She has placed an order with us for an Italian sandwich, which is a sure sign of her being on the mend. We got blueberry smoothies while we were waiting for it. I have to say, the food in here looks amazing and I will most definitely be back for lunch one day. They even do bruschetta with tomato and basil! So exciting.
By the time we got back to the hostel, Lauren was returned to us (only two hours later than the appointed time). We all went to sleep as soon as we got in. Too much running around in the heat with no energy. Not good!
Managed some soup and yoghurt at dinner. I feel I am definitely on the mend. None of the food I have had since breakfast has come back up. Most positive.
I went straight to bed after dinner. Half past eight. Not too hardcore, but perfectly justified in my opinion. I can’t face another day of this crap. And tomorrow we have to be well for the film. Nitin is taking us to see the latest blockbuster and for dinner, so we need our strength.

24th September

2009-09-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

Lauren has gone to hospital. She is on a drip because she is dehydrated and needs fluid urgently. I feel terrible for her. She looked a bit funny this morning and I said about going to the doctors and she said no, but obviously changed her mind. Just as well she did. But it is such a shame: she hates needles and things and to have had so many stuck in you when you are already feeling upset must have been quite traumatic. Poor girl, I feel so sorry for her. Thank God Egle at least was with her.

Amanda is a lot better today: she managed toast and jam at breakfast. I tried to eat cereal and it came straight back up. Not so cool. I feel ok though, I think I should just keep drinking water and stuff. I am going to my lecture with Amanda, so we will see what happens.

After our lecture, which was a repeat of Tuesday, we went to the hospital. Amanda couldn’t stay long as she felt too hot and needed to lie down. I stayed for a few hours with Lauren. She looks better, but she said she has been quite upset. Thankfully the room she is in is clean and the doctors here seem competent. She is in the hospital up our road, called NuLife. I promised to go back later on in the afternoon and bring her some home comforts, as they are keeping her in overnight.

When I got back to the hostel I tried to do a little bit of work. Went to afternoon tea as well and had a couple of cups of sugary tea and felt a hundred times better. Tea and coca cola is getting me through the day. Went straight to the hospital from tea; everyone else is coming in a moment or two.

Lauren looks ten times better. Apparently she has been through 4 bottles of fluid, two of antibiotics and several injections. She can’t feel anything, but at least she is sitting up and looking chirpier. Ben appeared with some biscuits, a photo of himself and the guardian crossword. An odd selection of presents, but appreciated nonetheless. Amanda managed to come by as well and we spent the next three hours or so entertaining Lauren and hassling doctors to try and find out what is happening to her. They brought her some dinner as well, but she didn’t eat much of it.

We left her to sleep at half eight and went back to see if we could manage our own dinner. Minaxi, the madam of the hostel, was really good to us and gave us yoghurt to have with some rice. I managed a couple of bites and then felt really hot and had to leave and sit down somewhere. Watched Gladiator in the TV room to take advantage of the aircon.

Called to another bloody SWA meeting where I was chided for looking downcast despite the fact I was doing my level best not to fall over. Stupid people. The meeting was pointless, and I get the impression our president is slightly power-hungry, or at least very organized and fond of structure.

I think another early night is needed. We want to go to lectures tomorrow again and also get Lauren out of hospital tomorrow morning. We will see how it goes though.

23rd September

2009-09-25T04:46:00.000-07:00

Got up and forced Lauren to eat three bites of toast. Amanda has been up all night running to the loo every five minutes practically. I feel so sorry for them both; they are in a lot of pain it seems. If they aren’t better later I am going to force them to take a tablet. Amanda hates taking pills so that one might be hard (I suspect her of being a believer in homeopathy).

Went to Model Town to pay my Vodafone bill. My internet stopped last night, so I assumed that was why. Turns out I was right. I also got some coca cola for the girls and some water and loo roll: the essentials when one has Delhi Belly.

When I got back I felt a bit funky, so tried to write some more essay but failed. I managed to read a bit though. There is no water anymore. I have been having showers under taps for a while, and then last night there was no water. And now, still there is no water. When I ask the housekeeper about it she just says ‘Water coming!!’ and shoos me away. It must be terrible for Amanda and Lauren having to use the loo and not even being able to flush it. It is completely horrifying for the rest of us as well. We can’t even wash our hands.

Went to get some yoghurt from lunch to see if it would settle my queasiness and instead I threw up everything I have eaten today. This is not good. I feel like crap suddenly. I think finally my immunity has been broken and I am sick. I feel so tired. I think I might just sit in the TV room and try and drink water. Lauren is already in there trying to keep cool. No chance of going to Hindi now.

I can’t keep water in me. I think I must have drunk it too quickly or something. It came back up almost immediately. I feel horrible. I wish I could wash and flush the loo. Some poor person will have to use a toilet I have just vomited in! I feel terrible about it, but what can I do. My stomach is making ominous sounds that do not bode well. Urgh.

Vomited some more. Coca cola this time. I think it would have remained inside if I hadn’t had to get up of my chair to go to the bloody SWA meeting. They had no sympathy for my state and the whole thing was near to pointless. I was put in mess committee, which is fine by me as I have many suggestions. Spinach would be good on occasion…or fruit other than bananas. Perhaps a salad now and then. Would make so much difference. Lauren is feeling a little bit better, so perhaps we will all be ok in a day or so. Amanda is still out.

After silly meeting, I collapsed back in TV room and dosed for a while before going to bed. I couldn’t sleep in there…too loud. I am hoping a night of rest will do me good, so here’s hoping I make it through the night without waking up to puke. I want to go home and have water to wash in…

22nd September

2009-09-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

Lauren is not well. This is not good. In fact, it bodes ill for the rest of us. Especially Amanda, as she is always 6 hours behind Lauren. We will see what happens today though…

Went and met my Plato lecturer about my essay and though very helpful for my understanding, he says I should speak to Shirshendu about it. So that is what I will do on Friday when I next see him. Apparently he is expert on Renaissance theory, so he is my man as they say. Turned out I had had a pretty neo-Platonic idea of Plato anyway, so it was helpful speaking to Prof Kumar nonetheless. He is also very interested in post-colonial studies, so I think we will have lots to talk about over the course of the year. Most exciting. He is going to recommend books and stuff for me to read. I think he might be edging ahead of the others in terms of my admiration.

Went to see my head of dept as well, and told him I was planning to leave at the beginning of December, so I had to do my exam as soon as exam period begun. He seemed happy with that, I don’t think he knows the term dates really to be honest. So as the song goes (or doesn’t for that matter): I am going to Goa.

After English I met Amanda and Ben for some tchai before history. It is far too hot here. I know I harp on about it, but it is hard not to when there is hardly any water, the ground is cracked like a desert and kites are circling above you in a vaguely menacing way. History was quite interesting: all about the establishment of martial races in the late 19^th century and the ideologies of recruitment in to the army. I found it interesting that those people who were deemed ‘not martial’ tried their level best to claim full Aryan lineage so that they could be reinstated. It just shows the ideological impact on the natives as well: the prestige of working for the army that is there to control you.

We were going to go to Kamla Nagar after history, but Amanda’s body has caught up with Lauren’s and now she feels sick. So we went home to the hostel. Lauren looks a little better, though still quite ill. There is no food here today as the mess needs time to recover from special dinner last night, so I made myself some noodles instead and then Amanda and I went out to AIM.

After one drink we needed to go home though, as Amanda felt sick again. I feel this bodes ill. I have managed to get almost half of my English essay done though, so I am pretty happy about that. Hopefully I will have it done by the end of the week and I can do my next one all next week and then have time to meet Kapil for a bit. I can’t believe people are all coming to meet me so soon! I am so excited. There had better be jaffa cakes.

I have decided to sleep in the TV room tonight, as it has air conditioning. I was up till 5 in the morning yesterday, and I can’t sleep in this heat at all. So Lauren is coming down with me and we are going to camp out on the sofas. I have worked out that I can stretch out and have only my feet hanging off if I lie diagonally on them, which is quite impressive. I guess we will just watch movies until we can’t stay awake any more. We will have to get out of there before the cleaners catch us though, so an early start is on the cards. It is completely worth it though I think.

2009-09-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Today is Eid! Happy Eid to all Muslims!

We have no classes today as it is a national holiday. So instead Amanda showed me 2 of the ashtanga yoga sun salutations. Perfect way to start the day. We then went out to AIM and sat in there for about 6 hours. We need to stop living in their café. One good thing about it though was that I got to talk to Iain for ages on Skype, which was nice.

I have resolved to go to Goa in December before I go home for Christmas. I have to try and convince my English professor that I am going home at the end of November so I shall get my exam done before then. I am so excited by the prospect of lying on a beach somewhere for four days. All the pineapples and coconuts and seafood! Amazing. It is completely and totally worth flying there and back in four days for lying on that beach, and swimming in the sea...oh, to have cold water on my body! There is never any water here these days...I have had a shower under a tap three time in past week. Not nice.

Because it is Eid, tonight is a special dinner for us. We had though about going out to Chandni Chowk, but there is not much point for women I don’t think. The Muslim girls in the hostel have arranged a talk and dance for us as well, which is very sweet of them.

The talk was given by the Afghani girl next door to me. She told us about Eid and why it is celebrated. Apparently Eid is a celebration to mark the victory of Mohammed over someone whose name escapes me. So the fasting before Eid is a show of self-discipline and respect to the achievements of the Prophet, and then on Eid you eat huge amounts of sweets and give presents and celebrate. Apparently women were not really included in celebration until recently, which I find unsurprising somehow. After the talk, Mehrnoush, a girl from Iran, did a very elegant dance for us. Her dancing was great and she looked fantastic up there, but I find it so ironic that in Iran women aren’t allowed to dance in public. Evidently she has found a way, as her dancing was practiced and not unprofessional. The Iranian girls have not been fasting: their Eid is in March apparently. I had no idea it changed form place to place. After her dance we were given little Indian sweets, including the one I really like that is made out of canned milk and is a bit like fudge, only less sugar and more pistachio and almonds. It is sort of like a cross between vanilla fudge and marzipan with a bit more milk in it. Either way, it is very tasty.

Special dinner was also very tasty. There was salad, and roast vegetables, and chicken that wasn’t only bone! It was pure luxury. The kitchen really went all out on it. There was even proper naan and paneer. Amazing. Unfortunately Lauren, who had already had noodles in AIM, felt a bit sick after all the food and had to go lie down. Amanda and I though stayed down, as it is a girl from Sri Lanka’s birthday tomorrow and she had bought cake from the very bakery that Nitin told us about. It was amazing cake: very rich and creamy and not at all artificial. We are going to have to go there asap.

Went to check on Lauren and she says she is too hot. I hope she will be ok. Everyone here is sick some day or another.

20th September

2009-09-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the day of the wedding!
A boy in my English class, Nitin, invited me along to his best friend’s wedding tonight. An odd thing to do, but he says that I have to see at least one Indian wedding while I am here and no better time like the present. We are all so excited. Amanda is going to wear her blue silk saree she got at home, so she has had a new top made in blue fabric to match it. We don’t really know what the form is, but Nitin said traditional dress would be most appropriate probably. We asked if there was anything we could bring as well, and he said nothing. Though, I asked my mum and she said cash generally seems to be the form. I don’t know if us handing over cash would seem a little bit weird, especially when I don’t even know the bride’s name. It is a very strange setup. At home, no one would ever consider inviting their classmate to a wedding if they had never been to one. It just isn’t done. Weddings at home are all about cutting the numbers down, not about inviting everyone you have ever known, or not known for that matter. The weddings here go on for days as well, perhaps a few extras on one night of it doesn’t cause much issue. Apparently there will be about 500 people there.
Spent the day reading in Coffee Day. I am too excited to work really. We went to Chinese Bowl again for some Thukpa. Probably good to eat now rather than wait till we are there, as there may not be any food. I picked up some fruit on the way home as well. I am very happy: I have apples and bananas now! I feel my vitamin content has completely disappeared in recent days, so I am hoping some fruit will provide me with a bit of health. I can eat it chopped up with my muesli in the mornings! So civilized.
Tonight we will be wearing our sarees properly! I have studied some more and I think I can tie them now and not in an inappropriate way. Lauren and Amanda congregated in my room and we spent about an hour wrapping them in. So, to tie a saree: Start with it going from right to left round your body twice, tucking it in to your petticoat. Then when you are back at the front after 2nd time round, pleat it five times. The pleats should be quite sharp, I think you can iron them in place. Then tuck the pleats in to the front, twisting them so that the saree fabric continues on out from the left hand side of the folds. Then wrap round once more, tucking it in as you go until you reach your right side. Then draw the remaining fabric over your left shoulder. Take the ends of this (you need someone else I think for this) and fold into pleats again, so that the part going over your chest and shoulder is about 7 inches thick. Then put over your shoulder over your chest (no boob showing!!) and pin. The shoulder part is the only bit you should need pins for. And that is you: in a saree! We had to be shown the last part by a girl in the hostel from Sri Lanka. She knew how to tie Indian style sarees as well as Sri Lankan style, which does its pleats differently. We will have to try it sometime.
Nitin and his friend picked us up as promised in a tiny little Subaru that apparently was the most fuel efficient and cheap car on the planet until it was overtaken by the Tata Nano (a toy car as far as I can tell). We all packed into the back of the car and immediately had to roll all the windows down, It is very hot again. We don’t know what has caused it, but the temperature has returned to early August levels and it is not very pleasant. We drove for what must have been a hour and a half, getting lost all the time and having to double-back and ask directions. It is quite nice that you can ask directions really easily here; everyone is willing to help, unlike home. When you call out for something, you shout ‘bhaia!’, which means ‘brother’, or if it is an older man, you shout ‘uncle!’. Women don’t get asked it would seem, surprisingly enough… We eventually made it to Gurgaon though. We three were by that point sitting in a pool of our own juices. Not very attractive I must say. Apparently the whole thing is outside though, so at least we might dry off when we get out the car.
Gurgaon is one of the sub-cities of Delhi. It looks like canary wharf, and I was surprised to see some of the signs on the skyscrapers. There is a Price Waterhouse Coopers in Delhi. Very odd. We drove for yet more time until we came to a place called Tivole Farm. It was not a farm, or anything close. It was an open space with some grass over it, completely covered in fairy lights and glitter and flowers. It was in the middle of a busy street that was full of little stalls selling red rags with gold fringe and rice for people to offer up to the Goddess of the shrine it was next to. We went into the compound and were shown over to the main stage. There were little stages everywhere, but there was one main one with the bride and groom on it having their photo taken with everyone who was there. They looked amazing. They had little throne-style chairs and there were flowers everywhere. The groom was wearing a brown silk kurta with sequins designed all over the chest and arms. He had on a white turban style hat with lots of fringing and beading hanging off it. The bride was wearing a pink and green sequined saree. She was covered in jewelry: huge bangles have way up her arms, necklaces and hair ornaments. She had on a huge hoop through her nose as well that was attached to her earring and took up half her face. She had on some particular bangles that had these sort of lamp shaped things hanging down from her wrists. They were very heavy, and apparently the bride is meant to shake them on your face and that is the same as tossing the bouquet. She had done all her make up herself (though obviously not the henna, which was all over her shoulders, hands and feet) and she looked really pretty. They were about 25 I think, not too young. After we had met the couple, Nitin took us round the rest of the complex. There were stalls everywhere with Indian snacks, fruit and juice. We stopped to get some fruit and lychee juice, and then Nitin made me try an Indian sweet that he said Indian women go crazy for. It is a kind of hollow gram flour sphere with a hole in the top. You put a sort of spicy liquid syrup into it, and then eat it whole. It was disgusting. I tried it, and it was so salty and absolutely horrifying. I didn’t realise spicy meant salty. Why does this country insist on putting either too much salt or too much sugar in things that were never meant to have salt in the first place?! Sweets should not be salty! Ugh. I had to go get some more juice to wash my mouth out. Nitin found all this hilarious. We went to some of the other stalls and Amanda and Lauren got some other traditional snacks, but I couldn’t stomach anything else at that point. After walking around for a while we went to sit on one of the little pavilion things. We weren’t sitting for long though when Chor Bazari came on and Lauren, Nitin and I went up to dance for a bit. It was great fun. I have never seen men dance like that. Nitin tried to show us some Punjabi dances and he is going to make us a CD. I showed him the Gay Gordons in reciprocation and he thought it was just amazing despite it being the simplest dance in the Scottish repertoire. Lauren ended up having a dance-off with one of the older male relatives as well. We had to go sit down again eventually though as we were getting too tired and also being stared at by elderly relatives. A little self-conscious… The mother of the bride came to find us and ranted at us until we agreed to eat some more food. Everyone here has been so nice to us despite our total lack of connection to them. An outsider would never have been invited to a Scottish wedding: our weddings are about cutting down, not adding on to, the bill.
Tried my first ever pan this evening as well. Pan is a betel leaf with aniseed and mint and all sorts in it, all mushed up together. You chew it. Some pan has loads of this particular stuff that makes you spit red. Some has tobacco and some has hash in it as well. These were digestive pan, and I assume there was no tobacco or anything in them as wee kids were munching on them. It was an interesting experience. You just chew and chew and chew until all the juices come out. We all had on a look of complete confusion and bemusement. Very weird. Not unpleasant, just strange. I don’t think I will have one again…
We managed to see part of the ceremonies as well. The groom was being pasted and eating different concoctions given to him by the priests, and then the bride was allowed to join him and began to get pasted as well. It was very interesting to watch, but we couldn’t hear the chants very well.
Unfortunately we had to leave before the end of the ceremonies, as Nitin’s friend is Muslim and he needed to get back in preparation for Eid tomorrow. Nitin has been fasting too, but I am unsure as to whether he is actually religious or not. The self-discipline needed to fast for a month really is amazing. The girls in the hostel are all very excited for tomorrow as well. We get a special dinner to celebrate, which is good for them as they are all starved!
Got back to the hostel at 2 am, thoroughly exhausted. We had so much fun. If ever there is a way to repay Nitin we will have to do it. He mentioned taking us all to get cake and see a movie some time soon, so we will have to go and buy him some cake ourselves or something. Had an amazing night.

19th September

2009-09-21T02:52:00.001-07:00

I was planning to use today to start my essay on Swift, but it did not go well. Decided to read for most of the day instead. Productive, but not as productive as I was hoping for.

We had extra class this morning with Udaya Kumar. I think he may be the best lecturer, though I am torn between him and Gautam. Plato or Sidney? That is the question. We have finally finished Plato though, so we are moving on to Aristotle next class. I will need to read the Poetics before hand. So much work! I suppose it will all stand me in good stead for the obscene amount of assessment I will have in October. Today’s lecture was very good. It was on the Platonic idea of the soul as an eternal thing that was an original creation that inhabits a number of bodies. The soul is not destroyed when the body dies, it inhabits another body, which means that the soul was not created with the body. There seems to be an idea that the soul has inherent memory of past life. They give an example of a slave boy in a different text whom Socrates questions until he is able to solve a geometric problem he has been given. The slave boy has had no education; his ability to solve the problem merely had to be coaxed out through the constant questioning of Socrates. Therefore, he must have had some knowledge of geometry in his memory that has been there since a previous life. We also talked about the higher and lower faculties of the soul, and how mimesis applies to the lower faculties or irrational part of the soul. Whereas diesis applies to the higher or rational part of the soul.

I got a rickshaw home with Tanya and almost took out my tongue when we went over a pothole in the road. The roads round by us are terrible. Huge potholes all over the place. On a manual rickshaw, they can be perilous. You think you are about to be thrown out every second. We complain about the state of the roads back home, but by god are these something else. They are just rubble with sporadic pieces of concrete. It is always worse though when you go through puddles or the bits where the sewer ends and just runs into the street. Who knows what all is flying up all over the place?

Once home I tried to do a bit of work and failed. Got a cup of tea to try and distract myself and failed. Went to the gym instead and sweated the toxins out. It is slightly horrifying how you go to the gym and the sweat is black and grey. Let’s you know just how polluted the air you have been wandering around in all day was.

We had to elect a representative to the student council of the hostel. Lauren came up with a game of picking hands, and I have been chosen. I cannot wait to show films about the UK. That is the main reason we wanted to be involved. We feel the first screening will be Trainspotting, and then This Is England. Give everyone a different viewpoint of the glorious UK. I feel it will be educational. I also want to see if I can teach some girls to ceilidh, and then perhaps we could get some men in to dance. Unlikely though, but no use in not trying at least. We had another wee meeting about the fresher’s party as well. They asked if I had any suggestions and I had to keep my mouth very tightly shut to stop myself from saying something like “well men and booze would be a start”. I don’t think that would have gone down well at all.

We watched the rest of Train to Pakistan tonight. It is a very interesting film actually. In the second half, the district judge, who has been sleeping with a Muslim girl, decides he will send all the Muslims in his village to Pakistan to avoid sectarian violence in the village. Outsiders come and rally the Sikhs, who were once happy to live alongside Muslims, and they end up rioting and driving the Muslims out. Everyone thinks that the Muslims can go to Pakistan and then come home when the rioting has died down as it surely will. All the people are packed onto a train bound for Pakistan. Some Sikhs hear about it though, and they set up a trap to divert the train and kill everyone. When one Sikh who loves a Muslim girl hears about the plot, he risks his life to cut the ropes that will divert the train signal. The other Sikhs see him go and try to shoot him down, but he manages to cut the rope in time and then dies from his wounds. The train manages to continue to Pakistan. It was interesting how they portrayed the ambivalence of the district judge, and the whole idea that these people were expected to be able to come home, which of course they never will. It was quite an upsetting film. It demonstrated how sectarian violence can erase so much goodwill in such a short space of time when an atmosphere of fear is created. It didn’t judge as such, it just demonstrated how the fear created two opposing sides when before there was none.

18th September

2009-09-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a man WANKING IN THE STREET.

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.

17th September

2009-09-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

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.

16th September

2009-09-18T06:26:00.001-07:00

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!

15th September

2009-09-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

My morning lecture was cancelled. Goddamn Udaya. I like him as well…I wish the lecturers would stick to their timetables. It is incredibly annoying when they decide to have a day off and don’t tell you until right before you are meant to be in their class. Met the guy Nitin again and he tried to explain it to me. He told me not to burn my blood over it. Apparently it is a Hindi expression about not getting angry and wasting your energy. He has also invited me (provisionally) to a wedding next week, which would be amazing. But seeing as track records prove so far that if a guy invites you to do something with him then you are automatically his girlfriend, I might try and get him to let Lauren and Amanda come too before I accept. It would be brilliant to go to an Indian wedding though and get the saree out for another night. Perhaps I should let someone else tie it so that I am not wearing it the ‘sexy’ way.

Nitin showed me the English Literature section in the main library, and I have to say I am slightly surprised by how many books there are. It is nowhere near the same stock as at home, but there are a few books in there that look really good. And, unlike home, photocopying the entire book and having it bound in book form costs very little money. Ah copyright laws, how thou art cast away in the face of cheap labour! For instance, a book of 200 pages will cost about 75 Rs to copy, then 25 Rs extra for proper bookbinding. Or, you could leave it at 75 Rs and just get it as sheets held together with spiral binding. There are many books on those library shelves that will become bootleg books in my time here. Nitin says it is because an average student can’t afford to buy books at the real prices, so the photocopy shops are essential. It is strange; because we all appreciate that the books here cost a lot less than they do at home to start with, so the idea that that is not affordable to most puts things in perspective. We are really incredibly lucky to have the resources we do at home.

After the library I went to my imperial controls class. As soon as we got in the two loud girls who always sit at the front proclaimed we should ‘be ready for some talking’. Did not bode well. As soon as the professor got in they started harping on about how the essay dates were unfair and could we not hand it in on a different day and so on. The essay dates were split into three group batches, so the first group is meant to hand their essay in tomorrow. Evidently the first group have not done their essay and just don’t want to say that out loud so would rather bugger the system up for everyone. The poor professor was getting very confused about why people were complaining and so he just decided to hand the organization over to these two girls to sort out dates for essay handing in and discussions. I asked one of them why she didn’t just ask for an extra couple of days and she said she couldn’t do that. She could, however, complain like a baby until the lecturer got so frustrated he gave up arguing and left her to it. they wasted fifteen minutes of class on that. And afterwards on of them had the cheek to tell us all to wait behind to help them sort it out because it was too much for two people to do. What about the poor man you have just tried to humiliate in front of his students? He managed by himself! Idiots. It was all so childish. We left and went to talk to him, told him we would hand the essay in next week and left it at that. He seemed surprised we even wanted to do the essay, and glad that we were sticking to the original plan. Poor guy. Just so disrespectful.

Walked home with Amanda and missed lunch, so I had noodles instead. Tried to write some more of this essay. I am starting to get interested in how the civil service not only created a racial hierarchy but also a social one, transposed directly from the social hierarchies of Britain. It is interesting that there was such a concern about race, but this is almost given, whereas the concern about class status was fairly active. Even when recruiting Indians in the latter Raj, the British always went for men from ‘suitable’ families: ie. old families that were part of the landed aristocracy. This obsession with old landed gentry is really quite interesting. The civil service becomes then not only a racially superior institution but also superior in terms of class and caste values within India in a way that is recognizable as being the British social system. So colonialism is not confined to subjugation; it also has a complete transposition of the dominators social structures and class boundaries.

I ended up in AIM, where I was most depressed to find out that they have run out of pomegranate to make the pomegranate shakes. Consoled myself with a milkshake and some noodles. More noodles. My nutritional content today has been sky high.

Found out Iain has been round to my parents’ for food. This is possibly a bit weird, but if he is happy then that is good. Perhaps they are all missing me too much!

Worked through a lot of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. I now have a far better idea of what I am going to write in this essay on Swift, which is a good feeling. It is very interesting how he asserts that there is no possible form of resistance or escape from any form of social institution of ideology, and that even resistance is in itself an affirmation of the institution it is resisting against. Also, the idea of normalization in everything we do or create is very interesting, and very relevant to my essay. I think I will try to gather information from the text itself next and get some of it in written form. I need to do the essay on Plato and Sidney soon as well! Argh. I need to speak to that professor but he is NEVER in! So annoying.

Why is it so hot all of a sudden? I hope the temperature drops soon. I am having to shower twice a day again. Not pleasant. It jut makes you feel dirty all the time.

14th September

2009-09-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

It is hot again. It must be like...34 degrees. I was even sweating while walking. I don't want a return to the hot old days...Bring back the rain!

Today’s class on Swift was very good. I enjoy Shishenku’s lectures a lot actually. I spoke to him briefly afterwards about my essay and said I want to do something on knowledge as a discourse of power and he said that it was a little general. So, I have revised this to include the Foucault theory in the question. Not so general after all. I think it will focus mainly upon the Digression Concerning Madness, but I hope to bring in a couple of other textual examples. Gautam’s class, my other good professor, was less interesting today. This could possibly be due to the fact that we are going through Samuel Johnson and I am not a large fan. Also, there were two boys sitting behind speaking like they were out of a Wilde play. They used words like ‘futility’ and ‘tiresome’ and spoke in a hilariously put-on English accent. At first it was so silly I thought they might have been trying to tease me for being British. But no, they actually were speaking to each other seriously in the voice. It was ridiculous. I wanted to turn round and ask them if they really thought English people ever spoke like that if they weren’t gay or an idiot. Tanya says she thinks one of them is gay; he was certainly the most annoying and up himself. The other was inviting him out and he was just acting like it was all too beneath him to condescend to grace the other with his presence. He deserved a whack. Next time I might ask them.

Tried to get some books out form the library, but of course, it was closed. Went to Barista none the less and sat reading about the Civil Service instead until Hindi. Hindi today was actually quite good. I surprise myself with how much I can say. We can now do future tense and ‘I want’ or ‘I can’, which will make asking for things a lot easier. I don’t think we know the verb ‘to have’ yet though, so that complicates things.

After Hindi I go the bus home and sat in my room, trying to muddle through my essay and eventually giving up to go for a run. Lauren has gone to Khan Market to meet Stephen. She is annoyed with him, as he has just got back to Delhi from Nepal and says he is bored. How can you be bored in this city?! There are a million things to see and do, some of them free! She went none the less, and she is bring me home some mueseli, so I can have some respite from masala omlette every single day.

Dinner tonight was exciting. It was a potato and cabbage thing, and there was chicken and the paneer balls…I ate so much. I could see the guy in the mess looking at me every time I went for more (twice) in a sort of ‘haven’t you got your share yet??’ kind of way. It was good. I haven’t eaten that much in one go for a while. I then proceeded to eat half a pack of digestives as well. Amanda helped, but it really doesn’t detract from the overall splurge. I think I needed it.

13th September

2009-09-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

Up at the loo about five times during the night. I don’t remember having drunk enough fluids to necessitate so many toilet stops. The fun never ends.

Spent the morning in the library for as long as possible. Crazy history lady was in there and she snorts every five minutes. It gets more than a little annoying. I got the impression she was annoyed with me anyway as my headphones let out too much sound from my laptop. I am trying to write an essay on the colonial bureaucracy in the late 19th century, and what exactly made it ‘colonial’. I think I am mainly focusing on recruitment and ideology. It is very strange reading the old documents. They all talk about wanting a ‘demi-God’, someone not just intelligent but physically superior to the natives. In Burmese Days, the character of Verral: completely assured of his superiority and physical prowess – he is the perfect type. You had to undergo lots of rigorous physical tests before you went out to India as well; you had to be able to survive all the disease, the jungle, the poverty…It is almost a cult of athleticism. It is very interesting how much this feeds into the idea of the superior white ruler over an inferior (not only in intellect but also physicality) black native. It was such an important aspect of the entire structure of the Civil Service that the institution cannot be mere bureaucracy: it is a full agency and demonstration of colonial ideology and practice.

Having failed to write more than 400 words of my essay, I tried to start the note taking for my one on Plato and Sidney. This was slightly more successful, though I think I have chosen a hard topic: Platonic imagination. There aren’t many articles on it. Oh well. I will ask Nitin to show me some good books instead.
This evening we went out to a film in the South. There is a complex called the Habitat Centre on Lodi Road, near the Lodi gardens. It houses many things, including an auditorium where there is a Public Service Broadcast Trust film festival on at the moment, dealing with gender and conflict. It has stuff on every day all through the day and for free. Tonight’s film was called Firaaq: an Urdu word that means ‘separation’ and ‘quest’. It was set in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat sectarian violence and follows five different characters through a 24 hour period. Their stories intermingle and reflect each other, though they are all so different. Each have had a different experience of the violence, and while the film shows none of the rioting itself, the tales that are told and the memories each character holds creates an atmosphere of fear that is far more powerful when there is no violence on the surface and it is only lurking. It was directed by Nandita Das; her directorial debut. I need to find it on DVD and bring it home. It even had subtitles. Firaaq is probably the best and most thought-provoking film I have seen in a long time. There was a question-answer session with the director afterwards as well. While most of the questions were quite enlightening (particularly one on the censorship of ‘bloody Hindu’ in speech but not in subtitles), some were just annoying. I have noticed a tendency in older Indian women to just speak uninvited at whatever opportunity. They have no sense of propriety, they just yell out until you can’t help but let them speak merely because they are disturbing everything else. The film was brilliant however, old Indian women or no. If you can find it, watch it. It is a great piece of cinema.
Afterwards we went across the courtyard to the American Style Diner (exactly what it says on the tin, except I don’t think actual diners do red kidney bean burgers). We got shakes, burgers, and Egle even had New York cheesecake. She was shocked to learn that cheesecake requires no cooking and near to no effort. We may attempt to make one in the hostel at some point in the near future. Apparently in Lithuania you can’t get proper cheesecake and no one knows how to make it. This must change. The good thing about this diner is that if Euan complains too much when he comes here then I can just cart him to it and he can have onion rings or something as a soother.
We got home for curfew, though Marie stayed out to meet a friend in Khan Market for a little while. I really like how the autos here are very safe way to travel. Safe, and inexpensive. I don’t have too much of a problem getting an auto anywhere, as they are wholly open and move at about 20 miles an hour at most, so it isn’t like you can’t just get out if it is all going to pot. Also, most of he drivers are pretty nice and too concerned making a decent wage to cause you hassle.
I need to write my essay. Bah, This is not going as planned.

12th September

2009-09-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning feeling like someone was using my forehead as a bouncy castle. Not an overly pleasant feeling. I have extra class this morning as well, and I don’t think this bodes well. Forced myself to have breakfast in the hope that the sugar will perk me up or something.
It didn’t.
Managed to get through one of my extra classes. It was on Samuel Johnson, for literary theory. It was quite interesting, and I think I could write a coherent answer on it in relation to Romantic theory or Aristotelian theory, which is always a nice sensation. I think we are only doing the Preface to Shakespeare, which is probably the longest tract, but I wouldn’t have minded doing some of the other stuff that is in the Norton as well. I might just go through it myself and use ‘wider knowledge’ as a secret weapon come exam time.
I didn’t make it to Udaya Kumar on Plato. I couldn’t…I was suffering too much in that damned room with all the damned aircon on and me freezing and in pain. I couldn’t even muster the energy to speak to my lecturer about my essay, so that can be Monday’s task instead. I feel more than a little bit pathetic, but I do not care. I am beginning to worry about these essays, especially seeing as I also have a history one due and then a timed question for English to do in class. I am sure I will get them done. I just hope they are actually good though. Here, 60% is considered an A, and seems virtually unattainable. The usual marks are in the fifties. It seems so strange to us, who would consider 60% ok, but not great. They think it is amazing. One guy I spoke to told me the highest mark he knew of was 75%. At home that is pretty good, but here that is mark of genius.
After English I met Amanda and Egle in Connaught Place. I had to be directed to the music shop they were in, and so this very friendly Indian guy took me there. It was really very nice of him, I hadn’t asked for a guide, only directions! He said what they all say: Indians are more famous for their hospitality and helpfulness than Westerners. This is true, but you still have to look out a bit. He had thought he had seen me the night before in a club (not as bad a line as “I saw your face in Connaught Place…*cringe*”) so perhaps he had slight ulterior motives. Either way he took me to the music shop and wandered off. CDs are very cheap here. It is about a fiver for the most expensive I saw, which was Dire Straites Live. An odd CD to have in an Indian music store but there you go.
We were in Connaught Place to find the yoga centre that we had seen advertised in First City, an amazing magazine that gives you complete listings of all the restaurant and bar deals going on and any free cultural events round the city. It turned out to be quite far from CP, and closer instead to Patel Chowk. We found it eventually, though the main entrance is secreted up a back street (as per.). When we got there the guard told us to go away as there was no one in and everything was locked. What was funny about this was that there were people inside the building wandering around. Not a very good lie when the building is made partly of glass. After five minutes of arguing, a man appeared and told us to follow him. Shocking how people come out of the woodwork and suddenly materialize inside locked buildings isn’t it? We got a timetable for yoga, and there is a class on every day at 4 to 5 or 5 to 6pm. Amanda and I can only go to one three times a week, so we are thinking Tuesday, Friday and Saturday or Sunday. It’s hatha yoga, so it should be nice and relaxing. I hope they don’t mind the fact that I am the most inflexible person on the planet and not able to touch my toes, let alone bend into shapes. It is only 100Rs for a month, so even if we don’t make it all the time, it is most definitely worth it.
By this stage I was feeling most definitely worse, so we came back to the hostel and went to AIM, where I had a restorative cup of ginger tea. That tea is like a lifesaver. Very spicy, very sweet and generally amazing for any cold. I think I should try to find some of it before I leave.
I came back to the hostel before the others and went to sleep until dinner. Dinner tonight was fairly exciting: there was a potato dish we had not seen before that is apparently the sort of thing you are meant to get in dhosa. To be honest, anything is exciting when it is different. We have decided that we need to begin trying properly in Hindi, so we are copying our notes out nicely and starting afresh. Perhaps we may even learn something.

11th September

2009-09-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

Managed to speak to Prof Sanpathi about my assessments. He says I can do the essays, but also sit the internal assessment. So my first week of October is going to be fun and games. Thankfully my new friend Nitin (not Natel as I had previously thought) is going to give me some old question papers to look over. He also wants to take me to the library at the British Consulate; apparently it is really good. He also told me a fairly interesting thing about the professor I don’t like: Raj Kumar. He said the University was made to take him on despite him not being a very good lecturer. He didn’t tell me why, he only said it was the government that had made it so. Perhaps Prof Kumar is a product of positive discrimination. Either way, he is an awful teacher.

I think I am getting a cold. It has been raining here for two days now pretty much non-stop and it is the sort of rain that soaks you in a sly way and you never dry fully. Not nice.

When I came back to the hostel, Amanda wasn’t here. She has gone to AIM I suppose. I feel really tired, so I may sleep.

Slept for two hours. I haven’t done that since being here. Very odd. To perk myself up I ran 5km; it felt good to be somewhere near my former standard of running. Now all I need to do is slowly double it and we will be back in business. Did a little bit of my essay as well. I have a plan and my introduction written. Now all I need to do is make proper detailed notes on everything else and find good quotations. I am hoping to have it done by the middle of next week so that I can properly focus upon English, but we will see.

Looking on the net, and apparently five girls have been stampeded to death in their school. I find this at once horrifying and amazing. How does a girl get trampled in her school?? Apparently they were in a collision on the stairs with some boys from another class, but jesus God that is not enough to kill a child surely? And why was it even allowed to happen? Why were these children running with such force that they were able to do this? It is just horrible.

I got bored and came to AIM, where I am now sitting with some ginger tea. I managed to speak to mum and Susan, Granny and Grandpa and Iain all in one go, which is pretty good going connection-wise. I also had an affogato (espresso with ice cream) so I feel it has been a good evening. Think I will call it an early night though, because it may be only half nine, but walking down our road any later would be a bit silly. It is a busy residential street, but the motorbikes do get bolder in their ‘almost-hit-and-swerve’ pick-up tactics.

There were two elephants on the road on the way back. I love seeing these things lumbering along next to the buses and autos…so surreal.

10th September

2009-09-11T00:32:00.000-07:00

We got back at three am and were a bit drunk. Not as bad as Lauren, who fell asleep in the auto home. She was being bought drinks by random men all night as well as the free mojitos. Possibly not a good plan, as she is still drunk now. I am evry glad we don’t have class today. The rain has cancelled everything. It rained all night, and now everything is quite flooded. It is strange, the rain isn’t heavy, just like it is at home but it is so constant that everything is just as soaked as it would be other wise.

Last night was great fun. We had about four or five free mojitos and hit the dance floor for hours. My thighs hurt this morning from the amount of dancing I did. We met a couple of really nice people whom Egle (the Lithuanian) knows and I met a guy form Rotheram and another from LA. The one from LA told me that he works for a production company that has been affiliated with Paramount pictures and that he used to work for Conde Nast. I don’t know if he was lying or not with some ulterior motive, but he was a nice guy. It was very funny, on the dance floor Indian men do the craziest moves; everything is straight out of Bollywood. But the guys from the UK and US danced like the boys do back home: awkward and slightly calculated to try and look cool. Where were the jazz hands? Where was the hip shaking and shimmying? Just not good enough.

Thankfully I am not hung over this morning. I think not drinking after midnight and having masses of noodles before going out was a good plan. I think I might be getting a cold though instead, which is not good either. Ah well. I have a quiet weekend writing an essay ahead of me anyways. Fun times.

Stayed in my room for most of the day trying and failing to work. Had to go to AIM just to get out of this damned place. I was distraught to learn that they had no pomegranate shakes. The old faithful has failed me! Consoled myself with a chocolate one instead. I also bought some noodles so that I can make myself food when I like rather than eating curry at the prescribed meal times all the time. Shall be good.

Lauren and I came home for dinner and for her to pack. She is off to somewhere up north (sounds like Napitka) for the weekend with Ward and Ben and some other folks. She has the advantage of having no class on Saturday and Monday, unlike Amanda and I. We have told her to take loads of pictures and to avoid Ward’s sleazy charms. Amanda and I were laughing about how in the sleeper carriage she might have to use Ben to protect her. It is consolation for us not being able to go. Spent the rest of the evening in Amanda’s room munching almonds and chatting about the fun-filled topic of the Indian Civil Service.
Spoke to my mum on the phone as well about my hair. She says I should maybe look to get some more vitamins in my diet, so I am eating as many bananas as I can get my hands on and drinking OJ. MUST BE HEALTHY!

Who am I kidding? There are no fresh vegetables in this place…If it ain’t curried it ain’t food.

9th September

2009-09-10T00:30:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning with a strange blister on my lip that popped. Not so cool. Perhaps I have been drinking too much chai or something.
My hair has started coming out again. This is getting ridiculous. I don’t know what to do about it.
I had no classes this morning, so I worked out and then Amanda and I went to AIM to get some toast before Hindi. It began to rain while we were in AIM, but left off once we came out to catch the bus. Once at the university though, it poured for ten minutes incredibly heavily, and so all the others got soaked on their way in. Hindi was complicated today. I need to start practicing it outside of the class as he is asking me things like what is quarter past two? And I have no idea. Not so good.
We stopped at Chinese Bowl, a little Chinese place on the way home. I got only a half bowl of ginger and garlic chow mein, and thank god I did because Amanda and Lauren hardly made a dent in either of their full bowls. I managed to maybe eat half and then gave up due to pain of being too full. It was terrible, we left so much food, but you like and learn. It was really nice, though the chow mein was super spicy and our mouths were on fire for quite a long time. Great value though: a huge bowl of noodles and chicken for only 65 Rs. It was raining again when we left. A sort of drizzling rain, not like the usual flash flood. I hope it doesn’t keep up, as you know what tonight is? Tonight is Ladies Night! I am so excited by this it is unreal. We ate early specially so that we had a good amount of food in us to soak up alcohol but not too late on so we have no food baby for going out. Genius plan.
I am going to wear my mirrored harem pants and ridiculous eye shadow and hope it stays on my face in the rain. It is a shame: South Delhi is the only place where we could get our legs out, but getting to South Delhi you need to take the metro from the north. And in the north, there are no legs on show. Every second girl is in salwaar or saree. It would create a scandal. The French people and the Lithuanian girls are coming out with us, so we will make quite a large group on the dance floor. It is going to be epic. We have our Bollywood moves primed and ready to go. Roll on Chori Bazari and Twist! (I suggest you youtube Love Aaj Kal soundtrack to get a perfect sample of the music we listen to.)

8th September

2009-09-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I had a really interesting Plato lecture. It actually went into some depth on Plato’s ideas of imagination and also the Aristotelian ideas of imagination. It actually gave me something new to think about as well, which was a very pleasant and welcome surprise. My lecturer spoiled it though when I tried to state my essay plan to him and he told me to come back on Friday and that he would see what was happening. Perhaps this one has ideas, or maybe he just likes following rules. Either way, he couldn’t be bothered talking to me. So I tried to visit Professor Sanpathi but, of course, he was not in the office. At least the men in the office told me straight rather than pretend not to speak English. Perhaps the feigned ignorance is only for complicated requests.

My history lecturer has given us our first assignment. We have to write a very short essay on the Indian Civil Service, looking at what made it ‘colonial’. It is quite an interesting topic, as the methods of recruitment and the ideology behind it are very specific and important in the creation of the typical English Raj bureaucrat that rests in our minds: florid, out-doorsy, sporting, upper class, calculating, assured in his own physical and mental superiority.

After our class we caught the bus home and went to lunch, which was incredibly exciting. They had these vegetable ball things that I am fairly fond of in a very gingery sauce. After lunch I just went to the library and stayed their working until the late afternoon, when Lauren and I got bored and went out to AIM. I tried to skype my gran, but to no avail. The internet died soon afterwards anyways. It was really annoying. I would have liked to have spoken to dad or Iain. Dad called me to say that when I had tried calling him it was very awkward, as it had flashed up on the computer screen during someone else’s consultation in his room. They need to learn how to sign out.

Dinner was an unappetizing mush, so I had a chapatti to make up for it, my first in a while now. I generally only get rice, as it is better for the dal.

After dinner we were invited out to the French couple, Brunelle and Guillame’s flat for some drinks. We stopped at the Wine and Beer shop on our way up though, and got an awful lot of odd looks and a few proposals that were not very appetizing. There were about thirty men just sitting on the pavement and in a deserted house next to the shop drinking out of brown bags. You can’t display alcohol on the streets here, like California. On the way to their flat we passed through an area near by to ours that we had never seen that was full of little shops. I feel we should explore one day, as there were a few that looked quite interesting. We got lost a few times on our way, but finally Guillame found us and we went up to the flat. It is like a proper student flat, and felt very homely. They have one other flatmate: a French boy called Bruno, but he didn’t really speak to us. The other French girl who is en-route to Cambodia was there as well. She is leaving tomorrow morning early, and is a little bit apprehensive. Apparently she is finding it very difficult to get her rupees exchanged into dollars, the currency in Cambodia. I will have to remember this for when I am coming home and plan ahead to get rid of as many of my rupees as possible or else begin to exchange them by degrees as early on as possible.

It was a very pleasant evening I must say. They had snacks (olives!) and beer and everyone was in a generally very good mood. I think they are going to come out with us tomorrow night to Urban Pind. Guillame is an enthusiastic dancer it seems. I wonder if he will be able to keep up with the Indian guys and their ‘moves’. They have invited us to come round again and we will all cook pasta together. I feel a trip to Khan Market to find some good cheese in the European shops is necessary. Who knows? Perhaps we will even find Parmesan! It is good now we have been here for a while. We were thrown together, but it has become more than that now. Amanda and I have decided that in May once we are finished here we are going to take a long route home through Europe and go to Bologna and Madrid and maybe somewhere beachy in Spain as we have friends living there for the year. I am already excited about it.

7th September

2009-09-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

I have decided that I no longer care what the English Dept think. I am going to corner my lecturers and state what I am going to do and if they don’t like it they can just suck it up. I am determined to spend the ten days in October with my family whether they like it or not.

My lecturers actually agreed! I managed to corner Prof Shikendu (not sure if that is how it is spelt) and Prof Chakrabati after their lectures and said I would like to do a two to three thousand word essay for the first week in October. Prof C has even invited me to meet him on Saturday to discuss possible topics! It is amazing. I think they had no idea what to do with me, so are actually fairly glad that I have suggested something myself.

I feel so relieved. Went to Barista and got a banana muffin to celebrate my victory. I was even awake for Hindi! And that never ever happens. We learnt how to write our names. It was all very interesting.

After Hindi we came home and pottered around for a bit. I managed to tell mum my good news about the essays and it is like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Dinner tonight was fairly unexciting as well, though there was paneer, and I think I might have a small obsession.

Today has been a very uneventful day, save my lecturer conquest. To be honest, we are so tired after yesterday that doing anything today just wouldn’t have been possible. We have made a plan though to go to Urban Pind on Wednesday for Ladies Night: free mojitoes and free beer for girls! Amazing. Also the nice Bangladeshi girl Sabrine has invited us out on Saturday to an Indian ‘disc’ (disco)! It will be great to go out with them, I imagine their taste is as cheesy as hell.

6th September

2009-09-08T02:11:00.000-07:00

We got up in the dark at half past five to get to the Taj Mahal for opening. We hadn’t appreciated in the dark how close everything was to us, so we literally walked out our hostel and 30 seconds later we were at the West Gate. Tried to convince the man at the ticket counter to give us an Indian ticket on the merit of our student cards but that went down like a lead balloon and they got quite aggressive and began to yell at us until we went to the foreigners booth. There were all these guys wandering around saying “Government approved guide!” which is code for scam-monger. Anything that says ‘Government Approved’ here is most likely not government approved and is most probably a scam for naive tourists. These poor Japanese people in front of us attracted the attention of one of the men and he hounded them for about half an hour and taking advantage of their broken English. It was a real shame. He did tell them something useful though: you get a free bottle of water when you go in the Taj from a stand next to the ticket office. This is a deal done by the people running the Taj thing themselves, so it is actually ok to drink it.
You go through a large red stone gate, like stone used at the Qutb Minar and the mosque in Delhi. There is white marble effacing even on these, decorated in an intricate flower pattern. You go into a kind of outer courtyard, then pass out of yet another red arch way into very lush green gardens. There is a red stone building to the left of you, and you go up the steps into it, it also being covered in the geometrically arranged flower patterning, and then pass out the other side and you see it. The Taj Mahal. A great shining white beacon against the dawn light. It was completely beautiful, far more than I had anticipated. There are several blocks of gardens lined with frangipani and dotted with rectangular pools that reflect the Taj Mahal and the red buildings that surround it completely accurately in the stillness of the water. As we walked forward, the dawn changed the colour of the white marble to blue, lilac and gold and the sky became a fantastic deep blue as the day set in. It wasn’t too hot, though there were many flies that you had to keep shooing off. There were hardly any tourists in the compound; we had been among the first six inside. We could take pictures with no one in them for a good half hour. There was dew in the grass as well, and we walked through, barefoot, as you have to take off your shoes. We walked around for hours, going up into the mausoleum itself and looking at the marble graves. Everything was decorated with the carefully painted flowers. It is a work of extraordinary craftsmanship. When it was completed the emperor had all the hands of the craftsmen chopped off so that such a thing could never be built again. It is strange, but now that we are here seeing this, I really feel an overwhelming sense of being “in India” that I don’t feel so much in the city. I suppose because the Taj Mahal is such a symbol of all the romance of the East that it really resonates in my mind as being particularly exotic. I think this might be Orientalist, which I find a bit amusing seeing as it is what I am interested in studying for the next year and a bit. I don’t know, I think I am just being a bit silly. Or maybe it just feels like I am on holiday here, rather than in the city where I live and work.
We came home from the Taj Mahal and went straight to sleep for two hours in the hostel. When we woke up we thought it was like 4pm, but it was actually half eleven. Decided to get to the train station as fast as possible incase there was a twelve o’clock train home. When we got to the station everyone was trying to direct us all over the place to get tickets from their friends rather than from the booth or to get us to take a taxi (!) back to Delhi. Ridiculous! We finally fought our way to the front of the queue though and got our tickets, which were surprisingly cheap at 62Rs each. All was revealed however when we got on the train at second class and they told us we all had to pay a fine of 330Rs each. We could have killed someone. So stupid! For future reference: if anyone sells you a ticket to/from Agra for less then 100Rs then you are being conned. You will get on a train and the conductor will appear and fine you. You argue with him for a long time and you get the fine down to an ‘upgrade’ whereupon he can no longer fill in his form to say he fined someone so he can pocket the cash instead. Complete money-making scam. An Indian guy who was sitting by us argued with him for a while on our behalf and in the end we paid 600Rs all together. Its still too much, but at least it wasn’t general class. Ben decided he would try out general class anyway and got into a nice routine with a man using spitting his pan (betel juice) out the window Ben was sitting by to try and steal his seat. A little boy with a painted face and a hat with a bead on it that he swung round as he walked came begging on the train. He had a tiffin tin and two sticks to make a make-shift drum kit. He stopped by us and beat the tin and I gave him a dried apricot and he did a backwards roll for me. It was quite cute. The Indians next to us gave him a packet of biscuits that he promptly put in his tin and wandered off, still swinging the bead. He was a cute little thing, and I was glad I had food on me. I don’t like giving money, because you don’t know where that will go. But if you give the kids food, you are pretty sure they are going to benefit from it themselves.
When we came back into Delhi, we girls made it back to the hostel just in time for afternoon tea. Lauren and I decided to stop and get an orange juice at the stall across the road from us beforehand. When we drank it though, it had salt in it! Absolutely disgusting. We had to subtly pour it in the gutter. I don’t think we are ever going back for shame. We need to know how to say ‘no salt’ in Hindi. Urgh. It is in everything here as well.
I managed to finish my book on the train, and it is was brilliant. It is so relevant to everything we are studying right now in history: the attitudes of the Europeans, the changing social structures of colonial elites, the cooperation of the native population in domination of the other. The other great thing about it is that it is entirely unsympathetic. You love and hate both English and native characters in equal measure. Each can be as evil, as shallow-minded and as ‘barbarous’ as each other in their methods. Flory, the main character of the book is a spineless and unlikable man, but he is the only character to show any kind of sympathy for the natives that doesn’t feel wholly Oriental in nature. Of course, such a man cannot exist within the colonial system and therefore he must be destroyed. Those that survive in this world are cunning, ruthless and assured of their racial and rank superiority of those they rule over. It is an incredibly interesting book, and I think I now need to go and read more Orwell as a matter of urgency. I should really read my history stuff first though and some more theory. Fun times!
There is apparently loads of confusion about my English mid-term assessment. No one seems to know what is happening, and as far as I can tell English and History depts. May actually be following different calendars and giving differently spaced mid-term holidays. I called mum to tell her about my difficulties as it may mean I can’t spend all my time with them when they are here, which would suck major ass. I am really annoyed and frustrated: why does no one ever know what is going on??? Argh.

5th September

2009-09-06T09:42:00.001-07:00

Today is the day we make our first expedition out of Delhi to Agra. But first, a tale of frustration.

It was filtered through the students in my English class that we had an extra class today with Gotram and Uday, two of the theory lecturers. Most of the class had turned up, but when we got there, there were exams taking places in each of the rooms we have lectures in. We milled around outside until we were shouted at to go away, so we went to sit on the other side of the building and await our lectures. I met the little girl from Assam that had sat next to me in class once, and we finally asked each other’s names. She is called Leena, and she introduced me to her friend VJ (actually Vijiyia, but she thinks VJ is just as good, even if it is a man’s name). We sat and talked about Scotland and the North East of India, and I told them about the Edinburgh Festival. So many of the students here want to come to Britain to study, or just to see it. Leena said that she had such an image in her head of the English countryside and London. She thinks it must be completely beautiful, and I am not sure if perhaps she has read too much Jane Austen and George Elliot: all rolling hills and estates. I told her about Somerset, and the Scottish highlands, which are probably some of the most beautiful places I have been to in Britain. I told her about Edinburgh and London, and what we enjoy doing as students. They had heard that the Scottish and Irish were huge drinkers, and I have to admit, in comparison to everyone here, every European must seem an absolute alkie. People here, young men included, have perhaps one or two beers and that is them drunk. I think it is something to do with the fact that Indians have been boiling and purifying their water for many centuries, whereas we Europeans were drinking wine and beer for centuries rather than try to do anything with the water. Perhaps these ages of continuous drinking has made us so much more immune to the effects of alcohol in comparison to people in India, who are genetically unused to the effects.

In the end, one lecturer turned up and told us that he had specified that his extra class would not begin until September, which if I remember rightly, is now. He evidently lives on a higher literary plane where there is no sense of time and space. The other lecturer called someone who spread round that he also would not turn up, having not confirmed the class properly. I just don’t get this. It is so frustrating, and would never happen in Edinburgh, except on a very rare occasion. Here, and it is the same in history, one student is told something by someone and then expected to spread it round the rest of us by the next lecture. Even assignments seem to be being handed out like this. It is completely ridiculous. Not that we know what our assignment is even going to be… Some think it is a mini-exam on the 5^th and 6^th. Others think it will be an essay due for then instead. I would really like to know, as my parents are coming out around that time and I want to know how much work I can get done beforehand so as to be able to spend as much time as possible with them and not worry about anything.

Met Tanya and some of her friends outside the library and everyone is equally pissed off with our lecturers. They are the better ones as well! It’s so depressingly typical of this place.

Went and sat in Barista for hours instead. I am reading Burmese Days by George Orwell at the moment. It is actually very relevant to my history course, as it explores the British Raj sense of “hanging together” against the natives they were ruling. It is based on his own experiences in Burma as an officer, and so far it is completely gripping. I really love Orwell’s prose style, so simple and defined, never over the top and melodramatic, but perfectly descriptive in its own way.

Met Amanda, Lauren and Ben at the metro station to get the tube to New Delhi and then…onto AGRA! I am so excited about this trip. It is our first chance to get out of Delhi and actually experience something different and be a proper traveler for a weekend. We are counting on there being a train today at some point and then getting into Agra and getting a hostel once we are there. Ben says there is a hostel strip right by the Taj Mahal itself, so we should be alright.

We managed to get a train! We had a bit of time to spare and went for some lunch in a quite nice café at Parana Ganj. Our last meal until tomorrow night! We don’t want to eat anything in Agra, as everyone tells us that we will get poisoned.

The train was completely insane. We managed to find where we were sitting, and thank god we did have seats. The thing was packed. Up and down the narrow corridors everyone is fighting for space and your money. There are the chaiwallahs and panniwallahs that you expect to be there, and then there are the dining-cart men who hand out food to those who ordered it. But then there are also the others selling Bombay mix, or pakora, or curry, or coconuts and other fruit. And then at every stop beggars come on to ask for food and money, one even dragging himself along the floor as he had no leg and no arm to hold a crutch with. There are the women in their perfectly folded, moth-eaten sarees carrying bundles of children’s toys and shooting toy guns that make a rattling noise. And then there is the weirdest of all: the transvestites and transsexuals. Men in sarees and salwaar suits and bad make up. They carry tiny dainty glitzy handbags as well. They are mostly blokes in a dress…but there are some that are quite androgynous who may actually be transsexuals. They come up to you and clap in your face to try and scare you. Many Indians are apparently quite superstitious about these people, and they are ostracized from general society. You are meant to give them money to go away and not curse you. I think if they curse you it is meant to make you infertile, but I am not sure about that. We sat with our feet up on the seats and our bags between us and read for a while before playing cards. We played a game called “I am going to a picnic” and you have to make up a rule about what people can bring to the picnic, and people have to work out the rule from what they are and are not allowed to bring. Stephen went first and he made it that you had to use the first letter of your name as the first letter of whatever you brought. I worked it out fairly quickly, and we played until we had exhausted ourselves of things beginning with our name letter. I had a go and my rule was nothing man-made could come. Lauren got a little confused and very competitive and guessed that the rule was something to do with photosynthesis or bacteria, which is way more complicated than anything I could actually come up with.

On a side note, the train for second class seated, which has no AC but does have fans, should cost about 140Rs. If it is less, then they are putting you in general, and there you will not get a seat and are packed in like battery hens. If it is more, they are either ripping you off or they are giving you a higher class.

When we arrived in Agra we went to a hostel Ben had read about in the Lonely Planet guide called Hotel Host. It was newly painted and very pleasant, and it was about 110Rs a night per person. We dumped our stuff and realised they had a roof terrace, which was brilliant and had a great moonlit view of the Taj Mahal itself. I like being able to look out over all the open rooftops; you see so many odd things. There was a goat in a tiny pen on one of them. We sat up here for hours drinking beer and chatting about ridiculous things. Joe has a guitar, so we brought it up and I tuned it and played some ABBA. Then Joe played Wish You Were Here and I almost thought I was back at home with the usual crowd, or in the flat listening to Iain ‘revising’ with the aid of his fender. It felt great to be traveling, to feel like a tourist for a night, completely worry free and careless. We have decided to get up at half five tomorrow for the Taj opening so that we can go before the crowds hit and see the sunrise over it.

4th September

2009-09-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Had my long lie today. It was fantastic. I didn’t feel like doing anything this morning so lay in bed until Amanda got me up, and then, once dressed, I went back to laying in bad reading a book. Eventually I felt bad about my laziness, and I went up to AIM café for a change of scenery and some lunch, as I just did not feel like curry today.

My legs are in a complete state. I have all these weird little spots all over them and they just keep cropping up. It reminds me of impetigo, but it hasn’t spread anywhere else, and they are like actual spots, not blisters that crust over. I don’t understand it at all. It might be because we are sweating all the time or something.

Having spent 6 hours in AIM, we went back to the hostel really briefly to drop our stuff off and then went straight back out to Connaught Place for a film. There is an Odeon in CP, so we thought we would turn up and see what was on. There wasn’t anything on until half ten though, and it was Final Destination. There is another cinema in CP though, called PVR Plaza, and it had Love Aaj Kal on at half seven. Love Aaj Kal is the film that Lauren’s favourite tune, Chori Bazari is on the soundtrack of. The cinema was above a restaurant and bar complex called Piccadelhi, which was completely kitsch and awesome. It had London metro signs outside, and then you walked through red phone boxes into a little square thing that has a black signpost like the London tourist signs and a London bus stop! There was a small English-style pub that could have passed for one, except the floor was not nearly sticky enough. It was really well done and made us feel very nostalgic for London, especially as Amanda and Stephen are both from the metropolis.

Love Aaj Kal itself was absolutely amazing and I am going to buy it and bring it home and force everyone to watch it in Hindi with me. There were great dance routines, there was a mad carnival scene, it was even set in London mostly…sigh…fantastic in every way. Chori Bazari wasn’t the only good song on offer either: there was a great one about twisting at one juncture, and there were dance moves and everything. It was so weird seeing London in most of the scenes, particularly when everyone apparently spoke in Hindi. Delhi also had an odd quirk about it, as it was very clean and generally an awful lot more cosmopolitan looking than it actually is. We mistook it for San Francisco at one point it was so clean looking. The whole film is hilarious. It is about a guy and girl who meet at a club and start going out. They decide to break up though when she gets a place restoring temples in Delhi and he gets a contract working for Golden Gate Inc. They both pretend it is fine and start seeing other people (the guy seeing this hilariously bimbo French girl) but soon all begins to fall apart. They decide to meet once more, and there is a song and dance number and you think they will get together, but no. Then girl decides to get married to her boyfriend even though she is really unhappy. She gets a divorce soon afterwards though, and the guy realises he has been an idiot and travels to Delhi to ask her to take him back. Which of course she does. Running alongside this is the flash backs of the match maker, an old Sikh man with many brightly coloured turbans, who has also had to go through many trials and tribulations to get the woman he loved. It is all very nice an lovey-dovey, and I have to say Sikh man is an old smoothie.

After the film we went to Parana Ganj and went up to Metropolis and persuaded the men in the kitchen to make us a pizza to share between us. Lauren thinks she has Delhi Belly again, which is not good and does not bode well for our train journey tomorrow. We are planning on going to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Amanda and I have already decided we are not going to eat anything in Agra as everyone gets poisoned there, even the Indian girls, but Lauren and Stephen think they will be fine. I think I would rather be hungry for 24 hours than sick for a week to be honest. We will see how Lauren is though. We might need to rethink if she is too unwell, which would be a great shame.

3rd September

2009-09-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I could sleep in! I had another weird chest pain last night and I have no idea what is causing it. It was incredibly painful however, and I couldn’t sleep for ages. Weird. There were two peacocks on my balcony however, and that made me happy beyond everything. When there is exotic wildlife to be had, I am easy to please.

Yet another Fielding lecture that was entirely on the narrative. I don’t understand why the people in the class haven’t read the text and so she feels the need to go through it. it is incredibly annoying and leaves no time for development of the ideas contained within the text. I know we are only a few weeks in, but still, there should be more than this at post-graduate level. My history lecture on the other hand, was a wonderful lecture as usual. I really enjoy his class, especially when he gets really into what he is saying about half way through and his voice gets really loud. You can tell he is an old Marxist as well, its quite encouraging really. He gave us sheets today telling us what batch we would be in for assignments and when they would be due. Our first is due in on the 29^th September I think and the second on the 20^th October, so I will need to make sure I am incredibly up to date or I will be in trouble for it, as I think I will have other essays in October as well. Everyone is visiting in October…most inconvenient! If only they had picked different months at least! My family are coming on the 8^th, and Kapil is here from the 4^th till 8^th, but I guess I can get some work done in that time, and the couple of days my family will be in Agra, as I don’t know if I will go with them because of these essays. It’s all slightly problematic.

Went to Barista for some lunch and discovered they do an awesome peach smoothie with yoghurt. A very welcome change to all the ice cream, and a nice perk before Hindi. I didn’t fall asleep as badly as last time, possibly because we spent the entire lecture talking about food and sweets. I found it funny when he told us that Indians have a light breakfast in comparison to the West, as they only have tea/coffee/hot milk, and toast and jam, and cereal or porridge, and eggs or something hot (cooked by the women, he specified). Not heavy at all…

When we got back to the hostel Amanda came by to use the net. Apparently Lauren’s has stopped working now, and we are afraid that they have cancelled her contract now that mine is working, but hopefully not. Surely they are not so stupid…(fingers crossed). Ate more cashew nuts and apricots than I think is good for me (they are too moreish) and then went for a wee gym time, seeing as I didn’t go yesterday. Here, it is quite satisfying that 40 minutes on the cross-trainer makes you sweat more than an hour at home. Makes you feel like you have achieved a lot more than you actually have. Dinner was exciting tonight as well: parantha and chickpea dhal…I though I was in heaven. I had to get two helpings to satisfy the cravings.

After dinner we watched Breakfast on Pluto, which made me very happy. We have to watch films with the fan off, which is hard as you start to sweat buckets in seconds, but worth it for this. My laptop doesn’t have great speakers, so we were all crowded round it. Lauren has found out that Colgate tooth powder (??) cleans silver jewelry really well, so I have finally removed the layer of grime accumulated on my silver bangle and necklace. It was completely rank I have to say. All the pollution and the water must just get to it. I suppose if it makes our skin go black, it isn’t too surprising that it does the same to clothes and jewelry.

It began to storm during the film. The lightning was incredibly bright, and the rain poured down like nothing I have yet seen. The wind was really strong as well: a proper storm. My room even got slightly flooded, as my balcony must have flooded so it all seeped in onto my floor. I now have a couple of pairs of my trousers that needed a wash soaking it all up. At least this place is so hot that it will probably dry in five minutes anyway. The corridor by Lauren’s has two inches of water in it. It’s completely crazy, and hopefully it will mean tomorrow might be a little cooler. Tomorrow is the student elections, so class has been cancelled. Finally there will be an end to all the demonstrations and the protests outside the lecture halls. The amount of passionate chanting I have heard in the past five days has been insane. The students here do thing so differently to Edinburgh: they affiliate with political parties and create separate parties themselves. The political parties then fund their activities and campaigns; something that would never happen at home. There are all these airbrushed posters around the place as well, completely strange to we foreigners. In Edinburgh such militancy would have you disqualified. There is certainly no outright party allegiance. I have learnt that ABVP are BJP, that NSUI is Congress, and that SFI are probably communists, or at least very leftwing. I think I like them most, as they seem to be the only one relying on student support rather than outside support. It also means I might get a lie in, in pigeons and my body allow me it.

There are more explosions. I don’t understand why you would set off fireworks in dregs of a storm…I guess weddings are too important to think about such paltry things as weather.

2nd September

2009-09-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today I didn’t have class, so I took the opportunity to go to the Vodafone shop in Model Town and try one more time for the internet. I had to wait half an hour despite being one of four people in the shop, and then spent half an hour trying to explain myself to the woman at the counter and then another wee while of her calling people, speaking in Hindi, and then repeatedly go over the same action on the computer until she told me that I would have internet in 2 hours. We will see what will come of that one. Here, two hours might mean 5 days.
After my hours of waiting around in that horrible shop I went to meet Lauren and Amanda for some lunch and a restorative coffee. I got a banana and caramel frappe, which I have to say, was just the job to lift my mood. Amanda has found a wonderful book on Post-colonial studies. It is basically a reader, so it includes loads of essays from different post-colonial theory works. It is really very interesting, and I now have quite a long list of books I need/want to buy. I particularly liked Chinua Achebe’s contribution on African novel writing. It is very tongue-in-cheek and quite an enjoyable and insightful rant. I really want to read his book Things Fall Apart, and Lauren has it with her, so I will borrow it. We are swapping Wide Sargasso Sea for Burmese Days first though. Its quite interesting that Burmese Days is all about the British admin in Burma and a lot of what we are doing right now is on the growth and romanticism of the civil service in India. The Covenanted Service it was called. Apparently it captures the spirit of elitism and camaraderie felt between the old graduates of the EIC training school really well. I am looking forward to it.
We had Hindi class this afternoon, and I almost fell asleep several times during it. I just could not keep my eyes open for more than five seconds. Whenever he asked me anything I just mumbled something out and I think he could tell I was not there in spirit as he stopped asking after a while. I felt slightly bad, as he is a good teacher and he takes time out to teach us this stuff. But I just couldn’t stop nodding. Afterwards we had to go to Nirula’s and get food to resuscitate ourselves. I got a sort of chickpea thing. I have to say, since coming here, I am all about the chickpeas. Tanya met us as well, as she is going to come out to the gig with us.
We met Stephen, Lauren’s friend, at Rajiv Chowk, and he had made a friend from Australia. We all went up to the night market that is along Jan Path, which is a road leading out of Connaught Place. It has lots of little booths that are designated to different Indian states and areas. So, there is a Maratha craft booth and so on. There are also lots of makeshift shacks that sell incredibly cheap clothes. You have to walk through a metal detector to get in, but I don’t see the point in it really. There are so many people milling around, there would be no way to police them all. And anyway, even if it goes off, the guards never search you or care. I was so glad Tanya was with us, she managed to knock three hundred rupees off the prices of nearly everything. I got a pair of awesome trousers that are purple tie-dye and a silk skirt for 400Rs (£6). If Tanya had not intervened, I would have been paying 500Rs for one of them. I swear, as soon as she turned up they knocked 200Rs straight off. It was hilarious and amazing, and completely proved our theory of tourist tax being WAY more than you could expect it to be. We also got apricots and cashew nuts, and I am in fact munching them as I type. I am eating A LOT of them though, so I don’t know if I have surpassed the point where it is technically healthy to eat them.
Ward, as usual, told us that the gig was in a not too expensive bar, and ten minutes from Central Sec. But no. It was actually 40 minutes from Central Sec and 300Rs entry, but two free beers made it more bearable. Even so, we need to stop going out to where Ward tells us so much. It is a major drain on your funds. The other issue was, that we had to be back by 11 for curfew. That would have been ok, if Ward had been correct about the ten minute theory and if we hadn’t had only an hour to stay. As it was, the band wasn’t too hot anyways. It wasn’t as bad as Bollywood mash ups, but it was still four guys fiddling about with their guitars. And then one of them did an awful and pathetic drum solo and everyone cheered like it was freaking awesome. I didn’t understand what was so good, but then again, this is possibly one of the few instances of anything that could be designated as alternative music that I will experience while I am here. Tanya has professed a like for Incubus though, and apparently her hometown Shillong is full of emos. Definitely the Scotland of the East! I will have to go and check it out, it would feel so homely. It was very strange actually, as we met a guy from London who’s family live in Delhi. It was weird to hear the accent for a change. Also, basically every international person we knew was in that bar. Very weird. Apparently we can’t do things apart from one another, all the white people must band together out of want for things to do, or imagination perhaps. All in all, it wasn’t a bad night, but a definite waste of money getting there and back. I did get a subway for my dinner though, which was amazing and slightly gross.
I find it strange that the Indian girls can’t have the same curfew as us. It is backward discrimination. Tanya seems far more sensible than we are for a start. Perhaps one day she could convince her guards to let her come home at 2am or something and come out with us. On a Wednesday at Urban Pind there is a ladies night with free mojitos. I feel it must be done one day, even though I have a lecture on Thursday mornings at 9…
So, seeing as this is published, you have probably guessed that my internet works! It doesn’t support Skype all too well, but it works none the less. I can just go to AIM to have a video chat if necessary. All most exciting.
There are tones of explosions going off beside the hostel. Amanda got so worried she called me to see if I could find out what it was. It turns out it was fireworks at a nearby wedding (they are huge affairs, a whole street was in fairy lights) and not world war three.

1st September

2009-09-01T08:32:00.001-07:00

September! The month where everything will supposedly get colder! Amazing times,

Today Lauren’s friend from home is coming to visit her on part of his round the world trip. We are meeting him later in Parana Ganj and we are going to go to the Red Fort, which I have yet to go to.

Had another theory class today on Plato. I am really warming to that lecturer. I am also starting to think that I am going to have to meet them outside of lectures to discuss things, because there really is no scope for developing your own ideas and arguments when you are just getting lectured at. I know that in Edinburgh the leap from 2^nd to 3^rd year is a fairly major one, so I just feel like I might not have progressed very much by the end of this if I don’t go out of my way to try and convince one of them to chat to me occasionally. Lauren thinks the same. She had had to prepare a presentation for today, but when she got to class she found out that half the people hadn’t read the book they had had an essay due in the week before for, never mind done a presentation. And then the lecturer came in and didn’t even mention the presentation. She had stressed out about the whole thing, but if half the class haven’t even begun their work and no one cares, it doesn’t bode well for the modes of assessment here. We have decided that if needs be, we would rather repeat third year than go into fourth year and scrape a 2:2 or something.

Our history lecture was cancelled, so we caught the metro early into New Delhi. As usual, huge masses of people in the station, all with their luggage on their heads. It is quite a sight to see. I have no idea how they can balance massive suitcases on there.

Unlike our last excursion here, there is no mud bath, and we can see the streets. After much wandering through tiny back streets (one with a cow lying down in the middle of it, so we had to step over it) we found Stephen’s hostel after about ten minutes of aimlessness. It seems pretty good. The hostels here are fairly good I have to say, and all pretty cheap. So you know, if you are coming to visit me hint hint you should totally stay there. Though, I would not recommend it if you are a girl alone or with only one guy, as a lot of hostels won’t let you in the same room unless you produce a marriage certificate.

Went for some lunch at the Everest roof top kitchen, and I had parantha and paneer. I have to say, I have grown quite fond of paneer, which is a cottage cheese type thing that is in quite a lot of things, including curry. Afterwards we went down into the street when it began to rain very heavily. Within thirty seconds we were soaked to the skin, and my white t-shirt was suddenly an awful plan. Took refuge in New Delhi station and decided that Red Fort and Chandni Chowk was a bad plan, and that we would go to the museum instead.

The museum here is fairly cool, and I can get in for 1Rs with a student card (300 for all other foreigners). It has ancient and medieval Indian art galore, and a room that was unfortunately partly closed off with loads of beautiful bronze sculptures of the Gods. There was also quite a lot of Buddhist and Jain art, which was very interesting, and a Buddhist devotional relic stand that had bits of skin and so on in it like the saints’ do in Catholic churches. One of the most interesting things I saw was a portrait of one of the Mughal emperor’s from the time of James VI and I where he is holding a portrait of the Madonna.

By the time we got out the museum it was dry again, but we were damp and exhausted. Decided to call it a day and get back to the hostel for afternoon tea and let Stephen get some sleep. I need a cup of tea…I am very very tired and I am not entirely sure why.

The cup of tea was the ultimate restorative. I have to say, the tea and biscuits every day at five o’clock is an absolutely amazing tradition that should be in place for the rest of my days. It is a very English tradition, but if it is a product of colonialism that this hostel practices, I am all for it.

Going to AIM later to get the old faithful: pomegranate shakes and free wifi. Cannot wait, it is going to be great. I can even publish this thing on the net.

Going to my first gig tomorrow! Apparently it is fusion music, but technically the Lady GaGa/Kaminey mash up of Saturday night is fusion, so I don’t feel too enthusiastic. But we shall see. This place surprises at every single turn.

31st August

2009-09-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

My morning lecture this morning by the amazing Sidney man was interrupted by some person from the Vice Chancellor asking us to fill in feedback forms. I feel they may be slightly confused when they see my form, as it discussed your previous courses and all that and seeing as that took place in an entirely different continent, I can see why there may be some confusion. But oh well. It was nice to be able to vent all my frustrations with the way things are run here, but I somehow doubt any one actually reads these forms let alone pays attention to them. The lecturer decided it was a lost cause and buggered off after the form man appeared. The ABVP, the student union associated with the Hindu Nationalist party the BJP, marched into the lecture room as well and started mouthing off about a less secular teaching model and Hindu rights and so on. I decided that was the moment to leave. I have seen pictures of the RSS training camps, with the boys with sticks in their hands, being taught how to beat people to death who believe in a different God or who don’t believe at all. I have no idea how such people can even come to University in the first place. How can you possibly reconcile a liberal education with such fascistic viewpoints? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

After morning lectures I spent about five minutes cooing over the puppies outside the Arts Faculty. It is a shame they will grow up mangy and scrawny.

We went to Kamla Nagar for some lunch at Barista. Attempted to read my Johnson criticism but failed to concentrate in any way.

Hindi today was absolutely horrible. I was just starting to get my head around the past tense when he told us the past simple, or the way to say ‘I went’ or ‘I ate’. It all seemed to be going ok and then he sprung the gender endings on us despite me asking if it changed in any way shape or form and him assuring me that no, this really was it. Liar. We did learn directions today however, which will come in so useful when we next get a rickshaw and have to explain where we live. Finally, a useful thing!

Lauren and Amanda felt ice cream was needed to pick themselves up after Hindi, so we went to Nirula’s and they got some food. I had taken out a muffin from Barista so ate that. I have to say, there is a lot of sugar in my diet here. I put sugar in my tea, there is ice cream in the coffee, there is sugar everywhere in fact. At home I would never even think to eat so much sugar, and yet here it is all we seem to do. Perhaps it is because everything is such a chore we need it to keep our energy up. Or we are greedy. It may be the latter…

When we came back to the hostel I did penance on the treadmill and Amanda and Lauren went to work. I said I would help the slightly crazy seeming Indian woman who also does history with her English tonight, and Amanda says she will help. I am slightly apprehensive, as she looks at you in a very intent way and isn’t so careful about personal space, and so is a little scary. She ran into Lauren while she was ill the other week and said the same thing but when Lauren said she was sick and couldn’t do it, she yelled “Swineflu!” at her and ran off. But I couldn’t say no, so we shall see.

She didn’t turn up! Amazing! Bed time instead. What did turn up though was my birthday cards from mum, dad and Euan. I feel special. They are stuck up on my wardrobe door.

30th August

2009-09-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Woke up when a pigeon flew into my window, flapped at it for a bit then, deciding it was in fact glass, it flew away. Bloody annoying. I am a little bit hung-over I think. Shows what no alcohol for a month does to you. I missed breakfast, so instead of throwing up that, I threw up my vitamin pills instead and a mix of water and stomach acid. Lovely. I now have the hiccups and I can’t stop. I also somehow ripped my salwaar (probably while dancing like loonie) and so I must sew them up. Bah. At least they are black, so no one will know.

After a lazy morning recovering, I feel infinitely better. Went down with Lauren for lunch, and was delighted to find chickpea things waiting for me. I do love the chickpea dhal, it is just so much more exciting than lentils. Marie apparently got off with her Dutch Embassy man at the party they were at yesterday, despite his wife being there. Not so cool. She just seems to have no scruple.

Lauren and I went out to Coffee Day and met Ben to do some work. Ended up just chatting about my Imperial Control class and I think I have converted Lauren and Ben to taking it instead of Peninsular India. Apparently their course is focusing on economic history, whereas my course is taking the racial theory route and looking at the effect upon social and state institutions. It is actually very interesting, and the kind of history that I love. If only there were more courses this semester on it, perhaps I wouldn’t be changing my mind to English Literature for my dissertation. Coffee Day had mosquitoes in it: is there no escape??

When we came back to the hostel, I managed to get a cup of tchai and took it up to my room to read for a little longer. I finished Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys today. I couldn’t put it down: I only bought it on Friday. It is a brilliant book. Rhys was a half white creole woman who lived up till the late seventies. She was completely ignored as a writer until the sixties, when Wide Sargasso Sea came out. She was ignored because her books were ahead of their time by some way, all dealing with debauched women who were trying to place themselves in the world and in society, struggling to keep their identity together. Wide Sargasso Sea is the masterpiece: it gives the woman in the attic of Jane Eyre her story back. The wife in the attic in Jane Eyre is supposed to be a rich heiress that Lord thingy has married for her money as the younger son of a wealthy family. It was a common practice, going to the colonies and marrying a rich plantation heiress. Rhys gives the madwoman back her story, her identity and her voice. The character is Antoinette Cosway, a white creole woman who is surrounded her entire life by hostility and the memory of slavery and ill begotten wealth. She cannot place herself in her society, as she is despised by white and black people alike. Then, she marries an English man who has come to Jamaica with the sole purpose of marrying her for her money. The narrative comes from Antoinette and her husband, and it shows why Antoinette becomes the madwoman in the attack, why she is forced into that role by her circumstance, history, society and situation with her husband. The descriptions of the islands are so verdant and exotic and yet there is an underlying sinister note that comes through most when the author describes the house of Christophine and her person as bright and colourful and floral, and then the brief mention of the pile of chicken feathers in one corner and immediately there is a dark reality beneath the flora.

I enjoy the fact that there is ice cream at dinner on a Sunday. We tried practicing Hindi afterwards, and we made flash cards with the consonants on it. Unfortunately, many of them look almost exactly like one another, with just a tiny angle of the line or a particular loop shape being different. Some are exactly the same, except one with the dot above the letter is an ‘r’ and the other with the dot below, is a ‘d’. We gave up pretty quickly. I don’t understand why there are four forms of ‘ta’ either. And you don’t know where they have to be used! They just appear and there is no difference as far as I can tell. Most perplexing.

Goddamn I just burnt my keyboard again….this computer is going to be wrecked if I am not more careful…

29th August

2009-09-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

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.

28th August

2009-09-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

I do feel different. But not in a good way…Trust it to be on my birthday when my stomach decides to make somersaults. Every day is a new day where our digestive systems are concerned. Who knows what the rest of the day has in store?

Tanya’s friend gave me this mint thing that settles your stomach, and I think that might be the only thing that kept me going through English this morning. I feel ok by comparison, but there is still an ominous feeling.

Decided to put on a jazzy top in order to celebrate my birthday. Also have on my iridescent green salwaar, so I make quite a picture.

We are going into South Delhi today to Khan Market and the Lodi gardens. (Don’t know if that is how you spell it). We are planning on either getting food at KM or getting food to make a picnic, though I don’t know how we will do that really without knives at least, as everything here needs to be peeled. We shall see. I want new headphones and some new books. It is all most exciting.

Went to Khan Market with David in tow. We went to Café Turtle where I had an amazing mint wrap that was really tomatoey and just lovely in every way. A nice alternative to the constant curry. After Turtle, we went and got our books from Barrisons, but I have realized that none of these book stores have literary theory sections, which makes things for me a bit more limited. Got ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys though, so I am quite happy with that. Also took David to Fab India where he went to pieces over their rugs and wall hangings. I swear, that boy is actually a woman inside.

Lauren and I got our hands hennaed at the Market as well. I got a sort of Arabic pattern that seems to be just really bold and mad, and she got a very intricate Rajasthani patterning. We couldn’t move our hands for twenty minutes, but it is worth it. I wonder how long it will last though…

Went from Khan Market to the Lodi Gardens, which are these beautiful parklands in the centre of Delhi. There are loads of kites circling over you and parrots and hornbills in the trees. Everything is very green and verdant. There are tombs as well in the midst of the trees that are these fantastic domed halls with intricate Arabic detailing in the stonework. One had bright blue tiling around its outside edge, which was really lovely, though inside it had been stripped bare. There was also a pond with lily pads and lotuses and a moorehen of some description stalking through it, trying to balance on the pads.

It was really a lovely day. The Dutch all came and Tanya came out with us as well. Amanda and Lauren gave me loads of incense, Ben gave me these really sweet cake things that are a bit like baklava (Iain will have to try some!) and David and Ward bought me a little tea light holder that is like an old fashioned oil lamp case to hang from the ceiling in my room. I hadn’t expected anything, and it was really very sweet of them all to get me something. Not only that, but they also bought me lunch. David sang a song all the way to the market as well about my birthday, complete with air drumming. It was pretty incredible.

We made it back to the hostel in time for dinner, and Tanya had to say goodbye. Her curfew is 9pm, which I think is a little ridiculous as our curfew is 11pm. I don’t see why she should be home earlier just because she is Indian and not an international student. It is basically discriminatory. What makes our nationality mean we are more able to look after ourselves in the evenings? Apparently her late night curfew isn’t any time either, it is 11pm, whereas we can come home at 4am or whenever. I don’t really see why being an Indian girl means you are more at risk than an international one. In fact, I think they are probably less at risk than us, because at least they know how to deal with things properly and know the lie of the land so to speak.

We went to AIM after dinner, and I got Bingsoo with ice cream. Took a wee while to explain to the poor girl on the till that I can’t eat melon, but we got there eventually when I realised I had not put the essential prefix of ‘water’ in. There was a mosquito in it. There were mosquitos everywhere actually . I think I got bitten on my elbow. How and ever, it was nice to be able to use Skype on my birthday!. My dad managed to download it at work and I was midway through a conversation with him when it said my connection had been lost. Turns out mum has forgotten her own skype details so had logged in as dad, and thus had signed him out. Very well done. Euan was there with her, and he said happy birthday and showed me his bicep made to look like a bum crack and then buggered off out with his friends and the ladies. I find it astounding that both my parents seemed not to grasp the idea that not looking at the webcam means I didn’t see their faces. I don’t quite see why it is a challenge to put the webcam on top of the computer where it is meant to go, but what do I know? Obviously my face was so engrossing on screen that they chose to talk at it rather than at me. This is made all the more amazing, because on screen there is even a little preview box of what you look like to the other person, so they must have known that I could see half their head. I think some honing needs to be done. Mum also couldn’t work out how to sign out of Skype so that dad could sign back in. Fantastic. I spoke to Iain instead, which was nice as he was back in Killearn and had the dog. I miss Copper! And he isn’t even my dog! Even so, something to cuddle would be nice. The dogs here are not so cuddly. More flea-ridden, mangy and possibly rabid.

27th August

2009-08-28T09:20:00.001-07:00

Turned up with Tanya to our English class this morning, only to find it was cancelled for the DUTA (Delhi Uni Teacher’s Assoc.) elections. Went and sat on one of the benches outside and talked for a bit until we got covered in ants and god knows what else. She asked me why I had wanted to come here, as some Indian people were so unfriendly, and mean. The men in the English Office are mean to be sure, but for the most part, everyone here is incredibly friendly and welcoming. It can get slightly invasive, coming form such a standoffish place as Britain. We don’t go up to random strangers and hold their hand and ask them every detail of their family and personal life. But here, there is no embarrassment. Most people just seem to want to practice their English, and they are all genuinely curious about us. I suppose that because of family and caste relationships here, asking someone what their father’s name is and what he does can automatically place that person in the caste hierarchy and then you know how to treat them. Of course, don’t get me wrong; there are creeps enough to keep us occupied. Last night when Lauren and I were coming home from AIM a man and his son rode past on a bike and yelled Vechya! At us, and I think that means whore. The motorbikes all swerve to hit you and then turn at the last minute. A car decided to curb crawl for a little so we had to resort to the cholera-ditch pavement.

After this, I went to Barista and had an espresso to try and wake myself up. It was not particularly great however, so I think I might steer clear of that one from now on.

History class this morning was on, despite elections. I am glad our History professor seems less concerned with the millions of possible days off he could have and actually wants to teach us, unlike so many of the others. Today’s lecture was on the decline of Mughal legitimization of the EIC in the 1830s and 1840s, in an attempt to show that 1857 wasn’t the only breaking point of Mughal sovereignty. Of course it was a major factor, as the trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar demonstrates. The British tried him for treason, but up until that point the British had acted as diwans of the emperor, actively gaining a ferman (order) to rule over the territory they did. Until the 1830s they had even paid nazr, or tribute, regularly to the emperor. Their active engagement in court protocol meant that the emperor was sovereign. Effectively, the British tried Bahadur for treason against himself.

We also began to talk about racial theory as a major structure in colonialism, and I think this topic is going to be incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed the small bits of it we did in 2^nd year about racial discourse, pseudo-science and the creation of the ‘other’ in popular culture.

After history, myself and Amanda parted ways for our separate coffee houses. I found out the word for chickpea curry thing is ‘chole’. Always useful. Went to Coffee Day after lunch and had a Kaapi Nirvana. We need to stop having so many iced coffees, but damn they are just so good. There was a really loud American in the café who had his socks on in his sandals. It made me cringe. He had acquired an entourage of curious Indian guys who kept giggling at him and his incredibly loud accent. I know it is a stereotype of sorts, but Americans can be very loud and very brash if they feel like it.

The rain began whilst I was in the café and didn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. I like the rain here. It is unlike at home, where it is just a continuous rain or drizzle. Here, the rain drops are huge: they really hit you. The streets fill up with water incredibly quickly and soon the place is flooded up to the pavement. I wonder if that is why the pavements are so high here, to keep the flood water off the shop floors. Decided to make a run for it to Hindi and hailed a rickshaw. My driver was great, he sang the entire way and when he reached a flooded part of the road gave my legs a whack and told me to lift them up so he could slice through the water. It was great fun. He was mad. He also tried to charge me 20 Rs to get from Kamla Nagar to the Uni on account of the rain. I gave him 15Rs as a compromise. Really it shouldn’t cost more than 10…but he was quite cool and I liked his singing.

The road into the Conference Centre was blocked with water so I had to hitch my trousers up and wade. Thankfully did not feel anything more offensive than a leaf around my leg. Hindi was quite good today, though we are incredibly incompetent. We were taught the past tense today, and I can say with confidence that my understanding has hit a brick wall. Once more however, the feminine endings are all the same. At least talking about myself will be relatively simple.

When we came back to the hostel, I went to the gym. It is a great de-stressor. Afterwards I was in the shower when I discovered an ant in my knickers! Absolutely horrifying. Lauren has had ants in her pants already, but I have to say when it happens to you, you cant help but feel a little concerned about where said ant has been for the past few hours.

After dinner Lauren and I went out to AIM and made use of the internet. I managed to skype Iain and Frances. They have both just finished their resits, and Iain had been out to celebrate with Iain-Alex and had a massive hangover. I find it annoying that he never seems to throw up after a night out. I always have terrible hangovers, and always I am sick in the morning. Frances said she was celebrating the sober way by watching Thumbellina. I think I would be with Iain though, and have a stiff drink.

Tried to get mum on Skype, but I think my phone isn’t sending texts, as I have sent a couple in past few days and had no reply. Oh well,

Birthday tomorrow! I am going to be old! People can no longer dismiss me as ‘only a teenager!’ I doubt I will feel any different.

26th August

2009-08-27T08:26:00.001-07:00

Today has been a very unexciting day. Spent most of the morning in AIM, my new spiritual home. They like us so much we get discounts now. It is fairly ridiculous how often we are in here.

Kaus, one of the Dutch, has announced that he has decided to go home to Amsterdam. I find this strange, as out of the four of him, he seems the most ready to try everything and accept a lot more. He says he hates Delhi, and seeing as this semester would count for nothing back home, he has decided to go back. What he really wants to do is travel in India, not stay cooped up in the hostel, which is fair enough I guess.

We had Hindi class yet again today. We have learnt the present tense, and the present continuous. I can now tell someone I am eating mangoes = “Mai aam kharahii huu”. There are different verb endings for masculine people and words, but with feminine they seem to have decided that it ends in ‘ii’ and that is an end of it. As usual, women have less choice and variety in their lives.

We came home to the hostel and sat around for a while in my room, with Lauren taking timed camera shots of us. We now have many shots of myself and Amanda looking unclean and unhappy with Lauren.

Today has been so completely unproductive. I tried practicing Hindi but I think it might be pointless.

Mum phoned to tell me that she thinks Rajasthan is a better bet than Darjeeling, which is fair enough. Everybody loves tiger safari. I found her assertion that the hotel they were looking at was in Connaught Place, and then admitting that it was actually ten minutes away from CP. Ten minutes from CP is very different from CP itself. I wouldn’t stay on CP, it is just so run-down and stagnant feeling. I know it has some of the best shops (if you mean Western ones) and some nice restaurants, but I jus don’t think staying there would be very pleasant. Ten minutes form CP though, and you are in diplomatic territory, and the whole thing gets a lot greener and a lot more posh. I am sure a hotel there will be lovely, and way out of my personal price range. I think my rents will find North Delhi a shock in comparison to the South and Central! I will have to take them to Chandni Chowk and Old Delhi so they can experience the crowds and the street vendors and the rickshaws all jostling for dominance in the tiny alleyways and mud strewn streets.

25th August

2009-08-26T01:06:00.000-07:00

Well, today was slightly more productive than yesterday. Apart from class this morning, which included a great lecture on the Republic by Plato, Lauren, Ben and I made an excursion to Chandni Chowk. We wandered around the streets for a little bit until we finally managed to find the Jamma Masjid mosque. It is huge, built out of the same stone as the Red Fort. You have to climb up some stairs to get up onto the level of it, and then it opens out into a huge open air courtyard and then the mosque itself sits at the top end. It is all faced with marble up there, and there is a lot of intricate detail around the pillars and minarets. We had to take our shoes off when we went in, and then Lauren and I were forced to put on these terrible bright orange smocks to cover our ‘inappropriate’ clothing. What I didn’t understand though, as that I was wearing long trousers and sleeves, with almost nothing, except my face, on show, and yet I had to wear one of the smocks despite some other women wearing cropped trousers and v-necks. I think it might be just a marker for tourists in order to humiliate you.

We sat and wandered for about three hours in the mosque. The stone was hot to walk on, so we sat on the cooler marble in the mosque itself. I didn’t understand why so many men were just sitting around the place; didn’t they have jobs? I know it is Ramadan, as many girls are getting up at 4am to eat and pray, but that doesn’t mean they get time off. Very odd. A lot of school boys kept on coming up to me and Lauren and saying ‘Hello madam!’ before running off giggling with their friends, having won major man points for their trouble. Ben and Lauren went up the minaret, but I wasn’t in the mood to negotiate the stairs and decided to sit at the pool in the middle of the court yard and read some more Plato. All very civilized. Men would keep standing over me to try and work out what I was reading. Everyone was just washing their faces and drinking the water from the pool, and then spitting into the ditch running along it. It was quite peaceful in its own way.

After this we went back through Chandni Chowk. A word on this area: this is Old Delhi, or the Muslim Quarter. Here, there are tones of tiny streets that lead you to a treasure trove of saree and silver shops. The silver shops are amazing: some of them have incredibly tacky modern jewelry, but some have beautiful antique silver things that you get the impression cost a bomb. The bridal jewelry was all pretty elaborate and pretty as well. I find the nose-earring contraption quite appealing. Everyone wants their face to jingle as they walk… You see sometimes on posters of men's faces people have graffitied these earring things on to their face rather than devil horns and a mustache. We will have to go back, but Lauren was feeling sick, so we got the metro back to the hostel.

Spent a while in the gym tonight, but found it quite hard. I think the illness put paid to a lot of my energy.

My wireless still isn’t working. Had a brief five minutes on the net on Amanda’s computer and got a message from Iain saying he has spent over £100 calling me in the past three weeks. I feel terrible about it, and I am going to insist on paying half of it at least, but Iain has told me not to think about it. I owe him big time.

Watched another Hindi film tonight with the Lithuanians. It was called ‘Delhi 6’, which is somewhat ironic as that is basically Chandni Chowk, so we had many scenic views of the mosque and the jalebi stalls and crowded streets. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but it was better than Kaminey I think. There was more singing and dancing going on as well, which is always a plus in my book! I think it was about a man who comes with his mother to Delhi from New York, and then falls in love with a neighbouring family’s daughter, who wants to be a singer. She is being forced into an arranged marriage, but then there is a huge fight between the Muslims and Hindus and our hero gets caught in the crossfire. The whole thing ends with him gasping for air in an ambulance and everyone praising God that he is going to be ok. Though, as far as I know, a gunshot wound to the stomach and general beating, coupled with the heart attack he has when he first gets in the ambulance, doesn’t bode well, and is certainly not a cause for celebration. Hindi films are all very weird.