Rubbish, air travel & parents

In the 4 years we’ve lived here I’ve seen more rubbish/litter than anywhere else in my lifetime I’m sure. It’s everywhere (except maybe on the golf course across the road from us that is kept pristine by a group of women in saris with hard hats on to protect them from mis-hit balls)! About a year ago a ban was placed on plastic bags and that seemed to have worked for a while but there are still many stores that will pack your groceries in a gazillion plastic bags if you’re not paying attention. Plus there’s also the fruit and veg section of these stores that place each type of fruit or veg in individual plastic bags for the purpose of weighing. I try to tell them to just put the sticker on the item but they refuse. Anyway in the paper today was an article about the amount of plastic waste that India produces annually and apparently it adds up to a staggering 5.6 millions tonnes!!! Not sure what the ultimate solution is given that part of the problem is tied up with culture. Or drivers, for example, when cleaning out the car just throw any trash onto the ground beside the car even if there’s a trash can within a few footsteps. They say that the grounds staff will pick it up later. There’s always someone further down the totem pile who can deal with it!!

These last couple of months we’ve done a bit of internal travel within India and while I’m fully aware of how lucky we are to be able to travel by plane it’s just not fun over here!! The security checks are definitely needed and that adds time onto the check in process of course, but it is so tediously SLOW!!! Women have to go through a separate section to be patted down behind a curtain and that line is always twice as long as the men’s. Putting your hand luggage through the X-ray takes a phenomenal amount of time because the guys doing it are chatting or seeking each others’ opinions which means the guy at the adjoining X-ray machine isn’t doing his job. Anywhere else we’ve travelled these same tasks are done in at least half the time. So coming back from Kerala on the weekend it was doubly frustrating because we had double the security checks. Our flight to Mumbai landed and we were told we had to get off and go to a different plane. Unfortunately there was no way to avoid the 2nd line of X-rays. So again I put my hand luggage on the belt and waited for it go through. I timed it and it took 10mins! Then I had to go to the back of the long line for the women’s pat down behind the curtain (another 10mins). I was at te front of the line when a guard pushed through with a lady in a wheelchair. I let her through and she got up an walked onto the box where you have to stand and then she walked out!! Not long after that she walked onto the bus that we had to take to the plane and stood up the whole time!! So I’m thinking Ill give that trick a whirl next time!!
Just as an aside we got to see part if Dharavi slum flying in and out of Mumbai. That’s the one made famous in “Slumdog Millionaire”. It’s right on the edge of the airport and seems to go on for miles. Just incredible that 1 million people live there. I heard there are now 3 other slums in Mumbai that are even larger.

At the moment I’m on my way to Manju’s school. She and Poonam have arranged admission for 13 of their older students in mainstream schools this week which is fabulous. One of them has made the grade for class 6!! But we now need to meet with the parents of 2 other bright kids because they’re saying that our schools are good enough for their kids. They can read and write now and that means they can more helpful working in their shops/stalls so there’s really no need to take their education further. It’s a typical (and at least partially understandable) view given that they live hand to mouth day by day but we’d like to try to change it and let them give their kids more of a chance.

Stray dogs, seepage & reading logs

One of my friends lives in an area near here where there are a lot of houses (ie as opposed to high rise apartments) and a lot of wandering stray dogs constantly hang around the streets there. Some of the residents have been getting in quite a state about the dogs and seem to have been spending ages thinking out and then writing emails to each other on the residents’ email forum. My friend and I think some of these threads are hilarious. Here’s one from a few days ago. If only this amount of energy was put into changing the dire state that many of the local daily wage earners live in!!!

> Subject: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers
> From: I
> Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2013
> To

>
> Dear Stray Dog Lovers,
>
> I write this after a lot of deliberation and anguish. Being a dog lover myself (having spent 12 wonderful years with Wishbone) I really thought hard and long before writing this mail.
>
> There are 15 dogs in front of my house and it is impossible to have a peaceful moment in the evenings or a good night’s sleep at night because of the constant nuisance of barking dogs 10 metres from my house.
>
> My daughter starts her board exams from tomorrow and I would really like her to sleep well before her exams.
>
> So here is my suggestion. Can I please please bring them over to spend the next one month in front of your homes?
>
> I don’t know the names of all the stray dog lovers – but going by the google group Mr P and Mrs A do come to mind.
>
> Sir and Ma’am could you please forward your house numbers so that I can relocate these guys in front if your homes please? I am sure there are many more of you who I don’t remember, but I am positive you will willingly volunteer and let me know your house numbers.
>
> I am sure being an ardent lover of dogs you will not decline my humble request.
>
> Cheers!
>
> I

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 10:18 P wrote:
I – I have done my duty by taking 1 stray inside my home, now it’s your turn to take 1 inside your home and find 14 more volunteers to do the same to solve this problem. It might not be that difficult to find 15 volunteering homes out of 1000 in Nirvana.

You could also get in touch with AWBI to find a solution to your problem and also check with RWA as to why stray population has not been controlled in time.

You must be thankful to the efforts of all volunteers that they are putting in their time and effort to get all strays neutered and vaccinated so that their population does not grow anymore. Join this initiative to contribute something positive to handle this problem, I know writing a sarcastic mail is always a convenient route but it does not reduce stray population in any way.

P

Dear Mr. P

I don’t want to get into a war of words with you on this forum as is often the case.

However, here is what I have understood from your reply. That YOU have already done your bit by taking one stray inside your home, and therefore however vocal your support maybe towards stray dogs in the colony, you don’t want any more near YOUR house. Else you would have been open to my suggestion. That is fair, we are all entitled to have our opinion and I will henceforth not ask you if I can re-locate some of the strays to an area near your house.

Having said that, just like YOU are entitled to have your opinion – SO AM I. And I do not want 15 or even one stray near my house. So please let’s refrain from sermons, on how I should be doing my duty by taking one home. I would rather feed the kids of the construction worker next to my house. But that is MY opinion and you don’t have to agree to it.

And no Sir, there was no sarcasm yesterday and there is none today.

Cheers!

I

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 12:13 P wrote:
I- You seem to have missed the entire point that until you take the lead in neutering all these 15 dogs in your vicinity, they will soon become 150. Amita, Pradeep and other volunteers can only help you in achieving the neutering objective as a larger community goal but they are under no obligation to take these dogs home irrespective of your appeals or convoluted logics.

It would be great if you can provide a home to at least 1 of these 15 and also find 14 more homes to replicate this initiative. Many of us have already done it and now it’s your turn to grow beyond writing mails and do something tangible that would help the community reduce no. of strays around. I know it’s great to have opinions but to solve community problems we need to go beyond opinions and do something concrete………….

From: I
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:47:11 +0530
To: P
ReplyTo: I
Subject: Re: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers

P- like I said I don’t want to get into a war of words with you. So, you keep your opinion and strays to yourself, and let me keep my opinion and NO strays.

Cheers!

I

Subject: Re: [Nirvana Residents] An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers
To: I; P
CC: nirvanaresidents@googlegroups.com
From: s
Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2013

Quite a dog fight :-). I also love dogs but feel scared to walk around in the evening, wondering which one will be bad mood. Thus I carry my gun ! Not a good thing to do in a nice locality like Nirvana.

Is there any way to judge dog moods except the tail signs ?
Sent by S from BlackBerry® on Airtel

From: A
: RE: An Appeal To All Stray Dog Lovers

Date: Thursday, 28 February,

I- I wish to remind you that dogs are territorial beings – they will naturally move back to their chosen area.

That said, continued barking especially at night, is indeed a nuisance, and I wish I could offer some solution for it. Abroad they use ‘anti-barking collars’, but these would be too expensive and would be stolen within minutes here!

The best way out would be to employ a trainer to train them into conditioned barking only. We had identified a dog trainer for these dogs, and the same person could work on this aspect as well.

Conditioned barking”? I am at a loss to understand. If possible, could someone please elaborate more on this aspect?
Also, on the anti-barking collars – why would anyone want to steal them?

Thanks.

On a different but equally inflammatory note – after a 3 1/2 year lucky streak of only minor seepage issues (ie compared to other people here but still bad by western standards) we are in deep again with what looks like wall fungus on one side of Harveys bedroom.

It backs onto the kitchen so I opened up the cupboard under the sink there yesterday and here’s what greeted me….

Just horrific and it stinks as badly as you might expect. This is how lacking in energy and patience I am right now. Instead of going through the next to useless process of calling concierge and asking them to send a guy to investigate and fix the problem I’m thinking maybe we can just gaffer tape up the board at the back of the sink that is coming away from the wall and just hope it doesn’t get any worse before we leave!! It’s either that or I would say probably minimum 2 weeks of up to 10 workmen in our apartment all day everyday contemplating their navels while they daydream about how nice it would be to have tools. Sarcastic I know but sadly not far from the truth.

Harvey’s library teacher meanwhile has been on at me to send through the last 6 months worth of reading logs that I am supposed to complete each month. The concept is that after school each day I should make H sit down and read for at least 20mins and I should then write the name of the book, how many pages he read and exactly how long he read for in the log and sign it. I’ve refused to do it because,
A) he reads a lot everyday already, mostly at night time
B) I don’t want to police it and make it really annoying for him, and
C) after a long day at school where there is zero free time the last thing I’m going to do is force him to sit and read so I can sign off on the reading log
Anyway because we are now into the last month of the school year the librarian has decided there will be no reading log this month but she writes “I trust this will not detract from your child’s reading progress and enjoyment of books”. I hardly think so!!

ID, Shoes & hair

Right now we are at the airport waiting to board a flight to Goa for the weekend. We’ve been looking forward to this little escape for quite a few weeks and are hoping it will help us to relax a bit for a change. So far it hasn’t been a success.

We arrived at the main door of the airport and presented the army guys with our boarding passes and ID. Steve and Harvey were fine but the general wasn’t feeling my Australian drivers license. He said I need some sort of local ID. I don’t have it because my passport is held up in an embassy at the moment awaiting a visa application but I had been told by the airline that any sort of photo ID would be acceptable. In the end after trying different army guys at different entry points we ended up at the ticketing office where it turns out that all I needed was a stamp on a piece of paper to say that the airline had seen my ID and it was fine. A stamp always satisfies them. I’m thinking we should’ve had an all purpose stamp
made up when we first got here 4 years ago!! In the meantime some guy was pushing through the long line to get into the airport building. He just reached over the top of us and pushed his papers in the army man’s face. Steve called him on it and told him to take a look at the line. The guy starts giving him lip and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut of course launching forth with “you’re being very rude you know”. He then comes back with an emphatic “this is my country not yours!!!” Nice!!!

After checking in and going through security we were walking to a coffee place when my locally produced sparkly flip flops which I loved BOTH fell apart!! There was no recovery possible so we went to a shoe store where 2 total goons tried to convince me that boots would be a much better option than flip flops because they’re on sale. About 4 times they told me this!! Finally they gave me some sandals to try on. They had 6 flowers sewed onto the top on 1 sandal but only 4 on the other. When I asked him what had happened to the other 2 he said “oh actually we have a lot of mice out the back in the store room and they must have taken it off!. Fabulous!!

Yesterday I had a major disaster with my hair. Just another in a long string of hair disasters in my time here. I decided to trust a guy that a friend of mine had used to have highlights done recently. Major mistake!! Epic!! He started off alright after I gave him a detailed description of what I wanted (ie just highlights – no all over blond colour) and I was enjoying the experience feeling quite pampered for an hour or so. Then it all went downhill. After te shampoo he sat me at the mirror and what I saw staring back at me was a turmeric colored head complete with scowling face. I was totally orange/blond. And the worst bit wa that the guy was so proud! “Madam it’s much better na?”. “No mate. It’s a horror movie” I tell him. After a 10 min discussion during which I explained how highlights do NOT cover the entire head of hair, he agreed to rectify it by adding in some lowlights. I agreed with some trepidation and away he went. After the next shampoo I look in the mirror and I’m now rocking a new look that I like to call the Checkerboard!!! Again just hideous. Even the manager sympathetically agreed that I looked awful which was strangely comforting. So again he has a go at adding in some
Highlights. After all this I’m now more brown than blond and I’ve got some weird patterns going on but I didn’t have to pay!

TV, Valentines & Gulsaar

So this week the TV finally became operational at the mobile school. It was kindly donated by a school in Australia (c/ a lovely expat family who were living here for 6 months) but we couldn’t hook it up until we got the inverter installed by the bijli wallah (electrician) last week. The kids were very excited and were soon singing along to the English alphabet song being taught to them via one of the new educational DVDs we’ve acquired. It’s another useful tool for the teachers and is hugely appreciated.

Since the inauguration of the mobile school numbers of kids attending has swelled. Manju is now teaching 52 kids in 3 shifts 6 days/week. They’re all from the surrounding slum and live in homes like this one:

Valentines day seems to be making more and more of a mark here very year but not necessarily in a good way. In the paper today there was a big story about how security has been beefed up at malls and at places where couples are likely to be hanging out today. Why? Because there are quite a few groups who disapprove strongly of this “western” tradition which supposedly promotes immorality. Self imposed moral police are likely to be doing the rounds breaking up rendezvous of couples who are meeting in secret today.

On a positive note though – Gulsaar has recovered really well from his surgery last Thursday. He was back at school on Tuesday and apart from some pulling where the stitches are he says he has no pain for the first time in nearly a year and a half. We are all hugely excited and relieved for him. He will get his stitches out on Saturday and then its all over!

Annual day, new kids & hangings

Finally it’s over!!! Harvey and I celebrated the end of Annual Day last Thursday with a nice lunch followed by a wander around the Indian book fair in Delhi. We are both so glad to kiss that event goodbye. As always Annual Day was cleverly designed and the kids did a great job but I still don’t think it was worth all the pain they put the kids through, the constant yelling, the inane trips into Delhi to rehearse, the Saturday practices etc etc.. The chief guest was 20mins late which is nothing compared to last years guest who was close to 2 hrs late so that barely rates a mention. She was interesting but the intro given to her went on for 10 mins and included a long list of all the businesses her family own etc.. Then there was a Q&A session with her which the kids kicked off but then the parents were allowed to participate into. So again the kids were left waiting to come and perform. Harvey said they weren’t allowed to talk while they were waiting inside either. Anyway – like I said – it’s over now.

So the mobile school has been open for nearly 2 weeks now and is proving to be a big hit despite a few teething problems. When I went out there last week there had been unseasonal rain for 2 days and it turned out to be a good thing because we identified quite a few leaks around the doors and windows. Manju ma’am was madly mopping up water when I arrived. The manufacturer is on the job repairing it all now and it’s better it happened now than in monsoon season so its all good. The other good thing is that some kids who used to attend this school but dropped out because they were either doing housework or were semi-high on hallucinogens have started attending regularly. I think a lot of the reason is that the facility is one of the nicest around and the other contributing factor is that there is a nice meal for them every Tuesday if they come regularly. I’m working with the Colonel from Steve’s company’s dispensary now to get government funded midday meals daily for these kids organized pronto. A politician who came to the inauguration ceremony said he could organize it so we are hopeful this won’t take long.

On a completely different note – there has been a lot of publicity lately about how the new president has been turning down the clemency pleas of several prisoners on death row. Last November one of the terrorists from
the Mumbai attacks was hung and 2 days ago a Kashmiri man accused of being one of the masterminds in an attack on the Indian Parliament in November 2001 was hung. The man’s family were not granted a last visit and the prisoner himself got only 2 hrs warning. So it’s probably not the best time for anyone to plan a holiday to Kashmir!!

Visas, shoes and surgery

So this past week we finally got our visa extension for another year. We were just 9 days short of having to leave the country despite having applied for the extension 6 weeks ago. Unbelievable considering it is just an extension – not a whole new application – and we haven’t changed residential address or employer. Even more unbelievable was the wad of papers that the HR guy from Steve’s office had for each of us as part of our application! I swear it was close to a ream each. We even needed to give Steve’s mother in law’s maiden name for goodness sake! Harvey had to be pulled out of school twice so that the guys in the foreigners registration office could “sight” him but of course both times he sat outside playing a game on my phone and wasn’t “sighted”. Never mind. Big deep breaths and let it all go right??? We are legal for another year.

More deep breathing will be required tomorrow for Harvey’s school’s Annual Day. I don’t know what has happened in the last year but the teachers have just gone crazy with the obsession over annual day this year. He had to go into Delhi for practice again on Saturday. We picked him up early because we had tickets to go to the Davis Cup so they were already less than happy about that but things got a bit tense when they had a go about Harvey’s white Annual Day shoes. To back up a bit – last week we got an “urgent” email from school saying that we all needed to drop everything (effectively – that was the tone anyway) and go out and buy white canvas shoes for our kids as that had been decided just that day. Admittedly I didn’t rush to the shops but I was out there scouring the markets the next day. After visiting 5 stores and dragging an already fed up Harvey around with me I settled on a pair of white Reebok rip off trainers. I seriously figured that would be fine because at least they’re white! Well apparently not because – back to when I picked him up for the Davis Cup – the teachers came over and said “madam these shoes are Reeboks and we need Harvey to wear white canvas Bata shoes!”. Now I know for a fact Bata are not sponsoring this gig so I still didn’t get it. Then she added “it’s very important that you go shopping now to get them because otherwise Harvey will look different to everyone else!”. I just wanted to scream “he already looks different to everyone else. Do I need to spray tan him too? For goodness sake people!!! But I didn’t. I just politely told them I wouldn’t be visiting anymore stores. Harvey has since overheard the teachers saying that he will be wearing one of the other boys shoes when its his turn to do his part. I say “whatever”. Lets just get this over with!!

In the meantime surgery for the boy at Poonams school who has been dealing with a painful and possibly infected scar since being bashed with chains over a year ago has been arranged and his mother has finally agreed to it. It’s taken several months for her to trust us and agree to let us go forward with it but its all set now thankfully!

Arrests, movers & annual day

A friend of mine here who is a freelance UK journalist emailed a link to a newspaper article written here a few days back. It was about a British executive who lives in our apartment complex. Apparently on Monday night he had an altercation with the wife of his neighbor (an Indian), he let slip a couple of profanities (& possibly an obscene gesture) and next thing he knew he was arrested by the police! Apparently the wife was so overcome by the event she got her driver to go to the police station and file an official complaint. The cops then (presumably sniffing an opportunity for a hefty payout) were quick to respond and the guy has been charged under the “obscene gestures against women” Act – or something resembling that. It’s very unfortunate. I’m guessing that things just got out of hand and the guy lost his temper – as we have all done here. He is out on bail now thankfully. It’s a lesson to all of us to try just a bit harder to keep our emotions under control. I learned in the process that there’s even a section in the very extensive Indian Penal Code that covers obscene songs!

We bought a new bed the other day – well new as in used but new in our apartment. A fellow expat sold it to us on the weekend and we just had to work out how to get it from her place to ours. Not that easy when its a substantially sized object. Our driver Joginder was happy to help organize everything (not entirely selflessly) and told me that the best thing was to hire a small truck called a tempo. These are everywhere and I can’t believe I didn’t know the system until now. They hang out in groups on street corners waiting for jobs. We went over to one group and as soon as we approached a driver this older guy came running over to negotiate the deal. He was, as it turned out, the tempo mafia boss. I of course was offered the special white person rate of 900rs just for the truck. It would cost me extra for labour. I told him that’s a ridiculous way to negotiate because how on earth would I manage to put the bed in the truck and unload it myself? He then tells me it would cost a further 600rs for labour but he couldn’t do the job until 9pm that night and I would need to pay in advance. I told him in the one Hindi phrase I know I can say perfectly that I might be white and I might be female but I’m not stupid and walked off. Joginder followed looking flustered and trying to work out how come he’s no longer the main negotiator. Anxious to regain face he starts telling me how that man “no good madam. Very naughty man. I get better price madam.” All of a sudden a small tempo pulls up next to us at the traffic lights. Joginder asks me if the size is OK. I said yes so he winds down his window and asks how much. They tell him 400rs all in so we got a deal. Joginder was so happy with himself. They seemed like good guys too and were working hard to pull the bed apart and move it when it all went a bit pear shaped. Didn’t take the security guards at the girl’s apartment long to come and make sure that the tempo men weren’t using the residents elevator but instead had been relegated to telnet servants elevator. I told them its all fine and that I too was using the servants lift. Then the security boss comes and tells me “its not allowed”. “What’s not allowed?” I ask him. “Moving furniture before 9pm” he says with a grin. “We’ll I’m pretty sure most people would prefer this kind of thing to be done when their kids aren’t trying to sleep at night mate but if its a problem the maybe you’d like to help us haul everything back upstairs and you can explain to my friend why we have to go back into her place and dump a disassembled bed and then bother her again at 9pm tonight!” He relented. In the meantime though, as always happens when I start having a go, everyone had stopped working and started staring. Unfortunately one of the support beams for under the bed had been placed in the doorway of the lift at the beginning of my rant and no one noticed it under the door closed and snapped it in half. I was so mad. Partly serves me right but still!!!! Then another security guard says we can’t load the bed into the truck right by the servants lift entrance. Instead we have to walk 100metres with everything. I asked him if he could help us and he laughed so I told him he was a rude little man. In light of the British guy’s experience earlier this week that probably wasn’t my smartest move. He didn’t report me though. In the end we got the bed over to our place and got it all reassembled. Yesterday Joginder got a replacement piece of wood cut to size and then gently suggested I might like to monetarily reward him for his awesome work!! Slippery slope that one so I declined.
Harvey’s annual day is coming up on Feb 7. It’s a big deal in all Indian schools and is a chance to show case their kids. The school officials and (for the most part) parents love it intensely. From what I can tell though the kids hate it. Harvey is firmly in that category. For at least 4 months now he has been practicing a picture that he has to draw of a famous Indian named Rabindranath Tagore and he is so over it. It takes him 30sec to draw it and that’s all he has to do for the event – BUT – they are having 7hr long practices 3 times/ week at the moment for this thing, 6 hours and 59 mins of which he sits on the grass twiddling his fingers. Tomorrow is a holiday but these kids still have to go to school for practice. Ugghhhh!! He fell over while playing after school 2 days ago. Didn’t hurt himself but the principal was horrified yesterday when she saw him playing on the trampoline in the school yard after home time yesterday. She came racing over and said “madam you cannot let him go on there. There can be no accidents prior to Annual Day!”
God help me!!

Mobile school opening, pakoras & invasion of privacy

Yesterday I went out to Manju’s school and helped move everything across into the new mobile school that her kids are going to be based in from now on. Really exciting and the kids are so happy to be in there. This classroom is incredibly luxurious compared with where they are living and there is even a toilet!!! Here they are enthusiastically moving everything from their old classroom…

On Monday there will be a small ceremony to officially inaugurate the school and there will be a press photographer. Very exciting for Poonam who started this project just over a year ago.

While some of the people who live in the block where the school is located were making pakoras for the kids yesterday my friends Caroline and Pooja and I were watching and learning the process with interest. Then a nicely fattened rat appeared out of nowhere. These guys didn’t even flinch. Just totally not bothered by it at all. In fact it kept coming back over and taking a closer look. It’s the white thing with the tail in the centre of this pic…

So at the moment I’m sat in a cafe having a coffee while I type away and this dude who just turned up and planted himself at the next table in a seat facing me has been taking multiple photos of me with his phone. I stared over at him and he put it down but I’m pretty sure he has taken a few since then. Either that or he can only get a signal by holding the phone in a position that just happens to frame my face perfectly!! I’m going to start wearing the “don’t stare” Tshirt that Steve bought me everyday!!

 

 

 

Locks, colonel & mobile school

Yesterday after doing the weekly grocery shop and lugging all the bags up to our apartment Harvey asked if he could please try to unlock the door for us. It’s a tough lock to undo and he’s only mastered it once so it’s his latest challenge. He put the key in and it just spun around and around. Sure enough the barrel inside the lock had broken and we were stuck. The not so brilliant thing about out apartment is that there’s no way to unlock the rear entrance door from the outside and there’s no access to the balconies from anywhere safe unless you are Spider-Man. Out only option was to try to push one of the double doors inwards, jam it with a tyre lever and then try to flick the lock upwards with a spanner. After 30mims of no success with that technique we relented and asked the lobby manager to please call someone from maintenance to help us out and at the same time please call a locksmith. Shortly after 4 dudes come and stare at the door for 5 mins and then stare at Steve and I while we keep trying to push the door in. Finally the 1 guy who has tools pulls out a pair of pliers and grabs one of the doors with it and takes a massive gauge out of the front. No help whatsoever! So we sent them on a mission to find a locksmith too and in the meantime we open the door ourselves.
For the next 3 hrs we wait while there’s a discussion about who will call the locksmith and who will pay for him / even though Steve’s yelling at them explaining why it’s a priority to secure the apartment so our family is safe and still it took another hour of passing the buck and arguing before the guy came. Turns out he had been in our complex the whole time but they let him leave!!
Now the lock is fixed but no doubt there’ll be a few weeks of arguing about payment.

At the moment I’m on my way to a small village in Haryana where the new mobile school for Manju’s kids is being manufactured. I’m being accompanied by the Colonel who is chairperson of the charitable trust set up by Steve’s company and he is a classic. Very friendly man who loves nothing more than to relax and have a friendly conversation over a cup of chai and several biscuits! As it turns out, he is from this state and knows people in next to every village we pass. He has just informed me that we will stop for 15 mins in the village owned by his father in law on the way back so that I can meet the main man. And right now we have stopped in some out of the way location so that we can check on the progress of a flat that he is having built!!! Like I’ve got nothing better to do!! Still I am being enlightened on all things related to heavy tank driving and artillery. He was in the army for 30 years and was a tank driver in the 1971 war. For Independence Day next January his regiment will be in Delhi and he has promised that I can have a lesson driving a tank while they’re here. Should be fun. So if I have to visit a construction site and meet his father in law so be it. It will all be worth it when I get to drive a tank!!

So now we are on the move again and hopefully will get to see the mobile school progress within the next hour!

Two hours later and we are on the way home. The mobile school structure is fabulous. I am so happy with the space and the fit out. They are going to have lights and fans and windows and 2 doors. Sounds like not much but all of those things individually are a huge improvement on their current space. It’s insulated too!! So just painting to go & then it will be placed on a chassis and delivered to Manju’s site. Poonam is VERY excited!!

After we left there we went to the Colonel’s father in law’s village to the home of his brother in law who owns most of the surrounding farm land. They were very nice people and were showing me their recently harvested mustard seeds and the cows that give them 17litres of milk each per day. I posed for a gazillion photos and drank their very fresh buttermilk (very kind of them but not so awesome when you’re lactose intolerant sadly) and sat on their tractor as instructed for a photo which was a little strange but I feel like I could do the whole farm thing. Feels like a good fit actually. Turns out that the father in law’s father was a famous soldier in the British army in both world wars and was awarded an OBE so there’s a massive poster of him inside the house. Lovely people – still a strange twist to the day that I went there – but a nice twist.

Tent wallahs, Goddess Lakshmi & schools on wheels

This past weekend on both Saturday and Sunday there were an estimated 10,000 weddings (ie 20,000 in total) in Delhi as it was an auspicious weekend. Some of the wedding tent wallahs who put up all the fancy curtains and stages etc saw an opportunity to make extra cash and came up with a cunning plan. They booked many of the wedding venues in advance, put up their tents etc and then charged families who were desperate for a venue an exhorbitant amount to use the venue they had seized. Nothing new probably but it was the first I had heard of this particular way of bribing the average person here.

Harvey was blissfully unaware of all this and the associated madness on the roads as he was at night camp at his school for 24 hrs. He had a fabulous time and said he wanted to stay extra nights. I was asking him all about it yesterday and he started asking me if the Goddess Lakshmi is real and could I please look on the Internet to confirm. When I asked him why he wanted to know he said that the teacher in the boys room told them on night camp that if they didn’t keep their space clean and tidy then the Goddess Lakshmi wouldn’t come to their school and that wouldn’t be good!!

Speaking of schools – we got some really good news this week that the Charitable Trust annexed to Steve’s company has agreed to fund the construction of a mobile school for the NGO that Poonam and Manju’s schools come under. Initially it will be used at the site where Manju is because the landlord of the shop front we are using there has demanded a 20% increase in the rent AGAIN!! It will be a portable
Cabin that is fastened to a chassis that can be towed by a tractor and will be internally fitted out with fans, cupboards, wiring etc.. The need for it to be portable stems from the fact that communities change and as the slums move then we are always faced with the same problem of not being able to find suitable space for minimal cost. With the mobile school we can be right in the centre of the community and the families have much better visibility too. It will be the first of its type in North India so hopefully it will give the NGO a good amount of advertising too. Hugely excited that this has eventuated!!