Sorry for the absence of crass analogies giving ill-informed, trite analysis of the geopolitical currents affecting 21st century Asia in this posting. They’ll be back soon, I’m sure. In the meantime, some random observations.
Smoke gets in your eyes
Diwali is fun.
(a) You get to eat lots of sweets.
(b) The streets are full of rather beautiful enormous homemade paper lanterns with pretty patterns and lovely tassles and things. They make things like Blackpool Illuminations look rather crappy. Although that’s not too hard.
(c) I actually enjoyed the fireworks. I’d not really enjoyed fireworks since about 1987, when I realised that the fireworks at the Bournville Village Fete were exactly the same as the previous four years. These ones were good, though, because I live on the fourteenth floor and many of them exploded about fifty feet away, level with my window. It’s a much better view.
Mata Sari
We drove down Pathe Bapurao Marg, a.k.a. Falkland Road, on Saturday afternoon. Sadly there were no sheep or unexploded ordnance or commemorative plates featuring tin-pot foreign generals being gonked on the bonce by old iron women. There were, however, lots of ladies of the night, even though it was about two o’clock in the afternoon. It’s tempting to make some lame and tenuous reference to the name of the road and the nice lady that it inevitably brings to mind: as the man said, when England was the whore of the world, Margaret was her madam. (Enough wussy pinko politics – Ed.)
Looking for a nicer slicer
Why can’t anyone sell me thick-sliced bread? Why so thin? Have they actually tried making sandwiches with several ingredients all rammed in and then putting them in the fridge overnight and then taking them to work in my bag and then trying to eat them with these tiny thin slices without it all falling apart?
I mean I can get unsliced bread from the posh delis but sliced bread, as somebody once pointed out, is one of the best things, well, ever. But only when it doesn't come apart in your hands and leave you with egg mayonnaise and bits of tomato all over your shirt. Come on bakers, get some nicer slicers.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sub boys (or, Back to POL101)
There’s a relaxed vibe around Delhi in mid-October. It’s not so hot any more (midway from enamelling-kiln June to the Siberian misery of January, when it gets down to about ten degrees and people have to wear coats, poor lambs); but the sun is still quite strong so if you’re losing your hair you have to wear a hat and look like an, er, Englishman abroad. Otherwise you’ll end up with nasty growths on the top of your head like my grandad did, although he spent about fifteen years in India so it probably takes quite a while.
Anyway, the differences with Bombay are marked: it’s less crazy and full on than the Maximum City, but there’s a general air of on-the-take-ness. I probably use ten auto rickshaws in the time I’m there, and lo and behold not a single one has a working meter and you have to 'negotiate' the fare. Delhi (or at least New Delhi) is a much prettier city than Mumbai, but you have to check your change.
And there’s a big billboard advert that catches my eye, some manufacturer saying they’re “proud to have built India’s first nuclear submarine”. That would never really happen in Europe: you might do a furtive notice on page 12 of Realpolitik Monthly pointing out the fact, but it would all be rather sotto voce.
Nobody here seems to object to the government spending lakhs of crores of rupees on these big weapons for men with small penises, while hundreds of millions of Indians don’t have enough to eat. Of course it all comes down, as do most things, to our twin national obsessions, China and Pakistan.
In the small urban street of Asia, India’s got the overcrowded, chaotic but generally friendly house in the middle, but we’re always concerned about the noisy neighbours next door. They used to be part of the same family but they moved out a few years back, since when there’s been nothing but trouble, often caused by squabbles over the precise location of the garden fence. Our kids like playing their kids at the odd game of cricket, but they have to go up to the park to play because we’ve stopped their kids coming round, basically to annoy the parents.
But these days we’re actually more worried about keeping up with the Joneses over the road. In the old days we didn’t really know much that went on in their house, except that the dad seemed a bit of a disciplinarian. You used to hear some unpleasant noises coming from behind the curtains. Nowadays it’s a bit different: they seem to have come into money and they’re all looking very flash, and trying to buy the affections of the rest of the street with big parties, but their dad still occasionally shows off the big gun he bought years ago, just to remind people, just to keep them honest.
Now we’re not doing too bad ourselves, but we can’t let these guys walk around like they own the place, can we? Doesn’t look like we’re ever going to have quite as much money as them… but we could get ourselves one of those big guns, couldn’t we? Kids – you don’t mind not eating for a few days, do you? (And as a bonus, it would stop everyone questioning my manhood.)
In a few years’ time it’ll be one of those streets where everyone carries a gun. Which always means that everyone’s completely safe, doesn’t it? Marvellous.
I can feel a bad novel coming on…
Anyway, the differences with Bombay are marked: it’s less crazy and full on than the Maximum City, but there’s a general air of on-the-take-ness. I probably use ten auto rickshaws in the time I’m there, and lo and behold not a single one has a working meter and you have to 'negotiate' the fare. Delhi (or at least New Delhi) is a much prettier city than Mumbai, but you have to check your change.
And there’s a big billboard advert that catches my eye, some manufacturer saying they’re “proud to have built India’s first nuclear submarine”. That would never really happen in Europe: you might do a furtive notice on page 12 of Realpolitik Monthly pointing out the fact, but it would all be rather sotto voce.
Nobody here seems to object to the government spending lakhs of crores of rupees on these big weapons for men with small penises, while hundreds of millions of Indians don’t have enough to eat. Of course it all comes down, as do most things, to our twin national obsessions, China and Pakistan.
In the small urban street of Asia, India’s got the overcrowded, chaotic but generally friendly house in the middle, but we’re always concerned about the noisy neighbours next door. They used to be part of the same family but they moved out a few years back, since when there’s been nothing but trouble, often caused by squabbles over the precise location of the garden fence. Our kids like playing their kids at the odd game of cricket, but they have to go up to the park to play because we’ve stopped their kids coming round, basically to annoy the parents.
But these days we’re actually more worried about keeping up with the Joneses over the road. In the old days we didn’t really know much that went on in their house, except that the dad seemed a bit of a disciplinarian. You used to hear some unpleasant noises coming from behind the curtains. Nowadays it’s a bit different: they seem to have come into money and they’re all looking very flash, and trying to buy the affections of the rest of the street with big parties, but their dad still occasionally shows off the big gun he bought years ago, just to remind people, just to keep them honest.
Now we’re not doing too bad ourselves, but we can’t let these guys walk around like they own the place, can we? Doesn’t look like we’re ever going to have quite as much money as them… but we could get ourselves one of those big guns, couldn’t we? Kids – you don’t mind not eating for a few days, do you? (And as a bonus, it would stop everyone questioning my manhood.)
In a few years’ time it’ll be one of those streets where everyone carries a gun. Which always means that everyone’s completely safe, doesn’t it? Marvellous.
I can feel a bad novel coming on…
Monday, October 05, 2009
If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air
The train from Jaipur to Jodhpur takes nearly six hours, but it’s never a drag. It’s partly because even on daytime trains, you can pull the top couchette down and have a proper kip (why do British trains never have that option?).
But it’s also because of the pleasure to be had looking out of the window, the arable fields in eastern Rajasthan evolving slowly into rocky desert. Somewhere in the middle lies one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen from a train: a bright pink damp plain stretching for miles and miles, with weird swirls of silver and grey in the foreground. Nothing on Google images quite does it justice, so I’m relaxing my long-held text-only rule and letting you see the pic I snapped, through the window of a moving train on my mobile phone.
It’s called the Sambhar Salt Lake, and the Army medical officer opposite me on the train, heading back to his Rajasthani village on leave from his posting in Lucknow, proudly tells me it’s the biggest salt lake in India. I’m sure he’s right: mostly, I’m just pleased I couldn’t get a direct plane ticket to Jodhpur and had to go the long way round.
Broom with a view
Jodhpur is, as well-documented by thousands of hippies and polo-trouser fans, a stunning little place: the Mehrangarh Fort looks down from its acropolis onto the Blue City below, and the Umaid Bhawan Palace points out smugly where you could be staying if only you had four times the budget.
About forty minutes’ drive away, offering rare shade from the forty degree sun, lies a new addition to the litany of weird museums I’ve visited: Arna Jharna is devoted to the humble broom, and the fine people that have made them for centuries in this part of the world. It’s perched on the very edge of a hilly outcrop: look west and the desert, dotted with well hard trees but otherwise flat as a chapathi, goes on and on before gradually turning into the sky.
Pink City indeed
Back into Jaipur en route home, and time to visit the bad-boy auto drivers I met three days earlier. Nice chaps, but I don’t get the feeling they’re going to be faithful to their wives, should any woman ever be so foolhardy.
One of them (I’ll call him Rohit, not his real name) asks to borrow my phone to check email on the web browser, then promptly uses it to look at gay porn. Well, you have to admire his enormous, er, chutzpah.
Later, we bump into a German backpacker guy and have chai by the side of the road. Turns out the German pleasured old Rohit in the autorickshaw last night. And over there’s the frizzy Canadian that Rohit cruelly rejected the day before. They call Jaipur the Pink City, but I didn't think this was quite what they meant.
But it’s also because of the pleasure to be had looking out of the window, the arable fields in eastern Rajasthan evolving slowly into rocky desert. Somewhere in the middle lies one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen from a train: a bright pink damp plain stretching for miles and miles, with weird swirls of silver and grey in the foreground. Nothing on Google images quite does it justice, so I’m relaxing my long-held text-only rule and letting you see the pic I snapped, through the window of a moving train on my mobile phone.
It’s called the Sambhar Salt Lake, and the Army medical officer opposite me on the train, heading back to his Rajasthani village on leave from his posting in Lucknow, proudly tells me it’s the biggest salt lake in India. I’m sure he’s right: mostly, I’m just pleased I couldn’t get a direct plane ticket to Jodhpur and had to go the long way round.
Broom with a view
Jodhpur is, as well-documented by thousands of hippies and polo-trouser fans, a stunning little place: the Mehrangarh Fort looks down from its acropolis onto the Blue City below, and the Umaid Bhawan Palace points out smugly where you could be staying if only you had four times the budget.
About forty minutes’ drive away, offering rare shade from the forty degree sun, lies a new addition to the litany of weird museums I’ve visited: Arna Jharna is devoted to the humble broom, and the fine people that have made them for centuries in this part of the world. It’s perched on the very edge of a hilly outcrop: look west and the desert, dotted with well hard trees but otherwise flat as a chapathi, goes on and on before gradually turning into the sky.
Pink City indeed
Back into Jaipur en route home, and time to visit the bad-boy auto drivers I met three days earlier. Nice chaps, but I don’t get the feeling they’re going to be faithful to their wives, should any woman ever be so foolhardy.
One of them (I’ll call him Rohit, not his real name) asks to borrow my phone to check email on the web browser, then promptly uses it to look at gay porn. Well, you have to admire his enormous, er, chutzpah.
Later, we bump into a German backpacker guy and have chai by the side of the road. Turns out the German pleasured old Rohit in the autorickshaw last night. And over there’s the frizzy Canadian that Rohit cruelly rejected the day before. They call Jaipur the Pink City, but I didn't think this was quite what they meant.
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