Lengthy though the pieces were, I'm glad I posted Rolf's travelogue. He captures the India of the moment and yet manages to give us a historical context on which to broaden our understanding of the country and its people. The fascination of things from the outside, the quaint use of English, the traffic, the animals, the people, the colour, you'll find them all in the writings of published authors like Arundhati Roy, but where he excels, and why people he met briefly 20 years ago don't forget him, is his affinity with the environment and those around him. He treats his driver with the same even handedness he treats a holy man, and his eye for detail goes beyond the idiosyncracies of language. Road signs, dilapidated buildings, wary headmasters and election jamborees all come to life as if we were there with him. As Martin suggests, all the hallmarks of a good travel writer. Another hallmark of a good writer, of course, is wanting to read more, and although he has left India I'll put up anything else he writes of his other travels.
A very long entry, but hey, it's a bank holiday tomorrow in most countries in Europe and here in Japan it might help to take your mind of the record-breaking heat we're experiencing. If you are coming late to this serialisation of my friend's travels through India, you might want to start back on May 25 and work up.
The chances were clearly about zero that I would find my friend, but I found my holy man, who spoke some English, and gave it a go. I came to this village with my friend Davinder Jeet Singh 22 years ago, I started. We stayed at his parents' house for a couple of nights. He and I taught at a school the other side of Punjab at that time. He'd be now about 50. No, I don't know his family name, I don't know his parents' first names, and I don't remember where in the village we stayed. His father may have worked for the Indian Civil Service, or the railways, or something. The holy man sat for a very long time looking down at the ground and feeling his nose. Finally he advised us to go to the house of Mahangir Singh, the 'rich man of the village' who knows pretty much everyone. The house is on the far side of the village, he said. I strained to look for a house with perhaps two storeys rather than one, or made of brick rather than mud, but no luck. They all looked the same. We'd have to ask someone. I said a very appreciative thank you to our holy man, and we drove on into the village.
It was just the right time to visit - election day (to be more precise, Punjab was among the states and cities voting that Monday in the third and last of the staggered days). Instead of working in the fields, there were two or three clusters of villagers, each sitting under awnings of different colours. Apparently the election provided an excuse for a social gathering. I noticed that one awning was the colours of the Congress party, and another of the BJP (Indian People's Party, which I've just heard has shocked everyone by losing the election). As I got out of the car at the BJP gathering I knew my presence would probably cause consternation.
I was wrong. Even though they obviously didn't have a clue who I was, I was greeted with big smiles, like a long lost friend, and straight away invited to sit at the centre of the gathering. There were about 30 men there (no women), some holding papers written in Punjabi, apparently lists of names of villagers that were eligible to vote. Some names had marks next to them - presumably those who had already voted. I wanted to know why there were gatherings apparently organised by party, and whether those names were indeed of voters. If so, there's not much anonymity in this process, I thought. But to the matter at hand. 'Oh, Davinder Jeet!' exclaimed one of the men in very good English. 'We call him Kuku'. What does that mean? 'Nothing, we just call him Kuku', he said. 'He's now teaching at a school in Amritsar'.
Things were looking distinctly up. Evidently there was no need to look for Mahangir Singh (though he turned up later anyway). Amritsar was just 10 miles down the road. Does he have a phone, I asked. (I remember reading a guide book about India before I went last time, and it advised westerners to ask whether Mr A has a phone, rather than asking for Mr A's number. That might still be good advice, I thought, even though I'd seen plenty of mobiles). You want to see him? came the 'answer'. I would love to. 'Please wait here while I call his cousin. He has the phone number and address'.
At this point a lime drink arrived - quite delicious in the oppressive heat under the awning. It was about 3.30pm at this time but the sun was still high. I wondered how long it would take for the cousin to arrive. Meanwhile the chatter around me went on. Conversation with me was constrained by their limited English and my non-existent Punjabi, so they soon reverted to talking amongst themselves, about who hadn't yet turned up etc. By this time most curious glances towards me had gone, and I was struck again by how quickly I seemed to be considered part of the village. Every now and then those standing at the edges of the gathering would squeeze in to let a farm labourer leading a buffalo get past. The buffaloes reminded me of the hot sweet buffalo milk DJ's mother had offered me in 1982. Which reminded me to ask, what of his parents? 'Sadly they have both expired'. I do so fervently hope Indians will never lose some of their charming usages of English. And actually I'm quite optimistic. Even the Brits and Aussies, with far greater exposure to American English than India to other English, have it seems to me lost little of their linguistic idiosyncracies.
The cousin took a long time coming, and when he did there was no great rush to produce a phone number and address. No, I must adjust myself to the slow pace of village life, I thought, even if it means expiring under this awning. And I was still savouring being part of this election jamboree. About 20 minutes later the cousin told me, through someone else who spoke English, that he didn't have the details but his brother did. Finally there was movement and I looked at my driver who every now and then had been grinning at me from the edge of the crowd. The cousin wanted us to give him a lift to his brother's place a little outside the village. So we got in the car, and I noticed that the cousin seemed a bit bemused when asked to put his seat belt on. He seemed to have no idea what to do with it or where to plug it in. I wondered whether it was his first time in a car.
We arrived in the courtyard of his brother's house. Around the edges of the courtyard were an assortment of farmyard animals: buffalo, goats, pigs, chickens and a cow. The brother came out, had a brief chat with the cousin and straight away signalled that he would lead us into Amritsar and DJ's house.
Just twenty minutes later we were there. The brother went into the house alone. I got out of the car and looked around. I wondered again how different DJ would be at around 50 rather than in his late twenties. 'Is that Mr Picton?!'. I turned round. He had barely changed at all! Still very slim, athletic build (he was a sports teacher at the school), no grey hair. He was grinning from ear to ear and gave me a big hug. 'Come, come inside!'. The requisite apologies and hesitation were brushed aside. 'Inside! This is your home'. In less than a minute he was asking me to stay in his house for a few days. No, I said, I would only bother him for about half an hour, not least because I was planning to go to the border. 'Nonsense! Then I will come with you and we'll all come back'. I explained I had to go back to Delhi the next day. It was quickly arranged that I'd sleep in his house and leave the next morning.
It was wonderful to see DJ again. We were very close at the school. Almost every night that I was there, we either visited each other's flats or went to that of another teacher, a man in his late 50s called Mr Sharma. When there he would make us delicious tea, we'd play chess and laugh and be very childish (I remember at that time being happy that even someone approaching 60 can be childish). Quickly DJ told me how I used to call Mr Sharma, who had a wicked pot belly, 'Bellybabes'. I couldn't remember that at all and asked DJ if Mr Sharma minded. Not at all, he loved it. I was mightily relieved, if dubious.
In less than 10 minutes we were back in the car and heading towards the border. This was something I'd always wanted to see, given the very tetchy relationship, and three wars, between India and Pakistan. DJ told me his recollection of the last war in 1971 or 2. He was about 19 at the time, and there were bodies all over the fields surrounding his village. 'It was like Diwali', he said cheerfully, referring to the Hindu festival of lights. Wasn't he frightened? 'Oh yes, we were all terrified'.
DJ said the border made an interesting trip now: it's not just a border post with a couple of bored looking sentries: each evening they have a 'closing ceremony'. I was intrigued. In less than half an hour out of Amritsar we were guided into a car park and advised to walk the last 500 yards or so to the border itself. The last 100 meters is the Indian side of the no man's land that runs the length of the border, a good couple of thousand miles. The border itself was marked by a gate, and we could see the Pakistani guards the other side of it. They were exactly the same tall and immaculately turned out turbaned Punjabis as on this side - another reminder of how Punjab had been divided. I noticed an interesting symmetry about the place: same size flags, poles and buildings on each side. About 20 yards from the border, on each side, was a stand for members of the public, and on both sides the stands were packed. Clearly there was to be an identical ceremony on the other side, and evidently there was some coordination here between the two sides. I noticed how the people in the stands on the Indian side were a myriad of colours, while those on the Pakistani side were dressed mostly in white.
Our timing was perfect - within a minute we were told to sit down. Out of a small building came four hugely tall Punjabi Indian soldiers in full ceremonial dress, complete with flamboyant fans emanating from the sides of their turbans. The turbans themselves were a smart black and red, the colours of the Border Security Force. One shouted a brief order and in a second they marched at breakneck speed, towards the gate. The crowd roared and clapped as though these men were going into battle. Sure enough, on the Pakistani side they were doing the same, and their crowd was just as excitable. Just a few yards from the gate three of them stopped, but one continued towards the gate. To my complete surprise the gate swung open, and the Indian and the Pakistani abruptly saluted each other, shook hands once (one sharp downward motion), and immediately turned back into their own countries and joined their three colleagues. Within a few seconds the gate was closed again. It was extraordinarily dramatic. The four then fast-goosestepped back towards the building and again the crowd roared their approval of these homecoming heroes.
By this time people on the Pakistan side were screaming as loudly as possible so we could hear: 'Pakistan zindabad!' The Indians would yell back 'Hindustan zindabad!'. I now understood why the stands on both sides were placed strategically a fair distance from the border itself. And why before entering the area we'd had to go through a metal detector. It only takes one nutter.
In another few minutes there was a closely coordinated ceremony on both sides to take down the flags. Again in an almost touching spirit of reconciliation the gate was opened for this part. To the tune of the Last Post the flags were lowered and the ceremony was over. It had been quite fascinating. DJ then told me it was also his first time at this ceremony and that he also was rivetted.
There is still almost no activity across this border. You may remember a few months ago the two countries instituted a once-a-day bus service from Delhi to Amritsar and across the border, at this gate, to Lahore. That's still going, and in fact the bus passed us (with a police escort) as we went back to Delhi the next day. I noticed as we walked back to the car from the ceremony, a big sign saying 'Welcome to the world's largest democracy'.
A fine dig at Pakistan's military dicatorship, I thought, particularly on election day!
The journey continues.
One of India's greatest pleasures is a cup of tea.
On leaving the grounds of the school, I had preliminarily decided to travel across Punjab to my DJ's village, but I needed a cup of tea to think it over. So my driver and I decided to stop back at the hotel in the nearby town of Anandpur Sahib and have a cuppa. It was easily the best I've ever had. I remember 22 years ago returning to England and thinking how bland English tea was after India. The main difference is the preparation, and the masala. I asked the hotel how they make it. They boil milk and water together, add a large amount of tea, boil it a bit more and then add a fair amount of sugar, and a powdering of masala. Don't ask me what exactly masala is, but do ask whether it makes a difference. It's quite divine. By the end of three cups I had confirmed my plan, but I needed a bit more cash. So we wandered through the back streets of the town to the centre, to the one cash machine available.
Anandpur Sahib is lovely. It's surrounded by lush green fields, and set right at the foothills of the Himalayas, and in the distance you can see the very high peak of Nana Devi, 'Eye of the Goddess', with a Hindu temple atop the mountain. The real delight comes at night when the lights make the temple and surrounding structures look like a village in the sky. Wandering the back streets makes you aware how much cleaner this is than elsewhere. The Sikhs are mightily proud of this place. It's the birthplace of their first guru, and the town is dotted with 'gurudwaras', or Sikh temples. The place is 'pollution free', a devotee told me as we asked where else we could get cash - that cash machine was closed. I wouldn't quite say pollution free. My hotel was very clean but just round the back was a mound of rotting rubbish. The devotee asked me and my driver if we would like a cup of tea. Of course. He took us to a building round the side of a gurudwara, and proudly told us that it was a hostel for pilgrims or travellers, provided almost free ($1 a night) by the gurudwara.
As we sipped our tea he told me about Sikhism and the Punjab. It's a relatively recent religion - just over 300 years since its official founding (the town celebrated the 300th year in 1999). At that time the guru announced to any Hindus that were interested in conversion to Sikhism that they were to be freed of the yoke of the caste system, and to emphasise that, all Sikhs were to use the name Singh. At independence in 1947 the British asked Punjab whether it wanted to be its own nation, but they made the 'grave mistake' of saying no, our friend told us (my Hindu driver listened politely). Even before the creation of Sikhism the Punjabis had a very separate identity. With their height and strength, the Hindus used them to defend their territory against the invading Muslims (without much success apparently - hence the existence of the Mughal emperors and the Taj Mahal). They grew their hair long, tied it in a bun at the top, and wrapped it in a turban to defend their heads against sword blows.
The next morning I opened the curtains to what looked distinctly like a large bank of marijuana plants right outside. It stretched almost as far as the eye could see. Is it cannabis, I asked the hotel staff. I don't think they quite understood, so I made a smoking-a-joint gesture and they just laughed. One of them gestured what seemed to mean making string, so it may have been hemp. But even so the police would be round in an instant if this were the West, I tried to explain (they didn't speak a word of English). More smiles, apparently of incomprehension.
It was time to go. We took some back roads as a short cut to get us on the main road towards Amritsar in the west of the state. More gems in the fields, buffaloes wallowing in stagnant pools, mud huts with no electricity, an overturned truck that spilt its load of asphalt over the road. My memory was that DJ's village was west of Amritsar towards the Pakistan border about 20 miles away. Since we were coming from the east, I assumed we'd have to go through Amritsar. But 10 miles before Amritsar I saw a sign pointing left for Taran Taran. Though the name had not even entered my head for 22 years, for some reason I immediately remembered that was where we got off the bus at that time, and took a rickshaw into the village of Gohalwar. So I asked my driver to make the turn and ask someone where Gohalwar was. He had to repeat the name a couple of times, but the man we asked seemed vaguely to know. We only had to ask one more person, and sweep briefly through Taran Taran, before we found ourselves on the dirt track into the village. A gurudwara came into view and I thought that's a good place to start - there might be an old holy man who's been there for donkey's years and knows everyone in the village.
Will our traveller find his friend? Find out tomorrow in the final installment.
The Indian sojourn serial will return, but as a kind of ghost war (unreal to all but those that are in it) rages in the middle east, the Guardian has published some letters written by combatants in D-day 60 years ago. The letters were written by Brits, Americans and Germans and are indeed "a moving testament of those caught in the snare of history". A war that was actually about something other than economic gain and vapid revenge. It was interesting also to read the two Germans getting more bound up in the historic relevance of the event. One says:
Today I wanted to go to see Faust but I could not concentrate enough for that due to these events, and moreover in the end they performed a different play. The greatness of poetry really vanishes in front of the happening of today. It's tingling in my blood.
And another:
Of course, we are also just humans with wishes and requests to providence, that one would like to see fulfilled. Although we have learned to often forego everything during the war that relates to us as persons and to our futures, we catch ourselves again and again still having wishes that may, of course, together with life, be extinguished into an eternal nothingness by the explosion of the next shell, but uphold our faith and our perseverance. We have begun the greatest passage of arms and nobody knows what will be by the time our letters arrive.
Simon Schama's short introduction is also worth the read.
The school visit continues.
I set out in baking heat, and first I wanted to see the boys playing cricket. As I approached they stopped and wandered over. "Hello boys!" I said cheerfully. "Hello sir!" they replied in unison before collapsing in giggles and unintelligible Punjabi. I asked if they were all from Punjab. Yes. I threw my fist in the air and shouted 'Punjab zindabad!' (Long Live the Punjab), and with a deafening roar they repeated it before again breaking into fits of laughter.
There were about 25 of them. One of the two bats was broken. They were using old metal pipes for stumps. I said I wanted to have a go at batting - howls of excitement - so they chose one of the more athletic looking boys to give me a trouncing. I barely saw the ball, hit wildly at it and missed it by a couple of feet. Behind me I heard a loud clang of metal piping: I was out for a duck. They quickly learned the lesson of the day: why England is one of the world's worst cricketing sides. I explained the rule of this game was that they had to keep bowling until I hit it. It took five balls (including two more clangers), by which time the bowler obligingly slowed the pace by about 80%.
It was a real high after the disappointment of the meeting with the principal. It took me back not just 22 years, but about 30 to the last time I picked up a cricket bat. As 22 years before, all the boys wanted to touch my hair. They looked thoroughly disappointed as I left the field, but gave me an animated farewell wave.
Even 22 years ago I'd heard stories about how the powers that be were taking kickbacks from the construction companies in exchange for lower than specified quality of materials. Now it showed. There were missing bricks, cracking concrete, ill-placed windows and doors and sagging walls. The school has three 'houses': Beas, Ravi and Sutlej, the names of the three rivers that run through what's left of Indian Punjab. I was affiliated with Beas at that time, and it was the first one I visited now. It's been left to the elements. Most rooms were boarded up, and a look through the windows revealed only piles of rubble. The other two houses are still functioning. But the classrooms have broken desks, the gym has broken equipment (and hardly any of it), and the dormitories broken beds. As I wandered round I'd encounter a few young boys that were bemused to see me. Evidently they were no longer trained to say 'Good afternoon, sir' to anyone that looked like a visitor. Then an older boy came down some stairs, saw me and straight away offered to show me round. Within a couple of minutes, after extracting a promise that I wouldn't repeat anything he told me, he said that the place was going to 'rack and ruin'. Indians rather like their English double-expressions: other favourites are 'all and sundry', and 'part and parcel'. The boy said 1982 when I was there was the 'golden age' of the school. I asked how old he was: 15. How did he know about 1982? His father has a friend who worked at the school just after that time. I said I wanted to see the apartment I stayed in. It too was falling apart. We knocked on the door and a young physics teacher, Mr Banerjee from West Bengal, answered. He warmly invited us in, and we had a good but short chat about education, Indian politics, etc. I didn't want to go in to what a pile of trash I thought the place was, because I thought he might be offended.
The boy then led me back to the principal's house, I met up with my waiting driver (always smiling even after I'd kept him waiting for two hours), and we drove into town. I had pretty much made up my mind. We'd spend the night in a hotel in town, and the next day we would drive to the other end of Punjab, only about 10 miles from the Pakistan border, and I would look for Davinder Jeet Singh in his mud hut village. A sports teacher at the school at that time, he became my closest friend. During a school holiday we once took a bus to his village where his father, who used to be in the Indian Civil Service, had retired. We had spent a couple of nights there. By day 'DJ' showed me round the village, and took me to the cane fields where he gave me a sample of unadulterated liquid cane sugar. His mother gave me glasses of hot, sweet milk that had been milked minutes before. 'DJ' was in his late twenties back then, so now he'd be about 50. Fat chance that he'd be there, but perhaps someone could tell me where he is now. And so what if it all came to nought? We'd drive for 200 miles through the Indian countryside, on election day, and end up wandering round an Indian village, talking to the farmers. Perhaps if there was still time we'd see the Pakistan border, just as a fourth Indo-Pakistan war broke out over Kashmir.
Tomorrow would be another fascinating day.
This second installment was a little long so I've split into two and you'll get the other half tomorrow.
The painted signboards for the Sri Dasmesh Academy in the town of Anandpur Sahib were old and faded. But that doesn't tell you much - it's the same for almost every sign and advertisement here. Even the ads for paints are faded. Pepsi and Coca-Cola are about the only companies that seem to make an effort to keep them fresh. Paper billboards are unusual. Farmers along the main road seem to hire out their road-facing farmhouse walls for advertisers to paint on. One of the most common, among others for Atlas Bicyles ('Ride with Pride') is for the government's All-India Anti-Terrorist Front.
The school is about 5km from the town. A large gateway, which I couldn't remember from when I was there, announced the boundary of the school. Just inside were a replica of a Gnat fighter aircraft and a tank. Those weren't there in my day, though the school used to be reserved for the sons of personnel of the Punjab branch of the Indian armed forces. The dining area was called the 'mess' and the school store was the 'quartermaster's office'. We drove up to the main entrance of the school, where a solitary turbaned Sikh security guard got out of his chair. Things didn't look too good. There was a general atmosphere of unkept grounds and buildings that had seen better days. Twenty-two years ago much of the place was a construction site that exuded the promise of the future. My driver explained to the guard why we were there and that I wanted to see the principal of the school. He gave us directions to the principal's house on the far side of the school grounds. Before driving over I had a look inside the main entrance and saw an amphitheatre-type facility. That also wasn't there when I was there, but again it seemed past its prime. Around the facility were faded painted quotations about the value of education, as uttered by among others Rousseau and Homer. There wasn't a pupil or a teacher in sight. The guard said most of the teachers were in town at the wedding of one of their colleagues, and many of the pupils were on a school trip. Hopefully not a hunting expedition.
As we drove to the principal's house we saw a group of boys playing cricket. None was wearing any sort of uniform. My driver stopped to ask one of them to confirm the location of the principal's house. There was great excitement after one of them looked in the back and saw the yellow hair and ill-looking pale skin of a foreigner. I waved at them and they shrieked with glee.
We arrived at the gate of the principal and my driver chatted to the gateman, who cast a wary glance at me and went inside the house. A couple of minutes later I was invited to go inside. The reception was less than rousing. With his short stature and cut and open hair the new principal was clearly not a Punjabi. With the faintest of smiles he gestured me over to an armchair. I said I was sorry to have come unannounced but the phone number I found on the Internet didn't work, and then explained that I was a teacher there 22 years ago. Ah. It had been a long dream of mine to come back. Yes. I was so happy that finally the opportunity had come. Silence.
Something was clearly wrong, and I had a stab at what. Though he was evidently reserved and conservative by nature in any case, I sensed he was very worried that I would be comparing the school now to how it was back then. Of course I was, and was unimpressed so far. We had a chat for about 20 minutes though it was me who did most of the talking. He looked a bit worried when I said I did an Internet search of the school while looking for the number. He probably guessed that I uncovered those articles. I said that I was thinking of sticking around for a couple of days so I could see the life of the school. I would stay at a nearby hotel (here I was fishing for an invitation to stay in the large guest house next to his house, but it wasn't forthcoming).
I asked him how the school was coming on. "Well", was the unelaborated reply. It was now a normal private school, open to boys and girls, both boarders and day-schoolers, with no reserved places for military-related families, and no subsidy from the military or anyone else. Numbers are 'growing' but the school, at 250 kids, was at only 25% of intended capacity. That would be reached in a few years' time. Not what the papers, and my eyes, told me, I thought.
At the end he surprised me by asking me to address the children at assembly on the Tuesday (it was now Sunday but Monday would be a holiday for general election day) and tell them how the school used to be. But by this time I had pretty much decided I didn't want to stick around, so I gave a non-committal answer and said I would give him a ring. Finally I asked him if I could take a wander round the school. He said yes, but didn't offer anyone to take me round.
A blog should be about good writing. As I don't exhibit much of that these days (did I ever?) I thought I'd put something up here that some of you might be interested in. A good friend has just travelled a little through India. He traced some steps he took over 20 years ago. Here is the first installment of his story of those travels and he tells it after returning to Delhi from a three day trip to Punjab.
The main point of the trip was to see the boarding school I taught at all those 22 years ago. So I arranged for a driver to take me up there, and drive me around while there. He came to my hotel at 11am on Saturday. Can't help sounding condescending but he was a real sweetie. He's very small in stature and greeted me with a big white smile. But I could tell immediately he was very conscientious and I knew I was in good hands. That impression was confirmed when he conducted a little prayer ritual at the wheel before starting the engine. It's been blisteringly hot here - today was 44°C (108°F?) up in Punjab - so I made sure I got a car with aircon. We set off winding and wending our way out of Delhi with the driver pretty much sitting on the horn. Delhi is still by our standards a vast slum and the traffic, though actually not as bad as I thought it would be, is complete bedlam. You swerve left to avoid that oncoming bus, only to careen right to save that pig. A couple of days before I left I took a wander round this hotel and was treated to the site of what looked like a giant boar, though without the tusks, on its side suckling its boarlets (?) next to the lychee stall.
As we drove I longed for the sight of the green fields of Haryana, one of Delhi's neighbouring states. It used to be part of the Punjab, but Punjab was carved into pieces at independence. Area-wise, most was over in Pakistan and now Pakistan also has a state called Punjab. The Indian side was divided into three: the majority-Hindu states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (in the Himalayas), and Punjab itself which is majority Sikh.
Well those fields came after about an hour and it was wonderful to be back in what I feel is the real India: the lush green fields studded like gems with the bright coloured saris of the women working them. That brown dot is probably a man sitting under a tree watching proceedings.
We crossed the state border into Punjab an hour before dusk, and with the setting sun the colours got even richer. With no rain in the area for a couple of weeks, the dust rendered the sun deep orange a good hour before it set, turning later to a huge bright red. "Government of Punjab - Pay state road tax here" urged a sign outside a dilapidated structure near the border. That's the "new" building, explained my driver, and pointed out the old one on the other side of the road - what looked like an abandoned thatched milk stall. We paid the tax. "Safe drivery means longer life!", another sign reminded us as we drove off. At nightfall we were only about an hour away from Anandpur Sahib, the Sikh holy town near the school, but we found a decent looking hotel so we stopped there. I noticed how the Punjabis look generally cleaner and better off than their Delhi brethren, which makes sense because the last I heard Punjab is still the richest state in India. That may not last long though, as South India, with its far superior English, grabs more of those outsourcing jobs. My driver explained to me that in the south, even the 'labourers' speak perfect English as well as their native tongue. And English is the first language in many if not most homes, he said, even above the language of their area. I wonder if that really is true. Most homes?
I was ready for some emotional moments as I woke the next day, but didn't really know what to expect. While Googling the Sri Dasmesh Academy a few weeks ago in a (vain) attempt to find the phone number, I found some intriguing articles in the online versions of the Times of India and the Hindustan Times. One said that a boy at the school was accidentally shot dead in a hunting expedition from the school about a year ago. The article criticised the school for improper supervision, while I was left to wonder what sort of school arranges hunting trips - certainly not the case in my day! Another article reported that about 30 older boys had run away from the school, though later came back. In another incident many of the staff were fired all at once, though I couldn't glean the real reason. The school was having trouble filling places, one article said. That's a far cry from when I was there, when parents would apparently beg for their kids to be let in. The place seemed to be going downhill fast. What would I find? Might there still be a teacher or two still there from 22 years ago? Arriving out of the blue, what reception would I get? Being Sunday, and possibly during a school holiday (some said yes, others no), would there in fact be anyone there?
Further installments to follow.
Relax. Relax. Relax. It's just another pin-prick.
Or an uncomfortable reminder of when waistlines were slimmer and scalps less visible. Coming out of a much needed afternoon nap I was reminded of the fact that I was getting old. (Though it has to be said that naps have always been part of my daily diet - even before the Bloggs boys were born. Must be the siesta climate I was born in!) What better way, then, to fly back to one's yoof than on a pig above Battersea power station. In this concert clip David Gilmour looks like a cross between the last Governor General of Hong Kong and an England rugby forward. Great stuff if pigs and power stations ever meant anything to you. (You'll need QuickTime to see the clips.)
I was hoping to make major inroads into the final part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, but I had to be content with events in this universe. I like to think Pullman is right when he says, "Stories are the most important thing in the world. Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all."
I'm hardly being subtle here, but since returning from London my feet have hardly touched the ground with lengthy visits to Tokyo and engrossing (and not so engrossing) reading. Also managed to snag a free version of another blogging software and am looking into moving on to that. More on that later.
I'm here. I'm here. Back soon with real entries. Promise.