It's been a year since I left the BBC and the airwaves of World Service Radio. I'm as passionate about knowing what's happening in the world as before, but this video really made me laugh! For the past year, cut loose from the drip-feed of current events and manic deadlines, I can see that the news industry is wildly out of touch with time as a concept most people are familiar with.
Check this out! Me floating over the Himalayas in the Kangra Valley!
~By Anu. I've been meaning to blog about this for ages. Talk about a color-obsessed nation! This ad for 'Fair & Lovely' cream says it all. The goal of every Indian woman is to get whiter. As the ad suggests, with the cream, you'll go from wheatish to pale Gori in no time. The market is so lucrative, there's now 'Fair & Handsome' for men.
And lest you dismiss this as harmless vanity, here's a story that's been making the rounds. The Times of India reported last week that two black cheerleaders from London -- Ellesha Newton and Sherinne Anderson -- were asked to sit out the April 19th match between Mohali and Chennai. The girls claim they were told by Wizcraft, the event management company hired by the Mohali team franchise, that it was because of the color of their skin.
"The two girls were reported seen sobbing outside the grounds," reports the paper. Ah, but wait. it's not racism, apparently.
~By Anu. Read on about India's crusading tree planter. And if you want to volunteer in India, I've included links at the bottom of this post.
Madan Dewan is 86 and reckons, so far, he's planted 300,000 trees in the Himalayan foothills of India. Mr. Dewan, a former UN official, runs HIMCON, a Himalayan conservation trust. Twice a year, during the monsoon, and in the Indian winter, he and his team help mountain farmers increase their land productivity by planting thousands of walnut, almond and apple trees. If you're thinking tree-huggers ala California, forget it. His campaign is a life or death proposition. If the farmers make enough from their land, they'll stay on it. If not, they'll join hundreds of millions of others already scraping a living in the filthy slums of Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta.
India's countryside is in crisis. Since India opened its markets to foreign imports, farmers have had to compete with subsidized food from abroad. Meanwhile, poor technology and a lack of credit means the odds are stacked even higher against them. Add to that soil erosion, and water depletion and you'll see why most of India's population -- 700 million villagers-- are starving or clinging to survival.
~By Anu. In December, 2006, I wrote this post about a beggar boy called Ajay near the BBC's central Delhi office. Recently, I thought about Ajay again when reading and hearing about Delhi's powerful, violent begging mafia.
I have rarely given cash to beggars in the street here, because I always suspected organized crime at work. Well now, a friend who works as a cameraman for a major Indian channel confirms that he's seen the begging mafia with his own eyes.
He describes quacks who will deliberately maim children for use in begging. He saw training sessions where people are taught the most efficient begging tactics. He witnessed money being handed over to local and regional commanders for begging rights. Of course I cannot confirm anything he says, as it was all hidden camera, and I have not seen these things myself. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that begging- across India - is an organized business.
Massi plots a wicked carom move:
We've had a few visitors -- my Massi, who's a carom pro, came and showed all the young whipper-snappers what for in between bridal shopping for her daughter all over sweltering Delhi.
Tony, our Mexican photographer friend from London got dumped in Dubai on his way to Kabul. So he ended up in Delhi for a day at a sumptuous suite in the Taj Mansingh, which he had to abandon at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m.
~By Anu. For anyone who thinks doing business in India is getting easy, here's a vignette of my week:
1. Walked through dog piss, man piss, beggars, drunks, over a series of deathly open manholes and through traffic to see my friend's local mall in Saket. There was a yellow Lamborghini inside on a car-sized turntable.... and many many women in tight jeans and high heels trying on lipstick at Lancome. "This rail-y makes my lips look purple, don't you think?" said one pouting and turning from side to side in the mirror. She eventually bought two at $40 each, smiling as she handed over crisp thousand rupee notes. I happened to see her later outside the mall haggling with an autorickshaw driver in a threadbare shirt. "No, no! I will only pay you twenty rupees! Come on."
2. I still don't know where to pay the water bill despite asking my landlady and several people in the neighborhood. So far, I've been told to go the petrol station, the post office and the local water authority - but no one's quite sure where that is. The newspapers report that at least half of Delhi's water supply is stolen.
3. Our landlady, who is extremely nice, tried to get me to oversee major plumbing work (half the building doesn't get water as some complete numbskull cemented over the outlet pipe and valve attached to the overhead tank). I'm flattered that she has such confidence in me... but not vain enough to fall for such a thankless task.
4. Got 3 extra keys made. The man used two files, a pair of pliers, a hammer, calipers and some spit to do it. It cost me $3.
5. The garbage man comes everyday wearing white ipod-like earphones. He doesn't speak. He won't take newspapers, bags of dirt or old flower pots. I put the newspapers out for the recycling merchants who pass by all day on their bicycles calling out for customers. It rained.
~By Anu. I've just returned from my native place, Jammu. Wikipedia says, in olden times, the area around the river Tawi was thick with forest. One day, the ruler of Bahu state, Raja Jambu Lochan, came hunting... and reportedly saw a lion and a lamb drinking water together.
Exclaiming it to be a place of peace and tranquility, he ordered a palace to be built at the site (a good way to destroy the peace if you ask me). Thus, a city called 'Jambu-Nagar' was built, which later came to be known as Jammu.
I've always known Jammu to be a noisy, crowded trading town where gaunt, dusty porters with steel trunks on their backs compete with auto-rickshaws, impudent scooters, imposing bulls and endless streams of colorful pedestrians in the city's narrow lanes. My grandfather's house is in the old bazaar, Purani Mandi, across from the Government Boy's School, where my parents and most of my aunts and uncles were married.
As kids, we were always taken to Bagh-e-Bahu, a Mughal garden on the
eastern side of the Tawi river, for picnics. We were also made to climb
up to Bahu Fort, a temple whose entrance is perpetually lined with
beggars and cheeky rhesus monkeys who will snatch food and cameras if
not voluntarily given their fair share.
~By Anu.
"What's holding India back?" asks the front cover of last week's Economist. The magazine believes India's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy is bleeding India dry.
Of course, I haven't had time to read the Economist all week, because Jalil and an ever expanding circle of builders have been pounding away in the kitchen. Not content with the noise from sledge hammers hitting stone... they've also spent much time arguing at the top of their lungs. Jalil quarrelled with the man fitting rusted metal supports in the walls to hold the new countertops (one of which is almost at breast-level- great for Tarquin, not so good for my cleavage!) Then, he quarrelled loudly with the man who came to install glass in several windows, finally dismissing him angrily. Lucky for us, a second guy held his nerve long enough to finish the work and there are no longer mosquitoes pouring into the flat by night.
Here's what it took for me to buy a kitchen sink... This is Kotla market, typical of Delhi's goods and hardware markets. Narrow lanes where people park their cars, even if it means no one can move as a result. At one point, we were stuck for 10 minutes while a huge Tata truck tried to squeeze through while bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles and pedestrians pushed through any gap they could find, making the truck's progress even more difficult. At one point, I saw a man haunched just outside a shop scooping builder's gravel into a sack as people walked OVER him.... Loopy.
We also signed our lease at the High Court. It took five clerks to do it. And we had to sign every page and put our fingerprints on the back....Apparently, people later alter the lease by taking out pages and replacing them...!
2 infants burn to death in incubators
A newborn baby was charred to death in a government hospital in Delhi late Tuesday, reports Metro Now. The baby, born on March 7, was admitted to the ICU nursery, after being born premature. At 2a.m., a surge in the power supply (a common occurrence in India) caused the incubator to catch fire. The baby's mother saw the blaze, but could not rescue her child because doctors and nurses had locked the nursery's doors and left. By the time security guards and nurses arrived, the child had perished.
Meanwhile, in Gujarat, in western India, another 3-day-old infant died in an identical blaze, after an incubator short-circuited.
Top hospital short of cotton wool
The Times of India reports that Delhi's top government hospital, Lok Nayak, has been without cotton wool for the past ten months. The hospital is not short of funds... and there is no shortage of cotton in India. The story is murkier than that. It seems last year, the hospital's administrator cancelled the cotton wool contract because the supply was of poor quality. Since then, no other supplier has been willing to sign a contract because of threats by the blacklisted contractor who runs, perhaps, the world's only cotton wool mafia.
Meanwhile, patients are being asked to bring their own surgical gloves, plaster, medicines, bandages, and cotton wool from nearby medical shops, which are making a killing. Rinku, 24, who fractured his right leg in an accident came for treatment, but had to wait while his family ran across the road to buy lots of bandages and cotton wool.
~By Anu. Meet Half-Crack's crack team of kitchen renovators! The poor buggers have been at it for days, chiselling and pounding away at the primitive brick, concrete and iron bar monstrosity that is the kitchen counter. They've stripped it back to its foundations so that they can extend it and lay on a new sink and shiny, green marble counter-top. Now I understand why last year, when the building next door to ours was being knocked down... there was so much infernal pounding.
Instead of using hammer drills, or wrecking machines... Indians still employ an army of poor wretched men who are expected to demolish a building, brick by brick, in their bare hands and feet, using sledge hammers and chisels... with not so much as a hard-hat or safety goggle in sight...! Nothing much has changed, then, since the days of the Taj Mahal. Talk about a labour of love!
This morning, I arrived to find Half-Crack on his haunches, using a massive electric drill that he'd hot-wired into the socket. I couldn't tell if he was sleepy or drunk, because he kept putting the drill bit in the wrong place and then his younger employees would yell and tell him to move it up, or down, right or left. They all had a good giggle whenever he missed his mark....
~By Anu. Just a short post to say we've arrived, it's not too hot yet and we've found a flat! Delhi property prices have sky-rocketed, rentals included. We were shown a shoebox in Jor Bagh, in central Delhi, that was going for $750 a month! The sitting room was 10' x 5'!!
The young turk from 'expatriates.com' complained to us that the prices for his serviced apartments (which go for a minimum of 1200 GBP) don't take into account the fact that he has to pay 40% tax on his income.
'Welcome to the capitalist economy,' we said.
But we've landed on our feet once again. We're renting a ground floor 2-bed apartment in Nizamuddin West, again very central and green. It's being painted at the moment, by a guy called 'Half-crack' (as in half-cracked)! A team of laborers is smashing through the old kitchen and hopefully, at the end, there will be some proper cupboards, a new marble worktop and new tiles.
After three nights' terrible sleep, we've made it a priority to find a good mattress, a top notch water filter (Delhi's water problems are just getting worse), and broadband.
Will post again once we've settled in!
~By Anu. Wow, the only thing keeping me going during these grim winter days in London is the thought of landing in Delhi!!!! I'm suddenly really really excited, even though I'll miss working in my garden, where I've been painting a beautiful new potting shed and planting hellebores, cyclamen, climbing roses and clematis. In fact, there's a whole row of plants standing sentinel in their pots, waiting for me decide where they'll put down roots....
Speaking of which, before I went to America for Christmas, I thought I'd put down some pretty deep roots of my own here in England..... But suddenly, I'm not so sure.
Of course I can survive here... of course I have alot of physical ties-- a house, all my possessions, some great friends. But it's funny how one trip back has made me re-examine what makes a place 'home'.
~By Anu. And here I thought the blog was dead... nobody was reading it anymore... My own fault of course, for leaving India and becoming uninspired so easily! But today, I logged on and found half a dozen comments waiting, some for months, neglected and unpublished... and my heart was glad! Here they are.
My apologies to all of you for not noticing them before and please, keep writing!! I have three more days in Florida and this big old house is LONELY!! Though I did FINALLY manage to take pictures of this pair of ethereal, crimson-headed cranes that I occasionally chance upon during my morning walk...! They are amazing-- about three feet tall and very placid, except when they're trying to impress each other, and then they jump and beat their wings. On Sunday, we found them blocking the driveway to a house. Even when the lady in her 4x4 honked at them, they wouldn't give way! Cheeky.
Also, I'm working on a short story and finding that a *flash* of inspiration is enough to get you started, but not enough to help you finish or make it readable! Your comments will keep me ticking over til Friday when I board the plane, once again, back to Blighty. Good news though, we are definitely headed back to India in February and there are many exciting new adventures on the horizon!
~By Anu. It is a beautiful Florida day: balmy, hot, clear. On my morning walk, I saw an ethereal steel grey crane with a crown of crimson feathers languidly picking at someone's lawn. Spanish moss hangs from the chestnut trees and acorns crunch satisfyingly underfoot. Being here, in January, when London is so grim and hopeless and dark is like benediction. It feels as if all God's grace has been gently bestowed to this spot and I am enjoying it as fully as I can.
However, it seems the people who live here full-time are not as content with the perfection which surrounds them....
~By Anu. When I was young, I remember watching a Hindi film in which a lovely starlet, who played a good, pious wife, couldn't have children. She was taunted, shunned and called a 'bhaanj', which means 'defeat', as well as a more cruel and piercing insult: 'barren'.
The film came to mind again while talking to a friend who is very similar to me in age, background and career. Unbeknownst to me, she's been trying for the better part of four years to have children, unsuccessfully. She's struggled through it with her husband alone, as she doesn't have family nearby. The word barren came up. She said someone had used it in her presence, and she'd nearly crumpled.
As we talked, I realized how little I knew about fertility, much less infertility, so my friend has kindly taken the time to share all the info she's gathered. Thankfully, most of us will never have to think about it. But if you do find yourself in the same boat, I hope this post will help you. And please let me know if you've come across info you'd like to share (anonymously, of course).
~By Anu. Meet Midnight's Twins.
Zafar Hameed and Azhar Sherwani are identical twins, born on August 15th, 1947--the day India gained independence from Britain. Like so many communities in Punjab and Bengal, their lives were ripped apart when the departing British divided the subcontinent into Hindu India, and Muslim East and West Pakistan.
As a result, Zafar grew up in Lahore and Azhar in Delhi, their personal lives mirroring the tragic, bitter history of the divided subcontinent. I took this photo ten years ago at a rare reunion in Delhi, when Zafar managed to get an Indian visa to attend a family wedding. On August 15th, 1997, they celebrated their 50th birthdays... as well as 50 years of Independence. I dug this photo out because their story stands out in my mind as the perfect parable for what has happened to India and Pakistan since the Raj. Keep reading to find out more about these real life 'Midnight's Children'.... Happy 60th Birthday Zafar and Azhar!! Hope this occasion brings the two of you together once more.
~By Anu. Wow! First the Kohinoor, now the Monsoon! It's been raining so much in England, Gloucester looks like a Bihari paddy field. Luckily, east London is still above water and not only my plants, but several loads of laundry have been well watered!
Meanwhile, it's been a season of setbacks... Ok, just the one. I applied to be BBC India correspondent after a successful stint in the job for three months. The interview was in the middle of June. Like all candidates, I prepared an extensive range of story ideas (investigative, cultural, political), honed my reasons for wanting the job (passion, ten years experience, did I mention passion??) and obsessed day and night for weeks about my chances of getting hired. BBC job interviews are a bit like a Papal conclave: mysterious and awe-inspiring. For a start, every interview I've ever had has been conducted by five people. I'm sure even Saddam's firing squads were smaller. After interviews, I usually plunge myself straight into making a programme, because the wait is as excruciating as having splinters slowly and lovingly eased into the pads of your fingers. I'm sure there is even a system of black and white smoke signals to indicate whether the esteemed panel have reached a consensus or not.... you just can't see it over the enormous satellite dishes atop BBC Television Centre...
~By Tarquin. I went to see Provoked starring Aishwarya Rai. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It made for painful viewing - and not because of the sensitive nature of the story, one of an abused woman taking revenge on her bastard-of-a-husband. Horrendous script, terrible directing and, from Rai, a two-dimensional, unconvincing performance. Shame because it could have made an interesting film, especially if it had explored the cultural conflict that can arise between non-resident Indians and imported wives and/or husbands.
It’s worth nothing that Provoked got rubbished by the British press and sank without trace at the UK box office. But in India, where it did very little business, it got rave reviews as a 'crossover' film and Rai’s performance was rated by the Hindustan Times: 'She’s sensitive and emotionally involved with the role of a woman on the edge.' The review added a little bizarrely: 'Many of the white actors are shockingly amateurish though, particularly a prison warden who looks as if she escaped from the chorus line of Diana Ross and the Supremes.'
Tahir Shah: In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams
Just reviewed it for the Sunday Times. Written on a canvas as wide as the human imagination, the book is a search for stories. Like Scheherazade's interlinked tales in its original namesake, Shah's book leads from story to story in his quest to reveal Morocco's hidden culture of tale-telling. Look for 'The Water of Paradise'...'The Tale of Melon City'... and 'The Tale of Mushkil Gusha'. These stories will drip like nectar into your ears...!
Amy Sutherland: What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People from Animals and Their Trainers
Sounds patronizing-- Amy Sutherland wrote a book about exotic animal trainers. In this book, she applies the techniques used to train baboons, pythons, killer whales and birds of prey on her husband and mother. No whips involved, just some very enlightened animal psychology! Brilliant.
Sol Steinmetz: Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning
Business- to be busy, anxious, careworn.
Zany- from the Italian 'zanni' a fool or clown
Party- originally meant a part, portion or share
Junk- a nautical term referring to an old or inferior rope
Gossip- from the middle English 'God-sibb' - a relation acting as godparent at a baptism
Peter Lamont: The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick
Absolutely fascinating book about how the myth of the Indian rope trick was deliberately perpetrated by a newspaper journalist. (*****)
Tahir Shah: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Most original Indian travel writing ever. Shah plunges into the mysterious world of magic and godmen (*****)
Edward Luce: In Spite of the Gods: the Strange Rise of Modern India
Recommended for those unfamiliar with India. Luce writes well on the economy and politics. (***)
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