http://www.makepovertyhistory.org Phil's Phworld: DELHI - You Cannot Tame a Camel in the House

Friday, April 14, 2006

DELHI - You Cannot Tame a Camel in the House

We've been here and already we're exhausted. Life in India, it seems, is best lived at a slow and non tourist like pace. A typical day starts at 5.45am: which is actually something of a blessing because by 9am the heat really begins to hit town (this week has been mostly above forty degrees. That's pretty much brain frying temperature) And then comes the daily arguments with auto-rickshaw drivers. India's shaky transport system is supported by a network of independant drivers of even shakier three wheeled vehicles who'll take you anywhere in town. That's as soon as you get them to agree to a reasonable price since, having white skin in this country means you are regarded as a bottomless money pit. Amusing the first time but tiresome on a twice daily process, the convoluted method of dealing with these people is first to settle on a destination (not always straightforward. Why should you know where to go better than someone you've never met, right?), then to agree on a price (i.e. you say what the ride actually costs having done it every day for a week, they say it should be twice as high, you beat them down again and then threaten to walk away and then, lo and behold, ride granted. Anyone who remembers dealing with Stan in the seminal Secret of Monkey Island will feel right at home)

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Playing cards with the Colonel in Chez Bindra. Rummy went down well, Big Scum, Little Scum took a little more explanation.

It's no wonder that the schools start at seven and are done by one. Just getting anywhere and spending half an hour in constantly honking traffic is exhausting enough in itself. The school I am working at, along with the Sarahs, is your usual common or garden Indian school. Which is, pretty much, a British school but with yoga classes. We are based in the Special Education department, which has some very curious work practices ("Don't worry about him," one teacher assures me as I help an austic boy with his homework, "We all know he lives in his own little world." I think my mother would have a thing or two to say about that) but a lot of very bright kids who speak faultless English and call me Mr. Phil. And, really, who wouldn't feel proud being addressed like that?

Slghtly disconcerting moments this week have included receiving some very bizarre philosophy from the teaching staff, (see the heading of this post) having to take an entire class's lesson on my first day because the teacher needed to leave for half an hour to talk on her mobile phone (and then tell her friend in the next class all about it) and then taking my kids over to a mainstream class for an art lesson where forty kids were sitting, unsupervised for an entire hour. Cue bedlam and lots of anxious waiting for hometime.

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See the many varieties of tourist at the local museum with their bizarre array of headsets and guidebooks.

Elsewhere in Delhi, the National Museum is well worth a visit especially for the esoteric experience of sitting in an empty cinema for over half an hour before watching an out of focus video on archelogical discoveries in Palestine. We tried to work out the link to Bollywood cinema, really we did. Oh, and then there were the relics of the Buddha. Enough said about those, the better.

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Those relics of the Buddha in full! Eww.

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Me on the big screen. At long last, I'm sure you all agree.

Perhaps the best experience so far was getting out of the city on one of our school's trips to see the local charity village. Run by the Austrian based SOS, the purpose built village provides homes for around two hundred orphans. Perhaps more interestingly, though, it provides a place of employment and eventual retirement for India's middle aged and unmarried women, a subclass who like their English counterparts some centuries ago seem to not really exist in India's social hierarchy. Interesting stuff, especially since it was Sports Day which allowed for all sorts of communal reminising about skipping races past.

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Sports Day at the SOS village. It's very sweet how the kids put on all their best party clothes to go running down a field.

So, India. A fabulous, crazy country. But much improved by constant sleep and not acting like a tourist. And where am I going to tomorrow, I hear you ask? Why, the Taj Mahal of course!

2 Comments:

At 2:31 am, Blogger charity said...

Happy Easter! Bunnies and chocolate be yours forever. Amen.
Btw - Penny farthing has new landlady from N. Zealand! There's a wine list and everything now - but also still tanglefoot.
xxx

 
At 12:04 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Mr Phil! Long time no hear! Glad to hear you are enjoying yourself and kinda keeping yourself out of trouble! Lots to tell you but no space here! Look after yourself! Andy

 

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