Jai-ho to Jaipur...

I’ve been in Delhi for 10 weeks and as much as I love the place, it can sometimes feel like an attack on all your senses, so it was time to have a break and head off to Rajasthan for some r’n’r…

Jaipur is only 5 hours away, it is a beautiful old city renowed for it’s pink buildings and a rather good Literature Festival held there every January. The perfect place to escape Delhi and its 22 million inhabitants. We left Delhi in the fog and thumbing through my trusty Lonley Planet, I prepared myself for the “chaotic and congested city” that awaited.

Being a volunteer is a bit like being involved in a big game of Snakes and Ladders. Some days you roll the dice, you are on the ladder and on your way up. Work is productive, the constant noise and smells don’t bother you, curry for lunch and supper is a treat and every minute of that day you know why you are here. Then there are snake days where you feel you are slipping back down to the start. The return to civilan tourist life was definitely a snake day. We arrived in Jaipur to a crowd of auto drivers hustling for our bums in their rickshaws. We were just another bunch of blondies fresh off the bus.

The rickshaw drivers of Jaipur are a special breed. They’ve pimped their rickshaws out to make their smaller green and yellow cousins in Delhi look like poor country folk. Like little black beetles, (slightly larger and more padded for the supersized American tourist backside), they swoop across the street ready to entrap and overcharge you. “Hello luvvly jubbly” tends to be their usual opening line followed by “cheap as chapati price for you madame”. They seem to have learnt their English off re-runs of Only Fools and Horses. But as a resourceful volunteer, if you are having a snake day you are able to do a little snake charming. Dropping the H-Bomb as I like to call it, (AKA feebly using some badly constructed Hindi), can normally ease you out of most situations. But not in Jaipur. As you are kerb crawled by a rickshaw driver telling them to go away or haggling down the price in Hindi leads to much raucous laughing and limited budging on the fare.

But it’s all worth it. I can’t tell you the joy of being in the so called “chaos and congestion” of Jaipur. It was like Driving Miss Daisy compared to the The Fast & the Furious that is Delhi on a daily basis. To be able to walk down a wide open street in a straight line, hear a honking horn only every other second, sit above the roof tops enjoying sundowners whilst watching kites darting, blow our budget and drink a glass of Rs 225 wine was heaven. The best bit of all was the fact my polar fleece look was discarded within 5 minutes of arrival. The sun was out all weekend, sitting outside at the Literature Festival listening to William Dalrymple, hearing how the founder of Lonely Planet made his first trip to India in a £65 Mini in the 60s and other travel writers tales was a relaxing contrast to psychedelic Delhi. This international development gig is a tough one, but someone’s got to do it…

Highlights: Too many again after such a pleasure filled weekend, finally having a hot power shower and washing away the dirt of Delhi was divine, successful failing to be a vegetarian once again and eating delicious lamb (at a party last night someone told me of a certain ‘Meat Dealer’ who will deliver steak to your door in the darkness of night, this led to much debate on whether it would be entrapment but may be worth the risk for some beef), seeing so many amazing authors and lively debate for free (William Dalrymple deserves an OBE for Cultural Services to Volunteers), celebrating Republic & Australia Day with fellow ex-pats with sausage sandwiches, a quiz, some boogie action (fuelled by Jen’s Special Gin Cocktails, I’m starting to think it would be wise to invest in Blue Moon Gin, India’s finest and cheapest, during my time here…)

The Commonwealth Games workout…

This week it’s been slight athletic…

In October, Delhi is hosting the Commonwealth Games and the city is in mass meltdown/preparation. The roads and pavements are currently being neatened and ripped up to squeeze in facilities that are slightly less third world. This means for the average Delhite, trying to get around the city is an absolute nightmare. With my new fitness regime of walking to work in place, I’ve started to realise you don’t need to be a world class athlete to have your own Commonewealth Games workout…

The first event I embrace are the hurdles. Pavements are a complete luxury in Delhi. I don’t know whether the pavement union went on strike several years ago or they are just so last century, but if you attempt to walk anywhere you have to be prepared for some serious off roading. There are a number of things to leap over if you are lucky enough to find a pavement. Sleeping dogs, building materials, piles of rubbish and pavement fires by slum dwellings all make for a various height of hurdle perfect for toning calves and ankles.

It’s then on to the 100m sprint. Your likely route to work is going to cover crossing some type of flyover/ring road but I’m quite lucky as I only have a 10 lane mega crossroads to traverse. Crossing the road is an event in itself. You have to be prepared to regress to your school days and think of that game British Bulldog. It involved running at a wall of children to avoid beng ‘it’, but this time it’s an assortment of motorbikes, cyclists, rickshaws, horses and carts and cars. There are traffic lights and pedestrian crossings but they tend to get ignored by any two wheeled vehicles. Having being stranded for 10 minutes spectating the scene like a Wimbledon final, the traffic police noticed my shyness to cross the road. By Day 2 of my fitness plan I had my own police escort across the zebra crossing. I now just tag behind a local following in a relay/lemming fashion.

Surely there’s a more scenic route you ask? Well I found what seemed to be a more ‘rustic’ path down the side of a dual carriageway until I realised this was actually Ammonia Alley. Men kept pulling up, jumping off their motorbikes to, um, relieve themselves in the bushes. At first I was slightly alarmed but then realised I could do some excellent ayurvedic yoga breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell and weaving between leaping relievers is a great way to tone those thighs.

What of the spectators? Well you’re never lonely on your walk. Apart from fellow commuters or families living on the side of the road, they tend to be mainly male who like to cheer you on and say hello. It’s best to avoid eye contact and concentrate on your athletic exurcision. So far there has only been one incident of ABG (Attempted Bum Groping) which I avoided by an excellent leap into a pile of rubbish burning at least another 100 calories I think.

Highlights: Apart from attempting to get fitter and burn off my ghee reserves, it’s nice to be out and about and see the world from street level in the morning like a local, rather than zipping past in a rickshaw, discovering 200 rupee a litre gin that doesn’t make you go blind (but regretting having too many gins then playing tennis the next morning, least it was on the only day of sunshine we’ve had in 3 weeks), discovering a shop that sells bacon (yet to be tried, but it’s so lovely to see it sitting in the fridge and know there are bacon sandwiches when it all get’s too much) experiencing my first Bollywood film in Hindi realising I really need to improve my Hindi to get any jokes in India, planning a weekend away and a temporary escape from the madness of Delhi (Jaipur’s Literature Festival awaits and time to be a tourist this weekend).

A temporary case of the January Blues...

Fear not for my mental health, you can never really feel down in India with so much to see, taste and smell, but I’m physically blue at the moment with goose pimples and chills – its bloomin’ freezing here!

I know its -6° and snowing back in Blighty but you have the 3Cs to keep you warm – curtains, carpet and central heating. Curry only works for so long (believe me it’s been tempting to apply extra hot tikka paste on my toes at night to warm them up). We seem to be suffering with the same Arctic Wind but topped up with the usual icy breeze off the Himalayas and freezing fog making it even colder. Combined with marble floors, mosquito mesh not quite providing double glazing, Delhi is definitely in the midst of a Big Chill.

The only place to be warm is in bed. So my flatmate and I are currently living like residents of an old people’s home. Food is cooked and eaten in blanket shawls and then it is back into bed for conversation under the covers with bedroom doors ajar enough to stop the draft and to converse. The worse thing is getting up in the morning to have a shower. India is extremely eco friendly as to heat any hot water you need to switch a geyser on. So you have to leap out of bed, flick the switch and jump back under the covers to defrost whilst the water heats up.

You’ve drawn the short straw in our flat if you are on Tilaram duty. Tilaram is our household help who arrives at 8am. The geyser in the kitchen needs to be switched on for the washing up, which involves crossing several marble floors in slipper socks to reach the kitchen. It’s sort of like early morning skating. I think Tilaram suffers the most, as neither of us get out of bed until the doorbell rings. He’s constantly greeted by a bed headed blondie in pyjamas looking slightly dazed. He’s a shy 17 year old who is slowly getting used to our Hinglish and pyjama clad cleaning instructions that we are starting to win over by making cups of chai with at least five sugars in.

Work is no better on the warm front. You need to be prepared to wear your coat all day and this week we’ve also suffered power cuts. Typing in the dark has been good assimilation to how the rest of my office lives as half of them are blind, but it does make you feel even chillier and your meeting notes are rubbish. The worst thing is you can’t dress properly for smart work occasions. I love the fact unlike back in London, where my diary was full of back to back meetings it’s all a bit last minute. Having been told two hours before kick off we were off to the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment Accessible Website launch in town, I was regretting my not so svelte layered look.

My look du jour currently consisted of on top: a vest, two long sleeved cotton layers, a cashmere jumper, finished with two layers of polar fleece, down below I was sporting a delightful leggings ‘n’ trousers combo finished with some fetching well travelled trekking shoes. I look like an outward bound instructor gone AWOL after a doughnut eating competition. We had seats near the front and having to shimmy down a row of beautiful sari clad ladies who were shivering with dignity I felt so ashamed. When we all headed to the garden for high tea I felt slightly smug but aware all eyes were on me when I went back for extra cake to keep warm...

Highlights: Well I never thought I would be complaining about the cold, but it’s a fantastic excuse to eat more (but slightly regret cooking up the only sweet comfort food I could do on a gas stove which is chocolate refrigerator cake – frozen blocks of choccy lard have limited heating properties it seems). Seeing how everyone else is coping with the Big Chill – the weather has bought out the truly entertaining (even dogs in India get their own coats, Elvis the Pug our favourite local Rude Dog rules in the fashion stakes) and truly humbling (people huddling around fires day and night makes your realise having the luxury of food, a blanket and roof of your head is a lot more than many...), going for lunchtime walks with colleagues to keep warm (when the sun does decide to put his hat on, it’s an office expedition to the market and opportunity to get to know everyone a bit better), actually looking forward to the temperature rising (I know I’ll regret this when it’s 45° outside but we’ve got a roof terrace to do some serious lounging on!)

When Bonnie Tyler lyrics predict your week...

All hail to the high priestess of 80s soft rock... this week it’s all gone a bit Bonnie...

Turn around bright eyes... I was determined this week to become legal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the lucky few who have a 1 year visa but since the Mumbai bombings, everyone needs to register despite having a visa. This isn’t a simple process as I found out...

Day 1 and it’s off to the Ministry of Home Affairs to get a letter. Unfortunately, I was unaware that there are two Ministry of Home Affairs. One where the minister lives next to the President’s Palace and one in a shabbier part of town where foreigners need to register. Naturally, I went to the wrong one and was politely told to turn around unless I was here to visit the minister on official business. On arriving at the right place the queuing marathon then began. I don’t know why we think queuing is an English speciality. I have to completely admire the efficiency of the Indian queuing system having spent two days of my life turning from amateur to semi-pro. Firstly, you needed to queue to get an entry slip into the building. A numbered ticket was given and we huddled in a waiting room with at least 80 countries represented from the UN. Within an hour we gained our slip and security let us through to stage two. Mass form filling ensued and we again waited for our number to be called to be interviewed by a clerk. Several hours passed, after a quick chat with someone vaguely official looking I was told to come back at 5pm to get my letter.

This letter is your passport to more queuing on Day 2 and is more precious than your passport. Whatever happens, you cannot open this letter and fierce warnings remind you in the waiting room. I returned at 5pm pleased to see that my letter would be handed out in what seemed an orderly fashion by country grouping. Then madness ensued. Random clerks returned with piles of paperwork shouting out surnames. This meant the entire room (around 150 people) rushed to each clerk as if they’d announced that the duty free was about to shut on a ferry. Two hours later, letter in hand I left prepared for the next day’s queuing...

Day 2 and thanks to insider tips from other volunteers, I arrived at 7.30am two hours before opening time in freezing fog. It seemed that the Afghan community were well aware of the situation too. So I turned up to be greeted by 60 male Afghan refugees forming a queue. I was the only a) blonde b) girl in the village. It’s amazing how the warmth of 60 pairs of eyes staring, one iPod to shut everything out and much jiggling about can fight off the cold. Luckily by 8.30am I got talking to a very interesting Afghan journalist. She was visiting her husband who was studying in Delhi and trying to extend her visa by a few days. It was fascinating to talk to someone who lives in Afghanistan. Our understanding is clouded by what we see and hear of the war, to actually talk to someone living there and about life in Herat was very humbling. The fact I was equally queuing up with Afghanis and we all had the same goal to stop queuing and get our paperwork sorted out put things in perspective.

By 10.30am I had made it in the building, to queue again. Despite being near the front, I soon realised that those ahead were professional visa handlers. They are paid to queue every day and process multiple visas for privileged Westerners like me so this meant more waiting. I finally got to the first clerk with the aim in mind I was going to leave with all my paperwork sorted and get my temporary resident’s card. My letter was opened and again I was told to turn around, I needed a visit from the police first to confirm my address details before I could get my paperwork complete. Frustrated, icy cold, tired from my early start and mass queuing I bundled myself back in an auto rickshaw home and warmed myself up with trusty VSO Central Heating (that would be a warm bucket of hot water for your feet!).

Total Eclipse of the... it would be a slight exaggeration to say total eclipse as it was tantamount to 1/16, but NYE’s was spent admiring a partial eclipse of a Blue Moon. I joined several other volunteers for roof top drinks and to keep warm it was hot toddys, dancing in the New Year and some spectacular air drums to Phil Collins... a magic way to see in the new decade.

Highlights: Despite the queuing my visa registration experience gave me a chance to chat to some amazing people and remind myself of one of the many reasons why I’m here, attempting to cook Indian food on our gas stove (the chapattis were chewy, the dosas were doughy but practice makes perfect...), spending a Sunday exploring our ‘hood (loving our neighbourhood and can’t wait for it to warm up so we can sit on the roof terrace for some serious people watching), yoga classes with Guru-Ji (that seriously is the name of our yoga teacher, 3 times a week outside in the courtyard of our local temple, I’m expecting to find my inner yogi by February or its cash back!)