Shifting time...

This week we are moving offices and it’s got me feeling all nostalgic about our current office located in Hauz Khas.

Firstly I think I’m going to miss my commute. My 50 minute walk to and fro is a daily adventure. It starts off with saying good morning to all the neighbourhood dogs by the park. It then involves using my survival skills to dodge rickshaws, eager men and obstacles on the pavements that include rubbish, burning rubbish, cows eating rubbish, sleeping dogs and large holes. Some parts I won’t miss, for example, crossing what I’ve affectionately nicknamed ‘Sewage Stream’ everyday. It has got a bit worse in the hot weather, as well as the simmering stench of methane, it has turned into a breeding ground for flies. So as well as having to hold my breath, I look vaguely possessed as I use my arms to swat away swarms of beasties that favour European flesh.

I’m also going to miss the area where the office is based in. Hauz Khas has a laid back arty feel and reminds me a bit of Greenwich. Our office is near the National Institute of Fashion & Technology, so I love seeing what all the Trendy Wendys are wearing and their curious looks as I rock past in a traditional salwaar kameez instead of skinny jeans. I’m going to miss the snoozing security guard that I always pass on my lunch time strolls, past the mini temple, along pristine shady pavements to the market. I love the smell of all the fruit stands, the fancy chemist where I spend time perusing the Himalaya range of beauty products (organic and affordable, on a VSO budget it’s a winning combination) and the newspaper stand where I get my fortnightly copy of TimeOut Delhi.

Most of all I’m going to miss our office. It really is unique and has a certain amount of charm to it. Located in a basement, it regularly floods during monsoon (I will be sadly missing out on the ‘electric waterfall’ come the rainy season, where we have a regular water feature next to the fuse box) and has damp patches that have a contemporary modern art feel to them. It’s a hub of activity and technology. If 24 had been shot in 1982, the set for Jack Bauer’s HQ would have been identical to our office. Most of my colleagues have screen reading software on their computers and phones, so there is constant background sound of mellow robotic chatter going on. Mixed with this is our Talking Book production department, so you will regularly hear clipped snippets of Huckleberry Finn from an Angela Rippon sound alike.

But I really can’t complain, our new office will have AC and it’s next to an infamous paratha wallah (thin, stuffed, fried mini naan bread) and my favourite Tibetan restaurant that serves momos (steamed dumplings) that are to die for. So that’s lunchtimes sorted then.

Highlights: The power of direct marketing - returning from our work trip in the North East to receive the first donation for Rs50,000 from our Annual Report DM campaign (it was a team effort but I think this means I’m officially a fundraiser now), having a very fun London weekend with the London Massive – dressing up in heels, clubbing until the wee hours on Friday night, ending the night with ice cream at India Gate at 2.30am and then hitting the air conditioned shopping mall on Saturday for some retail therapy – heaven, discovering the local outdoor Olympic size swimming pool - one swim costs the same as a month of yoga with Yoga Guru-Ji, but when it’s still 38° outside at 5.30pm you’ve got to speculate to accumulate...

On the road with George...

Six months ago if you had mentioned the words, “work trip”, I would have rolled my eyes, sighed and strapped myself in for endless nights of PowerPoint slide creation, early starts and late arrivals on the Eurostar and a world of pain. How life changes...

I’ve just spent the last 5 days with my boss, George, on a work trip like no other. I’ve been lucky enough to visit one of the most beautiful and remotest parts of India and learn more about disability, the rural situation and insurgency which is a part of everyday life for many who live in the North East of India.

Firstly let me explain why we were headed off to Assam and Meghalaya, which is nestled between Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar. I am volunteering for an organisation that is a knowledge resource for people with visual impairment. We fulfil a roll that in the developed world most governments and health authorities would do. We empower, inform and inspire the blind and visually impaired through various channels of our Project Eyeway www.eyeway.org which include a radio programme, website, helpdesk, SMS service, talking books library, workshops and cricket camps.

Until you live in India you can’t really understand the frustrating lack of information that is available to do the most basic of things. I myself have experienced it trying to even register as a foreigner. So you can imagine what it must be like if you are, or become blind in a society where blindness can be through malnutrition, is seen as punishment from the gods therefore a sin on your behalf, you are considered worthless and are stuck at home with little or no opportunity for independence. This situation is even worse in rural areas and in the North East. It is a particularly deprived area, with poor infrastructure, home to over 200 tribes, many dialects and infrequent insurgencies. So we were off to complete a research project to find out what life with blindness is like there, find organisations we could partner with to provide a bespoke Eyeway programme.

We started off in Assam. We spent two days in Guwahati the capital. We touched down at the airport, skimming past a group of boys playing cricket near the runway and it seemed as if we had landed in the Caribbean. Lush jungle hills, palm trees and the huge Brahmaputra River dotted with islands which could have been the sea. The place was so relaxed, people were even wearing shorts, including the girls – I’ve never seen so much leg on display in India. There we met our contact who we nicknamed ‘The Don of Disability’. Having managed the research project, he has more connections than a telephone exchange, which was reinforced by the fact we rode around in his pimped up white jeep the whole time.

We had a successful partner meeting and then moved onto Shillong in Meghalya. The 3 hour drive involves winding up a very narrow jungle pass, which is a truckers bypass and based on our taxi drivers skills, also a local Formula 1 track. It was amazing how quickly the landscaped changed. Palm trees were replaced with bamboo, the air became cooler, and we passed a Mediterranean like lake and arrived to Shillong’s colonial charm. It felt like being in South America, with timber clad chalet like buildings with tin roofs, wide open streets with pavements (believe me a serious luxury in India) and amazingly no rubbish. Sleeping without a fan at night was a novelty, it was so ‘cold’ compared to Delhi, George and I went shawl shopping . At this partner meeting we found out more about the rural situation, listening to blind students who had grown up in the Khasi tribe. One girl explained how as there was no information on blindness, her mother did not know what to do and treated her with traditional medicine of an alcohol, black pepper and spice mix. Luckily she had access to information about a blind school through a visitor to her village, she attended and is now working for a local NGO.

After an 11 hour journey we returned to Delhi last night to be greeted by 36° heat and I think it was the first time I had ever returned from a work trip invigorated and looking forward to writing up the meeting notes.

Highlights: it’s still only spring but it’s got up to 38° in the last few days – it’s hard work sleeping but your washing dries in seconds, enjoying a cold beer from the fridge – when you are constantly drinking water it’s so good after a day at the office and a dusty walk home, a package arriving from another wonderful friend full of chocolate and a copy of Grazia – a girl needs her fashion and WAGs gossip to keep in touch with life at home, work – by seeing another part of India, spending time with my boss and meeting so many interesting people I really feel like I’m understanding the world of NGOs, disability and India so much more - VSO really is a privilege.

Sun, sea, sand and sixty hours on a train…

Last week I escaped Delhi for the VSO Annual conference. Location wise it could not have been much better, this year we hit the jackpot as we were off to Puri by the Bay of Bengal in Orissa, for some well deserved sun, sea and sand (alongside fighting global poverty of course).

Nothing in life is of course perfect, so in order to get there we had to endure a 31 hour train journey on the ironically named ‘Puri Express’. Leaving from Delhi at 06.30 on the Saturday we were due to be sipping fresh lime sodas with the sand between our toes by 13.00 on the Sunday. Or so we thought. I’d travel before in India on the train on short journeys and was always impressed with how efficient it was. So I approached my first overnight trip with naive excitement.

My excitement started to wane on boarding the train. We ended up getting the bum berths which basically were in the corridor. The one advantage was that you had a privacy curtain but this was frequently nudged into by corridor traffic, elbows and prying eyes at any opportunity. We settled down for the long haul and with a steady stream of omelette sandwiches and watery dhal coming our way there was not too much to complain about. The view outside was slightly tarnished by the fact our window was fogged up with enough condensation and dirt that the view had a sepia touch to it. But after a while it added a certain amount of charm as the East Indian countryside whizzed past which tended to be an endless scene of paddy fields, rural towns, piles of rubbish and a combination of humans and animals relieving themselves near the tracks. Not much different to Delhi really.

By 30 hours in we seemed to be fairly on time. With only an hour to go, the cramp in our limbs seemed to ease from being cooped up in the carriage, with hope the end was nigh. Then we reached the slow boat to China moment. It took 3.5 hours to travel the final hour, at one point it was tempting to get out and push. But it was worth it in the end.

We had a blissful few days before the conference embracing our inner tourist. Ice creams at every opportunity, a boat trip on Chilika Lake to watch dolphins, a visit to the World Heritage site of Konark temple, walks on the beach and endless games of Frisbee in the hotel pool – heaven. It was so great to catch up with all the other volunteers that are now scattered across India. Everyone had the chance to share their highs and lows so far, which is something you need to do to keep sane. It was great to know that I wasn’t the only one having those days at work where all you really feel like all you have achieved is a chat with a colleague over chai and your contribution to helping fight global poverty is pretty minimal, but every little helps as they say and it’s all part of the experience...

Highlights: catching up with rest of the Volunteer Crew - now missing everyone lots but plenty of trips to be planned across India for our next catch up, the Stare Factor – nearly causing a minor RTA yesterday as an Indian motorist did a whiplash inducing double take at me, causing a cyclist to do a comedy veer (I’m not sure it was my blondish locks or the fact I was being highly risqué by wearing a short sleeved kurta to beat the heat, there’s something about my pallid glow in the dark arms it seems..!), seafood (I overdosed on prawns, retoxed on fish and gorged on crab it was so good to eat some non veg protein), the highlight of the conference had to be meeting a partner organisation from the state of Chhattisgarh and learning about disability in their state, levels of corruption and their limited rights (so many people have a story that never gets heard and we really don’t know how lucky we are).

What a jolly Holi day...

On Monday we celebrated Holi, the Festival of Colours, which has to be one of India’s messiest celebrations.

The pictures really say it all. It involves throwing a) lots of coloured powdered paint b) lots of water and getting very, very messy. It’s like Art Attack on acid. Our original plan was to go to Varanasi for the weekend, but chatting to colleagues one day over lunch they told me this would be the worst place to go. In true bank holiday style apparently everyone, well mainly young males, tend to have a few too many drinks of ‘special’ lassi and go a bit bonkers. This mainly involves applying coloured paint to ladies private parts and severe cases of ABG (Actual Bum Gropage).

How bad can it be I thought? So I had a look on Google, the words ‘carnage’, ‘clothes ripped off’ and ‘surrounded by packs of men’ tended to crop up. I had visions of sprinting through the empty streets of Varanasi, that would be akin to Pamplona in the bull running season, in a frenzied state like the Incredible Hulk, green skin and torn clothes complete. Not a good look, so decided it was best to stay at home, particularly as we have the perfect water bomb throwing position courtesy of our terrace.

Preparations started early with buying suitable supplies. Water pistols, water bombs and the famous ‘Cock Gold’ semi organic powdered paint for maximum rainbow effect. We started the day by applying a protective layer, which involved slathering on a bottle of coconut oil to avoid permanent hair and skin staining. Smelling like Malibu and greased up to the nines, we set up a highly efficient water bombs production line, made our own special lassis with brandy, then the mayhem began. I’d like to think we maximised our position with the water bombs but lame girly throws limited our ability. We probably got one cyclist and someone’s toe wet, but we had fun. The main event actually turned out to be getting totally soaked by an eight year old girl.

Whilst sipping our drinks on the terrace after a mass colour throwing session, we suddenly realised we were being attacked from above and little hands were making light work of us as we got a serious pelting with water bombs. We went up onto the roof to find our landlord and his niece playing with our neighbours. Armed with buckets of water we tried hard to fight back. We failed and again got royally soaked, little girls are not made of sugar and spice it seems, just a mean aim and the right height to get you soaked at crotch level.

So what of the after effects? The next day the streets were still covered with a psychedelic splotch of colours, the occasional dog or cow still had the odd purple patch. Despite three showers, some serious exfoliating, it seems the coconut oil did not provide the protective layer we had hoped for. I am sporting a rather delightful pink eyebrow and have some beautiful purple highlights to my hair that give me a slight wannabe Goth look that are still yet to disappear. Good times.

Highlights: Indian festivals really do rock, so simple but effective a day off work to throw paint the ultimate stress buster (the Tories won’t get my vote unless Holi get’s imported, a bank holiday in February - brilliant), afternoon tea at The Imperial Hotel (again those dangerous words ‘eat all you can’, let’s just say there was Tupperware involved, we’re not ashamed just resourceful), a 2.6kg package arriving at work full of new books to devour (thank you to my lovely Literary Goddess friend, you are an angel), getting ready to go to Puri for the annual VSO conference (it’s 34 hours on the train to get there, it’s all about the journey they say...) and I hate to rub it in for those in colder climes but it went up 5° in 3 days last week, it’s now 31° by lunch time (I’m enjoying it before it reaches daily double Mitchum applications!)

A session with Yoga Guru-Ji...

We’ve signed up to the local yoga classes held in the temple opposite our house. Three times a week we trot off for a session that always proves to be highly entertaining thanks to our teacher, Yoga Guru-Ji.

His name says it all. It conjures up the image of a mystical Gandalf like figure that levitates into the room in the perfect lotus position. You could not get further from the truth. He tends to arrive 10 minutes late, sporting a bushy moustache, 5 o’clock shadow and a bomber jacket over his kurta. In the meantime, one of our fellow classmates tends to take over. She’s sort of the Dot Cotton of our class, as they tend to be women in their 50s and insists on doing warm up exercises that involve rolling your eyes “clock” and then “anti-clock”.

The class is held in the courtyard of the temple which is beautiful, but extremely noisy. The prayer bell is rung throughout so Yoga Guru-Ji needs to shout fairly loudly. His technique tends to be a mixture of yoga and 80s jazzercise. His training must have involved a Rosemary Conley video at some point. We firstly start with a warm up of ‘sports marching’ that involves marching on the spot with coordinating hands to knees. Then when we do exercises on the floor. He insists they are done “spiritedly” which involves him either manoeuvring your arm into the right position using his vice like grip or flinging your body from side to side.

He likes to tell us which part of the body each posture improves. Apart from the third eye he’s always keen to tell us about the healing properties to our rectum, whilst burping loudly. We also do laughing yoga which I seem to be very proficient at, especially when he keeps telling me "Nikki-Ji cheating" when I fail to dislocate my body into the cobra pose.

He must have been a great fan of 80s films, as my favourite exercise involves some classic Karate Kid moves. We perform the Mr Miyagi ‘healing hands rub’ at the end of every session. After rubbing your hands together to warm your palms you then, um, rub yourself all over. I have no idea what the local prayer goers think, it must be very amusing for them to watch us. It’s all highly enjoyable, particularly as apart from getting a little bit bendier, it only cost us Rs200 (£2.66) a month and the whole class is done in mainly Hindi. You will be pleased to know that my language skills are improving so much, that I can tell you the word for rectum is exactly the same in Hindi as English...

Highlights: Reaping the benefits of the endless queuing for my resident’s permit and only paying Rs5 to get into Tughlaqabad Fort for our jolly day out picnic (we volunteers know how to put on a good spread), discovering ‘eat as much as you can sushi and drink as much Tiger beer’ special at a local posh restaurant for only Rs599 (a real treat on our budget, when 10 of us descended the waiting staff realised within 5 minutes we were there for the long haul and it was best to bring over buckets of beer... ), it’s February and it’s 26 degrees outside (‘nuff said!).

Glass half full or...

… glass half empty? Nowhere is perfect and having been here for three months, I thought it’s a good time to look at some of the daily things that make India both incredible and infuriating.

It’s not easy being green…

Well actually, in India, it is most of the time. You can instantly be an Eco Goddess by not really doing too much. Firstly, you only heat the water you need. You switch on your geyser 20 minutes before you have a shower, go back to bed, hit the snooze button to awake to warm water. Power showers haven’t quite made it over here yet, so washing your hair is done with a couple of jugs of water like a retro Timotei ad, but it does the job whilst you save water.

You don’t need to worry about recycling as everything that gets thrown away gets recycled by hand. We pay the going rate of Rs50 (about 66p) a month for someone to collect our rubbish from our front door. They take it to the local tip, sort through it and sell on the recycable items for a bit of profit. We hadn’t realised how much of a high commodity beer bottles really were at Rs2 each until we had a box of empties from a party. We left them outside in the afternoon for the morning collection and in an hour they had mysteriously disappeared… so even drinking beer is good for the environment and someone else’s pocket, love it.

But all this easy eco living only tends to be in the confines of your house. When you get outside, rubbish is everywhere. Even in the nicest areas of town you will find piles of the stuff. It’s not really helped by the fact everyone seems to be obsessed with sweeping. Dust is everywhere and if you don’t sweep your flat every day a delightful black layer appears on every surface. On the street everyone meticulously sweeps outside their house or shop but fails to do anything with the swept matter. You will find a strategically placed pile of rubbish outside most houses, the breeze then picks it up and deposits near by so just spreading the love around…

By the time you get home at night your hair is dusty, your skin is dry and you cleanse off a thick black layer of grime. You are then in need of another shower to get clean, hmmm, so perhaps not so green..

Domestic help required…

In order to deal with the dust inside your house, everyone tends to have a domestic help. Sweeping everyday is pretty time consuming and if it means a job for someone else I’m all for the cause. Our cleaner, bless him, tries his hardest and I’m sure we are not the easiest of people to deal with. He’s supposed to come at 8am everyday but tends to work on a rolling 2 hour start time which is a tad frustrating. In a world where as a female you have to be covered up at all times, it’s not the most convenient if he arrives late and you are in the shower. You sadly can’t pop out and open the door in a towel. I’ve had to jump out the shower fully shampood then put my pyjamas back on to greet him. With my morning scowl, dripping pyjamas and foaming hair I don’t who was the more startled when I opened the door.

We’ve managed to get him to come within a 30 minute window now, but when he does arrive I then turn slightly OCD and follow him around like a possessed banshee. He has a unique style of cleaning. He tends to favour using toilet bleach and dirty cloths for most chores. We’ve trained him off the Domestos for floors and kitchen surfaces. My particular bug bear is his style of washing up which involves a running tap and lots of noise. I would not mind if it was effective but the end result doesn’t pass my hygeine test. I’ve happily demonstrated several times to him, like Nanette Newman in a Fairy Liquid ad, the harmony and sparkling results of a washing up bowl, hot water and a scrubbing brush. But he favours his style. Every morning it’s a battle of wills by the kitchen sink. I tend to inspect every plate as it goes into the rack then return it to the pile, it’s like some bizarre circus plate spinning game where nobody seems to win…

Highlights: spending the last two days with my colleagues at Techshare a technology and disability event (laughing a lot and meeting lots of fans of our radio programme was really great), finally getting my resident’s permit (it took 4 hours, minimal queuing, whilst being entertained by a very charming retired German professor, you have to love the system), sunny times on the balcony or anywhere (it’s getting to a lovely temperature in the day, sipping chai outside the office is a nice afternoon activity and way to pass the time when there is a power cut), being caught in a thunderstorm and getting a subsidised lift home (stranded on the side of the road, no brolly, trying to keep my laptop dry a kindly auto driver only charged me half the usual rip off price to share a rickshaw home), discovering ladies night at the local bar where there are free mojitos and beer for the fairer sex (the quality of the alcohol is yet to be determined, by the third drink I was quite enjoying the stinging sensation with every sip...)

Police, pyjamas & plumbing…

Just another average weekend in Delhi? Quite possibly, here’s how my weekend shaped up…

I was determined to have a relaxing one, sleeping and making the most of the glorious weather that has now arrived. In a few days it has gone from ‘Ice Age in Siberia’ to ‘Springtime in Provence’ (substitute the smell of lavender for the occasional waft of rubbish and you have the picture). It’s a relaxing 24°c in the day and it should remain this perfect temperature for the next month or so before it starts climbing a degree a day to get to ‘Meltdown in Morocco’ weather.

Saturday morning was all about the lie in. Until I was bought back to consciousness by our doorbell. I decided that ignoring it was the best tactic if I was going to get my prescribed 12 hours of sleep. Our doorbell often rings and is opened to a phantom no one or the guy who collects our rubbish concerned that after the previous day’s profitable mountain of empty beer bottles, there’s nothing on the doorstep for him. It rang again, so mildly irritated I opened the door to be greeted by two moustachioed gentleman. Through my fug of sleep, I recognised one as my landlord and the other sported a more official moustache. It was the policeman from the foreigner’s registration unit come to check up on me.

So we conducted my interview in my pyjamas with me looking like an honorary member of the Hair Bear Bunch. I’m sure he’s seen worse. Hopefully he’ll view my nightwear as an attempt to wear a more traditional salwaar kameez and dully give me my temporary resident’s card.

Now fully awake, it was off out to do some shopping in the neighbourhood. Pottering about at the weekends there’s always something going on out on the street. If it’s not a wedding at the temple, cricket being played on any available open space, then you notice a few interesting services available (see poster on the right). I decided I needed some exploring and quiet time in the afternoon and headed off to the Lotus Temple, 20 minutes walk from the flat.

The pictures really say it all, as it was a trully amazing place. Situated between a park and a building site that is the constant development of the new Metro, it is an oasis of calm in the desert that is Delhi. Having removed my flipflops I queued up with the other visitors and padded in barefooted. Inside was just as stunning as the outside. Made entirely from cooling marble, I sat on a bench in a pool of sunshine and enjoyed the silence. It has to be the most peaceful spot in Delhi and I enjoyed the fact that for once I got to be the starer not the staree as I watched people file in for some quiet time and contemplation.

Sunday was just as relaxing, spending time reading the paper on our roof terrace whilst soaking up the sun. Catching up on world news, Bollywood gossip and my favourite, the matrimonials section. Whatever you are into there is a bride or groom for you out there. Akin to property ads replace ‘gch’ with ‘tall, handsome, smart ‘ for any groom and for prospective brides they all seem to be all ‘fair, beautiful, slim’.

Then in the afternoon to our great excitement our washing machine arrived. We’ve been holding out and finally the second hand top loader automatic 1994 TVS washing machine of our dreams is ours. To get it working we needed to do some basic plumbing. Armed with my trusty travel tool kit (that would be a pink special edition Hello Kitty Swiss Army Knife) I turned the nail file into a screw driver and after much sighing and tap fiddling between us , my flatmate and I put a load of washing on. So all in all, just an average weekend…

Highlights: Having my Indian bank account set up by a colleague in a matter of days (I’m still in shock at the efficiency and lack of queuing involved on my behalf), being maybe one step closer to getting registered and my temporary residents card (or at least I’ve prolonged a visit and queuathon at the foreigner’s registration office for another few weeks), no longer looking like a goat herder/hiking instructor (finally being able to not have to apply five layers and choose from a range of non-fleece based items from my wardrobe is a joy) , discovering you can get home delivery from the local beer shop, gone are the days of a complimentary grope with you bottle of beer…