October is Festival Month

The kids have gone back to school today after a four day long weekend. I would have been more aware we were going to have this long weekend if I had turned the page on the school calendar over earlier*. Last Thursday was a National Holiday because it was Gandhi’s birthday. Wednesday was Eid, the end of Ramadan, so Muslims had that to celebrate. Next Thursday they’re also off school because it’s the Hindu festival, Dussehra. And the big festival Diwali is later this month. Raju tells me October is festival month. It can’t be, no one seems to pay over the odds to go to a muddy field to listen to music and take drugs. Or maybe they do, and I’m just out of the loop. It’s not going to be the sort of music they play on Virgin (now Absolute) anyway, which I still keep up with over the internet. One advantage of living in India is you don't have to get up early to listen to the Breakfast show.

So we had some children to entertain. On Thursday we went to Fun 'n' Food Village, a waterpark with splash pools, a wave machine and some mighty steep slides. One had a section that launched you airborne, before returning you to the slide with a bump halfway down. Didn’t know about the bump until it was too late. There was also a dance pool with a rain machine, so the Indians could pretend they were in a Bollywood movie. I've never seen a Bollywood movie, but all the Indians have, because they all knew exactly what to do.

On Friday, in anticipation of our stuff arriving and needing somewhere to put everything ** we went to Great India Place in search of a bookshelf and failed dismally. We didn't see any bookshelves at all. This was not the disaster it could have been, because the furniture we did see was
one) ugly
and two) expensive.
What we would have given for Ikea and a Billy bookshelf! So Saturday we went up to a little village between Gurgaon and Delhi called Ghitorni where they have real wood furniture. We purchased a shelf unit and a desk to take our computer printer for less than we'd seen anything at Great India Place. And on Sunday we went to Hauz Khas. Hauz Khas means Royal Tank, which Sultan Alauddin Khilji excavated in 1300 to provide water for his new city of Siri. There's ruins of Firoz Shah Tughlaq's tomb on the side of the hill above the reservoir, but no safety rails, not even ruined ones***, so we stood a good six feet back from the edge, held on to Keir**** and looked from there. We were planning on eating at one of the "stylish cafes and restaurants" our guide book tempted us with, but they had all closed down. All was not lost, as we passed a furniture shop and bought a CD and DVD rack taller than Thalia and a 20cm square box both made out of Sheesham wood (Indian Rosewood) for 4,000 rupees (less than £50)!

*note to self, it's worth checking!
**no, it's still not here, and we're not happy!
***health and safety hasn't exactly made inroads in India
**** Thalia has a sense of her own mortality, Keir certainly doesn't. We take no chances with Keir.