Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire and it's Hindi version, Slumdog Crorepati, opened across India this weekend. Judging by the many stories in the paper over the last few weeks, in both the news sections and the fluffy Bollywood pages, you would have thought most Indians had already viewed the movie...because they've already passed judgement.

On one hand, they're extremely proud, because this movie has bagged five of the six Critics' Choice awards it was nominated for, and all four of its Golden Globe nominations. It's also been nominated for eleven BAFTA's and ten Oscars. Indians like over-achieving.

But on the other hand, it wasn't made in Bollywood, some say, so even though it's a good movie, it's not as good as it would have been if it had been made in Mumbai (read: by an Indian). Okay, right now I can't put my finger on any Bollywood movie with ten Oscar nominations (because there never has been any...)

And then there's the indignant Indian, the blogger who described the movie thus:
"Slumdog Millionaire is putting India on the world map for all the wrong reasons. On the contrary, it is a pornography of poverty, which paints India as a country of slums, exploitation and class divide." Well...yeah. Take off your rose tinted glasses, Mr Blogger. As an outsider I can see poverty, exploitation and class divide. And you forgot corruption...

Save the Girl Child

Today is National Girl Child Day. For those of us who come from more progressive backgrounds, the idea of needing a day to show how important girls are seems a little strange. But in many parts of India, girls are not valued at all. India has one of the most skewed sex ratios in the world. For every thousand men, there’s fewer than 925 women, due to the bias against baby girls. Nature has not skewed the number of girls born, people have. Many couples choose abortion when they learn their unborn child is female, even though prenatal sex screening is illegal. According to federal government statistics, more than 10 million girls have been "missing" in India over the past two decades because of sex-selection abortion. Rural couples who cannot afford to pay for ultrasounds choose to abandon infant girls, or not feed them. But while killing off these girls who are seen as a financial liability by their parents is obviously wrong, it’s also storing a huge problem up for the future. Who are their precious sons going to marry when there aren’t enough girls to go around?

A turn up for the books

At the beginning of the week a very unusual notice appeared on the noticeboard in the foyer next to the lifts. It said that we'd be without power for two hours yesterday because they wanted to do some preventative work on the electrical systems.

Fixing something BEFORE it's broken? Seems Un-Indian to me...

Concentrating the Mind

Excerpts from Keir’s Home School Planner, first week back after the Christmas holidays

Mon pm
Hi Ekta (Keir's teacher), Keir has brought home Kallyanni’s tracksuit top instead of his tracksuit trousers. Please ensure she gets it back. Thanks.

Tues pm
Ekta, Keir has misplaced his tracksuit trousers. They have his name on the size label. Could you please “help” him look for them?
Wed am
He also left his red uniform fleece at school. Sorry, I’m sending him in with a blue one instead. All his clothes have his name in them.

Thur am
Keir is wearing non uniform tracksuit trousers today as his school ones are still at school.

Thur pm
Dear Ekta,
Keir forgot his workbook so he was unable to do his maths homework this evening. He did Maths Whizz on the computer instead. I am sorry he forgot his textbook, but he did remember to bring home his tracksuit trousers, the red and blue fleeces, one of the three school hats missing since summer and all the clothes he wore this morning, so at least we are making some progress. Lana xxx

For those wondering how we managed to get such a turnaround, a new house rule was made on Wednesday afternoon. Any day Keir didn't bring his stuff home from school, he wasn't going to be able to play on the Wii or the computer. Now we know what it takes to concentrate his mind. And yes, he did play on Thursday...

Control, Print

Some things are just harder than they should be.

We brought our printer and some replacement cartridges to India with us, and we've just used up one of the ink colours. It would be an easy thing, you might think, to buy replacement printer cartridges for an HP printer, if you went to an HP shop with the product number. You might think this, but you'd be wrong, terribly wrong. They have never heard of ink cartridge number 363. So you go home, search on the web, and find that in India, ink cartridge number 363 is sold as number 801. Fine, you think, and go back to the HP shop and purchase your replacement magenta cartridge, number 801. Unfortunately, your HP printer, because it was bought in Britain, does not want to play nicely with foreigners, and rejects this absolutely identical in every way cartridge. You can take your printer aside, tell it that kind of behaviour's not nice, but after a short while, you just have to face facts - your printer is a racist. You might think you can get around this embarrassing problem by ordering some cartridges from the UK, but that's not going to work either. Because those cartridges will never make it to your door, having been stolen by someone in the Indian postal service. This will annoy you no end, especially as the thief won't get any benefit from his wrong doings, for the 363 cartridges, even though they're identical in every way to the 801's, won't work in Indian bought printers. Online troubleshooting forums say there is a region code attached to the printer and the cartridges and we may be able to "re-region" our printer so it modifies its inappropriate racist behaviour. But we don't know how complicated this is, and whether we can modify it back on our return to Britain. And while we're trying to sort this out the printer won't work at all, not even print in greyscale because we're out of magenta. Truly, should it be this hard?

Thankfully, after three days of visits to the HP shop at Galleria, we discover, upstairs, tucked around the corner, a Cartridge World shop. The owner not only understands our problem, but has a solution. He can refill our existing cartridges with HP ink. He says HP want us to buy new cartridges (more money for them), so they don't mention this easier, significantly cheaper and more environmentally friendly option. Naughty HP. So it's not just the printer's behaviour that needs to be worked on.

Camel, anyone?

We've spotted various assorted animals (cows, pigs, horses, sheep, dogs, donkeys) in the scrubground alongside Westend Heights, but we've never had camels before.

Even Thalia was impressed, and it takes a rare animal to impress her!

The lack of colour in the picture is caused by me shooting down from the fifteenth floor through the morning fog. Some days the fog never really clears, and they're the really cold ones. Generally it burns off mid morning, and we have a couple of hours of much needed sunshine. I like those days better...

Tooth Fairy visits Westend Heights

Last night, the Tooth Fairy put in a long awaited visit to Westend Heights. One of Keir's canines had been perched precariously for what seemed an eternity, hanging on by the merest thread. For weeks he would come up to us, show us how wobbly this tooth was (really quite wobbly), and we'd say, "leave it alone". Amazingly, he must have done as he was told, because that tooth really looked like it was ready to check out. Anyway, last night's dinner (roti, and a selection of not hard or chewy Indian vegetable dishes, go figure) helped loose those chains, and the tooth was liberated!

But this posed a new set of ponderables? Would the Tooth Fairy know where to come, considering this was the first tooth we've lost since moving here? And would it be the British Tooth Fairy? It's a long way for her to travel overnight. Does the Indian Tooth Fairy follow the same set of rules? And what currency would she deal in?

I am pleased to report there is a good Worldwide Tooth Fairy Operation. The Indian Tooth Fairy (Haryana division) had no difficulty in locating Keir's tooth in his bedroom, even though we seem to have left the little red bag, the one for under his pillow, back in Britain. In its place, we used a measuring spoon fridge magnet (Christmas present from Julie, arrived only that morning) which stuck onto the end of Keir's metal bed. This morning, instead of a tooth, the measuring spoon magnet contained a 100 rupee note. Keir is now checking all his other teeth in the hope that more riches will follow soon.

A Cinema-tastic Experience

The kids are still on holidays (roll on Monday!) so we're trying to find ways of entertaining them in Delhi. It's not that easy. There aren't many things to do here. There are no parks to go to, no walks to go on. We can go shopping - Thalia could shop as an Olympic sport - but Keir would rather go to the dentist than aimlessly wander around yet another mall. After the first couple of hours, I'm with Keir. And if we stay at home, Keir is happy (nay, ecstatic) to spend all day on the Wii, but Thalia gets bored, and I don't want him in front of the computer or TV for the whole day. And there are only so many ways you can spin the phrase "handwriting practice"...no matter how much he'd benefit from it.

So last week we thought we'd try the cinema. We looked up the listings in the newspaper and decided on Madagascar 2. Bizarrely for a country which does NOTHING early, all the cinemas showing Madagascar only had one session, and that was at half past ten. As the current time was past half past ten, that meant another day of handwriting practice...

So yesterday we got out act together early and went to the cinema in the DT Mega Mall. From the outside you'd not expect much from this cinema. The foyer didn't have wall to wall plush carpeting, in fact the ceiling had that open industrial look reminiscent of Ikea. But no flatpacked furniture, or meatballs, obviously...

Stepping inside the auditorium an usher told us where to find our seats. Second row from the back, otherwise known as the row they assigned to everyone else. Not wanting to sit with the other six families that got up early, we asked if we could sit in any of the other 24 rows. The usher seemed a little surprised, but we're western, so he said we could.

The seats were large and very comfortable. They had a pull down armrest, and you could recline them. They were the best cinema seats I've ever sat in.

We sat through one grainy ad for Coca Cola and then the movie began. At the advertised time. There weren't 20 minutes of trailers for movies we didn't want to see, no Pearl and Dean animation, no ad for the tandoori restaurant next door to the cinema. Really quite refreshing.

After about 45 minutes, in the middle of a scene, the movie stopped. The lights went up. The curtain closed. Keir looked confused. He wasn't the only one. The last time I saw a movie with an intermission was "A Passage to India". That movie was so long it needed one, but Madagascar 2 had remembered it was a kids movie, and it was tight. Maybe Indian kids don't have great bladder control... People stood up and went into the foyer to buy more food. And just as Keir (always hungry) was asking if we could join them, an attendant came and took our order. So we had popcorn delivered to our seat! Brilliant!!

The movie started again, just as abruptly as it had stopped. And it was fantastic. All in all a great morning out. Because the movie started so early into the session time, we were out by midday! So time for handwriting practice after all...

Please Ma'am, can I have some more?

The Milk Guy's at it again. Last month, boringly, he presented us with a bill for 600 rupees. A reformed character, we thought. But no... This evening he appears at the door, with a bill for 31 litres of milk, at 20 rupees a litre for a subtotal of 620 rupees. So far, so good, you might think, but then you notice he's asked for an advance of 2000 rupees. Now it might surprise you to know I wanted to know what the advance was for. We've never paid an advance before. But Milk Guy can't answer me in any language I understand, so it's time to call on Farah. I show Farah the invoice, and ask if she will find out what the advance is for. A conversation ensues, and she turns to me to say "His wife is in hospital and he needs money. He wants to try to pay it back over the next few months". Now I have no idea if the Milk Guy's wife is in hospital or not, but I'm feeling particularly hard hearted tonight, so I pay for the milk only. Tomorrow I'll have to ask Farah if she was asked to pay an extra 2000 rupees...