Closed for business

Going...
Going... *

Gone!

Well...almost gone!

* Can you see a polished stripe on the wall above the table? Because our front room was a living room/quilting studio/office I didn't have much space between my quilting frame and the wall. That polished stripe is bum height. We're not going to mention that to the landlord...

How to make IT more appealing

This building alongside the NH8 always made us smile.
No disgruntled employees, everybody loves everybody. Great camraderie, and plenty of banging tunes. A motivated workforce...but possibly not the most focussed...

Farewell - the sequel

I was going to sneak this photo into the farewell lunch post but I thought the eagle eyed amongst us will have noticed that Eileen and I have changed clothes. And that the restaurant got an awful lot brighter!
In the middle of the sofa are Laurie and Kehi. They couldn't make it to lunch. So I made sure I snapped them when we were at Laurie's last week. She likes you to leave your guns outside too...

So Long, Farewell, It's not the Sound of Music!

Yesterday my quilting group, Garam Masala Quilters, took me out for my farewell lunch. We went to my favourite restaurant in Delhi, Fez. There's only one problem with Fez: What to do with your country made rifle...

Fez serves Middle Eastern/Lebanese/Moroccan food, and it's absolutely yummy! I had za'atar coated vegetable skewers. Za'atar is a mix of thyme, oregano, sesame seeds and other spices. I had to look that up on Wikipedia, but trust me, it's fabulous! And I had a creme brulee, which I know is not terribly Middle Eastern...

Here I am with Greta and Alison. I reckon if I only have my photo taken with short people I could look tall. Hey, we all look tall! Alison and her family are heading back to the UK over the summer too. Her daughter Rhiannon and Keir are quite friendly...she thinks we could even become mothers-in-law one day. Hopefully not too soon...

See I've already forgotten to only have my photo taken with short people. Actually, I'd run out of short quilter friends. Here's Eileen and Helen.

Okay, if there are no more short people to be photographed with, make the tall ones bend over! Here's Christine and her daughter Mina. Mina's shorter than I am...

And here's the rest of the gang who stayed to the bitter end. These are the gals with staying power! Alison, Leticia, Mary, Me, Linley, Suzanne and Anju.

Then we all went outside and collected our Glocks...

Loads a money!

We sold the car and the new owners came over to make the final payment. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a huge wadge of cash...and another...and another...

Okay, he didn't use the brown paper bag...but it makes a better picture!

Many high money transactions are conducted in cash here. In part that's because Party A wouldn't trust a cheque written by Party B, and also because cash can be "black money", undeclared to the tax department and sometimes obtained by dodgy means. Reading the papers here shows many examples of dodgy means - bribes, scams, bribes, facilitation fees*, bribes. We're assuming this money's not dodgy, because each bundle had a piece of paper from a bank around it stating how much was in the bundle. But then, you know what they say can happen when you "assume" things...

So Rod and I had to count it all. 320,000 rupees, not far from five thousand pounds. Being a law abiding Western girl, I've never handled that much cash before. Counting it was quite stressful... But it was correct, we gave the new owner our car registration documents so he could have it transferred to his name before our handover date just before we leave and off he went. Then we had 3 lakh 2, in cash, in our house. That was stressful still! So we called Peggy from the movers and asked her to come so we could pay her for the shipping. And I put the rest in my handbag (as you do!) and we walked around the corner to deposit it in our bank. The teller there gave us a strange look, as if to say we hadn't really grasped the Indian "black money" way... I'm all for not going down that route. Otherwise I'm going to need a bigger handbag...

* Facilitation fee: A sum paid by Party A to Party B, so Party B will award lucrative contract to Party A. For the uninitiated, or to use the Indian, for those who came in late, a bribe.

Hot Hot Hot

This is one of those times we're hoping you can't believe everything you read in the papers. Jon Bon Jovi thinks Tuesday just might go my way, it can't get worse than yesterday. Jon might not be right this time...

Spilt Milk

Thalia spilt some milk on the sofa today, and the last thing we really want on the sofa when it's 44 degrees is some mouldering milk. So we took the covers off to wash...

Under the cushions was the requisite smattering of small change and a pen or two. Rod shoved his hand down the side of the sofa, and pulled out another handful of change. But then he turned the sofa on its side, and shook. There was the tinkling of metal on metal... it sounded like standing next to a slot machine at Burswood Casino... so Rod shoved his hand down the side of the sofa again.

We found: the front door key Rod's been looking for for the past two weeks, a few more pens, two hairbands, 97 Indian rupees, £11.44 in British money, 32 US cents, half a Euro and one Thai ringgit. Crying over spilt milk? No way - we're rich!

I'm not a tourist. I live here. For now at least.

Here's my latest purchase:

The t-shirt says: I'm not a tourist. I live here. It should serve me well next time I need to get a rickshaw!

The t-shirt is the brainchild of Fading Ladies and caused Raju much amusement!

During the week I emailed the Fading Ladies and placed my order. I got a text Thursday morning asking if I'd be home, as my shirt was with the Fading Ladies driver, ready for delivery. But the driver never came. At half twelve I got another text, which read:
"We had a minor fender bender this morning. Sorry for the delay. Can we come now?"
I replied, "Yes. Hope you are okay".
She replied "All is well. Was scary experience as man was thrown underneath car while we were driving but no one was badly hurt."
She's definitely no tourist if she can describe any event where someone ends up under your car as a minor accident!

The Italian Connection

We're selling our car, so the other day we sent Raju off to get the interior cleaned so it would look nice for the new owners. For some reason unknown to man, it took eight hours for the car to be cleaned. It really wasn't that dirty... But anyway, because the car wasn't going to be ready at school pick up time, I had to take a rickshaw to collect the children.

I walked down to the main market, just two minutes away. The first rickshaw driver looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language - okay, to him I was :-) The second rickshaw driver spoke enough english to tell me he didn't speak english. Can't complain here either, because I speak enough hindi to say I can't speak hindi - Nahin bolo hindi. Bolo english (No speak hindi. Speak english). The third rickshaw driver understood me very well. He looked quizzical when I said "British School, Chanakyapuri" (they all do), and nodded when I added "near the American Embassy". He quoted me 150 rupees one way, 300 for a return journey. Now, the going rate for a white girl is 200 rupees return, far more than an Indian would pay. I told him 300 rupees was way too much, this journey always cost me 200 rupees. No he said, pointing to his watch, not at this time. That wasn't really the right answer, as I've only ever taken a rickshaw to school to collect the kids at school pick up time. He was treating me like a tourist! So I walked away and hoped I'd find another rickshaw quite soon, as pick up time was drawing closer.

The next rickshaw looked pretty new and unbattered. It was probably too much to hope that this guy would want to charge me a "reasonable white girl rate" to get the kids. Again he looked quizzical at "the British School, Chanakyapuri", and nodded when I said "near the American Embassy". And he wanted 200 rupees return. Result! I got in and off we went. Just to be safe, and because I don't really want to go to the American Embassy, as we get closer to school I start giving directions. It's not too hard, because there's a series of roundabouts, and you want to go straight across all three. But just as we join this stretch of road I spot the car in front has a "British School Authorised Parking" sign in the back window. So I proclaim, "Follow that car!", which amused me far more than it amused the driver. He obviously hadn't seen as many car chase movies as I had. Although to be fair to him, most of those movies didn't involve chasing a 7 seater people mover with two child car seats in the back...

As the car in front went straight over the last roundabout he checked again that that was the way I wanted to go ( if I had wanted to go to the American Embassy, we should have turned right). Straight ahead, I told him, and straight ahead he went. As we were pulling alongside the Italian Embassy, he said "ah, The British School", like they all do. I have no idea why no rickshaw driver knows where the British School is until they reach this point of the journey, but they all have that "realisation moment" at the same spot. Strange...

Kehi Catch Up

Today Rod and I had a lovely day out with my quilty friend, Kehi. Kehi and her husband Marcus have just moved to Chennai, so we were lucky to catch up with her before we go.

She told me of her visit to Ideal Beach on Sunday, about an hour's drive from Chennai. There's a resort hotel there and some beach shacks selling trinkets for tourists. One of the shacks sold seashells (probably easier to do than to say), and Kehi spotted a great big orange shell she wanted. Badly. But the man said the price was 750 rupees, which Kehi felt was quite a lot for a seashell. She told the man she'd be back later to hear his best price. Then she went down to the beachfront to sit under a palm tree, read a book and drink champagne. I'm not really a beach person, but this beach is well named, for that sounds pretty ideal to me.

Around two o'clock a worker from the resort next door came over and told everyone the beach was closed, there'd been a tsunami warning. Now they take tsunami warnings pretty seriously here, as eight thousand people died on this stretch of coast in the Boxing Day tsunami. The hotel guy said they wouldn't be allowed to stay on the beach, but they could come and sit by the pool. Presumably they wanted Kehi to drink their champagne...

Marcus collected their things and began to move towards the pool. But Kehi was not going to give up on that shell so easily. She ran back to the beach hut, not because she was afraid of the impending waves, but because the sand was hot and Marcus had taken her sandals. The shell seller was closing up, he'd been given the tsunami warning too. Kehi offered him 300 rupees, but he really wanted more. She reminded him a tsunami might be on its way, so he took the 300 and she took the shell. Then she joined Marcus and all the others around the resort's pool, a whole five metres further back and two metres higher up than the tree she'd been so happy underneath. And the tsunami never came...

Kehi, Rod and I spotted this shop in the market in New Friends Colony. It sells cigarettes and paan, a mixture of tobacco and spices wrapped in a betel leaf. Paan is chewed by many across India and South East Asia, and after chewing, leaves your mouth full of red saliva, which stains your teeth and is customary to spit out. It's not wine tasting, there are no spittons, it's on the ground. Lovely. On both counts.

This shop keeper's obviously a fan of alliteration...

(I am) Packing Up

In just over three weeks we will be leaving India and heading back home to Britain. Rod and I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to sort out everything needed to make the move back as painless as possible. One of the things we had to arrange was a moving and packing company to get all our stuff back home. You might think that wouldn't be so hard...but, if it was that easy, I wouldn't be writing about it here, would I?

On our first attempt we called a number of moving and packing companies we found in a local version of the Yellow Pages. Two of them had quoted for our move from Gurgaon to Hauz Khas last year. One turned up, walked around the house looking knowledgably at the furniture we would be taking back, made a few notes on his pad and never got back to us. The other turned up, walked around the house, went away, came back the next day with another guy, took some photos of our furniture and went away again. When Rod called a couple of days later asking for their quote, both guys came back to our house with a scrap of paper. They said it would cost us 160 rupees a kilogram to send our stuff by air, or $70 USD a cubic metre to send it by sea. But they didn't know how many cubic metres the stuff they'd photographed was, nor had any idea how many kilograms our stuff weighed. So, a really, really comprehensive quote... Now, as I do not work for a moving and packing company I do not assess housefuls daily, so I didn't know either. But I was going to hazard a guess that with two sofas, a double bed and mattress, a dining table, six chairs, a chest of drawers and assorted boxes all made from Sheesham (Indian Rosewood, really heavy) and a longarm quilting machine and frame, as well as clothes etc, we wouldn't be sending our stuff by air!

Thankfully, our third moving company had a representative who did assess housefuls daily. Maybe not daily, but often enough to be able to look at each piece of furniture to work out how much space we would need in our container. And Peggy got back to us with a quote, typed, on headed paper without us asking for it. But the only problem was, even though we had had three companies visit, we only had one quote. So we tried again...

This time, we asked for recommendations on an expat internet group. Peggy's name came up, along with another two companies. Joy, joy, joy, more appointments...

A guy came, but he wanted to tell us how he'd arranged lots of moves for people at the British Embassy. We told him we weren't with the British Embassy, and weren't using the British government to pay for our move back, so we didn't want an "Embassy quote". The money's got to come from our pockets, which even in these troubled times, are not as deep as Gordon Brown's (or whoever is running the country right now!). And could we tell him how much we wanted for the RO water filter?

A lady came. I say came, she rang to say she was on her way, could we give her directions. We did. Then she rang back, telling us what landmarks she could see around her, and could we give her directions from there. We did. And then she called back, describing another set of landmarks, further from our house than the first set of landmarks, and asking could we give her some more directions. We did. Didn't think this boded well. If a moving and packing company can't find our home in Delhi, can we trust that they might be able to get our stuff to us in England? Anyway, she found her way here eventually. I say she found her way here, only after Rod told her to stop driving and wait for him and Thalia to walk to where she was so she could follow them. Anyway, once she got here she was very nice and efficient, but I couldn't help feeling maybe her company would do better if they invested in a map. Not a world map, just an Eicher map of Delhi...

Unsurprisingly, we went with Peggy. She found us first time, was on time. She has this air of efficiency about her. She's tall and imposing, speaks fluent German, English and Hindi. I have this feeling she won't let anything go wrong on her watch. Please God, let me be right this time!

A Stitch in (Indian) Time...

I might have brought the only longarm quilting machine into India, but the country is teeming with sewing machines. There must be five tailors shops in my local market alone, turning out everything from Western suits for the gentleman to cholis, the little blouse worn with a sari, for the ladies.

The model in the photo has really taken to his part. Suits you, Sir!

Not all the sewing machines are in fancy establishments like this. Outside, on the pavement, between the darbar cooking curry in a huge metal pot and an electrical repair shop, there’s a man sitting on the sidewalk with his sewing machine. All day long he hems dupattas, long, wide, scarf-like lengths of fabric, which ladies wear with their Indian outfits. The dupatta is a draped across the front of your blouse with the ends flowing behind your back (to prevent glimpses of cleavage), as a shawl if it turns chilly (it does happen, just not often), to cover your head if you’re going to a temple or holy place, or to protect your hairstyle when you’re on the back of your boyfriend’s motorbike. Unless they’re in a sari (which at 6 yards of fabric is a dress and dupatta all rolled into one), a lady’s not dressed without her dupatta. Personally, I can’t see the point of draping a yard and a half of extra fabric over me when it’s 45 degrees outside. Guess that makes me no lady! Anyway, the guy with his sewing machine is busy. He doesn’t even need to stop when the power goes off. His machine is powered by foot.

With all these industrious sewers around me, tailoring entire garments for sums you’d pay to have a broken zip replaced back home, I decided to treat myself. I’d brought a blouse with me I really liked, and wanted to have it remade in silk. I took it to Ramesh, whose sewing machines were hidden away from the front of the shop, so they could have even been some of those new fangled electric ones! Ramesh took my fabric and the shirt I wanted copied and told me to come back in a week.

So more than a week later, because Indians’ sense of time is “flexible”, I returned to the shop. Ramesh had stepped out, so the man who sat behind the counter decided to help me. I don’t know what his official job title was. Every time I’d ever been in the shop I’d never seen him do anything but sit behind the counter. I showed him my invoice, so he could get my blouse. He asked me to describe it. He barely spoke English. Having an invoice, with an invoice number, didn’t mean he knew where to find my new silk shirt. So not exactly a very efficient booking in system. In a pile of clothes behind the counter, I spotted an offcut of my fabric. I showed it to him, and using it he trawled through a pile of plastic bags under the counter to find the garment to match. That scrap of fabric could have been purchased by anyone! Maybe I had bought it, maybe I spotted it for the first time and liked it. He’d have no way of knowing…

But where was my original blouse? I found it at the bottom of a heap of other clothes, presumably other customers’ sample garments. I know my original blouse was only polyester, but it was still pretty. It didn’t really deserve that kind of treatment! I made him go and find the rest of the left over silk. No idea what I’ll do with it, but being silk it was expensive (by local standards at least), and it was mine. I’d paid for it. Eventually Ramesh returned and gathered together everything that belonged to me. I gave him my 500 rupees (£7, $11USD – double the usual price because working with silk takes twice as long) and left.

As a longarm quilter, the whole experience amused me. People bring me things that are precious to them – their quilt tops - to turn into finished quilts. I pin a label to them to identify who the quilt belongs to and hang them in a wardrobe, safe and clean, until I get to work on them. And once I’ve finished the quilting, the top and any extra backing and batting, get placed together in a bag with a copy of the invoice and hung back in the wardrobe until I can return it. I know at all times where the quilts are, and if I dropped dead, Rod would know who to contact to get them back to their rightful owners. It’s a fairly simple system, and I bet most longarmers use similar ones. Unfortunately Ramesh doesn’t use a system anywhere near as complicated as this one. And before we diss him too much, he’s one of the better ones. Heaven help the next lady who can’t spot a scrap of her fabric in the pile in the corner…

My Favourite Oxymoron

Yes, it's Fresh Cream. In a tetra-pak. Needs no refrigeration till opened. Best before 120 days from manufacture. I've no more to add...

Darwin Award

The other day Rod and I saw a serious potential candidate for a Darwin Award, the honour bestowed on those who "do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool". We were driving along the NH8, the motorway between Gurgaon and Delhi, where the official speed limit is 50mph, but the actual speed you do depends upon whether you're in a car, tractor or rickshaw with a two stroke engine. Some of the vehicles which use the NH8 only dream of a top speed of 50mph, many more see the speed limit as something which only applies to other drivers, not them. But it was not the speed at which this potential Darwin candidate was travelling that caught our attention...

In the lane next to us was a guy on a motorbike. Maybe he'd rushed his morning routine, because he had failed to do his stretches in the comfort of his own home. So he was doing them on the motorway, while he was riding his motorbike. First he reached his right arm around his back, placing the back of his hand on his opposite hip, while his left hand held the bike handle. Then he changed sides, repeating with his left hand. While we thought this was a little odd, at least he had one hand on the controls. Which he did not, when he joined both hands behind his back and opened out the front of his shoulders by stretching back. We thought we'd seen everything, but then he took his phone out of his pocket and started texting. While riding a motorbike at 50mph on the motorway...

As Raju was driving our car and Rod was a backseat passenger, he tried to take a picture with his telephone. I don't have a problem with passengers using their phones, I just object when it's the one allegedly in control of the fast moving vehicle who does it. Our Darwin candidate spotted Rod and took his helmet off, possibly so he would look more dashing in the photo. While riding a motorbike at 50mph on the motorway... Rod was unwilling to take the shot, because he didn't think it appropriate to do anything that might encourage this guy to attain his Darwin Award sooner rather than later. But it's only a matter of time...

The Hole Story

On Wednesday, a group of men came along and dug a bloody big hole outside our house. This hole prevented us from using our parking bay, which is a problem, because parking's very hard to come by in Hauz Khas. The workers piled the contents of the hole on the side of the road, which isn't very wide, so that was a problem too. No one informed us they were going to dig the hole, and no one told us why they needed to. They dug the hole, and went home.


On Thursday, three men turned up at half past one in the afternoon. One man got in the hole and dug a bit more, and the other two sat in the shade under the frangipani tree and watched him. They all left at half past three. We still couldn't park in our parking bay, and the road was still being encroached on.


On Friday, no one turned up to work at all. The only change to the hole outside our house was that someone had thrown some rubbish into it.


On Saturday, there was a change to the status quo. Someone drove their car into the hole. I'm sure he didn't mean to...

Notice the barricades, orange cones and lights warning passersby of the presence of the hole. Don't worry if you can't see them, the driver didn't see them either, or the hole for that matter! Rod says he wasn't too pleased...

He used his tyre jack to try to lever the car up, but that wouldn't do it. A couple of labourers who were working on the building opposite eventually came over, jumped into the hole and tried to push the car up and out. That didn't work. Someone found something resembling a concrete paving slab and half wedged that in the hole. All in all, it took them about an hour to eventually get the car unstuck.

For us there was a positive aspect to the car falling down the hole, though I don't suppose the driver would see it that way. Very soon after the car had been lifted up up and away, the workers came back, laid a cable and refilled the hole. I can't say it's been done to a terribly high standard, because it seems there's at least a third of the hole debris still on our drive. I suppose we'll find out tomorrow when we try to drive off in the car how well they've tamped it all down!

Just like Snap, We've Got The Power!

Well, now at any rate. It's not been a great week for electricity in sunny South Delhi. Every summer, the power companies fail to make enough electricity to run luxury items like air conditioners, fridges and ceiling lights. And as we're currently experiencing the warmest start to the year since records began, you wouldn't be wrong in assuming the usual electricity under supply is...proceeding as usual.

For the last couple of weeks we've been having a few power outages a day, generally for an hour or less. It's almost routine now. Everyone has a torch, and we have a portable battery back up light in the dining room in the centre of the house. The light plugs into a wall socket, charging up. When the supply to the socket fails, the light immediately turns on. You wouldn't want to read a newspaper by it, but it's plenty bright enough to see where the furniture is when all the other lights have failed. I've even cooked dinner by it.

Friday at 3.40, when we got home from collecting the kids from school, the power was off. We have no idea when it actually went off, it was on when Rod and I left the house at 12.30. Our emergency light was faithfully glowing when we opened the door. The power didn't come back on until 6.10. I quickly cooked dinner. The stove and oven are gas, so are unaffected by the electricity supply. But the cook likes to use lights to see what she's doing. Luckily the family doesn't need a lot of light to eat, as the power went off again 35 minutes later. After that we retired into the front room. We have a car battery in the corner of our living room, which works in the same way as our back up light. It keeps the television/DVD/Tata Sky box/modem/telephone going until the power company restores power to our area. So we watched Kung Fu Panda in the dark. Then, because there's not much you can do when you can't turn any lights on, Keir went to bed, Thalia went to use the last 24 minutes of her laptop's battery, Rod watched some television and I had a bath. You don't actually need electricity to have a bath, not when the water tank is on the roof and it's been another 43 degree day. What comes out of the cold water tap could be taken to court for false advertising. Rod gave me the battery back up light, but within moments it forgot it was in a beige bathroom, and thought it was in a nightclub, flashing on and off like a strobe. The power had been off for so long our battery backup light had died. So not Duracell then. We switched to candles. You don't want the heat, but you need to not fall over the furniture. It's a dilemma. Power was eventually restored at 10.10, when I blew out the candles and turned on all the AC's.

Saturday was a much better day. Maybe the power company was trying to make up for the previous day's incredibly long outage... but we weren't surprised when we were plunged into the dark at 10.10 that evening. But after 10 minutes or so, Rod realised the glow he could see coming through the glass door from the dining room was a golden tone, not the cold light from the back up. The power had failed, but only in the living room and Thalia's bedroom. We checked the fuse box by the door. Everything, including the geckoes, was in order. This is not the first time we have lost power to half the house. Just before the kids and I went to Australia last summer exactly the same thing happened. An electrician came and fixed one of the main supplies into the house by using two pieces of bare wire to replace a fuse because he did not have any fuse wire. In case any long time readers thought at the time, "I wonder how long it will be before that catches fire", about 10 and a half months.

So it was dark outside, after the burnt wires stopped glowing, and it was dark in half our house. Too late to do anything about it, we moved Thalia into Keir's room and watched DVDs in our room where the AC still worked.

In the morning Rod reported the fault to Mr Gupta who lives on the top floor. He's in charge of building maintenance and repair. Mr Gupta said he'd send an electrician in half an hour. Three and a half hours later, Rod called him to check when the electrician would arrive. Mr Gupta hadn't called one yet, he'd been busy. So Rod told him he would go and fix the fault himself. And he told him, falsely, that he would have to turn off the electricity to the entire building, including Mr Gupta's apartment, while he did this. That seemed to get his attention, because within three minutes Mr Gupta was standing next to Rod. Rod pulled the fuses to our floor and the top floor (but not the first floor, because it wasn't their job to get the electrician). Mr Gupta sent his houseboy to the market to find an electrician. The houseboy returned with one five minutes later. How busy can you be, if all you're going to do is ask someone else to do something for you! But half an hour, and 150 rupees later, we had power back. Not sure the work's been done to an extremely high standard, but it only has to last five weeks... and when I return to Britain, I will be well qualified for a job as a cinema usherette!

The Prodigal Son (and Daughter) return...

Tommy and Gurshagun, our pet geckoes, have returned! They disappeared over the winter, but now it's warm (41 degrees C/106F...bit more than warm in my books!) they've ventured back into the house. Last night on my way to bed I spotted a gecko on the wall above the front door (which patently could do a better job of fitting the doorframe). I thought it was the return of Tommy, until I spotted another gecko further up the hallway. Both were much bigger than they had been last time we saw them. But I suppose, that's what grandparents etc always say when they see their grandchildren again after an extended time...

Tommy - my, hasn't he grown!

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

And so, apparently, is Monday morning...and Tuesday afternoon...

Rod's been in London for a week, and returns home this morning. Raju will go to pick him up, so I checked the flight information for Indira Gandhi International Airport to find out if the flight was going to land at 11, as expected. Top of the Google search (IGI Arrivals) was the official website, with a number of quick links to the pages requested most frequently. The page I wanted was first on the list: Fight Information. See, I told you they were an unruly bunch...

Flying High

When you're on a flight, and the airhostess smiles and says "Is there anything I can get you, Sir?" do you think:
a) Chicken or beef, or on an Indian flight, veg or non-veg?
b) Gin and tonic or scotch on the rocks?
c) Do I really want the pack of peanuts? or
d) She fancies me.

Most people, I think, would pick a), b) or c). Possibly all of them. Most people on the flight, I think, would assume the airhostess smiled and made eye contact with them because it was her job, not because she actually fancied the overweight, three sheets to the wind bloke sitting in 25C. According to the paper this week, enough people think d) to force the Indian Civil Aviation Organisation to consider amending the rules regarding passenger behaviour on planes. It seems they've just realised passengers have been able to get away with unsocial behaviour (smoking, being drunk and disorderly, outraging the modesty of an airhostess) because if the offences take place in foreign airspace, they cannot be tried under Indian laws. And yes, there is a law regarding outraging the modesty of an airhostess...

If you want something done properly...

...then don't ask the maid to do it! Or as an alternative title: How often does a dish have to be washed before it is actually clean?

Monday to Saturday Santosh comes "to clean the house". I use inverted commas, because she doesn't see dirt, or dust, or cobwebs. It would really be more accurate to say she sweeps and wet wipes the floors, washes the dishes and makes the beds. But she doesn't make Keir's bed. Never has. When he slept on the top bunk I understood it, because she's short, and it's not easy. But when he moved to the bottom bunk it would have been an easy job. Maybe she just doesn't see his bed either...

On Monday morning Santosh washed up all the dishes. Before making dinner each night, I put them away. I noticed a small white bowl wasn't clean, so I put it back with the dirty dishes. On Tuesday, Santosh washed the dishes. When I went to put the dishes away that evening, I noticed the dish was still not clean. I know it was the same dish, because I recognised what it had contained. It still had purple conditioner in it from the hair treatment I'd done on Sunday. It was definitely the same bowl. Nothing else I'd cooked was pearly purple, nor smelled of lavender... To ensure the dish really got clean this time, I filled it with water to make sure it was easy to get off, and left it to soak by the sink. Wednesday Santosh did the dishes. Was that dish clean when I went to put it away? What do you think? So I washed the bloody thing myself. It's clean now...

Why don't we get a maid who can see dirt? Well, she's cheerful, relatively punctual and doesn't steal. All of which we rate higher than cleaning ability...

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you

Spotted in the newspaper:

How does the Indian Government classify documents as "confidential", "secret" and "top secret"?

"Top Secret", obviously! If the Central Information Commission told you it wouldn't be much of a secret, now would it?

How's this for an Unique Selling Point?

Spotted on a billboard in Amritsar:
Havells Electrical Cable - cables that don't catch fire
That may be Havells USP. Personally, I would have hoped that was a given for all cables!

Everything's pretty impressive in Amritsar

The Wagah Border is not the only reason to visit Amritsar.

The Golden Temple is the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion, and a truly magical place. Inside the square complex of mainly marble buildings is a large man-made lake filled with crystal clear water. And in the middle of this sacred pool sits a marble and gold temple, the dome gilded with 750 kg of pure gold. It’s hard not to be impressed.

Sikhism is an inclusive religion, and people of all faiths are encouraged to enter the temple to meditate or listen to the prayers for peace. It has doors on all four sides, as if to say travellers from all directions are welcome. Of course, so many people now come to the Golden Temple (more people visit it than the Taj Mahal), that there is only one way in these days. Unless of course you are a foreign tourist, whose guide has had a word with the guard at the out gate, and lets you in through the out queue. You could feel a tad guilty, but there’s no way I could have convinced Keir and Thalia (nor Rod, really) to queue for at least an hour to use the regular entrance, and we really wanted to see inside. And let’s face it, after 19 months in India, we’ve paid extra for being foreign on enough occasions to take benefits when they’re offered.

The most orderly queue we've seen in India. Maybe that's why it seemed the longest too!

Sikhs come to bathe in the holy water, which makes its sparkling cleanness even more surprising. Large fish swim in it, content in the knowledge that while inside a temple complex, Sikhs follow a vegetarian diet. And on the subject of diet, like Sikh temples around the world, there is a large dining hall on the grounds. Anyone can come and receive a meal - dhal, a vegetable dish which changes throughout the day, chapattis and a rice pudding. The food is vegetarian, so everyone can eat as equals, without dietary restrictions imposed by their own religion, and everyone sits on the floor in rows, underlining that equality. The food is free, although donations are appreciated. Once again, no one is too poor to eat, nor so wealthy that they receive better food. There can’t be anything wrong with what’s offered - 40,000 meals a day are served.

Just a few of the dishes used in the temple. That's a lot of washing up!

The religion encourages Sikhs to work hard, share their wealth and do good deeds in the community. All the food in the temple is served and prepared by volunteers. But just as you don’t have to be a Sikh to eat here, you don’t have to be a Sikh to help either.

The kitchens are extensive, and they need so many chapattis they’ve had to install a chapatti machine to turn out 2,000 chapattis an hour to supplement those made by the ladies (and gents).

That's a mighty big teapot!

Monty Python is alive and well… and living at the Wagah border

Last weekend we took the train to Amritsar, 6 hours north of Delhi, and the closest city to the only road border crossing between India and her neighbour, Pakistan. The relationship between the two countries isn’t great. You wouldn’t find them chatting over the garden fence, nor would they pop around to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar. Raju, our driver, is adamant 95% of Pakistanis are terrorists, and that dropping a nuclear bomb on Pakistan would be a good thing. Raju is not alone in these sentiments. So you might think that all things considered, a trip out to see the border would be cold and unfriendly, and not something a tourist, or any random Indian would choose to do. But you’d be so wrong…

Between 10am and 4pm the border operates as normally as any border between two not so friendly countries. Trucks of vegetables pass through to Pakistan from the farmlands of the Punjab, and trucks of dried fruit come into India. But at 4 o’clock the border guards stop processing vehicles and passports, and begin the real job of the day. Crowds of Indians, who have no intention of crossing into Pakistan, fill large grandstands on either side of the Grand Trunk Road. Loudspeakers play the Hindi Top 40, and lots of ladies dance in the road in front of the brick guardhouse. They don’t dance around their handbags, because handbags are not allowed - you can only take to the border what you can wear. A camera around your neck was just jewellery, but the camera bag was not allowed. Their arms in the air, they jingle their bracelets, and sing along to the music.

We came armed with our passports, which gets us into the “Foreigners Enclosure” in front of the main grandstands. There’s quite a few people in the Foreigners Enclosure who would have needed a passport to prove they weren’t Indian. We weren’t in that category, but we took them just in case. After all, this is an army border crossing, and lots of people have guns. Hopefully only the ones who work there. On the other side of the gate, in Pakistan, crowds are filling up their segregated grandstands, the women kept apart from the men. There’s no dancing in the road, but there’s lots of flag waving going on, and a decent attempt to drown out the Hindi Top 40 with patriotic chanting.

At ten to five someone turns down the music. A man with a microphone and a voice loud enough not to need one yells “Hindustan”, a catchier name than the Republic of India. The crowd replies, “Zindabad”, which means long live. Somehow they all knew the right words - unlike us, they must have been here before. On the other side of the border their guy with the microphone calls out “Pakistan”, the crowd yells back “Zindabad”. A line of border guards stands proudly in their uniforms. They are drawn from all over India for their six month stints, chosen it seemed because they were all really tall. The average height for an Indian man is 5ft 5 inches, and these guys were all over 6 ft. Unfortunately they seemed to be wearing trousers designed for the average Indian. The other selection criteria: funny facial hair and an ability to stamp your feet and march in a manner which would make Monty Python proud. They can only work at the border for six months, because all the high kicking and foot stamping takes a toll on their bodies. One guy was a little shorter than the others, but he could yell a note for a very, very long time. And he had a well waxed handlebar moustache…

The guards take turns showing us how they can march up to the border, and this whips the crowd into an uproarious frenzy. When they get close to the gates we can see the Pakistani guards on the other side, because they’re matching the Indians every move. This is a “whatever you can do, I can do better” situation. And in this case, “my uniform’s scarier than your uniform”. The Pakistanis are in a menacing black garb, with a hint of Ninja to them. They look much more fierce than Indians, who are in Army khaki with those too short trousers. The trousers are a mistake, really. As a consolation, the Indians get some fancy headgear, with plumage on top. I got the impression that they were aiming to hit that plumage with their toes while they marched.

The Pakistani crowd is just as vocal as the one on this side of the border. The whole spectacle is a little bit football match, a little bit theatrical performance. It’s bizarre…but fun.

After the marching there’s the “Lowering of the Flags” ceremony. The flags at the border gates (because there’s an Indian gate and a Pakistani gate, with a little bit of land with a white line down the middle between them), and those on the arches at the end of the grandstands are slowly lowered synchronously, so neither country appears to have the upper hand at any stage. Once off the flagpoles, the flags are folded and marched back into the guardhouse, the gates are closed and locked, and the border between India and Pakistan is closed until the morning.

Agra, continued...

Once Benny had been returned to us, it was time to move on to Agra’s other sights. Even though we had been told the security at Agra’s other World Heritage sites was nowhere near as draconian as at the Taj, Benny was relegated to the minibus, with Keir’s Nintendo DS and Thalia’s Ipod for company. Agra Fort is 2 kilometres and on the other side of the river to the Taj. From one of the Fort’s balconies you can see the Taj Mahal. This vista is very different to the one you get from inside the Taj, much grubbier and more real. Having seen it, it struck me that it would really be better to have not seen the Taj from Agra Fort at all.

It’s probably better to concentrate on what you can see inside the Fort rather than look around outside. It’s very much the best house on the street. Rajiv was able to tell us everything about everything. There was nothing relating to Agra and its Mughal empire he did not know, apart from how to impart this information in a manner that could keep his audience engaged!

Rajiv gets it right, this time...

Then it was time to climb into the minibus again and drive to Fatehpur Sikri. Fatehpur Sikri is a ghost town, 40 kilometres from Agra, and I think, much more interesting than Agra Fort. The Mughal emperor Akhbar oversaw building the city, 60 years before the first stones were laid on the Taj Mahal. Akhbar wanted to create a new capital because he was weary with the crowds at Agra. I know how he felt! Fatehpur Sikri was only in use for 16 years, and then it was abandoned. There are various reasons suggested for this. Maybe water had been in short supply, maybe it was more militarily useful to be back in Agra. Maybe Akhbar found the road journey between the two rather tiresome. I know we did! We could have spent more time wandering around Fatehpur Sikri, as it seemed to have been abandoned by tourists as well as Akhbar, but we had to get back in the minibus and back on the road to Agra to catch our train home.


The journey began well. However it was not long before we found ourselves at the end of a queue of motorbikes, cars, buses and trucks. This was a single lane road, with a dirt verge. This dirt verge became another lane of traffic. Vehicles began overtaking us on the other side of the road, so many vehicles that it became another lane of traffic heading into Agra. Vehicles began overtaking this lane of traffic on the dirt verge on the other side of the road. I don’t know what these vehicles thought they were ever going to achieve. It seemed obvious to me that at some point there would be to be four lanes of cars travelling north on a single lane road pointing directly at four lanes of cars travelling south on the other side of the same single lane road. And knowing India, both sides would feel they had right of way, regardless of which side of the road they were on. After 30 minutes of going absolutely nowhere, Rajiv turned around from his seat alongside the driver and told us we would be moving to Plan B. This was a good thing, because while we were not yet behind schedule for the train, we were beginning to think dinner would be out of the question. Rajiv said there was another road we could take, one that not many people knew about. He had taken the British Labour politician Barbara Castle down this road when she too needed to get to Agra Train station. So we turned the minibus around, a feat requiring quite a bit of skill from our driver as all four lanes of this single lane road already had stationary vehicles on them. Behind us the traffic was lighter, so after a while we were able to rejoin the tarmac and drive on the correct side of the road. You might think it would feel good to be travelling on the correct side of the road, actually moving past many, many stationary vehicles. Except some of the drivers of those vehicles had not yet worked out that there was no way anyone was going anywhere ahead. We saw headlights approaching. A bus was driving straight at us. He made no attempt to pull over. Where could he go? There were already two full lanes of traffic on the correct side of the single lane road. He should give way to us, for we were on the side of the road allocated to us by street designers. But he was bigger than we were, and in India, the accepted rule is the bigger vehicle takes precedence. Thankfully the other bus driver slowed down, and there we were, two vehicles pointing directly at each other on the same side of the road. Our driver drove back on to the dirt verge and we continued back towards Baroness Castle of Blackburn’s Plan B.

When we reached Barbara’s road it became apparent pretty quickly that calling it a road was probably not entirely accurate. I don’t know when Barbara Castle was in India, but she left public office in 1989. This dirt track probably hadn’t seen any maintenance since then. So we bounced along , being very grateful that Holly had her car seat, and that the bus actually had enough working seatbelts to strap her in. This track between fields led to a village, and after a while, back to the road between Agra and Fatehpur Sikri. The traffic on this side of the jam was no better than it had been before the dirt track, but it was all heading up towards Fatehpur Sikri, and as we weren’t going that way, we didn’t care! We finally reached Agra railway station, dinnerless but with 20 minutes to spare. As we'd rather go without dinner than spend another day in Agra ,it was a result!

Agra and back, in just one day...

One of the things you just have to do before you leave India, they say, is visit the Taj Mahal. Rod, Thalia and I visited this majestic monument back in 1998. Thalia doesn’t remember much of it, but as she was 11 months old at the time, we’ll forgive her for this. Keir, Stumpy and Nutty had never been, and bizarrely neither had Holly. As the temperature hadn’t started rising past the comfortable level yet, it seemed like a good time to go…

The Taj Mahal is in Agra, which is a hellish five plus hour drive from Delhi. It can also be reached by train in two hours. Guess which option we chose! The downside of the train is that it leaves New Delhi Railway Station at 0615, so it was a rather early start indeed. But the train deposited us at Agra station at 0815, and it took until 0815 and 15 seconds before the hassle started. Agra is a dump, with no reason to visit beyond the Taj Mahal and possibly Agra Fort. So everyone getting off the train is a tourist, and therefore, ripe for touting. We had booked a minibus with driver and guide. This proved to be a godsend, as Rajiv was waiting for us on the platform with a little sign saying “Roderick Fairweather and Friends”. Okay, it wasn’t really a little sign. It would have been very easy for Rajiv to spot us, as the platform, while teaming with people, didn’t have many parties consisting of six white people and a baby. But we needed the sign, because it told us which Indian didn’t want money to help us, but only because we’d already paid him.

Rajiv led the way outside to the minibus and we climbed in, into an oasis of calm amid the teeming throng of Agra. This minibus was perfect with a passenger compartment consisting of four individual seats and a bench seat across the back. It even had two fully functioning seatbelts, plus less usefully, one half of a seatbelt. We strapped Holly’s car seat into one of the seats with both sides of the seatbelt. Rajiv told us our first stop was to be the Taj Mahal. Actually, our first stop was the Taj Mahal ticket booth, half a kilometre from the gates. This is as close as petrol and diesel engined vehicles can get to the Taj now, in an effort to curb the effects of pollution on the building. There are lots of restrictions on what you can take into the Taj grounds, so we were advised to leave food, fiction books (guide books are okay), packs of cards, Ipods, electronic games and USB cables in the bus. Didn’t have any USB cables on me. We then were given the choice of which type of environmentally friendly transport we would like to get to the gates. There was the free option, walking, but it was uphill and the start of what would be a very long day. Also, walking would give lots of opportunities for young men to try to convince us we really needed to buy whatever tat they were selling. Or we could pay some locals to go in a carriage pulled by a flea ridden horse, or in an electric rickshaw. Guess which option we chose!

The rickshaw deposited us as close to the gate as was possible, leaving a short distance for the young men to try to convince us we really needed to buy whatever tat they were selling. They had nasty replicas of the Taj and Rajasthani shoes, even though Agra is in Uttar Pradesh. No one was selling T-shirts saying “My boyfriend went to the Taj Mahal and all he got me was this lousy T-shirt”. A missed opportunity, for marketing and amusing spelling mistakes, I think. We reached the security check point and split into gender groups. From my queue I heard Rod explaining that Keir was in the right queue, even though his hair might suggest otherwise. I had to open my bag so the security lady could check inside to make sure I had not brought in anything subversive like a magazine or chocolate bar. Unfortunately, my bag did contain something she considered subversive. For inside was the instigator of riots and top of the Interpol Watch list, Keir’s teddy, Benny. Having known Benny for nine years I vouched for his behaviour. I promised I wouldn’t let him out of my bag. But this was not good enough. The lady would not let Benny in. I asked her what damage could a child’s small stuffed toy do to a 378 year old marble building. I begged for him, like an American Idol contestant facing the chop. But like Simon Cowell, she would not be moved. So I did the only thing I thought right, and started shouting over to Rod that the lady wouldn’t let Benny in. Maybe that teddy was a bad influence… Rod had also not been completely above board. He’d been carrying a copy of the ultra subversive, “Sunday Times of India” newspaper. That too would not be allowed in.

Rajiv came to the rescue. He apologised for not telling us back in the minibus we were not allowed to bring stuffed toys into the Taj. He’d only done this tour one thousand times, and was unaware stuffed blue teddies could be so subversive. He gave Benny to one of his friends in a shop outside the Taj for safekeeping. So after we’d visited the monument to love, we were going to have to visit the monument to marble nick-nacks to negotiate a hostage release. Marvellous!

The Fairweather Family, minus Benny

Holly: Mum, why am I sitting on the Taj Mahal?

Nutty: It was your father's idea, darling. Humour him.

I believe I can fly, just like R Kelly

The reunion shot

The Lotus Temple

Here's a shot to prove we made it out of India Gate in one piece. This is the Baha'i Lotus Temple in Delhi.

The Baha'i faith is a very interesting one. They want to remove prejudices based on race, caste and language. They believe in the equality of men and women and in universal education, for women as well as men. They think true religion conforms to reason, with a harmony between religion and science. They don't believe in superstition, outdated ceremonies and sermons. And they want to abolish the extremes of wealth and poverty. All in all, not a lot to object to.

The Lotus Temple was completed in 1986. Like all Baha'i Houses of Worship, it has a nine sided, circular shape. Outside there are 27 marble clad petals, inside the building is devoid of religious icons, and has no altar or pulpit. It is a white, peaceful, calm oasis inside a bustling noisy city, even though it is one of the most visited buildings in the world, with 13,000 people walking through its doors every day. But not on Sundays...as we found out the first time we tried to visit.

They have an education centre on site, which Stumpy, Nutty and Rod found very interesting. I stayed outside with Holly, as children under 12 were not allowed inside. I'm not sure how that sits with their universal education stance, really. But Stumpy contributed to the cause, coming home with a plastic replica of the Lotus Temple, to give to one of his work colleagues who is a Baha'i. It plugs in and everything, with pretty blue lights. All for four quid!

I predict a riot!

Another month, another lot of visitors, another shot of India Gate!


This time it was Stumpy and Nutty, with their 11 month old baby, Holly. Many photos of Holly were taken on this ten day visit. This one is unusual, in that it was taken by Rod and not by some random Indian for his own personal collection. For Holly became a celebrity while in India. Everywhere we went, polite people would stop us and ask if they could take Holly's photo. Less polite ones just took the shots. And it didn't stop with photos - people in the street wanted to hold her. Some asked, others just lunged for her. We all got very good at anticipating these movements, and placing ourselves between Holly and her adoring public. We were just like a group of bouncers, except that no-one was muscle bound, and other than Rod, no-one was over 5 ft 6 and a half!


While we were out Holly got hungry, as babies do, so we found a quiet area under a tree. I would've called it a quiet grassy area, but grassy might be stretching the truth just a little. It wasn't exactly secluded, but this is India, so not much is. But we were away from the main India Gate strip, the two cricket matches and the busloads of school children, so it was as good a place as any. Or so we thought...


It transpires that in India, there's nothing quite as interesting as observing a white baby eat baby food. Some school children saw us, and came over to watch. Some of the cricketers saw the schoolchildren watching, and came over to see what was happening. Children from a different school joined in too. The first group of kids had kept back like we asked them to, but with each new wave of watchers the gaggle was getting closer and closer. A souvenir seller saw the crowd and decided this might be a good place to set up his pitch, and came over to join us. When Nutty noticed the change of tone in Rod's voice she glanced over her shoulder and decided while Holly might not think she'd finished her lunch, for safety's sake she had.

Feeding time at the zoo when we only had one school and half a cricket team. The boy in the black jumper really didn't want to move back...

Choose your friends well

A headline in the newspaper grabbed me recently. "Friends, kin behind 97% kidnaps". The article went on to say that in 32 of the 33 reported kidnap cases in New Delhi last year, the victim knew at least one of their abductors. Relatives and friends were behind the act in almost exclusively, with many of the abductors being first time offenders. So, while you have to take what you get when it comes to family, choose your friends wisely!

Why do they call it a black eye...

...when it's really yellow and orange and red and purple?

This is a vast improvement on the big white bandage. That said "Look at me, I'm injured." This dressing says "Look at me, I'm hard!".

Discharge instructions

So we leave hospital armed with a stitched together boy and a discharge note. The discharge note covers some easy stuff we have to do: have Keir sleep with two pillows to elevate his head to reduce swelling, and some less easy stuff, like preventing the scar from any sun exposure for the next month. It's not too difficult right now because 1) he still has a wound dressing on and 2) there's hardly any sun because it's winter. Prevailing weather conditions in winter in Delhi are fog, low cloud and low temperatures. The sun rarely makes an appearance, and even if it does, it's pretty weak. But true winter lasts about three weeks, and we're about halfway through it. So before the month is up we will need to keep the sun off the scar. The plastic surgeon suggested Keir wore a cap whenever he was outside. As you could imagine, this held little appeal. And we have enough trouble getting Keir to wear a hat during the hot times, when it is really needed. Wearing one now wouldn't be the easiest job. Or, the surgeon said, considering the location of the scar, he could wear sunglasses. This was a much cooler suggestion. Keir approved. I'm fairly sure the school won't be happy with Keir wearing sunglasses while playing sport, so I think we'll alternate between the two.

The discharge note also contained a prescription for the medicines Keir would need. But unlike hospitals in the West, Indian hospitals don't have an on-site pharmacy. We'd have to go to a local chemist to get the medicines. As it was now half past 11, that was going to have to wait until Sunday morning.

Luckily we have five chemists within a three minute walk from our home. The surgeon thought Keir would need antibiotics, painkillers, vitamins and a topical antibiotic cream. I thought if Keir hadn't needed painkillers when we got home last night he wouldn't need them now. We weren't supposed to take off the main dressing until Thursday, so the antibiotic cream wasn't urgent. And if there was ever a child who got all the vitamins he needed from his food, it was Keir. He's always hungry, and loves fruit, vegetables, bread, cheese, yoghurt, food. But the antiboitics were urgent, so down to the market I went. I walked past the first pharmacy, a dusty place with a facade that probably hasn't been changed since India gained independence from the British in 1947. The next pharmacy opened after we moved to Hauz Khas in April, so it's clean and overly brightly lit. However it didn't have the medicine. It did have one whole wall of bulking up powder for body builders, and another wall dedicated to ayurvedic (herbal medicine) products. It didn't have antibiotics.

A bit further down the parade is the next chemist. It's modern (ish), but doesn't believe in increasing its carbon footprint too much. It's a bit dark. Even though it has more medicines than food supplements, it doesn't have the one we need. Right next door is another chemist, probably last updated while Indira Gandhi was alive. But it's closed. So I walk down the next lane. The pharmacy there has a good mix of drugs and the other stuff you'd expect to find in a chemist - nappies, health food, bath products, razors. But our particular medicine was proving elusive...

So back to the pre-Partition pharmacy I went. The man inside had no computer, so he had to look on his shelves to see if he had the right one. After a bit of hunting he found it. Result! He sold me the bottle and home I went.

Keir can't take tablets without a palaver, so I'd asked for a liquid. I'd been sold a powder to which you add water to make the liquid. I'm sure it's exactly the same as the ones in the West, but I've never been expected to mix the medicine myself. That's what the pharmacist spends five plus years training to do. Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be the pharmacist! Despite my lack of training, I am able to fill the bottle to the mark with boiled water. Hey, it's just like making Pot Noodles! I have now made 30mls of antibiotics. I check Keir's prescription and see he needs to take 10mls twice a day for five days. Even without a degree in Pharmacology I can see the problem here. I've spent an hour plus getting enough medicine to last until tomorrow morning!

Keir fought the floor and the floor won

There was always an element of inevitability about it, but we've now seen the inside of an Indian A&E department. What's most surprising is that it's taken us 17 months to do so.


Indian houses have very hard floors, because they're easier to keep clean. Our floor is marble throughout. And Indian bathrooms don't put much stock in keeping water from the shower area from covering the entire bathroom floor. There's not more than a centimetre drop from the floor to the shower area. Even after lengthening the shower curtains so they would touch the floor, that's not enough to stop water from going everywhere. And marble is slippery when wet. And Keir's a nine year old boy.


Last night from Keir's bathroom there was a loud bang, and an even louder scream. I flew into his bedroom as he ran out of the bathroom and picked him up and carried him to the kitchen table, yelling Rod as I went. When I got to the table I was able to look to see what the damage was. I didn't need to look far. I yelled again: Rod. Blood. Rod says I have a very special "Rod Blood" voice, one that implies don't waste too much time getting to me. We have experience in this area.


Keir had obviously slipped in the bathroom, and used his face as a brake. He had grazed his cheekbone and his nose was swollen, but what really caught our attention was the 5cm (2") gash on his left browbone. Frankly, it was hard to look past it. Out came the first aid kit again. Thalia got towels and warm water. Rod cleaned the wound enough to determine how bad the injury was. On the sliding scale "The Cut on Keir's Foot", this was worse. We didn't go to A&E when Keir dropkicked the wineglass because we thought we were at least as able as an Indian hospital to deal with the injury. In hindsight, we should have gone for stitches. This time it was an easier call to make. Hospital, here we come!


Raju had already finished for the day, but Rod called him at home. The words "Keir, blood, hospital" worked slightly slower on Raju than on Rod, but he dropped his dinner and jumped on his motorbike and was with us in twenty minutes. The fact that he lives half an hour away means that he might have been a bit slow on the uptake but now he was making up for it. We used this time to temporarily bandage Keir's head, using gauze pads and the crepe bandage last put into action on his foot. We also collected passports, water bottles, biscuits, a quilt, anything we might need. Didn't know what the state of the hospital would be...


We all bundled into the car and set off for Max Hospital in Saket. Max Hospital is a couple of miles away, much much closer than Raju's home. However, it takes us half an hour to get there. It's a big, modern, Western style hospital. We rushed through the A&E doors and were pointed straight to a bed in the triage area. The first doctor wanted to know which hospital we had been to to get Keir's head bandaged. He looked at the wound and got another doctor. He looked at the wound and got another doctor. The third doctor said the A&E staff were able to stitch the wound, but it would be better if a plastic surgeon did it. We agreed...


So Keir was given some painkillers and we waited. And waited. The plastic surgeon arrived. Keir needed twenty surface stitches and five or so internal ones. Rod didn't count them. He said it was a bit gory. I just held Keir's hands and made sure I couldn't see! The plastic surgeon would make a good quilter, because his stitches were beautiful. Rod commented they were 12 to the inch!


My little soldier, the morning after. Pretty sure no one's going to notice his new haircut when he goes back to school tomorrow!