My main means of transport in Delhi for me and the teenagers are Autorickshaws/Tuk Tuks they are so cheap and cheerful. At the beginning of this week the government announced a crackdown on unauthorised autos. They should be registered with various certificates, pick people up when flagged down, the drivers should own the vehicle, they should always use the meter etc, etc.
So the crackdown would begin on Monday.
What happened?
An Indian solution in that the autos went on strike. Not an auto to be seen anywhere. I didn't know and left a friend's house in my usual manner, walk along and get the next auto.
There weren't any.
I did find one, a couple of miles and three blisters later. Price was 100 rupees we got it down to 70 as the driver said " No more autos today" and he was right.
Great solution as far as I was concerned. How can you crackdown when they have all gone away?
It has caused my youngest teenager some difficulty. He has his leg in plaster. He kicked his brother and missed a bit, things got twisted and he has torn ligaments in his foot. He blames his brother for having a bony arse.
Yesterday the school bus dropped him off and a policeman noticed his predicament and gave him a ride home on the back of his motorbike.
Today he had to walk back on the crutches.
Myself- well I was in the hotel at an ex-pat meeting. I ordered a taxi and another person laid a claim to the same taxi. We shared and now someone else I know in Delhi. We discussed food always a biggie with the ex pats.
Food here is not at it's best in "the summer"
Even fruit and vegetables.
It took me a long time to find a shop that sold edible lettuce but today it was not good and the sweetcorn was inedible. It was full of ants.
Fruit- there was a mouse on the fruit stall. It ran around and the stall holder just kind of squished it with an apple on display.
Tuesday 18 August 2009
Monday 27 July 2009
Please remove your testicle from my auto rickshaw
I am learning Hindi. To read, speak and write. The reading is easy once you learn the Devanagari script as it is a phonetic language. Writing is a bit more problematic. So k as a European would know it has four different letters. There are certain differences but I find them difficult to differentiate . I am told I do better than most foreigners. I think an English Northern accent helps with Hindi, something to do with how Northerners pronounce their a's and u's. However my conversational abilities are still poor. If someone speaks to me very, very, very slowly I sometimes understand. The good news is my speech and vocabulary are improving and I will get there one day.
However on a visit to Old Delhi I most certainly did not have the vocabulary I needed.
Old Delhi is great, we went to eat at Karim's,followed by the mosque, Jama Masjid, the flower market and the spice market. Whilst in the spice market the heavens opened. We sort shelter under an awning, Indian hospitality kicked in and we were offered stools to sit on and more secure cover in the nearest stall, selling sack after sack of several varieties of dried chillies. With the restrictions of the stall holder's English and my Hindi the various varieties were explained. It's a wholesale market so no one was looking for a sale, just a lovely friendly banter.
We left Chandi Chowk in Old Delhi to go to The Imperial for a nice cup of tea. It's my tour trip for most visitors as the contrast is great. From Old Delhi to the poshest hotel in town! We can only afford the tea.
Anyway we are coming from the the tourist area of the Red Fort in an autorickshaw. Begging in the area is rife with each beggar showing their deformities to drivers and passengers at the traffic lights.
Less shocking than in Slumdog Millionaire as it's adults with deformities rather than children.
On the journey at the first set of trafffic lights there was the man with the suppurating sore, children asking for money, swearing and hitting us when we didn't provide but they were later easily outdone by a man who was proudly displaying the most swollen, distended testicle in the world as his deformity and the reason for why we should give him money. It was larger than a rugby ball and it was there in the autorickshaw.
Unfortunately I didn't know the Hindi for "Please could you remove your testicle from my auto as a testicle is not what I want in my face today"
If I gave him money he would not spend it on a hospital appointment as that's his income, the deformity.
So I will just learn the Hindi for "get your testicle out of my autorickshaw please"
and continue to work in the slums to assauge my guilt as a "rich" person in Delhi
However on a visit to Old Delhi I most certainly did not have the vocabulary I needed.
Old Delhi is great, we went to eat at Karim's,followed by the mosque, Jama Masjid, the flower market and the spice market. Whilst in the spice market the heavens opened. We sort shelter under an awning, Indian hospitality kicked in and we were offered stools to sit on and more secure cover in the nearest stall, selling sack after sack of several varieties of dried chillies. With the restrictions of the stall holder's English and my Hindi the various varieties were explained. It's a wholesale market so no one was looking for a sale, just a lovely friendly banter.
We left Chandi Chowk in Old Delhi to go to The Imperial for a nice cup of tea. It's my tour trip for most visitors as the contrast is great. From Old Delhi to the poshest hotel in town! We can only afford the tea.
Anyway we are coming from the the tourist area of the Red Fort in an autorickshaw. Begging in the area is rife with each beggar showing their deformities to drivers and passengers at the traffic lights.
Less shocking than in Slumdog Millionaire as it's adults with deformities rather than children.
On the journey at the first set of trafffic lights there was the man with the suppurating sore, children asking for money, swearing and hitting us when we didn't provide but they were later easily outdone by a man who was proudly displaying the most swollen, distended testicle in the world as his deformity and the reason for why we should give him money. It was larger than a rugby ball and it was there in the autorickshaw.
Unfortunately I didn't know the Hindi for "Please could you remove your testicle from my auto as a testicle is not what I want in my face today"
If I gave him money he would not spend it on a hospital appointment as that's his income, the deformity.
So I will just learn the Hindi for "get your testicle out of my autorickshaw please"
and continue to work in the slums to assauge my guilt as a "rich" person in Delhi
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Moving to Delhi
Mark Tulley and Sam Miller both writers and so good at writing about living in Delhi.
William Dalrymple a great writer and historian.
[It made me laugh when my son stated that he was going on a tour of a Mughal Monument and it was his school friend's Dad conducting the tour. What did he know about such things? The clue was in the surname, Dalrymple. OK son you have the privilege of a great historian taking you on the tour.]
So what am I doing blogging as a person living in Delhi. I am an ordinary person. Married, three teenagers and that is it. So that is my blog - Mrs Ordinary.
I'm not a writer or a traveller but a virgin as an ex pat, never before have I followed husband , never been trailing wife, never travelled much, happy with a career and life living in Surrey. I never thought I'd live in Surrey, but that's another story
What made me move? A now or never moment.
We had choices and the one I made was to move to Delhi. Husband has always worked in different countries for periods of time, usually a few weeks but occasionally a few months. This time was different as a longer term contract for two years was on the table.
We could live seperately or move with him.
A difficult decision.
Arguments for:- we stay as a family, my children's experiences are considerably broadened as are mine, I don't have to commute and I needed to change job anyway so it put off the moment. Quite selfish reasons really.
Against:- most importantly leaving friends and family and my happily settled life, losing my pension, leaving my darling daughter behind for 6 months to finish GCSE's
The fors had it.
Now we are all here. Things I hadn't considered have been difficult mainly the climate in the summer. Sooo hot and now humid. The school for my teenage sons is also problematic. I believed that when you pay it's all good, and have now discovered this is not necessarily true.
My daughter stayed with a true and lovely friend and that was good before the little sweetie joined us here in Delhi.
So a happy story.
William Dalrymple a great writer and historian.
[It made me laugh when my son stated that he was going on a tour of a Mughal Monument and it was his school friend's Dad conducting the tour. What did he know about such things? The clue was in the surname, Dalrymple. OK son you have the privilege of a great historian taking you on the tour.]
So what am I doing blogging as a person living in Delhi. I am an ordinary person. Married, three teenagers and that is it. So that is my blog - Mrs Ordinary.
I'm not a writer or a traveller but a virgin as an ex pat, never before have I followed husband , never been trailing wife, never travelled much, happy with a career and life living in Surrey. I never thought I'd live in Surrey, but that's another story
What made me move? A now or never moment.
We had choices and the one I made was to move to Delhi. Husband has always worked in different countries for periods of time, usually a few weeks but occasionally a few months. This time was different as a longer term contract for two years was on the table.
We could live seperately or move with him.
A difficult decision.
Arguments for:- we stay as a family, my children's experiences are considerably broadened as are mine, I don't have to commute and I needed to change job anyway so it put off the moment. Quite selfish reasons really.
Against:- most importantly leaving friends and family and my happily settled life, losing my pension, leaving my darling daughter behind for 6 months to finish GCSE's
The fors had it.
Now we are all here. Things I hadn't considered have been difficult mainly the climate in the summer. Sooo hot and now humid. The school for my teenage sons is also problematic. I believed that when you pay it's all good, and have now discovered this is not necessarily true.
My daughter stayed with a true and lovely friend and that was good before the little sweetie joined us here in Delhi.
So a happy story.
Friday 12 June 2009
India, India
I don't think or say India, India. I hear it as it was shouted by the Indian fans at the test cricket match we went to watch in Manali in December last year. It was a hastily rearranged match after the English cricket team had fled the country, understandably, after the horror of the Mumbai attacks. They came back. This was so appreciated by people in India it rubbed off on the English fans. We were welcomed by all which actually did us a disservice. Waived through inumerable security checks only to be turned back at the last hurdle for not having tickets.
I had tried to purchase them earlier. The reponse to an e mail to The ECB confessed they didn't know and never really knew where to buy tickets as far as matches in India were concerned. As we reached the final hurdle the hand written sign on the door directed us back to a bank in Chandigarh. Walk back a mile or so then find transport. So off we went in an autorickshaw to Sector 41. A few wrong turnings, a few words in Hindi and we got there.
Easily sorted with the sellers apologising that they didn't have tickets left for the posh seats on the first day.
This meant we had to sit with the die hards of the Barmy Army.
Great fun!
My youngest son, at age 13, loved it totally, utterly and completly. He was welcomed as despite his youth I think the kindred spirit was recognised.
It took me back to a time, when I was young and witty banter with a big crowd of your mates was so good. It is an eclectic crowd not restrained by the snobberies and caste, whoops, I meant class systems, of England.
The hotel where the teams were staying was a secret because of security.
There is only one decent hotel within 100 miles so it wasn't too difficult to guess where it was.
We went!!
My teenage boys got all the autographs, thanks to the introduction of my son wearing a Northern football team T shirt.
A good weekend. forgetting the hassle, poverty and stress of living in Delhi.
For once I felt part of it as opposed to being different.
Loved it
I had tried to purchase them earlier. The reponse to an e mail to The ECB confessed they didn't know and never really knew where to buy tickets as far as matches in India were concerned. As we reached the final hurdle the hand written sign on the door directed us back to a bank in Chandigarh. Walk back a mile or so then find transport. So off we went in an autorickshaw to Sector 41. A few wrong turnings, a few words in Hindi and we got there.
Easily sorted with the sellers apologising that they didn't have tickets left for the posh seats on the first day.
This meant we had to sit with the die hards of the Barmy Army.
Great fun!
My youngest son, at age 13, loved it totally, utterly and completly. He was welcomed as despite his youth I think the kindred spirit was recognised.
It took me back to a time, when I was young and witty banter with a big crowd of your mates was so good. It is an eclectic crowd not restrained by the snobberies and caste, whoops, I meant class systems, of England.
The hotel where the teams were staying was a secret because of security.
There is only one decent hotel within 100 miles so it wasn't too difficult to guess where it was.
We went!!
My teenage boys got all the autographs, thanks to the introduction of my son wearing a Northern football team T shirt.
A good weekend. forgetting the hassle, poverty and stress of living in Delhi.
For once I felt part of it as opposed to being different.
Loved it
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