More drivel falls off my fingers because it’s too dark to work in the fields…

Typos here can be blamed on the mozzies which have hassled my feet. Remind me to bring socks tomorrow.

BTW, tales of niceness here should not be taken to mean that people in other places aren’t nice too. Over the years I’ve run into people from all over the place (Scots, Australians, Indonesians, South Africans, Americans and English folk spring immediately to mind) who give with both hands.

Wednesday 7th continued
I walked back to the house – mostly avoiding rain (or managing to control my umbrella effectively) but sheltering for 10 minutes at a fish & general stuff stall when it pelted down.

Near the house is another house where someone had wanted Rs10 from Ajeesh or I in the morning. Neither of us had it so I said I’d sort it out on the way home. Slight mishap – I found the right house but none of the family spoke any english so I couldn’t make myself understood and so disturbed them for nothing. What’s the road to hell paved with?

Thursday 6th
A day of enforced idleness – Ajeesh was still in Cochin and I wasn’t allowed to even make tea for myself. I did have a go at trying to extract the Malayalam alphabet from Ajeesh’s Malayalam-English dictionary. (The front-matter and end-matter are all in Malayalam so I couldn’t directly crib it.) Jaya tried to help but I’m still finding learning new alphabets hard. Malayalam is like Devanagiri in having 6 or 7 vowels, then about 40 consonants and then modifying those to show the vowel-sounds that follow them or to show that there are two (or more?) successive consonants. This may show you what I mean.

Anyway, I gave up for the moment and read my way through Jaya’s chemistry text-book. It’s meant to be around A-level/SYS/Advanced Higher standard. I could cheerfully shoot the proofreader (was it proofread at all?) and the authors for allowing huge factual mistakes to get through. I suppose it’s mean to fault the english language and writing style as well but they seemed extremely unhelpful too.

I was given an inhalation treatment: sticking my head under a blanket with a bowl of boiling water with some Vick’s vapor-rub and tiger balm. I was also given three doses of the ayurvedic medicine – glasses of boiling water containing the ingredients I’d bought along with crushed pepper-corns. Despite the massive amount of sweetness from the karipatty (apparently palmyra sugar), I could only sip this concoction slowly and through gritted teeth.

I seem to have slept well and the cold is almost gone – hoorah! So I think the treatments worked – huge thanks again to Jaya and Radhalaxmi (Jaya and Ajeesh’s mum).

Friday 7th
Ajeesh returned this morning. After a lot of discussion centred on a cousin who’s wasting his time and leaving his immediate family’s land unfarmed, we came to town.

I had a quick blog while Ajeesh visited an office in town. Then we drove to his bank. I appear to have slagged the wrong bank – the bank whose directors are demanding a bribe appears to be Nedumkandam Service Co-operative Bank. So I unreservedly apologise to the Idukki Co-operative Bank. However, this was a small branch – the nasties are being played out in the head office and I don’t yet know where that is.

We had lunch at the cafe I’ve blogged about before. The owner is called Mini and her daughters are Raji and Remia. I’ll continue to eat and drink there but I won’t have any more sugar until Mini gets rid of the ants that infest her supply. Aarrgghh!

We then went to the local plant-nursery to pick up some plants: apprently wild strawberries although they they looked nothing like the strawberries I know. (I think they’re cherries.) Apparently, when the owner told me they were for the local public/government school, he gave them for free. DS, Ajeesh and I then went to the school and chatted with the headmistress while waiting for classes to end.

The children (at least the lower classes) were assembled into the one of the school’s main building. (It appears that there aren’t partitions between the various classrooms in this building.) Ajeesh, the headmistress and I were sat in front of them and the headmistress introduced Ajeesh and I. I feel a bit uncomfortable at being referred to as ‘doctor Bruce’ (I don’t like people to think I’m full of pride [except when I am] or particularly special*) but if can help them aim high, then I guess it’s ok.
*I’m sure I’m just a random bozo who gets it wrong a lot of the time

I was then invited to speak to the children – I started by thanking them and their parents for the wonderful welcome I’ve had here. I then asked them about their ambitions. All of this had to be translated by Ajeesh because very few of the pupils had enough english to understand me. We finished with Ajeesh leading the children in a repetitive song/clapping rhyme.

I can’t tell you how un-nerving it is to have 100 or so bright, young faces staring at me while I attempt to fill up the silence with useful and non-patronising words. Aarrgghh! I’ve offered the headmistress my services as a very temporary english tutor – we’ll see what happens!

We then went to the school fields to plant out the unknown-fruit trees. I have some good photos (thanks DS) of me wielding a mambati tambar. We also got Ajeesh’s former teacher and two of the children to plant out other plants and I tried to push the idea of not dropping the plastic waste that had been their wrappers.

I’m now here while Ajeesh is at a meeting to organise Jaya’s wedding. (If there were subtitles then I’d love to attend. However I don’t think I can add anything to the proceedings just now and listening to a prolonged discussion in Malayalam would just make my head explode.)

I should add another nice thing: today is the cybercafe/architect & design studio owners’ 19th wedding anniversary. Someone brough in some large fry-cakes and they gave me one. Thanks to this unknown donor and congratulations to Mr and Mrs Ozhathil!

I’m not quite sure what’s happening tomorrow but am looking forward to finding out.

Almost contiguous electricity strikes again! I’ve been here about four hours: during which the elctricity has been off for about 90 minutes in total and I’ve waited 30 minutes for the cybercafe owners to complete some urgent work. The cafe is also a architect and DTP studio, running Autocad 2004 and PageMaker 7 under Windows 98!

Sunday 2nd July
I didn’t get to sleep until about 1 am, thanks to the noise of wind and rain. I was woken by Sandra’s voice around 9am. I think she was complaining about being dressed smartly for temple but I can’t be sure of this because

1. I only have a few words of Malayalam
2. I’ve mistaken the sound of negotiations between Jaya and a merchant for a deadly family argument.

Everyone but Jaya and I left for the temple: Jaya stayed to serve my breakfast (aarrgghh!) and get through a mountain of laundry. (Just in case you’re interested, breakfast was puri (circles of flat bread that inflate when fried) and jackfruit-seed curry.)

I was sorting through some stuff when I heard what sounded like Jaya and her father arguing passionately. It turned out to be Jaya and two other women negotiating with a merchant who sold household goods – mostly plastic items. He had a net-ful of merchandise which could be compacted so it was a meter across and then carried on his head. Jaya eventually bought 4 or 5 plastic bins/storage tubs.

Around 1pm I left the house to come to this cybercafe: the owners’ older son (Abin) had offered to open it just for me. It would also allow him to do his homework in peace. The cafe’s UPS had power but their internet connection wasn’t working so I spent time working on an essay I’m writing for DS. He wants me to give my opinions as a tourist on how places like Nedumkandam could attract more tourist-income.

As I was typing, Abin introduced me to various friends who arrived and wanted conversations with me. These were usually short and full of giggles and embarrassment on both sides as language barriers crashed down on our heads.

Eventually the UPS ran out and I went out to photograph along Nedumkandam’s main street. Mains electricity had returned by the time I did – it lasted a whole 10 minutes.

Ajeesh, DS and Shaji arrived, along with Ajeesh’s martial arts friend. He just about demanded that I visit him for a massage now it was the right season and directly asked when I would come. I said I would phone him and arrange something to our mutual convenience. He then gave me a lecture on the evils of alcohol and tobacco, then walked across the road to a bank.

As soon as he was out of earshot, DS said ‘You can stick your ayurveda and health, mate – I need a cigarette.’ Ajeesh also commented ‘he’s a good man but his tongue is too long.’ Nicotine-cravings satisfied, Ajeesh and co went to Shaji’s office while I stayed to wait for power to return.

I left about 6pm, phoned home and I think I walked up the hill – my diary doesn’t recall. However I recall walking out of a movie because it wasn’t funny without knowing Malayalam – the promised action-comedy didn’t materialize and the volume made my head ache. I know it wasn’t last night (Tuesday) so Sunday seems the only possibility.

Monday 3rd July: reasons to like Nedumkandam part X
Answering Nature’s call during the night had been hampered by not being able to find my torch – the toilet is in an outbuilding at the back of the house and I have to go out of the front door to avoid disturbing others. Fortunately, urination is just done onto the ground – it’s a rural area and there’s plenty of rain to wash it away – so at night I can just step out of the front door.

My torch wasn’t in my bag or anywhere I’d normally put it. I had either left it at the chai-shop nearest to Ajeesh’s house where I’d bought some bananas on the way home or in the phone booth, or dropped it on the way up the hill or left it at the cinema. I walked to town, scanning the road and verges, stopping to ask at the chai-shop – no sign. However, back at the shop from where I’d phoned, the owner happily handed over my torch and some other stuff I’d left. He was pleased to do so, even though his phone-booth had blown over and smashed in the night. I wonder if this would have happened in a more tourist-centred place?

Meanwhile Radio Bruce was on a rampage, coming up with refrains from A saucerful of secrets, Interstellar Overdrive (from Piper at the gates of dawn), Hammering on the gates of nothingness (a piece of crazy Hungarian heavy rock which features songs celebrating the Hun’s victories over the Turks (?) in who-knows-when – can a historian elaborate please?) and even Judas Priest’s United, mashed up with Corporal Clegg.

I’m not keen on changing travellers’ cheques at Nedumkandam’s banks so I took the Kerala switchback to Kattappana to use the ATM and ISDN connection there. On the way back, the rain came through the bus windows, soaking my shoulders. It was unpleasant but amusing and may have been the start of my current lurgie.

Back at the house, Sandra was full of cold and so was dressed in trousers, a heavy jumper and a balaclava that gave her a cute-smurf look. (These balaclavas are very common among young children. I hope that on Friday I can get some photographic proof.) The local cable-TV station news had a feature on Ajeesh’s attempts to get people not to litter the hill-top temple with waste plastic – there was even a flash of him on TV so he was very pleased.

This evening the wind and rain noise were intense – I got to sleep after 4am

Tuesday 4th July
I woke around 7.30 – again, I think it was Sandra’s voice that got to me. She was dressed in a princess/ballerina dress that surely couldn’t have been very warm, topped with her balaclava. Ajeesh’s mum persuaded him to take her to school – the weather was truly vile. During just the walk to the car (about 500 metres), we got soaked to the skin. At the school, a grotty-looking set of concrete buildings that remind me of 1960s UK inner-city estates, I was introduced to the headmistress. Apparently she’s invited me to address the school on Friday and give some more spoken-English sessions. Of course I’m happy to do so but terrified!

Ajeesh and I had breakfast in a wee restaurant. (I learnt later that he likes to use this place because the owner’s husband ran off 10 years ago, leaving her to look after 1- and 5-year-old children on her own.) The tea is good but I can’t comment on the food except to say that I’ve seen Ajeesh, Shaji and Anish apparently enjoying mutton and beef curries there. I saw in that morning’s newspaper the Malayalam for ‘Wayne Rooney’ so my life is now complete. (BTW, the second World Cup match I’ve seen is the one where England dipped out. Have I missed the final?)

Back at the house, I changed into a t-short and lycra shorts because I knew my lunghi would make work near impossible – I haven’t yet become adept in keeping it folded up. Also it was still soaking. Ajeesh rested (He’d also slept badly) while I washed some clothes. The return of mains electricity to the house means that washing-water can be pumped from the well into the house’s storage-barrel. Currently this water isn’t suitable for drinking*: drinking water has to be carried from a well about 300 metres from the house, further up the hill. To get washing water, I’ve seen Ajeesh perch himself on the sloping sides inside the well and dip a bucket into the water. He then pours the contents into a waiting container on the concrete lip. The path to the well is muddy and slippery – I find carrying even a closed container is difficult so I’m amazed that Ajeesh can carry two open ones – one in his hand and one on his head.
*I’m told that usually this well’s water is safe to drink because it’s been filtered through layers of rock but during the monsoon, run-off from the hillside gets into it and pollutes it.

We dug out six failed banana plants (apparently, insects and wind can cause up to 50% losses), removing the roots entirely. We then either enlarged the resulting holes or dug new ones to receive transplants. This is bloody hard work! For a start, we were gadding about barefoot on muddy, sloping land with all sorts of undergrowth and shrubs to trip over or grab hold of. The holes had to be about 4 feet in diameter and over 1 foot deep. At the bottom, loose soil was made into a volcano-shape. A young plant (these were taken from other parts of the family’s land where apparently they had less chance of giving a decent crop – you can also buy them in town) was then put into the ‘caldera’, then soil and some nearby undergrowth (i.e. natural plant food) was packed down over the roots. The aim was to leave the young plant’s shoot poking out of the center of the floor of a 6- to 9-inch deep crater. This crater apparently will help to retain water and fertilizer over the twelve months the bananas take to grow.

Digging the holes was hard work for me, especially barefoot and using a tambar – a spade whose blade is perpendicular to its handle. (A short-handled tambar is called a koryi tambar and a long-handled one is called a mambati tambar.) I found it easy enough to increase my holes diameters with a koryi tambar but very difficult to then lift the soil out and get it far enough away so that I didn’t then have to move it a second time when enlarging the hole. Using the mambati tambar was just dangerous for me. The difficulty was exacerbated by the soil’s stickiness – I had to clean the tambar’s blade every four or five strikes to be able to dig any more. Cleaning the blade was done with the back of a curved farming knife or a handy stick which I learnt to keep tucked into my right shorts-leg.

My efforts led to some amusing exchanges with some women who passed by. I don’t know if they were more amused by the sight of a foreigner doing this work or my exhausted lack of skill. We also had to take several breaks when the rain became too heavy. We sheltered under the eaves of a neighbouring house and chatted (in my case using body-language and gestures only) with the family who live there. The husband wore over his lunghi and shirt what appears to be ‘typical’ rain-proofs: a plastic sack tied around his waist to protect his lunghi and another tied around his head and dangling down his back.

Back at the house, Jaya scolded us for coming home before she’d finished cooking. Ajeesh and I took quite a while to wash the sticky soil from our hands. My feet and lower legs were utterly filthy and for once I was glad that the house’s floor was just packed earth. (I had started washing my legs but Ajeesh dissuaded me.)

Ajeesh told me that the next job was to clear undergrowth from around cardomom plants and then feed them with an organic fertilizer called neem cake. Two large sacks of this have been perfuming the front room for about a week. (Sandra also enjoys jumping onto them and then clambering onto the windowsill, then jumping into the arms whoever she can persuade to catch her.) I’m tempted to ask to take some home – the smell is an almost intoxicating rich, bass-fruit perfume.

Shaji and Anish then arrived and Jaya served an utter triumph: ‘red’ rice; banana and jackfruit-seed curry; melon curry; mango, lemon and chilli pickles*; and chatni. Ajeesh, Shaji, Anish and I ate until we were stuffed while Jaya and her mum looked on, apparently enjoying us appreciating the meal. I was concerned that I was taking more food than I should but Jaya told me there was plenty more for her and her parents. I’m still bothered that she and her parents ate second but there isn’t enough room around their table for the whole family to eat together.
*This was reminiscent of Indonesian sambar: extremely fiery chillies and a tomato boiled in minimal amounts of water to produce a sauce that looks like ketchup and burns like napalm. Jaya’s version also had whole red chillies (about 1 cm long and bursting with capsaicin.

After lunch, the boys and I drove to town and I blogged for a while, then met the others at the restaurant where Ajeesh and I had breakfasted. Ajeesh tells me he likes to eat here so that his limited funds can support someone in unfortunate circumstances: the owner’s two daughters missed at least a year’s school due to lack of money. Anish seemed a bit drunk – he was much more confident, even brash, about speaking English and loudly demanded ‘boost’ (gutka – chewing tobacco). No-one had any but Ajeesh spoke with the restaurant-owner* who then brought out a head of wild garlic. Apparently, crushing a small clove between your teeth, then placing the resulting mash between your front lip and first-incisor gum is meant to have the same effect as boost. I tried it – I won’t be trying it again. It just added to the coughing and spluttering but it may have helped loosen my chest so I could cough up the yuck that had been impeding my breathing. (I may try sucking an uncrushed garlic clove – that way I’d get the beneficial chemicals at a much slower rate which I hope wouldn’t burn my mouth.)
*she doesn’t actually own the building but rents it for Rs6000 per month. It’s roughly the size of mycelium mansion.

Back at the house, Jaya served spicy peanuts with a coconut and rice-flour ‘granola’. (We’d met Ajeesh’s father buying the peanuts at the shop next to the chai-stall nearest to the house.) I still felt lousy and exhausted but an almost uninterrupted eight hours’ sleep has helped a lot.

Wednesday 5th July
I’m feeling much better but still a bit dozy. Ajeesh has gone with Shaji and Anish to Cochin for a government/social-work function. Apparently Anish and Shaji are paying for the petrol – Ajeesh is still desperately trying to scrape together Jaya’s dowry and the bribe he’ll need to pay to get it. I’ve suggested talking to the policemen who lives halfway between the house and town: I hope that bringing down the MLA (member of parliament) who is demanding the bribe will benefit his career.

Before this, Ajeesh’s middle sister (Ambali) and her husband and daughter, Rajiv and Pavitra) visited. Ajeesh tells me they have water problems too – the nearest well to their house is 600 metres away. Jaya invited me to try making noodles – a stiff dough is put into a mould the size of a tin of baked beans and then a plunger is used to force the dough through tiny holes at the base of the mould. I could barely get it to move, much to everyone’s amusement: Jaya and Ajeesh could squeeze the plunger down with apparent ease.

When I’ve finished here, I’m going to buy ingredients for an ayurvedic cold remedy (the only one that Ajeesh could translate is chukku: wild ginger) and go back to the house. Ajeesh’s mum is apparently pleased to make this medicine for me.* Then I’ll try to get her and Jaya to give me some domestic chores – I don’t think to work outdoors for the moment.
*Should I need them (which I very strongly doubt – apart from a sniffle just now and a slight headache, I feel normal) antibiotics are easily available at the town’s two pharmacies.

freeloading news
My flight to Sumatra will be on 2nd August. I’m staying here until around a week before this. I don’t feel so much that this is freeloading, partly because I’ve done some work and intend to do a lot more and partly because I have managed to help to Ajeesh and his family in a way that no-one here is willing or able to do. I’m still trying to think of ways he can at least avoid having to bribe his way to the dowry money and now I am asking my readers whether they’re able to help with low-interest loans. (The less he has to borrow from the bank, the less he has to pay out in bribes.)

So I was walking slowly along the shops where Ajeesh had told me I could buy the medicine ingredients. All of the shop signs were in Malayalam and none of the shops appeared to me to be an ayurvedic pharmacy.

A bloke leaned out of his car and asked me what I was looking for. I showed him the page of my diary where Ajeesh had written the items in malayalam (with english transcriptions). He recognised I was looking for ayurvedic ingredients and told me I was in front of the correct shop. (It has sacks of food such as rice and pulses hiding the more exotic stuff.) He then came into the shop with me and read out the list of ingredients and quantities.

The shop folk got it all together smilingly and explained where possible what each ingredient is:

• gerakam is cumin seed (jeera in Hindi)
• chukku is dried ginger
• karipatty appears to be a bit like jaggery (raw cane sugar).

This little piece of spontaneous niceness, especially of the bloke who guided me, has me almost in tears. I’m going to head back to the house now but I had to let the world know about it first.

… of the fleeting reference to you in a comment made by my dad. (I’ve deleted the comment because it now serves no purpose and might even confuse matters.)

When the power went down, I used my cellphone to leave a message on my parents’ home voicemail, asking my dad to put a comment explaining that I was now unable to email, blog or anything similar. I asked him to put it below your comment but he didn’t understand the message I left.

So nothing sinister, honest!

Well, fairly reliable power supplies have been restored. We even had the luxury of TV last night. (Fatal temptation of fate: just as I typed this, the power went down and I’m busy draining the cybercafe’s UPS.)

Friday 30th June/Saturday 1st July
I think I’ve got up to about Thursday of last week. On Friday, Ajeesh drove us back to Moovatupuzha (about 3 hours from Nedumkandam, even driving on good roads and crazy-Ajeesh speed*) so that his car could be valeted and serviced. With us was his younger journalist friend, Anish, who needed to attend a meeting somewhere on the way.
*I don’t recall curling into a fetal ball in fear in a car before, although I have been very scared at times. I don’t think it was the speed alone that got to me this time. You may have read my opinions of Indian drivers: this journey reiterated them.

We also called in at a court-room in Ernakulam district so Ajeesh could witness in court that a certain debtor had (albeit belatedly) repaid his creditor. I wasn’t too keen on having a visit to officialdom and law sprung on me without warning – I’d have dressed a bit differently for a start!

However, with that out of the way and the car in the garage, I found a local cybercafe and bought my tickets to Sumatra. I think part of the prevarication so far has been my fear of going to somewhere completely unknown. India was colonised by Britain but Indonesia was colonised by the Dutch and Japanese (and has a very complex history before that) so my knowledge is all gleaned from a guidebook, a few snippets of other books, a cynical Essexian marxist and his Indonesian wife.

On the way back, Anish opened his bottle of ‘Doctor’s Choice’ brandy. 50ml was enough to start him puking – he didn’t open the window in time and so covered his lap and Ajeesh’s shoulder and spattered my jacket-cuff.

It was too dark to clean up, so Ajeesh drove us on past Idukki. Around 11pm, he’d had enough so he stopped on a side-road in the middlee of nowhere, then he and I relaxed the front seats and slept on them while Anish curled up on the back seat.

We woke around 6pm and found a nearby chai-stall: breakfast was tea and fried wheat-cakes. Then Ajeesh walked off to visit a relative (like the phfor, they’re everywhere) while Anish and I sheltered from rain in the car.

We then drove back to Nedumkandam and stopped at a water-pump at the foot of the hill leading up to Ajeesh’s house to clean the car. There wasn’t too much puke but some had got into immovable mats in the rear footwell. (Several days later, it’s still discernable.) I’m very impressed by Anish’s timing – puking into a just valeted car. I’ve told him that I’m a doctor and that it’s my choice that he doesn’t drink any more rancid donkey-semen. This version of brandy smelt worse than fenny or toddy: both of which give me the dry-heaves.

Back at Nedumkandam, I had yet another first: it wasn’t the first time I’ve ironed clothes to dry them* but it was the first time I’ve used a portable kitchen hotplate to do so. I’m very glad I was attempting to dry my clothes, not to make them look smart. I should add that this ironing wasn’t frivolous – I’d run out of clean clothes while waiting around 3 days for clothes I’d washed to dry.
*That particular record occured when I was a dole-mole, living at Forkenford Farm in Edinburgh.

There then followed a long and vain wait for power to reach the cybercafe.

I’ll have to go into Sunday, Monday and today’s fun and games later because it’s late and I’m feeling ill* and tired. Suffice it to say I now have learnt a little about how hard planting out banana-trees** on a hill-farm can be. Oh well, if nothing else, it’s a wee bit off the mountain I feel I owe them, even though Ajeesh says I don’t.
*chesty cough and cold: the effects of lack of sleep and reasonably frequently getting rained upon, then not drying out properly
**well, actually they’re grasses – so don’t tell them your guilty secrets!

See you later space-cats!

OK, to make things clear for all: until I return to the UK, I will not send *any* emails with attachments without either a blog entry*, phonecall or a previous email saying I’m about to do so. Unless the attachment is absolutely urgent, I will obtain consent before sending it (via LJ for those who I know regularly read this blog, via email in most other cases and via phone if all else fails.)
*if I use this method, I’ll await the intended recipients’ permission before actually sending the attachment.

So unless I have already warned you that I’m emailing an attachment, please immediately delete any email that both has an attachment and appears to be from me.

BTW, it’s possible that I’ll not email anything for the foreseeable future. Electricity in the main part of Nedumkandam is very intermittent (and non-existent yesterday) due to road-works and attendant replacement of cable-supports. This cybercafe’s UPS is almost empty (in fact it emptied 30 minutes ago but the current’s been back for 10 minutes – then died again).

Further, since this place uses dial-up and windows 98, attaching photos is a pain I’ll avoid wherever possible. Even with ISDN, it’s tedious and costly.

There’s a lot I want to say about the last 36 hours in Madurai. I thoroughly recommend it as a place you could easily spend a week, mostly just getting your head around the Meenaksi temple.

However, I’ve just been highly amused by something and wanted to share it with you.

I phoned home from an open international call box just outside the temple. The owner’s son and his mates were there. We got talking and one of them offered me a palm reading. (The palmist spoke no english but his mate, Ramesh, spoke very good english.) Most of the predictions were ‘your life will/can be nice, especially if you do (various sensible things)’ and ‘something very nice will happen in November/December’ but the thing that caught me was the prediction of me fathering 2 or 3 children; i.e definitely not by adoption but ‘by your own sperm‘. (This is a verbatim quote.)

I have the interlocutor’s email address so I will be very pleased to keep in contact about the number of children I sire, even if I end up less than pleased about what that number turns out to be.

Grinning like a loon, as ever!

The following isn’t meant to be inflammatory, just an expression of what I’ve experienced and a possible way forward. My opinion is just that, only my opinion, and open to change in the light of fresh information and cogently-argued thought. (And so I think I have learnt something from the exchanges in MsInvisFem’s blog.) So if you don’t like what I say here, comment here or privately and I’ll try to listen and act on what you say.

I’ve very rarely experienced anti-English racism in Scotland (and laughed like a drain at the example in Trainspotting. However, if needed, I could speak about the bullying and oppression I experienced at school. That hurt a lot at the time (a vibram-soled boot planted at speed on my back may have been the cause of on-going weakness in my middle vertebrae) and may have contributed to some of the nastier sides of my character. Certain people who may read this blog have seen far too much of these sides. With the exception of where I was attempting (and usually failing) to protect myself, there is always a tacit apology on my lips.

I still don’t like labels that divide humans from each other, whether perpetrated by majorities or minorities, oppressors or oppressed, even to draw attention to oppression.* It’s too easy for these labels to be a stepping-stone to ‘negation as people’.
*When oppressed or minorities use such labels to describe themselves, it can be seen to imply that they’re accepted or even desired by the oppressed or minority in question. Then even well-meaning but ignorant members of majorities or non-oppressed groups may well perpetuate such labels and the divisions and oppressions that go with them.

However strict avoidance would prevent me from saying things such things as

• ‘I’m from Worcester.’
• ‘My father is australian, my mother is austrian, I live in Scotland and drink irish whiskey and czech lager and eat indian and latin-american-style food. Now try to tell me my nationality!’
• ‘He/she/they /are (i.e. describe themselves as) brahmins.’
• ‘He is the “village-king” of this tribal village.’
• ‘Men do this while women do that.’

In this blog, such phrases are only intended to clarify who I’m talking about or state what I’ve observed*. They’re certainly not intended to mean that any group of people is worse than any other. We’re all human, and we all have our own particular mixes of faults and foibles.
*with the usual caveats about observation and narratives being far from the whole story

As far as I’m concerned (and with no intention to discount what others have experienced: if something hurts, it hurts and nothing I can say or do will undo this experience), the biggest issue is a person’s financial status. If minorities, etc, had the financial wherewithal, they could simply laugh off racist/oppressive comments, safe in their luxury apartments. However, this is currently pie-in-the-sky: often groups of related* people live together in terrible conditions which are an utter disgrace to our common humanity. One function of this blog is to report on the examples I’ve seen here and invite readers’ thoughts and action.
*This seems almost inevitable: if they can’t afford brick walls, how on earth are they going to afford transport to get to form relationships with other, better-off people?

I should add that this part of Kerala is probably nowhere near as bad as other areas of the globe: there are plenty of posh-looking villas on the way from Nedumkandam to Kattappana, for example. The fertility of this area is beautiful and stands in stark contrast to the dust-bowls and abject misery of north-eastern Africa (for example) that’s been on my TV since the early 1980s. There’s also plenty of luxury hotels* if you want to come and see for yourself. However, the best way would be to make contact with a family such as Ajeesh’s: you’re almost guaranteed a lovely time along with your practical lessons.
*The link is to the Edassery hotel in Munnar. However there’s an Edassery hotel in Kattappana and it looks very posh from the outside.

It appears that something has got hold of various addresses that I’ve previously emailed and is sending spam to these addresses.

1. Sincere apologies for anything I inadvertently did to cause this. I hope you know I wouldn’t deliberately spam anyone.
2. It’s possible that another correspondent’s PC which received the ‘I’m offski email’ I sent before I departed has had all the CC addresses harvested. A couple of days ago I received ‘your virussed email has been bounced’ messages in response to things I didn’t send. I also received notification that a correspondant had tried to send me some infected pictures – and I know this correspondent wouldn’t knowingly do so
3. Apologies again for any hassle you’ve received

To try to assess what’s happened and look for a cure, please comment below if you’ve recieved any spam which purports to be from me.

EDITed to remove pomposity and implication that my blog and I are always perfect and factually correct: we’re not!

CHAI-STORIES
Having moaned in my last entry about the travel agent (and there’s more moaning to come), it’s pleasing to report two good things:

• After escaping from the travel agent, I bought sheets of two different grades of sandpaper at a hardware/DIY store here in Kattappana. The shopkeepers apparently spoke no english but miming polishing the coconut-shell bowl I’m working on did the trick. I’m very grateful to the shopkeepers and slightly proud of my miming
• I’m also very pleased to report the cheapest khardum chaya yet: Rs2.50 at a cafe in Kattappana’s bus station with very friendly and efficient service. That’s around 3 UK pence or 6 US cents. Starbucks has a lot to learn! (Also their masala dosa and a wada cost Rs13 and were yummy.)

DIARY BIT
The bus home on Tuesday was one of the most exhilarating times I’ve had here. The bus was crowded and so most of the time I only had half my right buttock on a seat* while I clung on to the railings for dear life, much to the amusement of my fellow passengers. If you ever want an extreme roller-coaster ride, try the 7.30pm bus from Kattappana to Nedumkandam. I call it the ‘Kerala switchback’ and thoroughly recommend it.
*The rest of the time I had no contact with a seat at all thanks to the many bumps and pot-holes in the parts of the national highways that have yet to be resurfaced.

On the walk up to Ajeesh’s house, I met their neighbour Babu. I believe he’s a member of the local gram panchayat (village/town council) but can’t really have a conversation with him without a translator. He appeared to invite me to his house for a drink or two. I found out later that he was inviting me to have a drink with him in a bar in town. Apparently he has a wee tipple each evening. I thanked him for the invitation but I’m wary of mixing alcohol in local bars, communication difficulties and relative strangers: it seems a perfect recipe for disaster.

MORNING GLORY
Yesterday (Wednesday 28th) I was introduced to Ajeesh’s uncle, who apparently also arranged Jaya’s wedding or at least introduced Rajesh as a potential husband. I was told he has a suitable match for me. I get rather tired of going through the reasons why I’m not interested and of having to appear grateful for this extremely unwanted favour.

ELECTRICITY NEWS
I’ve often failed to charge my camera batteries sufficiently, leading to quite a few missed photo-opportunities. Yesterday I learned one possible cause: India’s domestic supply voltage is nominally 230 volts. However Ajeesh’s area receives 30 to 40 volts. Ajeesh’s family have a step-up transformer but it moans from time to time so is far from a perfect answer. To be honest, I’m amazed that electricity cables have been laid at all, considering the state of the roads to the house.

TRAVEL TROUBLES
On Tuesday I spelled out the options to the travel agent:

• flights from Calcutta to Singapore and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Medan and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Padang and back
• flights from Calcutta to Singapore, then Singapore to Pekanbaru and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Medan and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Padang and back
• direct flights from Calcutta to Pekanbaru and back.

He asked me which option I prefer: I said I would prefer the cheapest overall way to get to Sumatra but that I’d decide when I’d seen the prices of ALL these options so I wanted prices and availability for all of them. Yesterday he gave me a price for the Calcutta-Singapore-Calcutta option only because that was my preferred (i.e. the cheapest) option. Gaaaah!

I didn’t have time yesterday to do any research myself because I was in a hurry to get back to Nedumkandam and on to a ‘social work’ function.

SOCIAL WORK NEWS
Here’s why I respect Ajeesh, his family and friends so much: you already know about their situation. Yet they take time and trouble to support people who are even worse off than themselves. Yet again Kerala has reduced me to speechless tears.

Rural poverty here and in other parts of India can be roughly assessed by the number of debt-related suicides amongst farmers. It’s a topic that bubbles under the headlines and occasionally surfaces onto the front page. Local banks have been encouraged to write off loans but I have no idea if this is yet making any difference.

CORRUPTION CORNER
To make things even worse, corruption appears to be a big issue. As you may have read in earlier entries, Ajeesh needs to find Rs200,000 for Jaya’s dowry. He tells me that he can’t borrow this from a regular bank because they only give business loans so has to go to a private bank. (I think it’s the Idukki Co-operative Bank.) However, to get his loan application approved, he has to bribe certain officials with around Rs10,000. This 5% ‘rate’ is apparently half the usual rate.

The officials are, allegedly, gram(a) panchayat(h)* councillors who are also somehow in charge of the bank. No bribe was mentioned when Ajeesh saw the actual bank staff but the need for (and amount of) a bribe was made clear in a separate meeting.
*I’ve seen several variations of the spelling of this phrase.

I’ve offered to accompany Ajeesh to future meetings and record proceedings on my camera and/or mp3 player, then demonstrate these recordings and my NUJ membership to the bribe-takers. I’d hope either to get them to drop this request for a bribe or (preferably) expose them completely and get them out of office.

Ajeesh is doubtful about this: the request has already been made so why would a further meeting be needed? (Maybe I can record and photograph the hand-over and stop the process at this stage.) Also, he’s afraid that he’d just end up being ‘black-balled’ in this area and so have to move somewhere else where he doesn’t have his network of friends and relatives.

Personally, I’m furious that this state of affairs appears to be normal practice. My fury is exacerbated by hearing that the officials who have demanded the bribe are members of a communist party! Well it’s a sure way to annoy people enough that a second bolshevik revolution can’t be far away. In fact it’s already going on: google for ‘naxalites’ and see for yourself.

OVER TO YOU!
I may have mentioned that Ajeesh, Shaji and DS (and maybe others) plan to miss a meal each week and divert what they save towards social projects. I’m going to follow suit. You can help me in one or more of the following ways:

• make sure I live up to what I’ve said and don’t cheat by eating loads at the meal after the one I’ve missed
• do the same yourself and make a suitable donation to the charity of your choice or to one of the projects Ajeesh runs here, maybe via the Red Cross.
• have fun the following way
  1. Obtain a coconut, a mango, some spices and some sandpaper.
  2. Split the coconut open equatorially.
  3. Make yourself some chatni and eat it with rice, iddlis or chapattis. If you’re adventurous, abandon cutlery and use your right hand to feed yourself. (You can use your left hand to manipulate serving spoons, etc.) Remember to wash your hands both before and after eating.
  4. Clean out and sand the closed end of the coconut shell until you have a smooth, dark-chocolate-brown mixing bowl.
  5. If you must, paint it Day-Glo.
  6. Flog it to a hippie.
  7. Repeat steps 1 to 6 as often as your RSI will allow.
  8. Distribute the proceeds accordingly.

BACK TO YESTERDAY AFTERNOON
After a fair amount of waiting for DS to arrive, Ajeesh, DS, Shaji, another journalist (Anish) and I pooled some money and collected further amounts from some other folk. (I saw one bloke hand over at least RS200.) They then went to buy food for a local orphanage. DS told me that they do this 3 or 4 times a year. Apparently they get most of what they need by leaning on wholesalers who they know have avoided inter-state import taxes. Shaji and Anish are journalists for a malayalam newspaper, Deepika and so can threaten to expose the wholesalers if they don’t cough up. I can’t say I totally approve of this system but I guess it works.

At the orphanage, they kids were fed vegetable rolls, bananas and milk. It didn’t seem a big meal but considering that the place is only half-built (gaps in the walls of the building that’s inhabited and another part under construction but still without a roof) I guess anything is better than nothing. Ajeesh and DS fed two children who were in an ‘infirmary’ bedroom: one has polio and the other severe cerebral palsy or similar. Then Ajeesh led a singing session: he has a good singing voice, IMHO, and the children appeared to enjoy it. I think there were about 16 children and four staff, led by sister Anna Rita Maria.

Afterwards we all returned to Shaji’s office. I have some (hopefully wonderful) video of the four of them singing in harmony. I can’t say how often how much I like the people in this corner of the world: despite some terrible problems, they are often laughing, joking and singing with each other and appear far happier than I do most of the time.

Ajeesh drove me halfway up the hill to his house: he stopped to visit a relative who is getting married today and I walked the rest of the way up the hill.

RACISM/CASTE NEWS
(With thanks to for helping to bring this topic to the front of my mind.)

Early yesterday morning, while dressed in his field-work clothes (a dirty lunghi and short-sleeved shirt), Ajeesh introduced me to an old lady who is a friend and neighbour. She wore a dirty, stained and frayed saree and underskirt. Ajeesh asked me if their clothing gave away their caste status. (They’re both brahmins but I think they’re in different sub-castes.) Of course their clothing said nothing at that moment. (Repeated meetings so I can assess their usual clothing might say more.)

I think the implied lessons are

• brahmins are workers as much as any other caste, except that their duties include religious work on behalf of the other castes,
• members of all castes can be poor farmers
• that dhotis and nice shirts are only worn as office/white-collar dress. (In all the films I’ve seen here, the politicians wear pure white dhotis and shirts.)

Also, allegedly, one of Ajeesh’s relatives was surprised when Ajeesh told him that we had visited a tribal village and drunk the coffee they offered us. I’m told that this relative feared the tribals’ food and crockery would be unhygienic and unsafe and allegedly opined that the tribals are a bit less than human. Well it appears to have had no bad effects on either of us (and you know I’ve received doses of Mughal’s revenge from restaurants in tourist areas that should do much better). Also, as far as I could see the houses were clean, just terribly overcrowded and smoky because they didn’t have chimneys. (I don’t like to think about the respiratory diseases this might cause.)

Ajeesh implied that the tribal people are outwith the main priest/warrior/merchant/farmer caste system* and disparaged his relative’s opinion. He wholeheartedly agreed with my opinion that they’re humans, just like the rest of us, and as welcoming as any other Keralan I’ve met.
*He says that roman catholicism, orthodoxy and protestantism are ‘castes’ of christianity.

TODAY’S SNIPPETS
I’m back in Kattappana to blog (hey, they have the luxury of ISDN here!), research tickets and make contact with the outside world. It’s ages since I’ve seen an english-language newspaper or seen more than a snippet of english TV news so I have almost no idea what’s happening outside of this corner of Kerala.

I was on the bus by 9.15am: I can hear former colleagues gasping that I might be awake by this time. before this, Jaya served khardum chaya and banana- and jackfruit-chips. I hope I can bring home some jackfruit seeds and banana seedlings: I’ve never seen in the UK the 3-inch sweet and delicious bananas that are so common here. Nor have I seen the big red bananas that are made into bananas bhajis. I’m going to really miss these and Jaya’s jackfruit-seed curry. She tells me she’d like to come to the UK and start a restaurant there. I can be her accountant, she says.

BUS BLETHERINGS
A word or two about the local buses: they usually have two doors on the left side. Running from just above them are strings that lead to a bell near the driver. The conductors use this system to tell the driver to stop, start or that it’s safe to reverse. (There are two three-point turns on the Kattappana-Nedumkandam route.) Where the strings are absent, they slap on the inside walls of the bus or shout ‘va va va!’ (for ‘go, go, go!’).

The windows have no glass but have rubber-backed metal concertina-style shutters held out of the way by metal gates. Pressing up on the base of the shutter allows the gates to spring out of the way and the shtters to fall closed.

Tickets appear to be of two sorts:

• either the conductor writes the cost on a ticket, with a carbon copy left in his or her* book or
• he or she has a metal case with around ten groups of different-coloured tickets screwed into it. He or she will tear off tickets to the value of your fare. (Each colour also has its price printed on it and may have places for the conductor to clip the date the ticket was issued.) I’ve also seen both systems in Goa and occasionally had journeys where I received ticket at all.
  *I’ve only seen one female conductor.

IT NEWS
In each town bigger than 20 or so buildings, I’ve seen at least one ‘digital studio’, usually offering photographic and/or videographic services and occasionally offering internet facilities. However, most cybercafes are stuck with Windows 98: it’s relative a treat to find Windows 2K or XP. I’ve not seen a hint of Apple stuff apart from a closed AppleStore in Pune. I miss my pismo so much it’s not funny!

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
I don’t think I have the budget to do all that I want and so I’m probably going to give Assam a miss. I’m told that it’s very similar to the tea-growing areas of Kerala and Tamil nadu and just now likely to be severely monsooned, making travel next to impossible. This morning Ajeesh again invited me to stay until I need to go to Calcutta to then go on to Sumatra.

Again, I’m very tempted but I don’t like free-loading. Ajeesh won’t accept any money for me staying there, even though it’s saving me at least Rs350 per day, because I’m a guest (and hence a god) and he feels like I’m his older brother. I pointed out that I can’t be both a god and his brother, and that if I’m a guest, I feel that I’ve overstayed already. I said that if I’m his brother, he must let me pull my weight domestically and/or in the fields.

If this happens then I’d be happy to stay a longer, learn (and, where possible, contribute) more and continue having a highly enjoyable time. I’d be very grateful for your thoughts: please, please comment.

His mother seemed delighted at the potential of gaining an extra son. They all want me to stay on for Jaya’s wedding (31st August, dowry issues permitting) but since my visa expires on 27th August and my flight home is already and irrevocably booked, I can’t.

OK, I think that’s enough for now. See you later, space-cats!