Just been chatting with the young owner/manager of this cyber cafe. He asked me how Scotland compaed with Mumbai – it was impossible to answer, except to relate my feelings about the huge numbers of poor there. He too insists that India has it all but just can’t get it together because politicians here are corrupt and just don’t give a stuff. He says that because of this he feels as if he’s living in hell.

He agrees with what I was told earlier – that all police here are corrupt because they have to bribe their way into their jobs in the first place. If true, the only saving grace is that they’re armed with lathis, not firearms. Armed police, such as I’ve seen in Belfast, UK airports and the USA, scare the bejasus out of me – and now I’ve stopped to think about it, armed street-gangs (which exist in all those places) probably scare me more!

And yet this district is quite reminiscent of, say, the outer reaches of the modernised* Bull Ring area of Birmingham (once you factor in the crap road surfaces here). Plenty of high-tech, modern shops, educated/middle-class people.
*and in its way quite acceptable – it used to be eerily horrible.

My dad has emailed the following:

Today, Sue received her payslip with back pay to 5th March. ACAS phoned this morning aand said that Morisons had refused to pay her for the period 5th March to 29th March, her restart date. Rather than let the thing drag on, Sue has agreed to accept the settlement. I have written to ACAS, telling them that Morrisons were mean over what, to them, must have been a piffling amount. I suppose it was one of the [people] in their HR Dept, trying to make a name for himself. However, she is back, is happy, the people whom she knows have greeted her like a long-lost relative, so all is now well. There is still the tidying-up to do, like Tribunal to unwind (ACAS is handling this) but basically it’s over!

Well, I’ve just lost an hours’s typing when this bloody Windows 98 box randomly closed my ‘update journal’ window so I’m hoping I can recall the nice ways I phrased everything.

I’m in Satara, staying for a couple of days in the faded grandeur of the hotel Rajathadri on Shivaji Circle, Powai Naka, Satara 415001 (tell [don’t know the code ] 33818). Satara is the ‘county town’ for the Taluka (‘county’) in which Mahabaleshwar nestles. For 300 Rupees, I get a room big enough to contain the lounge of Mycelium Mansion, fresh sheets put on the bed by a flunky as I watch, a clean towel, a new bar of ayurvedic soap, an en-suite, flushing squat toilet and tepid and cold running water!

Last time I blogged, I was in Mahabaleshwar, having arrived from Pune. However, I’ve yet to blog how I got there.

Saturday 25th
Another Brit turned up at the hotel, fresh off the overnight bus from Goa – he’s Tony, an Edinburger (although my ear for accents let me down and I thought he was from, er, a bit further west). He and Adam fancied a look at Pune’s old town and invited me to join them. We meandered through a large area or ‘typical Indian/medieval’ suburb, with no problems apart from relying on the rather hopeless map in Adam’s guidebook. (I’d left my map in my rucsac back at the hotel.) We were approached for performance money/baksheesh by two characters dressed in bright patchwork trousers who wanted to perform with their bullwhips for us but we weren’t keen and refused to pay for things we hadn’t asked for.

Around 1pm, Tony’s lack of sleep and my feeling that I should be moving on led us to aim to get back to the hotel, while Adam decided to carry on to a museum he wanted to see. Tony and I got to within 3 blocks of the hotel before asking at a pharmacy for directions. The pharmacist drew us a good sketch-map and we continued on. About two minutes later we were approached by the pharmacist who offered us a lift on his scooter – it turned out he was a close friend of our hotel’s owner. Tony was leery about 3 people on a scooter (I’ve seen families of 4 or five on scooters and motorbikes here) but I was keen to accept a cooler mode of transport and so gratefully accepted.

The pharmacist whizzed me to the hotel and then went back to find Tony while I ordered a large beer to split between us. When the pharmacist reappeared with Tony (and then refused to accept anything for the lift), Tony and I chatted with the two local politicians on the next table and ordered food. As we were eating, Adam arrived, having failed to fin his museum. We chatted and ate for a while, then Toney retired to catch up on sleep and I left for the bus station.

My somewhat annotated diary takes over:

Natraj Tunnel
New road in places – smooth
Cold stores in mountains
So dry it’s like SCC are of OC
Many hotels [most of which are just wayside diners rather than accommodation], then farming and more random hotels and buildings
Purander Taluka (Kharipol Village)
Swerve to avoid cow
Devanagari* lessons – near crying and puking [because the combination of failing light and road vibrations makes it impossible to focus on the letters and the guy who’s decided he will help me can’t understand this and won’t stop]
At Mahabaleshwar, set on by hotel touts. I forcefully tell them to go away because I’m about to vomit. All but two go away and these two back off at least 5 feel. I sit, swigging water and recomposing myself until I’m ready to ask for help. (It’s after dark and I don’t have a map of Mahabaleshwar.) I ask one to get me to a hotel costing 300 rupees or less a night and am taken to the hotel Vishva Shanti on Cawasji Street. I get a large room with en-suite, sit-down toilet and only two roaches!

*Devanagari is the script used for Marathi, Hindi, Sanskrit and other languages in the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. I’ll blog later why it’s so annoying but for now, just don’t try to learn it unless you have a really pressing need or deathwish.

I’ll blog more later this evening or tomorrow but I’ve just about caught up with where I was and need to eat!

no real updates today: been watching cricket most of yesterday and today and generally having an idyllic time. Will try to blog more tomorrow afternoon.

For now, what happened to Andrew Strauss? 128 in first innings but a power cut stopped me from seeing his second – and very short – second knock.

Hi there

I arrived in India’s equivalent of Blackpool-cum-Evesham last night, except there’s no puke on the streets or shagging in bus-shelters. I’m using a very frail dial-up connection so will keep this very brief.

The specialities here appear to be fruit-growing (blackberries, strawberries especially) and locally made fudge. I won’t get fruit for obvious reasons but if anyone wants some local fudge, best to text me on 07909 504328 (I won’t be able to text back) because I won’t be checking email again before I leave here (in 2 or 3 days) – it’s just too painful. (This is the fourth time I’ve tried – either there’s a power-cut or the phone system is down.)

If you call my cellphone it costs us both huge amounts but it’s no problem to receive a text saying ‘call me on …’ and for me then to find an ISD phone booth – they’re all over India.

OK, time to try posting this…

Not much to add at the moment. Another brit has turned up at my hotel: he’s from Bath and was a local council official until he packed it in for a long holiday. He was also a Labour party member until at least the 1997 election and so it was useful to hear an insider’s account of how and why the ‘Blairite’/post-Maggie modernisation was necessary.

Today, it appears that Sonia Gandhi has resigned both as an MP and from her ‘office of profit’, despite quietly protesting that the position she held did not profit her at all financially. She’s also a good constituency MP, according to constituents quoted in the Times of India and is likely to be re-elected in any by-election.

This has stopped the move to adjourn Parliament (and hence bring in the decree I mentioned yesterday.) Also, the governement is now claiming it never intended to promulgate such a decree in the first place and that the adjournment was simply to allow the budget demate and this issue to calm down.

The irony is that the ‘office of profit’ issue was raised by a candidate from Sonia’s own Congress party. He lost an election to Jaya Bachchan and then complained to the electoral commission that she was an ineligable candidate because of her ‘other job’. (She responded to this by showing that she’d resigned this job just before the election, but then took it up again while still an MP.) However the stink from this process took down his party leader.

She’s played the ‘martyr card’ at least once before. Her party won an overwhelming victory in a recent general election but she didn’t take the opportunity to form a government, possibly due to opposition taunts that a ‘foreigner’ shouldn’t rule India. (See <http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Gandhi_Sonia.html&gt; for further detail.)

OK, time for me to look into how I should now move on to Mahabaleshwar…

Ooops
oops – looks like I took my weekly anti-malarial pill a day early yesterday. So I think I better use the full-on anti mosquito precautions (mossie net, repellant and coils/fumes) for a while, especially towards the end of the week. So far I’ve just used the coils and repellant.

I have been bitten quite a lot but I think it was by other insects. I’ve certainly felt no ill effects other than the ‘mughal’s revenge’. The cyber-cafe owner has just enquired after my health after I went out to the toilet. Fortunately it was no more than ‘business as usual’. However, I am very grateful for his (and others’) concern.

Audaciousness
He also asked me if I was intending to visit Goa. He met a chap at the american consulate who was audaciously robbed in the main train station there. Apparently, he was holding his rucsac between his legs when someone asked him if he’d dropped some money. He looked, hence relaxing his grip, and the whole lot disappeared.

I have my money and plastics in a ‘shoulder-holster’ wallet under my shirt and have my camera tied to my belt when I’m out and about. I keep my main rucsac padlocked shut and chained to an immovable object, while the small rucsac is also padlocked shut. I think I have enough chain to padlock both shut and to something else when they’re attached to another. I understand the temptation to steal from us rich tourists and regard the losses I’ve had so far as a form of ‘stupid tax’ but I’m still sad that this occurs and about the economic conditions that encourage it.

Pics?
Meanwhile, does anyone want a CD of my photos so far, just in case they evaporate? I’ve had a couple burnt (one to keep with me, one to post home) but it’s no problem to get other copies made. If you do, comment below and remind me of your postal address!

New arrivals
Three lads from Nottinghamshire (very close to home) just arrived at my hotel. I hope we can swap some tips on Goa because I still really want to go there. However, the arrival of Brits means it’s probably time to move on.

tidbits
Not much else to say so here’s some tidbits from the Times of India

• Parliament is in uproar: an MP (Jaya Bachchan) was disqualified because she holds an ‘office of profit’ in the civil service. (I assume this law is to prevent conflict of interest and people being paid two state salaries.) Her party then accused 14 other MPs (mostly from the party leading the governing coalition) of committing the same offence and demanded their disqualification. (Seems fair enough to me.) This session of parliament has been adjourned by the government so it can pass a decree that the ‘offices of profit’ held by its MPs can be exempted from this ruling. (Apparently government by decree is allowable when Parliament isn’t in session.)
• This adjournment has also affected the passage of a witness- protection law that was prompted by the collapse of a recent murder trial when the witnesses withdrew their statements, presumably under threat from the accused’s accomplices.
• Following a protracted set of disputes, a woman was persuaded to go to her disputants’ village ostensibly to try to to settle them. On arrival she was set upon, paraded naked and had acid thrown over her. Truly horrifying.
• The Mumbai High Court has ruled that builders must fulfil the ‘promises’, such as garden space, in their brochures, even if the actual contracts with purchasers don’t mention all of them. (Would that this could be applied to elected governments!)
• IT companies here, including Wipro and IBM, have fired some employees for faking their CVs. Some of these employees had been in place for up to 2 years!
• There’s been some success in tracing suspects in a case of abduction and murder of an IT employee who got a lift from Pune to Mumbai. Apparently up to 500 people do this each Friday because the bus, train and taxi services are inadequate.
• There’s a big campaign to undo some of the ravages of the Mutha, one of Pune’s main rivers. Apparently construction companies have been dumping rubble in it, reducing its capacity and hence causing stagnation and flooding when there are releases from the dam upstream.
• Some songs have been banned (from cable TV) because they’re too raunchy. Also, some TV companies have been told off for allowing promotion direct or indirect of alcohol and tobacco. How’s the smoking ban in the UK going?
• In Afghanistan, a bloke is on trial for rejecting Islam and converting to Christianity. (Apparently this is an offence there and such offenders may face the death penalty.) However, a state prosecutor has said ‘We think he could be mad. He doesn’t talk like a normal person’ and a religious advisor to Afghanistan’s president has stated ‘If he is mentally unfit, Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.’
• And finally, Australian cricket supporters have been officially reprimanded in a New Delhi court for ‘premeditated, co-ordinated and calculated’ racial abuse of some South African cricketers. Such actions will now attract heavy fines. Rightly so, in my opinion. These bloody mongrels have shamed one of my home countries and insulted my preferred spectator sport.

Truly all human life is here!

Well, today has been a very lazy day. I woke around 8.30, just in time for the morning power-cut and lazed in bed with my sudoku and Ethnomedicine books. Some time after 10pm, power was restored and the hotel staff and I sat back to watch the final day of this test series.

cricket news
India had apparently already lost another batsman and were chasing just under 300 runs, needing a run-rate of around 3 per over. This is just about achievable and they nominally had the batsmen and wickets to achieve it. However, despite a few dropped catches that must have frustrated the English bowlers, none of the India batsman lived up to their potential and they were all out for 100. Only Sachin Tendulkar scored above 30 runs and he was suffering from shoulder-pain and shouldn’t really have been playing. Dhoni tried to blast a few boundaries and was dropped by a highly embarrassed Monty Pradesar. A couple of balls later, Dhoni gave Pradesar an almost repeat opportunity and this time was safely caught.

I think the last three wickets went for 1 run, not even ‘The Turbanator’ (Harbajan Singh)’s fixed determination improving India’s lot. For most of the last session, the hotel staff watched the one-day international between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, having given up hope on the Test match. In fact, someone (who may be the hotel’s owner) angrily denounced ‘cheating’. I protested at this because I don’t think Flintoff and co would want to win this way and he calmed down but said that something was definitely amiss because India’s tail-enders can normally get 30 or 40 runs between them.

I’m a bit sad for my hosts (overall the series was a draw: 1 match apiece) but happy for England’s fairly scratch team (5 English top-flight players were too ill to play in this series) and disappointed that the day was an anti-climax.

musical accompaniment?
All day, the Roy Harper song When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease has been echoing around my head. It, along with Kate Bush’s Lionheart is one of the songs that reminds me that, for all its faults, England does have something worthwhile. The notions of fair play and dedication, the timelessness of the brass accompaniment and the reminders of the green-ness around Worcester (in particular, the stream 5 minutes’ walk from my parents’ house where I’ve spent hours listening to the water, the field of cows just beyond it, the majestic sight of the Malvern Hills rising above Worcestershire’s rich alluvial plain and memories of many happy times spent there with friends): all of these have powerful emotional effects on me.

You can check out an mp3 at <http://www.royharper.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=11&gt; and the first verse’s lyrics are, as best as I can google/recall

When the day is done, and the ball has spun
In the umpire’s pocket away,
And all remains are the groundsman’s pains,
For the rest of time and a day.
There’ll be one mad dog and his master, pushing for 4 with the spin.
On a dusty pitch, with two pounds six of willowwood in the sun.

When an old cricketer leaves the crease, you never know whether he’s gone,
If maybe you’re catching a fleeting glimpse, of a twelfth man at silly mid-on.
And it could be Geoff, and it could be John,
With a new ball sting in his tail.
And it could be me, and it could be thee,
And it could be the sting in the ale………sting in the ale.

OK, I don’t expect this to mean much to anyone else but this is my journal and this song has been going round and round my head. Maybe, just maybe, I am English and can be proud of it.

Time to post this, check on friends and then go back to the hotel for food! Toodle-pip!

I woke up from my afternoon siesta (I’m still not sleeping much at nights because of next-door’s fan) with the realisation that I should say the following publically:

1. It was probably wrong of me to leave no response time (especially due to the time difference between here and the UK) between my private email to a certain commenter and my ‘this ends now’ comment. For this, and for using capitals, (i.e. ‘shouting’) I apologise.
2. I was probably talking out of my depth when I made my ‘selling’ comment about art yesterday. While I did include the caveat about the numbers of artists I’ve spoken with, I realise that maybe I didn’t caveat enough. My comment probably only applies to artists living in ‘western’, capitalist societies and probably don’t apply to ritual (e.g. hunting) and sacred art, especially when done ‘solo’.

   However, I do imagine that such artists, when working on the behalf of their communities, will usually receive some form of recompense, payment or reward for the, especially if the art ‘achieves its objective’ (i.e. is seen to lead to a successful hunt, optimal glorification of a deity, etc). I would be grateful for any statistical or anecdotal evidence about this.

I probably have the ethnomedicine book I was reading this morning to thank for these realisations.

I’m not Stanislaw Lem but I think I’ve spent 6 hours in this cyber-cafe today, using Windows XP pro and Windows 2000 Pro. No wonder my fingers-tips and nails are filthy! I miss my macs. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!