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!

Apparently at midnight last night it became the Islamic new year. I hope it’s a good one for muslims and infidels everywhere.

Mr Iran
I got back to the hotel after this morning’s marathon cyber-session to find that it was lunch-break in the cricket. By the time play resumed, the usual afternoon power-cut was on and so I ate lunch (vegetable pilao rice and a small Kingfisher lager) and chatted with Mr Iran.

I’m beginning to have more sympathy with him: he was married at age 23 to a woman he’d met once after their parents arranged the marriage. I knew only too well that arranged marriages occur in many cultures but I hadn’t associated this practice with Iran. Whatever, being forced to spend life with someone you don’t love can’t be fun and so no wonder he has a girl-friend! Unfortunately there are children involved* and the look on his face when he answered my question made me feel utterly horrible – I must have really hit a nerve. However, conversation moved on so I think we’re still on side.
*I don’t understand this bit – physical intimacy with someone I don’t love (or at least like at the time) is utterly repulsive to me.

He also told me that Islam allowed his grandfather 5 wives and asked me to confirm that my system only allowed me one at a time. I did so and told him that for me, one partner at a time is more than enough, so that there is no way I’d want a wife and a girlfriend at the same time. Even if I didn’t like my wife any more, I’d still feel bound to the marriage and so would feel pulled apart.

He’s not at all impressed with the mullah-ocracy or the current loony in charge of Iran (whom he describes as having been a jumped-up former henchman/assassin for Khomenei), nor with the ‘Islam-system’ (his description) that denies people the chance of finding partners with whom they can be happy. He seemed open to my description of the faults of the ‘western’ system, namely that you can make wrong choices (for which you only have yourself to blame) and that, in my opinion, we’re not expected or taught how to be good, life-long partners.

Of course this is largely based on my own experiences and opinions of myself. However, other UK people who have been in relationships with Asian women have mentioned that they seem much more marriage-oriented/trained. Mr Iran mentioned this opinion too. I’m not sure how I feel about it. In ways, it seems sexist and racist, but if it promotes the happiness of the people involved and the stability of their children’s lives, who am I to criticise?

I admit to exploding with outrage at the mention of the burkha – to me it’s dramatically unfair that women have to cover themselves up because men can’t control their lusts, and a bit of a slander on men too. I suspect most men can’t control their thoughts and wondering eyes but they can be unobtrusive and wouldn’t act out anything without actual permission and/or encouragement!

(Having said that, I’ve seen a few women in burkhas here. As usual here, the material is beautiful. I can’t help but feel that Indian fashions greatly add to the beauty I perceive here.)

Mr Iran also told me of the uselessness of his country’s internal airlines: reliability and responsibility aren’t their concerns. To paraphrase, ‘So what if you have an international flight booked from Tehran? Our plane’s not flying there today, even if you have booked and paid and there’s no other due until after your international flight’s departed. It’s not our problem!’ So he endured a 7-hour bus ride from his home-town to Tehran. I can forgive a lot after undergoing several bus-journeys here and a few unpleasant long-distance ones in the UK.

He blames most of the problems on the corrupt mullah-ocracy, along with the war with Iraq and the accompanying squander of Iran’s oil-money. Mr Iran is a believer – or at least attends mosque (but not the ritual 5 times a day) and doesn’t have much time at all for people who pretend to Islam purely for financial and political advancement, while not paying the alms Islam demands.* He also says there are far too many such people in his country. Of course money is important to him but it can only be unimportant to really careless, unattached or just offensively rich people!
*which I think are a good idea, as is the idea of fasting so you can learn what it’s like to have no food.

He’s also mentioned how people drink vodka but disguise it by diluting it with water for safety’s sake and how ‘religious’ police can just ‘disappear’ people who break the gender-association and alcohol laws. I described to him, as best I could*, how prohibition in the US had led to the making of the mafia and he seemed to acknowledge a similar process in his country.
*Of course I’m not a US historian and am aware that I could have been talking utter bullshit. Grateful for confirmation, denial and further info from anyone more knowledgeable reading this.

Of course, this is only the opinion of one person but I find it interesting and thought you might too.

All in all, while I’ve been invited to Iran, I don’t think I’ll bother just yet. As a jew-descended, not completely straight, western liberal out-and-out materialist atheist, I think I’d be far from welcome and very unhappy with whatever I saw, without being able to do anything about it.

Hindu excursion
I’ve also had an interesting snippet of conversation with the (Hindu) night manager. He’s a former banker who, being retired but wanting to support his younger son’s cinematographic ambitions, is working here until his son is successful and can support him! (I think he’s around 50 years old.) He also emphasised the lack of social security here when I asked him whether the ‘medal offer’ offer I’ve mentioned earlier was likely to be genuine.

He tried to describe Sikhism to me and Mr Iran (who thought he was talking about ill people), portraying it as an offshoot of Hinduism but basically a peaceful, if strongly militant, set of people. I asked about Mrs Gandhi’s Sikh body-guards shooting her and he told me that it stemmed from Sikh demands for an independent Punjab/Sikh state. Mrs Gandhi refused to allow India to fragment and so ‘was forced’ to deal with the insurrection, based at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. This led to her ‘martyrdom’ for India’s integrity. However, the night manager says that there are now no such problems with Sikhs and so there’s basic communal peace at the moment.

Not sure that’s entirely the case but certainly there’s been no problems that I’ve encountered and so far, it’s all been lovely, while forcing me to think and learn quite a lot.

Since I’ve got a bit of time remaining… according to today’s Times of India,

India can breathe easy on the bird flu front for the time being. All the 11 human samples from Jalgaon, screened for the deadly HN51 bird flu virus, have tested negative.

(snip)

Besides symptoms, all [patients] had handled dead poultry from the infected zone over the past 15 days.

(snip)

‘However we will carry out the most advanced virus culture test to be absolutely sure. This will help us detect any kind of virus present in the human samples, even other than the HN51 virus. This final confirmatory test will take another 10 days.’

Marianne

I have been very tempted to swear at you, then block you from commenting in my journal, or even to end our friendship. However
* this would be beneath me
* it would have no respect for our long-standing friendship
* it would not help resolve the issues.
Instead, I am preparing an email try to explain (and admittedly expiate my anger with you) in the detail that an intelligent human being deserves. However, I am concerned that sending it just now wouldn’t help matters. Please advise me whether you’re ready to receive it.

In the meantime, I rather suspect you would consider it wrong to spoil a fellow HUMAN’s enjoyment of a fairly innocent past-time? If I am right, please understand that you are affecting MY enjoyment of MY OWN blog and act accordingly.

Bruce