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

Well, back to blogging after wasting far too much time on a certain issue. I would say more about it but for now ‘least said, soonest mended’. (However, I’m intrigued that certain comments and my reactions to them have disappeared from MY journal when I certainly didn’t delete them.)

Apart from this, yesterday and the day before have been two of the most idyllic in India and possibly in my life.

Sunday 19th
I’m getting a bit confused here because I appear to have already blogged about this day. However, my diary is as follows:
A dreadfully lazy day after waking up at 5.30. Eventually the Korean (Jae Jung) and I crawled to cyber highway where I spent ages on my blog…

Back to the hotel – no electricity. I read it’s because the Maharashtra state electricity company is broke. Other states are charging it more than it can afford for electricity supplies, so there are regular power cuts from 8.30am to 10am and from 3pm to 4.30pm. The company wants to raise prices but so far the state legislature has resisted this.

You may also have heard that there’s been a lot of chicken deaths here. (However, there is also a big propaganda campaign extolling the safety of chickens and eggs.) Bird flu is highly suspected but the most recent deaths may well have been caused by a chicken speculator keeping his birds in terrible conditions. In another case, a farmer has been arrested for refusing to co-operate with the state apparatus who want to find out why his birds died. There is an awful lot of culling happening and about to happen. (I’m omitting a bit here for fear of causing further upset. However if anyone wants to know, you’re welcome to contact me privately. )

Once power was restored, I watched the last hour’s play. England had achieved 400 runs in their first innings but so far India had only got 89 runs for 3 wickets. I read later that a star Indian batsman was booed off the pitch after failing to score well in this innings. There’s been a lot of furore in the media about this. Personally, I admire anyone who has the strength to do anything active in the full heat of the Indian sun.

By the way, this test match is being played in ‘Wankhede’ stadium. I’m sure you can imagine how I want to pronounce that!

At every break between overs, there’s an advert for a skin-lightening cosmetic which is portrayed as making its male users more sexually attractive to women. Even if Indian women really do generally find lighter skin tones more sexually attractive, I find the inherent racism in this advert rather disturbing and annoying. I’d have hoped for better here but watching other adverts seems to show most seem to use actors who are much lighter than the average skin-tone here.

During most of this session I was trying to explain cricket to the Iranian (name omitted to protect the ‘guilty’). It’s one thing to explain the basic mechanics but entirely another to try to explain the finesses and mental challenges of the game, especially when my grasp of it all is fairly weak.

Afterwards, Mr Iran, Jae Jung and I went out in search of a parade that Mr Iran had heard of because it was supposed to feature elephants. We found a solitary camel, despite the main drag being closed to cars. Mr Iran also asked a policewoman if he could photograph her but she refused. We then encountered two more Iranians, with whom Mr Iran spoke in a mixture of Persian and French – and I found that my grammar-school French is incomprehensible to francophone Iranians. I’m a bit saddened by this because in first year at St Andrews I was told by a third-year French student that my French was good.

Mr Iran also told the other Iranians of his adventures in the red-light zone and off they scampered. On the way back to the hotel, he took surreptitious pictures of women passing by and then persuaded Jae Jung to distract the policewoman so he could photograph her. This was really stupid because there were many police about, most armed with lathis (3-foot long wooden truncheons). I could see this was stupid, despite being still drunk from the single beer I’d necked earlier (admittedly on an empty stomach). I made my excuses and went back to the hotel to eat and write this. (And yes, I did omit a certain experiment – sorry to all who were looking forward to it.)

The beer garden here is packed with young-ish folk (mostly male), eating and drinking. I feel rather out of place because I’m the only non-India here, I’m bearded, have long-ish hair (almost a mullet) and am wearing a psychedelic tee-shirt. This combination prompted a local to offer me some ganga on the way back to the hotel but again I declined. Beer, tiredness, heat and hunger were enough and I didn’t need to be stoned or in legal trouble. Good-night all!

Monday 20th
Slept dreadfully last night because Mr Iranian kept his bloody fan on full-blast all night in the room next to me. The rooms are separated by wooden partitions which have no ceilings apart from the overall room ceiling, several feet above the tops of the walls. When I’m asleep, I padlock my valuables inside my rucsac and then padlock that to a heavy wooden table. My passport and money are in a shoulder-wallet worn under my shirt, so unless I’m actually attacked, most of my kit should be safe. It’s all insured anyway, not that I’ve ever had any success with insurance claims.

Spent the rest of the day watching the Indian 1st innings. I’d missed Sachin Tendulkar’s unpopular dismissal and was rooting (not in the Australian sense) for Dhoni (the Indian Wicket keeper) to make at least 50 so that there’d be a closer match. He got to 62, including three magnificent consecutive fours before being run out very controversially at the next ball. David Gower and Michael Atherton (two former top English cricketers) were convinced he shouldn’t have been out and explained why by quoting from the Laws of the game. Also, there’s some controversy over the big-screen running replays of the run-out before the 3rd umpire could make up his mind.

After this, I slept through the afternoon power cut and then watched more cricket. By this time, India had finished their first innings for 279 all out and England’s opener, Andrew Strauss, had already been out for 4 runs. However, since he scored 128 in the first innings, I can’t fault him and so today and tomorrow may provide the close match I’m hankering after.

After this, I spent far too long at the cyber cafe. It’s only costing 20 rupees (30 UK pence) an hour but I wonder how the place affords its kit. I’ve checked on the price of iPods here and they’re comparable with UK apple-store prices, so I imagine other kit costs folk here just as much as it would in the UK.!

Monday 20th part 2: Help!
On the way back into the hotel, the night-watchman asked me if I wanted to buy his Air-Force medals. He’s supporting a large family on a low wage. What do you think I should do? It may help you to know

• He’s asking 1800 rupees for whatever he’s selling. This is around 25 pounds.
• I have 2700 rupees in my wallet, along with over 800 UK pounds’ of travellers cheques.
• I’ve already spent somewhat significantly more than my budget for the time I’ve been here and need to curb my spending, especially as I have no overall income. However, were I employed (and I expect to be fairly soon after I return to the UK), I could easily afford it. (This amount would be about the same as the cost of two or three cellar-bar sessions.)
• I often buy The Big Issue because ‘it’s working, not begging’ and I do have qualms about simply giving hand-outs to beggars. (Having said this, if I have any coins in my pocket, I will give these out because they mean almost nothing to me but will buy the beggar a roti or two, enough to keep them alive for a day. (Why do I feel horribly smug when I re-read this?)
• If I buy a newspaper or similar from a street vendor who obviously lives on the street and pay with a 10-rupee note, I’ll usually tell them to keep the change.
• In general, I disapprove of armed forces. Buying the medals might seem as if I do. This man has seen action in various wars, most of which (if I have understood what he says and have recalled correctly) were fairly pointless and stupid. In general, the ongoing disagreement between India and Pakistan and its ramifications is REALLY annoying and quite scary.
• In general, I disapprove of a state ignoring its more unfortunate citizens and am concerned that private hand-outs might encourage this.
• I’ve been very comfortable at this hotel and am quite keen to tip. Similarly, I’m happy to reward a night-watchman who helps keep my stuff safe.
• I have no use or desire for any Indian Air-Force medals, except to pass on to military historians or collectors.

I’d very much appreciate any answers you have by this evening (10pm Indian time, which is 5.30pm UK time) because I told him I’d think about it and let him know tonight. If anyone reading this does want them, then I’m very happy to buy them on your behalf in return for appropriate recompense.

After this, I talked with the Iranian for a while and tried to ask him silverwhistle’s question but didn’t get anywhere. I did get a lesson in Persian (Farsi?) characters so it wasn’t a waste of time and, as usual, it’s useful to learn about my limitations, no matter how galling they may be at the time.

Tuesday 21st
Another abysmal night’s sleep, followed by another marathon cyber-cafe session! Thereafter back to the cricket!

EDIT
As of 2pm UK time (7.30pm here), I’ve had one response so far – thanks to the responder. I appreciate most of you are several hours from being able to respond. I have to admit to having snuck past the guard on my way to the cyber-cafe this evening.

I’ve also been pondering my reaction to plights here in comparison to my response to people in the UK who aren’t eligible for state support. I’m aware there is a contradiction in one important case and am not pleased with my inability so far to achieve a satisfactory resolution to this. I have thoughts about what I might do but this dis-satisfaction remains at least at the back of my mind, festering along with many other related issues.

Saturday 18th/Mughal’s revenge part 2
I finished blogging yesterday once my trousers had dried – then sat on the mall steps and read a newspaper until I remembered that I had promised a friend a favour. This involved asking someone else for something, so I went back into the cafe to email them. As I was doing so, I felt another blast of gastric pain.

The cafe-owner noticed and asked me if I had a problem, then gave me three pepto-bismol tablets. This was very generous, since they’re not available in India. (He stocks up when he travels abroad.) They dealt with the pain almost instantaneously and I’m hugely grateful to Mr Cyber-cafe. (I offered to take some of his business cards to my hotel as a way of saying thank-you but they seem to have evaporated from my wallet last night! I am going to recommend this place is included in future editions of my guide-book. For anyone who’s coming to Pune in the near future, it’s “Cyber Highway”, shop No 8, Legacy Plaza, 313 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Pune 411001.

After this I went back to my hotel and watched some of the cricket. (Annoyed with Pieterson for throwing away his wicket. However, by close of play, England had made 279 so have a reasonable chance of squaring the series.) This was interrupted by powercuts, so not a perfect day’s viewing: maybe I should have stayed in Mumbai. I filled in the time trying to learn Devanagri script. It’s horrible: there are dipthong/consonant conjunctions for every combination of simple letters, so there are effectively over 200 symbols.

I ate some jeera rice (fried rice with cumin seed) and poppadoms and drank lots of bottled water, followed by a large Foster’s lager, then went for a walk around the Laxmi Road area to watch the festivities for Chatrapati Shivaji’s birthday. I’m kicking myself for not taking my camera but I was scared of pickpockets or being mugged as a rich westerner: part of Laxmi Road is the local red-light district. Lots of sound-systems, marching brass-and-drum bands in fantastic uniforms, lorry-based floats moving slowly along the street: fantastic and I’m very sorry I can’t share it with you visually.

Today, now that the dairy products have passed through me, I feel hungry but fine. I’m pretty sure that the past 10 years’ near-abstinence from dairy has caused my gut flora to evolve/change so that they can’t deal with dairy products. (Well, that’s my current theory.) I’ll test this tonight by eating at the place I had the ‘paneer overdose’ but insisting on a purely vegetable meal: results, no matter how embarrassing for my stance, will be posted as soon as I get off the bog and on with the blog!

Sunday 19th
A very pleasant morning. Drank chai with a Korean and an Iranian and learnt a little about both places. The Iranian is about to start his doctorate in civil engineering here. I’m not sure whether he hankers after pre-Khomeni days but he’s certainly not impressed by Ahmin-wots-his-face’s current antics. He also reckons that Iran is very close to getting nuclear weapons and when they do, it’s good-bye to Israel. (He didn’t appear to be in favour of this, just stating his view of what is likely to happen.) I think you can understand why this made my blood run cold…

However, I have to say Mr Iranian is a bit of a chancer: he has a wife and girlfriend in Iran, both of whom told him to be a good boy. Er, no, he’s had a very nice time, thank you, on Laxmi Road, then tried to pay in US dollars, and got chased back to the hotel by 2 taxi drivers who wanted their rupees!

Hooray! my email account is no longer treating a friend as a spam artiste!

Once I’ve finished here, it’s back to the hotel for more cricket-goggling.!

Thursday 16th part 2
Foraging: totally yummy alu methi and parathas with to-die-for home-made lime pickle then watermelon juice, followed by sugary fennel sweets to cleanse the palate at at street-cafe (“Uncle Dev’s pure veg”) at the corner of Vinod Pathak (aka One Church) road and Connaught Road, just across from the GPO. Very welcome after a day of getting hopelessly lost and the hotel needing to re-check my passport!

Friday 17th
achieved a few of my objectives today:

• a long internet session, including checking up whether I’d upset a friend (fortunately no) and on my internet banking. This place has to be the best cybercafe I’ve seen in India: clean and nicely designed, modern-ish machines running Windows 2000, camera-card readers, headphones, webcams, decent monitors and keyboards
• bought a decent streetmap of Pune. It has the former, British, street names and not a hint of Marathi but is geographically accurate.
• drank two very welcome mango juices at a roadside stall
• bought an idiot’s guide to Hindi (most folk here don’t speak it but Marathi uses the same script so eventually I should be able to read roadsigns). I can now read Devanagari script numerals, having learnt them from platform/stance signs at a bus station.
• got to the tribal museum my guidebook had recommended, and met the director thereof (and of the research institute it’s part of). He seems a very decent chap and I was happy to meet him later to be taken to his museum shop – it’s in a south-eastern suburb and I’d have never found it on my own. Quite a fun ride on the back of his scooter there and back. The research foundation seems a very worthwhile thing, as does the shop, enabling tribesfolk to enter into commerce selling ‘traditional’ paintings and other crafts. I’m not quite sure that introducing them to capitalism (another of my bug-bears) is a good thing but if they’re already in its grip (and there are signs that some are being ripped off horribly by local government officials), then any funds that reach them will be welcome. I’ve bought some books and cards, most of which will probably end up as presents!
• some magnificent contrasts that help define India to me:
  • coming out of the museum, I was dogged by a gaggle of kids demanding 50 rupees! When I refused, a couple acted as if they were mad, presumably to garner sympathy for their affliction.
  • Then, just outside my hotel, I passed a skip. In it, a bloke was raking therough its highly potent organic contents for useful stuff.
  • Next, at my hotel, I sat on the verandah and a waiter just came over and sliced the melon I’d bought from a roadside stall. Amazing service for around 3 UK pounds a night!
• I’ve just spoken to the HIV-counselling person whose colleague I met on the bus to Pune. She’s on a teaching break just now and so has asked me to call her next Friday. I don’t know for sure if this is where I’ll fit but there’s no harm in finding out. Looks like I’ll be in and around Pune for longer than I’d originally thought. However, despite (or maybe because) seeming London-with-chappatis (there’s KFC, Pizza Express and bloody McDonalds!!!), I’m getting to like it.
• hotel washed my very manky clothes for 100 rupees.
• bought 3 collared shirts for 400 rupees. Wearing these and smart-ish trousers makes me feel for comfortable, not least because it’s what most blokes I’ve seen in India wear. I couldn’t wear the other ‘uniform’ (a nehru cap, long shirt and lunghi) without feeling an utter tosser.
• finally braved my hotel’s shower after discovering that if I let it run long enough, the water goes from freezing to tepid. Oh the joys of wearing clean clothes on a clean body!
• Back to Uncle Dev’s for food (paneer ghungroo and methi/radish parathas). I also bought half a kg of the afore-mentioned lime pickle. More crowd-watching – even saw a local skin-head! The owner/manager talked with me a bit about foreign news, especially the latest US attack on Samarra in Iraq. He showed me yesterday’s (i.e Thursday 16th’s) Marathi newspaper: of course I couldn’t read it but the pictures of bloody bodies were enough to make me feel ill. (Reading about it in the BBC news pages: it’s a propaganda op with fortunately few casualties so far. I wish I’d been able to tell whether the newspaper pictures were from this op or simply library/stock photos.)

Saturday 18th so far

• very poor sleep because the bloke next to me kept his fan on full blast all night.
• powercut 8.30 to 10 am due to lack of fuel, which makes the US-India nuclear fuel deal that bit more understandable. (While India hasn’t signed the non-proliferation treaty and so can’t normally be supplied with fuel, it can if this will prevent fuel-starved reactors from doing bad things. Can anyone who understands nuclear physics please comment on the science behind this?)
• Visited the hotel toilet twice: not so much mughal’s revenge as mughal’s delayed-action annoyance!
• Along with the powercut, there was a lack of water in the system. Once I’m done here, I’m going back for a shower.
• Came here to check on various stuff and blog. Very glad I brought my toilet paper. The cafe’s in a modern mall which has a sit-down toilet. I had to clean the seat first because someone had stood on it but now I understand why – there’s a dripping tap at low level and I now look as if I’ve pissed down my left trouser-leg. Currently sitting on newspaper (and a ply-bag to protect the cafe’s chair), hoping that it will absorb the more unfortunately-positioned damp patches and imagining you buggers laughing at me. Not going to move from here until it’s dry! I thought that after this my guts would calm down but the gastric pain has just come back for another round.

Mughal’s revenge?
I’ve realised that I can’t be strictly vegan here without major issues that I don’t want to face. (I was also advised this by another vegan friend who has spent a couple of years living in India: during this time he relaxed his code.)

• Unless I insist on ‘kala chai’ or ‘mahin dudh’ and the facilities are available, chai automatically has milk. On trains, the chai-wallahs carry flasks of hot, milky water which they dispense into paper cups with tetley tea-bags. I’m not keep on buying drinking-water in plastic containers for obvious reasons and because the bottles are known to be re-filled with yucky tap-water by unscrupulous operators. I did buy some this morning now in the hope that this will help me get through the current problem.
• Where I can, I’ll have rotis but Uncle Dev told me that they only had parathas (buttery flat-breads) available. I was hungry and in no mood to haggle or search for elsewhere and am reasonably convinced that cows here are treated with some respect. (Who’s going to deliberately damage their beasts-of-burden? Despite being a modern city, there are plenty of bullock-carts here?)

So last night I ate Uncle Dev’s recommendation of paneer ghungroo (cheese in a spicy gravy) with methi-stuffed parathas. However, I’m hoping that my gut flora not knowing what to do with this heavy lactose meal is the cause of my digestive problems. I’ll avoid paneer from now on and eat just rice tonight in the hope that this cleans out my system. Meanwhile, I’m very glad I don’t go anywhere without my rapidly diminishing stock of bog-roll and am not looking forward to using newspaper when it runs out!

None of the above stops me from believing that I should return to eating a fully vegan diet in the UK, for all the practical and compassion-based reasons that kept me vegan(-ish) in the past, hopefully avoiding the ‘ish-ness’. I’d appreciate any help with staying on the straight and narrow you lot would care to offer.

Susan’s received a letter from Morrisons. Inter alia, they

• acknowledge that there were serious errors in the way the original issue was handled
• to achieve Susan’s request for ‘justice’ as the outcome of the grievance proceedure, offer reinstatement to her former position from Monday 6 March 2006, including full back pay between the period of the alleged resignation to the reinstatement (subject to the usual tax and NI contributions).
• Once Susan has accepted the offer, she will then need to contact the Personnel Manager at the store where she’s employed at the earliest possible opportunity with regard to her re-commencement there.

Susan’s contacted the branch where she worked to find out when she should restart work, only to learn they’re still waiting for their head office to arrange the start date.

OK, so last time I blogged, I was in Aurangabad. Yesterday I bounced on a bus for 5 hours to travel the 227 km to Pune (Poona). It’s the most westernised city I’ve seen yet, a place where the British imprisoned Mahatma Gandhi and his wife (she died during this imprisomenet) and where you’ll see young women in western gear (jeans and short-sleeved tee-shirts), riding scooters and motor-bikes but wearing full-on scarves covering all but their eyes. Some of them were walking so I presume the scarves aren’t just about avoiding inhaling exhaust fumes. Still, there’s enough young ladies in sarees (with accompanying naked midriffs and figure-hugging vests) to keep my swonnicles revolving at a vast rate.

Here’s some updates and diary extracts about what I got up to in and around Aurangabad.
Friday 10th
very bumpy bus to AJanta caves.
straw hut in fields
rained last night
villages/newspaper (no idea what I meant by this)
urea distribution centre
wheat-growing, green and lush, many trees
pass through Shillod, a big market town
fields of sunflowers
RAIN!
caves so beautiful I could cry
squirrels, then floor alive with ants picking up my crumbs

TAKE 2
having been told by the hotel boss that a bus journey to Ajanta would take 4 hours each ay, involving lots of stops, I’m still glad I saved the 1500 rupees (over 2 UKpounds) for the taxi-tour he offered. The bus cost 69 rupees each way, then tour bus to amenity site cost 6Rs, entry to amenities cost 5Rs and entry to the actual caves cost 250Rs. Just as I bought this ticket, the heavens opened. There was a lot fo pressre to hire services, for example, one guy kept on at me for 10 minutes, insisting I should hire him to carry my shoes (since you need to take them off to go into each cave). hen he finally got the message that when I said ‘No’, I meant it, he then asked for a hand-out – appparently for being so good at being annoying.

Again, just as Hans (an american I’m rooming with in Aurangabad – we met up in Mumbai on Elephanta Island)and I were about to leave, the heavens opened again. During this, we were subjected to intense sales pressure. I realy need to learn how to say ‘fuck off and shove your souvineers (which are too heavy and far from unique, so if I should want them, I’ll buy them at the end of my travels) right up your arse’.

Having said that, the caves themselves were superb – I hope my photos will do them justice. It was also interestign to see a wee boy in ear-rings. His parents like him to to decorated but will take them out when he goes to school. (I’m sure he was a boy: his dad’s english was fine and I saw the boy being changed after an ‘accident’.)

I washd some clothes by hand last night. Just now looking for peace before going to Ellora and Dalautabad tomorrow.

Saturday 11th
woke too late to do too much. Bus to Dalautabad (huge hill-top fortress, involving a dark passage). There’s a big military area to the soth-east of Aurangabad. It’s a busy city with many touting for business.

Panchakki (ancient water-heel/aqueduct)

Bibi-ka-thingy (can’t remember)

Sunday 12th
Ellora – the only thing going through my mind is a Marilyn Manson lyric (maybe from Fight song): I can’t believe in a god that doesn’t exist.

Met a young woman called Padmashree – she was dressed fashionably (t-shirt and decorated jeans) and told me she had trained as an ayrvedic doctor but was now taking civil service entrance exams. She told me tht most Indian folk visiting Ellora are newly-weds: hence the magnificent sarees. Otherwise, women generally wear shalwar chemise (as her colleague was) or western gear like her. (Two thoughts: [1] I wish I’d had the nerve to ask to photograph them. [2] I’m a dirty old man!)

At least two groups of people asked me to be in their souvineer snaps. I think they just wanted proof they’d encountered a random westerner on their travels.

Monday 13th
calculated hotel bill (I’ll been putting all my meals and internet use on the bill without thinking about it. In the end the 3 nights plus meals came to 1200Rs [under 20 UKpounds])

Humans suck and I’m human
For the first time in my supposedly adult life, I paid money to see caged-up animals. I’d rationalised to myself that I wanted to see how bad Aurangabad’s zoo was – and it was bad. After a few enclosures of tired-looking deer, a very sad solitary monkey and a rather dilapidated reptile-house, I encountered the elephant enclosure. There were listless adult elephants, not only trapped intot heir enclosure but chained by their left front ankles. One was listlessly swinging his chained leg, as if he hadn’t quite given up hope of escaping his captivity (or a reflex from when that hpe was real) or maybe just trying to vary the sensation. There was apparently no food or water within reach and this is an actively maintained zoo. I escaped past other enclosures containing two tigers, to angry with myself to cry.

[In answer to someone who asked why I don’t like homo sapiens, this is a major part of the reason: we’re the only species who lock up and abuse other species for our own AMUSEMENT. Other animals do what they need to survive and/or pass on their own genome (hence there is ‘murder’ in other species). They’ll eat everything in site, causing problems for other species and being hunted and eaten can’t be anything but terrible. However no other species will be as deliberately barbaric as I witnessed and became part of today.]

I’d paid to see this torture; I’d paid over 500 rupes to go into temples of religions in which I actively disbelieve. And yet I’d refused to give naythign to a filthy woman who was carrying a naked child and previously only given a satsuma apiece to three kids who were frantically gabbing at the bag they were in and turned down the offer of smoking a chillum ith a baba I’d passed in the road. Yet again I feel stupid and evil.

Meal at Pravanth – 100 rupees for thali preceeded by idli and limca YUM!

4.30 bus to Jalna – just make it as it moves off but others stop it t get on as it leaves the bus station. Downtown Aurangabad is full of big cars but still shit roads. My arse is going to hate me. 63km with my rucsac bouncing on my groin.

passed pulse research centre. In Jalna, stayed at hotel Siri Monmadevi (02482 232193/237629). Room was 200Rs but I was offered a massage for 2000 and, feeling rather sore from the journey, took up the offer. Afterwards, granny karate on TV and England lost the second test – hah!.

Tuesday 14th
bumpiest bus-ride yet to S… Raja, passed a religious procession. No-one speaks English or Hindi here. Then shared landrover to Lonar village, then on back of motorbike to top of crater. (The driver wouldn’t let me hold him, for fear of ridicule so this was very hairy!)

Wow, I hope the photos of Lonar do it justice. Me a local guy called Ramesh. He’s a farmer, tour-guide and singer (he demonstrated the latter and has a lovely voice). He took me aroudn the crater to all the temples, explaining a bit about the different gods/aspects that have been worshipped there for many centuries. He also took me to a lovely spring where we washed out feet, hair and bodies and I refiled my water-bottle.

He then took me by bus (it was so crowded we sat in the cab – I as on the engine) to his family farm. He grows wheat, chillis, onions and mangoes. He also took me to his family home where his mum made me a glass of black chai
and huge amounts of family arrived to meet the stranger.

If you’re looking for a guide to Lonar crater, contact Ramesh Saviram Rathole, Taluka Lonar, District Bulphama 07260 21608 or 221113.

We bussed back to Lonar village, ariving just before 6pm. There was no bus back to Jalna until after 7pm, so we jumped into a shared landrover to Sultanpur, from where there should have been regular busses to Jalna. Sipping mango lassi in the evening sun with a new friend was just perfect. There weren’t any buses to Jalna, so after dark (7.30), Ramesh got me a lift on a lorry. Cue 3 hours of bouncing, Indian road madness and fear. At least we avoided the morning’s completely unmade roads but around a a third of the journey was on the wrong side fo the road to avoid potholes. For this journey I paid 50 rupees (plus another 20) for an autorickshaw to Jalna’s bus station so I could find my hotel). I gave Ramesh 500 so am now down to 150 rupees. Morals of the story: don’t have expensive massages and don’t travel without all my kit – there was a bus from Sultanpur to Aurangabad so I could have got to an ATM and food!

Back in Jalna, there were fires in the streets and much pinkness – it’s Holi!!

Wednesday 15th
woke to sounds of children playing around 9.20. Put clean clothes on my manky body. Runto bus station, forgotten my lock, so run back to hotel , collect it then run back. Bus still there. Woman conductor wearing uniform shirt over pink shalwar chemise and blue headscarf.

Autorickshaw to station, visit ATM. Get painted for Holi by some lads who are wonderign along the road. Take 2pm ‘semi-luxury’ (i.e. softer seats) coach to Pune. We do 60 km in 1 hour then get a 20 minute comfort break at a ‘service station’. Somewhere along the road, we pass a circular tower of turds. On the bus, I’m sat next to a women who works at a hospital, counselling HIV patients. She gives me their office number when I say I’m looking for something to do with the rest of my currently useless life.

In the evening, I get a kingfisher lager with my food – in the ‘Grand’ hotel’s beer garden. (The room is a lockable partition in the building. The walls don’t reac the ceiling so I’m very glad I brought a chain and so can padlock my kit to the bed, as well as ensuring it can’t be opened. However, I get the feelign this is an un-necessary precaution.)

Thursday 16th
book into my hotel for tonight so I cn spend today in Pune, checking on the outside world (and hearing that a friend’s emplyers have let her down – grrr!), sorting my onward travel and maybe doing some tourism stuff. Both the map in in guide and the one given by the hotel are crap and I get hopelessly lost ont he way to the bus station. I eventually find it but can’t navigate from there to the cyber-cafe I’m after (I find the right road but there’s no sign of it, just a closed Apple dealership) so ask an autorickshaw driver to take me to the nearest. I’m currently in the nort-east of the main city, a bit too close to Bhagwan Rajneesh’s mega-bucks ashram fr comfort. I think I need to buy some shirts because mine ae all sun-bleached and scruffy, wash some clothes and get out of here.!.

See you later spacecats.

(Well, “Aurangabad” does scan a bit like “awimawey”…)

OK, so I’m just now in the hotel Shree Maya in Aurangabad. I’ll probably be here 3 nights so I can visit various cave-temples and then move on to Lonar. At the moment I’m travelling with a chap called Hans from Colorado. After here, he’s heading north while I head south.

Hotel is comfortable and the room has an en-suite with sit-down toilet – far too luxurious except that I have a horrible feeling I might need it quite often – time to go!!!