84th - South Ex living

Lots of fruit
Morning walks
Life conversations

Yoga lessons

Reading classics

Preparing for Goa

83rd

Lodi gardens for morning walk, here I come!

Edit: now that was far more successful. I finally got all of my movies from Kruttika and didn't get too scammed on the autos. However, I am now already a quarter of an hour late for our office meal to celebrate finishing Dancescapes. And am nowhere near the restaurant.

I finally feel like I can be excited about Goa. Alka has decided that it doesn't matter if I complete the whole essay because I've done so much and she's got so many ideas. Naturally I feel bad as it's not completely finished, but I could plausibly finish it in these last two days.
I also very almost got the money from her to go to Paris for the exhibition that the K S text is for, and that's very exciting!

Edit: am on the way to the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Noida. I've never seen a city being built before. It's quite amazing!

Edit: just went to a stimulating feminist discussion centring around a piece called Record/Resist by Sheba Chharchhi. A few of the people who spoke seemed yo want to reminisce but since the piece was made from photos of protests over twenty years ago, I suppose that is inevitable. The artist made it quite an open discussion by seating us in a circle and asking people to speak at random. Most of these people were feminists invited by her, but the guy next to me who was just a young student was asked, so I became very worried that I would be asked as I had no contribution. As soon as it looked like I wouldn't be asked I immediately thought of some things to add. For instance: that Delhi seems to be an ideal site for feminism as the traditional people who come from the country to the city are brought up so differently to the urban population that it throws up questions as to how the movement can successfully educate despite diversity. Also that things like the separating of women in the metro seems to be reactionary as by splitting up men and women it divides rather than unites the sexes through forced genial interaction. Having a female coach seems to say that women need to be protected by the state as they're not strong enough to look after themselves.

PHOTO EDIT:

Pedestrian bridges in Delhi

The building of Noida

Alka's new house in Noida

Beautiful spiral staircase

The servant's quarters.. crazy.

82nd

It is a very odd feeling, reading and writing about sex all day. It is hard to process. In what way I don't really know. It feels as if you have been looking at the most intimate part of society and then you have to come back to a 'normal' social level to communicate properly. I wonder if this is how philosophers feel most of the time. Spending hours thinking about why things are the way they agree, and then regressing to a more basic state so that they can socialise.

I obviously haven't seen enough of real people this afternoon. My mind is in an unrealistic space that is not conducive to polite conversation. I hope this assignment and research doesn't turn me into some sort of pervert...

Alka isn't, so there's hope there.

Mmmm

Oh my god, that was nice. I just had that 'start of the summer holidays' feeling for some reason. I wish I could bottle it and keep it in a vial around my neck.

This city looks amazing wearing clouds in it's hair.

Edit:

That wasn't very successful. I just tried to get to Friends Colony East to get some movies from Kruttika and ended up right back at Lajpat Nagar station with a burnt roof-of-mouth. I must be muttering awfully as the cycle rickshaw man thought I said defence colony when I said Friends Colony East, and then the Papa Johns man thought I said defence colony when I said buy one get one free. The former resulted in me getting turfed out in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go, the latter in all of the Papa Johns staff laughing at this guy. I know which one was better for me.

First night in Alka's house and Mukul, Mandi and I have just been for a lovely Italian meal. It's nice to have the freedom of drinking at the place of staying and hopefully, as a direct result of this, my appetite for alcohol will decrease.

81st - The Shift

I have finished 'shifting' to Alka's this morning. I thought I'd left my keys at her's the previous night when
I'd dropped off the first of my bags but after getting off at Moolchand and walking the kilometre or so in the blazing morning sun I discovered that it had been in my pocket the whole time. Pretty good joke.
Last night after Izzy left I stuck around in the hotel at Paharganj for a while and got my head together for the move. I took all the photos on the journey back from Paharganj to Govindpuri.

I left my sleeping bag outside the slum and then, being so very English, felt that I was being condescending. I looked this morning though and it has gone from where I left it so hopefully someone is making use of it.

I told the Sikhs I'd probably be back at some point before I leave. They didn't seem so sad to see me go. Probably just happy to get their bedroom back. Thy did take all my details and Raju asked me loads and loads about England as if he was planning to move there next week. We sat around in their bedroom playing games on the computer and listening to Simar snore in the room next door.

4 days of work left. Jesus. Still so much Kama Sutra stuff to write. Alka and I will be working all tomorrow on it at her house. It's Good Friday and another national holiday in the space of three days. We plan to walk around Lodi Gardens and she said she'd teach me the Sun Salutation. Cannot wait to see that.

I have just finished putting all the photos up from the Punjab and after. So worth it.

'Do what is done to you,
hit back if you are hit;
and, in the same way,
if you are kissed, kiss back'

- Vatsyayana advocating the exact opposite message that Gandhi delivered 1,500 years later to the same country

80th - the festival of touching up girls!

Happy happy holi!

Edit - so I have said good bye to my companion and despite the fact that I will see her soon enough I am quite sad. My comfort comes in the fact that Alka has agreed to have me shift to her house tomorrow. I still haven't decided how to tell the Sikhs. They'll need letting down softly.... :)

Holi has been fun, I am going out now to click some of the aftermath.

Edit: post Holi photos

Finished entrance hall to Hare Krishna Guesthouse

What fun times boil down to

Love the guy with the glasses

The best taxi decoration I've seen so far

Coloured folks at Rajiv Chowk metro station

Swinging drums (thankfully obscuring naked slum child)

Too much Holi fun. Nap time

Pigment stall

Outside the Sikh residence

79th back in the Ganj

It's been a hectic evening.
Izzy has fallen out with the Sikhs majorly and we have left the house so that she can catch her train.
The first plan was to go and watch a film at PVR Saket but unfortunately the film isn't even out yet. Mira Nair must have been talking about Salaam Bombay not the Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Izzy asked if she could get a lift with Raju to the station and he said that was cool. So we ate dinner at the diner and were expecting to watch the Holi celebrations at IHC until Raju text Izzy again saying 'which station?'. When she told him it was New Delhi he told her he couldn't because it was too far. So bad. The metro isn't open until 2 tomorrow, 15 minutes after she has to be on the train. Her sensible nature took it pretty badly as she had to pack etc. So we left stat and headed back to Govindpuri to pack.
Only auntie was there but even she wasn't being helpful. She asked for 750 rs from Izzy for the Punjab trip and Izzy explained that she already had 600 from when she offended her with the tip. It didn't get through to her so we enlisted Preeti's help on the phone. Izzy was crying and Auntie was not letting up and kept demanding money and making more excuses so Preeti told us just to leave and that she'd sort it out. I'm so glad Preeti is Punjabi.
So now we're in Paharganj in my favourite guesthouse and we both feel quite free and lovely. All of the guys here treated us so well: found my old passport and visa photocopies because I didn't bring them with me, gave me WiFi until I could pay in the morning, gave us the best room they had at a good price and were all smiles. I have almost forgotten why I left in the first place.
In other news, all of the Dancescapes errors have been sorted so I can feel a little more proud of it. Holi is happening tomorrow and I have my old holi-ed converses with me so that they can get dyed a new colour and I might repair them so that I can get a few more years out of them in their new shade.

Some photos I haven't been able to add because they're on the tablet:

That same cute Asian child

Standard metro guy

Another standard metro guy

On the roof in the Punjab after being woken up by the children

Walking in the Punjab

Sidak and I in the Punjab

Candy in a hand pump basin in the Punjab

Sugar cane drink. He's about to run those canes through the mangler

Edit: photos from the camera

Early Holi fun

Early Holi not quite so

All of these stall popped up a few days ago selling water guns and balloons and pigment for Holi

Pre-empting celebrations

At the Diner

English movies? Not Hindi?! Wow.