Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Soggy update time

Greetings all. What a strange day it has been.
First the church across the back seemed to be having Christmas karaoke at about 7am, then some bagpipes started up. I gave up and had brekky then headed to the pool. In the house today we only have 1 car and driver, so I had to send Prem back so that Carmen could go out. As I wandered down to the pool the attendant rushed up to tell me that the pool was closed as the water was too dirty. Of course Prem was long gone by now, so I got an auto rickshaw (3 wheeler) to take me back home. Home... now it is a very hard place to find. It is in a colony and the roads probably all make sense if you have lived there for 15 years, but as far as I am concerned it is a rabbit warren that confuses the hell out of me. Made it as far as the village shops then had to give up, jump out of the auto and wait for someone to come rescue me. How useless.
Was going to get a hairdo but the local shopping area is closed on Tuesdays (Delhi shopping areas close 'zone-wise' as they like to say). So that's 2 jobs today I failed to do!
Robin rang and we played phone ping pong again for an hour. They were getting ready to leave Tuting for a place called Miging, then on to Machuka in a week. He told me that the phone system in Arunchal Pradesh is only switched on for out of state calls for 1 hour a day, and of course the system is jammed. Which explains why it is such a nightmare. Doesn't explain why I get crossed lines though.
The weather in AP has been really wet and cloudy, and I didn't like telling him that the satellite shows more of the same. Hopefully the jetstream will move a little and it will clear in a week or so. He had some dodgy momos last night and was feeling pretty crook this morning when he rang, so fingers crossed he feels better soon. I won't get to talk to him for maybe another week, but if you would like to send a message for me to quickly yell to him on the phone just send it in the comments bit here. He would leave to hear from you - whoever you are!
I have just polished off more grilled cheese on toast and am waiting for a driver to appear cos I might go hit a mall this afternoon.
And on news just to hand.. India has had its own Maoist problem, the Naxalites for many years now. They are in states like Bihar and Chattisgahr, and are fighting for the usual Maoist reasons, just like our acquaintances in Nepal were. This morning the Naxals launched an attack on an army bunker just as a patrol returned at about 6am, and at least 70 members of the Indian armed forces were killed. The scenes on TV were horrible. And this is why, in some part, the Indians are so nervous about their borders, as many of these crooks just come and go between India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Burma whenever they please.
Here's a link to a good map of India so you can see what is where:
http://www.studentsoftheworld.info/sites/country/8165.php
And in equally shocking news, a mob in West Bengal (Kolkata is the capital) beat a man to DEATH because they believed he had been stealing motor scooters and bicycles. They tied him to a lamp post and beat him with canes and metal rods. All this was filmed - it lasted for half an hour before police 'intervened' and took the poor sod to hospital where he later died. This kind of stuff happens every week over here, especially in medium sized towns where people have no faith in the police or justice system. I doubt that it would happen in New Delhi, but I wouldn't guarantee it.
Sorry that wasn't very uplifting, but that I'm afraid is life in a country of over 1 billion people.
And some of those billion own shops I need to look at. SOON!

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