Driving to Breakfast

Driving in India, 101

I wonder if I should even be writing about this to you.  I know after you read this you will kindly, and maybe even urgently, advise me to stop this silly nonsense of driving in India.  But alas you also know I will most likely continue to ride the roads.

So it’s like this:  In the West we drive on the right side.  In India they drive on the left.  But in Barmer, a special sub-section of India, they drive in the middle!  It’s easy to understand why. For the most part the culture here in Barmer, as I’ve noted before, is still caught in a pre-technology past. The road/path ways of those times did not have lines down the middle or any right of way considerations.  Everyone walked or drove their carts down the middle of the path and passed when necessary. All shared the road.  And so you still see this kind of behaviour here.  People will walk in the middle of the road while motor cycles, cars and busses zip by and around them.  Even where there are road dividers for the left and right, you always have to pay attention to what is coming at you.  You don’t have a “side of the road right of way”.  You don’t have any right of way.  This is not the same in the larger cities like Delhi, although you do find some of the same “discrepancies” there as well form time to time. In any case what I have discovered about driving here, which has been difficult for me to absorb, is that you only have to be concerned with what is in front of you or to your left. Again, this rule is not always practiced, but it generally works. Ok let’s say you are on a side street and you come to an intersection (no stop signs here to be concerned about and traffic lights have not yet been invented) and you are turning left, into the left lane.  In this case you just go ahead, you don’t look to the right to see if any traffic are coming at you, you fully expect them to allow you to merge.  No fear.  Well I don’t buy that and I always check to my right, and when there is a potential collision I slow down, which in turn causes the expectation of the other drivers, that I should get right in front of them, to be blown and everyone looks a bit confused and pedestrians wonder what the Krishna is going on. I’m getting better at it but these days, but due to the unusual rain fall we have been having, the roads towards the bottom of the city are about a foot deep in brown sewage water, and this makes navigation very difficult no matter what the rules aren’t. I saw one guy on a motor cycle drive into a hole that he couldn’t see, as it was under the water. Everyone watching cheered.  He was ok, but his bike was totally submerged. There are lots of such holes that are also invisible at the night when the roads are dry.  Ok, then there is turning to the right at an intersection.  This is much more dangerous for everyone. First of all you cut the corner on the right, so that if other vehicles are turning left onto your side road, you are now on the right side of them.  Then you head into oncoming traffic, like a salmon swimming upstream,  until you can find an opening to the left.  If you turned into a divided roadway, then you might have to travel a bit into oncoming traffic until there is an opening. So recall once again why it is you have to pay attention to what is ahead of you.

Rules of size.  Yes, the bigger you are the more status you have on the roads. Hence, if you are driving a large truck or bus you rule.  Only military vehicles take precedence over everyone else.  So I’m driving down the road just outside of Barmer and a truck ahead, coming towards me, is passing a cart.  The truck coming right at me flashes his lights and I am forced to the side shoulder (that is if there is one, or it is not being taken up by a cow or people). This is typical and that’s why you watch for what is in front of you.  So it’s military vehicles, trucks and busses first, and then cars and then motor cycles, followed by bicycles, carts (of all type, ie: camel, oxen, goat, horse, donkey, and humans). At the bottom of the list is people, they have no rights but you don’t want to hit them either.  One great exception to all of the above, never hit a cow. You’d be better off to hit a person than a cow, I have been told this many times, so I have to believe it. Recall, there are more cows in Rajasthan than people.  Maybe that’s because they are less likely to be involved in a traffic accident.

 

Breakfast of Indians

The Sharma’s (Satish [father], Pawan [mother], Supriya [daughter 20yo], Kushboo [daughter 17yo] and Niku [son 11yo] who were my neighbours until recently invited me to breakfast at their new home.  It was rice with assorted vegetables mixed together (including hot chilli peppers) and coffee. I’ve had this before at Vishal’s house and elsewhere. It’s good but I’m not that fond of this for breakfast.  Let’s just call it a cultural difference.  So I invited them for breakfast, Canadian style.  As it was easier for me to go to their house than the lot of them come to me, I packed up bag with all the ingredients I needed and biked over to their house through the sewage lakes (a.k.a. streets).  The typical Canadian breakfast I presented to them was porridge (oats) with slices of mango and bananas and an optional sweet lassie, plus coffee (Indian style). No maple syrup available. I didn’t actually make the breakfast, Pawanji would not let me in her kitchen, so I just gave her instructions on how to make the porridge (with salt and sugar).  I also brought my own bowls and spoons for them as I knew they didn’t have these, so we all sat and ate porridge with cut fruit on top.  Pawanju ate in the kitchen.  They said it was tasty. Oats in Hindi is Javi.

Pass carefully. Driver spits. (that’s another thing to watch for.)

 

 

Bulletin

Bulletin

I went for my first ride on an Enfield Bullet (no I didn’t drive it). I was in Balotra at Vishal’s family home to celebrate his 24th birthday. Vishal gave me a tour of the town on the Bullet.  It’s a heavy bike and sounds like a Harley with it’s deep muffler voice.  As always, me with my Tilley hat being driven around on the bike by an Indian on a Bullet (which is an unusual motorcycle in these parts) made us the parade for the day.

 

Valley View

That night Vishal’s brother Parinit took me out to visit Valley View, a local development project that his younger brother Tarun helps to manage.  Tarun couldn’t take me due to his having jaundice. The development was a collection of neatly spaced octagonal shaped one room little houses that people could buy or rent.  There were several dozens of them all laid out nice and neat.  There was a central meeting place with two pools, one for gents and one for ladies, a restaurant and other facilities. That night there was a draw to entice buyers.  When you purchased a cottage (for about ten thousand CDN) you received a coupon that could win you a prize, like a car, motor cycle, TV and so on.  Lots of people were there and of course a large buffet was being served.  The stage was brightly lit and numbers were being called out identifying the winners.  I had just met the owner of the whole complex when one of his staff asked me to go up on stage and pull some numbers out of the bucket.  So I did. I was introduced to the smiling crowd, and in the mic I said my best Namaste to everyone before I picked out two sets of numbers.  Riding back to the house on the Bullet in the cool night air was absolutely divine.

 

The AC Bill

I got a call from Chanchal who told me that I needed to pay my electric bill. But I didn’t have my electric bill I said. Go get it from the landlord, says she. So off I went to find Sonul my landlord at his shop Krishna Textiles where he gave me the bill which was due today.  If I didn’t pay it now I would have to pay a hefty late penalty. Could he please give me the bill when it comes, I asked, but no, that’s not how it works.  You see when the meter reader comes to the house, he prints out a bill and if you’re not there to take it, he gives it to a neighbour.  The neighbours hold onto it until they remember to give it to the house owner my landlord, who then calls me at the last moment.  The bill was for 7,152 rupees for the past two months of power. (divide by 40 for CDN $)  I didn’t have that amount on me or in my bank account, and VSO India had not paid me my salary yet so I was up the dune without a camel.  So off I went to my bank to draw upon my credit card like I’ve done before.  But alas, today the ATM there decided to refuse my request.  It was very stubborn and ignored me several times. So I went to another bank’s ATM at the train station, which was broken. Even so there was still along line in front of it.  I always check first before getting into lines.  Finally Vishal, who was now into helping me, found another ATM which was working and which recognized my card and so I was able to withdraw 8 grand.  Then off I went to the Chemist shop (that’s where you pay your electric bills) and paid up. That whole process only took four hours.  All in a days work.

Street Cleaning and B-Ball

I found a shovel in the organizations garage and brought it back to my house.  My street has been dirty as there is a house being constructed across form me and the sand and mud has been washing all over the road due to the rivers of rain that come now and then.  So with my trusty rusty shovel I bent over and pulled all the dirt back into a nice pile.  Of course when ever I am out, my neighbours look out to see what I’m up to.  They came out of their houses and smiled (and laughed) at my work.  Meanwhile, I’m thinking that I’m setting a good example of cleanliness. Stop laughing.  So a few hours go by and I hear some kids at my door calling me.  About three young teenage boys are holding a blue basket ball and are asking me to come play with them.  My friend Michael Rosenkrantz in Delhi, an avid, no crazed basket ball fan, who bought a b-ball to play with the slum kids during our in country training days, would never forgive me if I didn’t go play with the boys.  In any case, I wanted to so off I went to the nice clean area right in front of my house.  Oh my, a clean place to play in, see that my good neighbours!  We passed the ball around and soon many other kids came to join the fun.  I made sure the girls had a turn too as the boys were not throwing the ball to them at first.  Later on they started to include them as well. As we were passing the ball, they each started to tell me their names, and slowly pronounce each syllable for me, allowing me to say it aloud.  For one or two of the girls, who I couldn’t pronounce their names, we all just decided to call them Monkey.  Everyone got a kick out of that.  I’ll have to do the name routine many more times before I can remember them all.  For now I’ll just call them all my little monkeys.

 

 

 

Binjrad Music

Our monthly staff meeting is at a campus in the small hamlet of Binjrad.  Several buildings on 5 acres of land about 70 kilometres outside of Barmer, close to the Pakistan border. When there I must register with the local military police as this is a restricted zone for foreigners.  But I did get permission from the Barmer authorities (the Collector) and so it’s a small formality at the station and then I’m cleared to be in the area.  The staff meeting was attended by an assortment of SURE people, all working on different projects. Seven of the 35 in attendance were women. Getting more women on staff is a problem in this area and culture.  At the beginning of the meeting there was some singing and I also played a short tune on my dulcimer. Last month I played Gershwin’s Summertime on my recorder for them.  They’ve never heard the blues here before, or even knew was it was, so it must have been quite an odd sound I played out.  After the main meeting, at about 5:30pm, Jamal came over and started singing and encouraged me to pick up my dulcimer.  Amazingly I discovered he was singing in my key of D and I was able to pick up on the beat and melody as we played and sang together with others joining in for about twenty minutes. No I didn’t sing. Then we figured out another song and another. Jamal took the dulcimer and began to experiment with it, holding it like a Vina (upright like a cello). I ran to my room and got my recorder and soon I was playing along as he began another song, which he tried to teach me to copy and we jammed again for another five minutes before everyone set off for some more meetings.  But what fun to be able to catch on to this new Indian music for me and just enjoy the rhythms of the hot afternoon.

 

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.

Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

- Rumi

 

 

Craig, Eggs and Eating

Craig

Craig Cameron is from Aberdeen, Scotland but he now lives with his wife Lisa and three children in Singapore.  He works for VAM, and is Mohan’s switchover.   That is Craig works for a month here then Mohan comes in for a month and then they switchover. Craig is in his early 40’s and shaves his head bald.  Which makes us look like the odd couple when walking down the street, as my hair has grown quite long and I now have a respectable pony tail out back.

Craig is a kind man and as I told him tonight at our regular beer meet, he’s no trouble maker. Actually I used the word “shit disturber” but I didn’t know if I should use that in the BLOG. We spend a lot of eating times together.  He and I often share lunch of a CTM (chicken tikka masala) with rice, nan bread and a sweet lassie. Actually, we eat that almost every day. And it’s beer for dinner, although Craig has a soft spot for Vodka and Pepsi.

Over the past many weeks we have shared our many stories about our family and travels and the things we have come across in our lives and it’s been a real pleasure to get to know him. I hope one day I can visit both him and Mohan in Singapore, the city where they fine you $250 for spitting.

 

How to Transport Eggs and Make an Omelette

I buy my eggs from a cart vendor on the main street. They cost 3 rupees an egg. At 42 rupees to the CDN dollar, you figure it out.  The vendor puts my usual order of ten eggs into a small black plastic bag and then into another for safe keeping.  I  put the plastic handles of the outer bag around my chin strap of my helmet, allowing the eggs to hang down below my chin.   They transport very safely like this as I manoeuvre in and out and around and up and down in traffic.  Once home I then go into the kitchen and remove my helmet and the eggs fall to the marble floor because I forgot they were there.  This is the second time.  Because they were in a second inside bag the collage inside stayed in place and I managed to pick out all the shells and then make a big omelette with tomatoes, onions and garlic, which I ate over a few meals.

 

What I Eat At Home

Lots of fruit: I always have a watermelon in the fridge along with mangos and sometimes apples and other fruit of the season.  I keep tomatoes and cucumbers and potatoes in the fridge too. Onions and garlic are on the open shelf. I have Poppers, which we call Pappadums, ketchup (of course), Marmite, chutney, rice, soy stuff, and a variety of soups and ready to make noodles packages.  I keep cashews and peanuts to much on.  I have only one can of tuna and one can of sardines left that Craig brought me from Singapore when he came a month ago.  Mohan, who will be returning promised to bring me some canned crabs.  I like to mix these into the noodle packages and also add the veggies to it as well.

I drink lots of water and like to mix this mango drink (Maaza made by Coke) into the water for flavour. When I can find them, I buy these little boxes of Rose Flavoured Lassies which I also mix 50% with water, as they are too thick and sweet on their own. In Barmer they make a special local lassie which is more like thick yellow custard with its own particular spices added.  And then there’s chai and coffee (the powdered kind).  On the street I drink freshly squeezed orange juice (the oranges here are green) and when I can find it, I buy a fresh coconut and drink the water/juice in it.  At weddings, and at restaurants I eat the regular Indian type foods and in the Indian tradition of eating with your right hand only.  It’s messy but think of all the cutlery that doesn’t have to be washed.  Once you eat this way a few times you will understand why all restaurants here have sinks by the entrance/exit. You wash in and you wash out.   And as I mentioned above, I eat CTM and sometimes some mutton or fish. Fish is rarely found in the desert, apparently they have trouble swimming in the sand.

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

 

 

 

 

Rain and My Second Wedding

Rain

It came early this year.  And a lot of it. How much? Let’s just say I don’t live on a street anymore, it’s now a river. During the evening the river was at least six inches deep.  The cows don’t like it.  The garbage flows quickly down the brown mixture. The sewage system is completely over run so we can estimate what the river contains.  I will use a lot of soap when washing tonight.  That is if the power comes back on and I can pump some water for a shower.  My neighbours ran out of water and I allowed them to take some of mine.  Many bucket loads later I noticed my own well was very low.  So here I am in the dark, low on water, using the last of my computer’s battery life, needing a shower, and listening to the thunder and the rain that is leaking into my house through the plastic over my roof hole. Add to the image two candles weakly burning on a shelf very dimly.

If only I could use the roof as a catch basin, I could have filled the water tank by now.

 

My Second Wedding

The young man next door is married now. I was invited to various parts of the week long wedding, much of which was unfortunately cancelled due to sand, wind, rain and lightening storms.  But this night I got dressed up in my fancy kurta, actually my only kurta, and my beige linen pants that I had custom made for me in Delhi and went to the feast. I went along with the family on the other side of my house, who I have befriended.  They reminded me that I needed to give the married couple a gift, which is between 50 to 100 rupees in a nice envelope.  The envelope matters and I had to run off to a local shop to get nice one. I gave 100 rupees: admission price. So off we walked just down the street (now a street again now that the water is gone) to a hall off a side street. We walked into the first floor area where the food was being prepared.  It was black with black cooking utensils, pots and pans and people sitting on the ground cooking or making chapattis. And by the way, a roti and a chapattis are the same thing, so I learnt today. Up the stairs to the second story where hundreds of very nicely dressed men, women and children crammed together, eating off plates stuffed with all sorts of good food while being bombarded by VERY LOUD MUSIC.  I got my plate and put my meagre dinner portions on (I don’t normally eat a lot for dinner) and found a place of relative safe to eat and watch the bride and groom be photographed with each guest.  Of course I had my turn too. In this wedding, the groom was dictating all the instructions to the crew and making sure everyone had a picture taken with him and his new wife.  Even though there were numerous ceiling fans, it was very hot inside and you could see everyone was sweating.  I was the only white person there, and many stared at me and some laughed to see me in my Indian kurta.  The kids all know me and came over to shake my hand and say Namaste. Getting to know and play with the kids on my street first has made it easier for their parents to accept this strange foreigner in their midst. (this is another story I’ve yet to tell)  But it’s strange, so many people have told me I look Indian.  I wonder if I should get a genetic profile done.

So we ate, we watched, we were photo’d and we left.  That took about half an hour. I was told that nothing more happens at these events, so why have your ears damaged by staying. You can’t even have a conversation, not that I could have one in any case. 

And one more thing, the bride, a lovely young girl, never smiled.  I asked why: “Because she’s tired.” I was informed.

 

The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do you sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish.

You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages. – Messiah’s Handbook, R. Bach