We Can Work it Out...

I haven’t yet blogged about work yet and I guess it is time that I did as that is what I have come here to do. Although my CEO reads this so I will be careful about what I say! (joke!)

My overall feeling is one of enjoying my placement. The people are brilliant; I’m learning Indian Sign Language and people share their lunch. Well, these things are important! I was told before I started by the other Deafway volunteer that the staff liked Nutella sandwiches. Everyone here brings their own lunch in little tiffin boxes with chapattis wrapped in foil. The boxes usually have anything from mixed veg, Aloo Gobi and other veggie cooked stuff that tastes amazing and I can’t name. They hanker after my pasta, try my fishcakes and seem astounded if I manage to cook Indian. They also tell me everything needs more salt. They’re right.

Everything you are told in your VSO training, you are told for a reason. It is so easy to forget all of this when you start. The mantra is relationships are important, take time to build them, don’t be task-orientated, you are there to advise. How easy it is to get caught up in tasks rather than holding back and trying to see the bigger picture first. Anything done in the first month will inevitably be wrong as there is no way you will have understood the wider context, either of the organisation or the country.

Working here hasn’t been without its frustrations and that would be the biggest downside. The aim was to work alongside one Deaf person and one Interpreter to set up training. The interpreter left for a month to be with her husband and get pregnant and the Deaf person left for a government job. These are the two most highly prized things in Indian society: having children, more specifically a son, and having a job for life that comes with benefits. Sometimes I have to downgrade my expectations from what I thought I would achieve. The PHD won’t be on the cards just yet. I’m settling for creating partnerships and capacity in an interpreting organisation that will strengthen, influence and shape interpreting in India for hopefully years to come. Not that it is ‘settling’ for anything, it’s a tall order and slightly different from the original placement. I should have known. VSO told us it would happen. Cor, they know so much!

Looking back on my first two months in placement, there are times I feel I’ve achieved little but I know I’ve achieved more than is quantifiable in western terms. I’ve made contacts, built those oh-so-important relationships, read a lot and understand a lot more about the complicated context in which I will be working over the coming year. I work alongside my colleagues too and we discuss work problems. Some days it all feels normal then I look back at what I would have been doing in the UK and I know it is a cliche but I feel this immense privilege that I am here. Actually the first thought is usually...bloody hell!

Jaiho Jaipur

At the weekend a few of us went on a trip to Jaipur for a break out of the chaos that can be Delhi. We went to a literary festival at the Diggi Palace hosted by William Darymple. In it's 5th year, the festival was pretty well attended. As I'll be back in Jaipur in two weeks, I didn't see so much of the famous 'Pink City'. I did get time to find out about the Camel Festival in March with an Elephant Festival later on in the festvial season. Only 6 hours away from Delhi, it was a good escape and the bus was cheap. Even the deluxe version was good and nicer than the train.

Other writers in attendance were Roddy Doyle, Hanif Kureshi, Niall Ferguson, Shoma Chaudhury (Editor of Tehelka magazine), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (living under a Fatwa for speaking out against Islam) and many others. There was a special focus on Dalit literature, also known as the 'untouchable' caste. At times it felt like literature was the new Rock n' Roll for the middle classes.

The cars still honked. There were still no pavements. We were treated like tourists. It was all somehow different though. We swanned around pretending we were on holiday. We ate dinner and drank beer in rooftop bars. We shopped and took photographs. Coming back I felt different about Delhi. A sort of calm resignation that this was where I lived and it wasn't so bad at all. Perhaps it is because Delhi may be starting to feel like home.

Bollywood: Aquafresh on Acid

Coming up to three months in India it was about time I went to see my first Bollywood movie. The film everyone is talking about here is The 3 Idiots. This is modern Bollywood but it’s indisputably Bollywood all the same. The Indian cinema experience is strange. No laptops, cameras or chewing gum. You get turned away or these things get taken away if you have any on your possession as you go through the airport style security. Ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right.

Inside, the reclining seats are pretty plush for what amounts to less than a few quid. Once I’d tuned in to some of the Hindi, I started to relax and enjoy the film. I got the gist of it. With the visual gags and the occasional bits of English dialogue it was easier to pick up the clues. Some was lost on me in the nuances of language but having done my research I hung on in there. Of course the songs and dance routines were entertaining. Seeing grown men dancing around in towels, breaking into song whilst brushing their teeth was a bit like watching the 1980s Aquafresh advert on acid. The next morning in my kitchen I was waiting for the kettle to boil. I couldn’t place the strange lyrics that seemed catchier than an S Club 7 hit. It took me a while to realise what I’d been singing but then I’m never that good in the mornings.

Bollywood films are famous for not displaying sex. Too taboo in India. This is a country where apparently no-one has sex before marriage but the numbers of teenage abortions are sky-rocketing. On screen, in the 1970s, there were apparently careful visualisations instead. Just when you’re expecting the main characters to get it on, a flower may appear instead to blossom or be pollinated by a bee before normality resumed. I was a bit surprised then when the main couple broke out into song and suddenly had on flimsy clothes. They were dancing, it rained. Soon they were bouncing around and their clothes went see-through. Easier to imagine what could happen next then without the Chelsea Flower Show type display.

The storyline was pretty diverse and epic. There was the whole gamut of emotions: birth, illness, death (not just one), a funeral, a near marriage and lots of men crying. The main character was nearly superhuman. He saved several lives. This included saving a baby and its labouring mother by building, A-Team stylee, a vacuum pump from a Hoover to suck out the stuck child. In nearly three hours the audience had the entire spectrum of the human experience.

The film may have been cheesier than the Stilton I crave but it was all fun. The scenery was stunning and I’ll definitely be jetting off to Leh soon. This is westernised Bollywood and I loved it. That, folks, was what you’d call entertainment and it’s currently showing in 53 cinemas in the UK.

Shut up and Drive

(Pic from: http://rickshawchallenge.com/blog/)

It’s official, auto drivers have become the bane of my life. I’ve spent three patient months trying to understand but they are an alien breed to me. You think you’ll get there for 40 rupees. They want 80. But then there’s the 100% mark up to factor in. It’s the skin tax. A local friend told me his wife, having lived here for 25 odd years still pays it.

You think if you speak Hindi you might get say, a discounted 50% skin tax. They think you’re cute. The next question is inevitably, “Shaddi-shudda hai?” No I’m not married but I am sane. I don’t know this in Hindi so the last time this happened I ended up married with 10 children.

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not anymore, it’s war. No more ‘Yes your medicine costs 200 rupees’ knowing I’ll get asked at the end to pay for it. Note to self: learn Hindi for: ‘I won’t be paying for that’.

Most people in my office use Indian Sign Language and English. Everyone in Delhi speaks some English. My Hindi improves slowly due to lack of use. I’m from the UK too, I like pavements and walking. Neither are seen as necessary in Delhi so I have to get in an auto now and again. When I do, I find myself putting on the don’t-mess-with-me-face. It doesn’t work. Within thirty seconds it’s ‘where are you from?’ Reply in Hindi, they think I’m cute, they ask if I’m married. See second paragraph. The first few times I played along. Once I got assaulted. Well he did that thing that boys used to do in the playground at school to make you feel sick. They shake your hand then wiggle their index finger on your palm as an indication they want to have sex. I nearly threw up on the spot and the driver couldn’t stop laughing at my face which had ‘No!!!’ written all over it.

In the UK we chat to our taxi drivers. We talk shit and banter. We swap stories. They tell you about the celebrities they had in their cab last week. Not here. Not that Bollywood celebs would be seen dead in an auto anyway. It’s no more Hindi practice in autos now. It’s no more Mr Nice Guy. Charge me skin tax? You can shut up and drive.

It’s Christmas Time...

Most of the festive season has been spent shopping for the new flat. It felt a bit like doing the Boxing Day sales in the UK but instead of a shopping centre filled with rampant bargain hunters this was rushing round Indian markets for duvets and a potato peeler. Xmas day was a break from the shopping. 12 volunteers piled round to one of our flats. The emails started a couple of weeks before: what would we eat, who was bringing what and could we bag the projector from the VSO office to watch a bit of James Bond?

With no oven, we settled on Turkish chicken takeaway and some stuffing balls fried up on the stove. Sitting on the balcony chatting in the winter sun slurping a red wine before dinner was lovely. For afters we had what was left of the mountain of cheese that a visitor had brought over for a party the week before. The Delhi volunteers swooped in at the end of that party so we could get some Stilton for Xmas day. One of the vols though managed to scoff most of the cheese before we got to the party though. Sacrilege!

It was certainly strange not to be around family but MSN was a saver. We had some games, more red wine and the guitar was out in the evening. A street band saw the party and come round beating their drums. One volunteer got on the guitar, sat on the balcony and tried to get them to beat along to Jingle Bells. It was hard to hear anything above their drums so they missed his point but it didn’t matter. Xmas Day was finished by seeing another couple of visitors and eating their Xmas pudding before heading home in a freezing cold auto to the lovely new flat.

On NYE there was a few of us on a terrace ploughing through a case of Kingfisher. It was a right laugh listening to Spotify and coming up with the most random playlists. It was the coldest and foggiest NYE I’ve ever had. To warm up we ate spicy chicken rolls and slung back a vodka shot. We nearly missed midnight until we heard another party cheering. After midnight there was a partial lunar eclipse of the ‘blue moon’. We also got to see a refraction that made it look like another real blue moon. We danced on the terrace to keep warm until we couldn’t drink anymore and it was time to head home.

Having spent much of the last week settling in it’s been a good time to reflect on the year gone by and what my next year will be like, the majority of which will be in Delhi completing this project I’ve come here to do.

YouTube clip of Xmas day here.