24th February 2011 - Scrambled Egg

I've been feeling a little rough for the last few days, must have eaten something that didn't agree with me! At work today I decided to order something simple for lunch - plain scambled egg and a white roll (no butter). Having tried to make myself understood to the guy taking the orders I then enlisted some help from an Indian colleague. She duely explained 'scrambled eggs' in Hindi to the chap by using the word 'scrambled egg'. This didn't work either, so she moved on to explain (in Hindi) how to make scrambled egg! This is made all the more strange as the canteen not only have cooked me proper Indian scrambled egg before but I then noticed it on the menu.

19th February 2011 - You'll never guess.....

My sister and her daugther arrived to stay yesterday. Lots of things planned to show them to give them a feel of the place. There was one thing that wasn't planned and that I haven't even seen yet. Susie went to pick up Sarah and Hannah from the airport and on the way back my sister pointed out a zebra crossing, to which Susie replied 'on no there aren't any zebra crossings in India you just take you life in your hands and try and cross the road'. 'No, look a Zebra crossing' and sure enough crossing the road in front of the car was a Zebra walking across the road!

18th February 2011 - Wedding band

I think we have got used to the 101 different sounds that might wake you up or disturb the peace and quiet, e.g. Fireworks, car horns, calls to prayer, cows, squealing truck brakes, workmen, festivals, parties, planes, birds, bird scarer bangs, huge PA systems (you get the picture!). This morning at 8am we were treated to a wedding band starting up. Not an uncommon sound but never at 8am in the morning! The best way to explain an Indian wedding band is LOUD. Around 10 'musicians' with the emphasis on trupets, blast out a rythemic tune which reminds me a bit of Jazz as each musician appears to be playing a slightly different tune, or slightly behind the others or in a slightly different key. The result is a toe tapping sound with no idea what the tune or song might be! Personally, I love it and boy does it make a wedding feel like a real celebration - British weddings are so grey compared to the colour and energy of an Indian wedding!

17th February 2011 - PAN

Three and a half months ago I filled out a simple application form to obtain my Indian PAN number. A PAN number is important as without it you can't sort out your tax affairs and you can't actually leave the country! Today I tried and failed to complete the form for the third time, my second attempt has already been rejected as I hadn't put brackets round one of the words in the office address. My third attempt today I was concentrating so hard on not messing it up....that I messed it up! Think I'll try again in the morning!

On leaving the office, I mentioned the Management teams inability to complete a simple form, the response was 'that is why we use an agent'. It is funny to think that a whole industry is supported by the pen pushing bureaucracy, however it does create jobs and move money round the system and when I have a heart attack from the stress bought on by trying to complete a simple form I'll keep the Dr and Nurses in work too!

Today is Muslim festival Eid (again). To be precise it is Eid U Malad, the birthday of one of the Muslim gods. All the Muslim areas are marked out by the tonnes of flags and decorated archways. Later a load of decorated flat bed trucks will drive about packed with celebrating Muslims, before they do some praying and then party into the night. There is something really nice about all of the near constant festivals and celebrations, it always gives people something to look forward to something to be passionate about and the decorations certainly help brighten up the place!

It is also Darcy's 3rd birthay, our little girl growing up fast.

13th February 2011 - Jobs for life

In a Country with a population of around 1 billion plus there is always going to be a need to find things for people to do. A good example of this is what I saw this morning on our early Sunday morning cycle. A truck had dropped off a load of large pieces of stone and a group of around 8 men were sitting on the ground with hammer and bolster cutting the stone up into small shale like pieces. Looked like they had a good couple of days work ahead of them. A simple crushing machine may have taken around 5 mins to crush it all!

10th January 2011 - Driver skills

The drivers that we use have to be very skillful as they negociate the heavy traffic, maintaining their space on the road, edging out tuk tuks, lorries, bikes etc to make progress. This morning I jad a call from Teri, Pramod her driver, had locked the keys in her car and could she have a lift? No more than 5 mins later I had another call from Teri, car now open no need for a lift. Speaking to Aftab in the car this morning he proudly explained how they broke into the car to rescue Teri - add breaking into cars to the list of skills they possess!

9th February 2011 - There be Pirates

I guess World geography was never my strong point, but I had missed the fact that between Somalia and India there is only Indian Ocean! The news stories for the last few weeks has been the increasing number of attacks just off the West Indian coast. Any romantic, Jack Sparrow, idea of swashbuckling pirates goes out the window when you read that they are just a bunch of Somali Bandits riding around in speedboats armed with AK47s. What does surprise me is how these guys manage to hijack huge oil tankers? Fishing boats, yes but an oil tanker carrying 200 million dollars worth of crude oil is not going to be a small ship so how do they stop them and how do they board? Reason for mentioning this in the blog? In the latest story, the pirates tried to hijack a ship off the Lakshadweep Islands off south west India, the ship managed to evade capture so the pirates gave up and looked for another target. The target they selected turned out to be an Indian Navy ship out looking for pirates - all 28 pirates arrested and face trial in Mumbai!

5th February 2011 - End of the (potholed) road?

Looks like the end of the road for India. A real shame as we had focused on staying until the end of the year, which now doesn't look possible. The programme I am working on looks like it will be cancelled and therefore there really isn't the work to keep us all out in India. Very disappointed as we really love being here, yes a few ups and downs but in the main it is a fascinating place and the warm weather is bloody lovely! New baby complicates things some what as we can't fly out of India now and getting a passport looks like it will take 3 months (at least) after the birth so we are still looking at end June at the earliest so at least 5 more months to enjoy life out here. Question is what next and where? Living abroad is very enjoyable and whilst we miss all of our friends and family very much the life out here helps to make it bearable!

Just to add that if any of you were planning a trip to see us, might be worth making it sooner rather than later!

6th February 2011 - Bold and Beautiful

As part of Susie's birthday celebrations a group of us ventured down to the Malhalakshmi Horse Racing circuit in South Mumbai to watch the India Derby. I'd booked a table at the Gallops restaurant to start with, overlooking the course....actually, whilst it was nice, it overlooked the area where the horses slowed down after the race so wasn't quite what I had in mind for a base for the afternoon. Never mind, after lunch we ventured into the crowd and tried to watch some racing and place some bets. Step one, Tote or the betting pit? Betting pit - maybe not such a good idea, if I thought that everyday Indian life is chaos then it looks sane compared to the betting pit. Imagine a scrum of around 300 Indians, in a space of approx 40ft square, add in 10 bookies in betting cages plus staff (at least 4 per cage), sprinkle the pressure of trying to bet up to the time of the race and top it off with 35'C with us in shirt, tie and jackets! So having managed to get close to a bookie, waving our money high in the air, we then shouted the number of the horse and were give a slip of paper (handwritten) with a code on it. No name, no numbers that corresponded to the race or the horse didn't fill us with confidence that if we were to win that we would see any money! Call me a whimp but for the next race I went to the Tote!

8th February 2011 - Bike names

Two wheelers (motorbikes) are massively popular in India (as well as most parts of Asia). There are so many different models ranging from 100cc to 220cc. My favourites so far are the Honda Unicorn, the Hero Honda Splendid, the Honda Hulk, the Suzuki Pleasure and the Bajaj Activa to name a few!

4th February 2011 - Sad but true

I've been looking for some time now, actually since we got here, to see a post box. Today on the way over from Max's school I saw my first one since coming to India....and got a little flash of excitement. Can't explain why, feel a bit of a nerd to be honest but there you go!

3rd February 2011 - Happy Birthday

Susie' birthday today, we woke her up at 7am with a cup of tea and a rousing rendition of 'Happy Birthday' accompanied by music from Darcy's little keyboard - think she enjoyed it!

A morning spent shopping with our friend Paul, I picked up Max from school and we all went to the Renaissance cafe for tea and afternoon cake. I spoke to the guys behind the counter and they even managed to find a candle to put with Susie's cake...another round of 'Happy Birthday' singing just to let everyone know!

Finished off the day with a Chinese takeway, delivered by an Indian on a pushbike and watched Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino - brilliant film.

2nd February 2011 - I'll dig a hole and look into it!

I passed one of the many trenches being dug about the place to see what was in it. The mass of cabling in the trench already was significant how the labours managed to dig round them all is a mystery, although it does explain why the don't use mechanical diggers and why nothing works in Monsoon! So the purpose of digging the trench in the first place? TATA power are laying a cable to carry 33,000 volts of electricity which means that next time they dig up the road they might want to take it very carefully indeed!

1st February 2011 - Nee and indeed Nar

There are obviously a great many 'sad sights' in India and to some extent you get a bit numb to them as they are all about and so alien to life back in the UK. However, one which I always find disturbing, on the basis that I might need one one day, is how the ambulances sit pathetically in the traffic, yellow light lethargically turning on its roof and some sort of siren going and noone taking a blind bit of notice and certainly not clearing a path.