Delhi in November

I apologise for the long gap in blog entries but October and most of November has seen a deluge of visitors passing through Delhi and staying at our house. It has been exhausting but great both to catch up with old friends and to make many new ones! I definitely think Tim and I could make a good living as tour guides to this wonderful city as we are getting to know it very well showing people around!!!
The weather has finally cooled down from the endless summer onslaught. It's amazing how quickly it happens – one minute we are sweating profusely from the heat and humidity and then suddenly almost overnight in October the weather freshens and the temperature drops.. Out come the scarves, shawls and hats in the early mornings and evenings and the whirring of ceiling fans stop. However with the cooler weather ( now mid twenties) has come the smog. A mist has settled over the city made up of smoke from fires burning at night, fire ctackers from the continual festivals and weddings there are at this time of year and the general city pollution . Everywhere you go people are coughing ( us included)and spitting ( a disgusting habit !!!)

This time of year is wonderful though for walking in the parks and visiting the old tombs, towers, forts and mosques/ temples that are scattered around the city. Delhi is amazing for its old history which is evident in the most surprising of places. You can be just walking down a road or in a park or field and come across and old tomb sticking out of the undergrowth, totally neglected – a reminder of a vibrant history of powerful moghul kings and invading armies.

Back in October some of us started a kids club at the church centre for street kids and poor kids living in the local area. The idea is to enable children just to have a time where they can play and be children as many of them have to work long hours and have no real childhood. . We provide painting, craft, skipping, lego, cars, books etc and we play group games, provide some hot food and watch a cartoon at the end. The club has proved so popular as word has spread around the community that we've had to do two different age groups with about 50 coming to each and with a waiting list for the groups. After Christmas I hope to start some English classes for the children at the clubs who can't read and write in English.. Through the clubs we're getting to know so many more of the local mums and dads which is brilliant.

Monsoon Deluge and Amazing Jaipur

The monsoon has made a late resurgence this year deluging the capital and causing floods everywhere and traffic nightmares! Yesterday was the highest rainfall in 50 rears with 120 mm falling in one hour! It's fine if your at home but Tim was driving back from teaching some Burmese refugees English in Vikashpuri and he had to negotiate water levels over his wheels and then the car decided to overheat in the traffic queues so it was a very stressful journey!

My war against the insect population seems to be going my way at the moment. Some chalk like substance that I was told to draw in all my cupboards has done the trick and the ants and cockroaches no longer venture in to the cupboards!! some cockroaches scuttle across the work surface every now and again but nothing I can't handle. The invasion however, has moved on to a whole new level with the arrival of a rat (s). This creature is determined to get into my house every night whether coming up through sink drain pipes, through kitchen extractor fan vents or by squeezing itself under the cracks of the doors (of which there are many!!).

Firstly I tried a rat trap – the one they sell here is basically a flimsy black tray covered in super glue which is baited with a substance the rat likes. The idea is that the rat runs on to the trap and gets stuck fast by the glue. A person then has the problem of how to dispose of a live wriggling rat stuck fast ! With great trepidation I came down in the morning only to find the tray over the other side of the room minus the rat who obviously got stuck but managed to extricate himself and who then proceeded to run around the room collecting bits of fluff on its sticky paws and depositing them on all my furniture!! I was actually relieved he had escaped..... but now I have moved on to poison which comes in a green cake like substance that you break into squares and leave at various places round the house. Well it's been three days and some of the pieces have been nibbled at but the rat is still alive and kicking !!!! We will have to make a valiant effort to strengthen our fortifications against the intruder..

Last weekend we went to Jaipur , capital of Rajasthan. This ancient city often known as the Pink city was amazing! We arrived at eight in the morning at Amber fort , a 15century fort built high up on the hillside overlooking a lake. The sky was clear blue and the air much cleaner and fresher than smoggy Delhi. We ascended the steep hill riding on elephants ! This was how the queens and then the British during the time of the Raj must have arrived- it wasn't very comfortable but great fun!
The fort was beautifully preserved, especially the intricate designs and paintings on the walls. They used a special technique that meant the colour soaked in to the stone and didn't fade over time.


Jaipur was full of ancient buildings and bazaars. We visited the Hawa Mahal (the air palace) which was built by the king for his 12 wives. It is five storeys high and connected to the royal palace by a long tunnel so that the wives could go from the confines of the palace to this building which was right on the main street. There they could look through the many latticed windows down on to the street to watch processions and daily life without being seen by the public . It was called the air palace because of the clever way it was designed so that a constant breeze blew through the rooms. Special slanted vents were built into the windows in such a way that the breeze cooled the rooms. It was amazingly effective and much better than the noisy air conditioning systems we have today.

Our hotel was an old haveli set in lush gardens and filled with old ornately carved furniture. It was a peaceful haven set behind high walls just off the crazy bustle of the main street. The streets were full of beautiful Rajastahni women dressed in amazing, vibrant coloured saris and decorated in coloured bangles, ankle chains and toe rings. It was a truly magical place. The practise of 'purdah'(women being hidden from other men) was common practise in this state by Hindus as well as muslims and even today many of the women would cover their faces with their saris when walking down the road. The act of veiling came in to being after the ninth century when invading armies in to India noticed how beautiful the women were there and started to take them as slaves and mistresses for themselves so the local people decided to try to hide the beauty of their women from the outside world in order to protect them! We learnt as well that the popular ankle chains with tiny bells on were used originally to warn other men in a room that a woman was approaching , so that they could avert their eyes or go elsewhere so that they didn't meet. In some conservative families still today the daughter in law will still cover her face in the presence of her father in law as a sign of respect.

August in Delhi

Well the month of august is passing in a continual heat haze, interspersed by the odd torrential monsoon downpour. The monsoon is definitely less than in previous years but it still manages to cause chaos after about five minutes of rain!!!

I've managed to wear my flowery wellingtons once and caused a lot of attention from passers by!!!! I can't understand why there isn't a huge market for wellingtons over here with such torrential rain but no-one wears them?!! well at least they kept my feet dry and stopped mud splashing up the backs of my legs.

I seem to be spending a good part of my day in battle against the insect population at the moment. The heat and rain has bought out every kind of insect imaginable and lots of them are migrating to my kitchen!!!! I open cupboards and there are ants swarming everywhere and the odd cockroach scuttling quickly away from the light!!!! Not to mention the mosquitoes, flies and large wasp like things . I'm becoming quite an expert armed with my weapons of various sprays, an electric tennis racket, boiling water and a chalk like substance that you draw in all your cupboards. The insects disappear for a few days only t resurface again!! I will win this war!!!!

The English classes are going well. At the girls home I'm using jolly phonics to teach the girls the letter sounds. Each letter has an action and a song to go with it. The girls just love the songs and the actions and it's really helped them to learn the sounds rather than just the letter name and to put simple words together..I just love teaching – whether it's the kids at the home or the adults at the centre or my maid's son. I love seeing people grow in confidence and in their ability to communicate.
I just wish I was as good at Hindi as my students are at English!!!

Delhi Roads

It’s now the monsoon season in Delhi, and whilst the rains have been relatively light this year, they have still played havoc with the state of the roads. Many of the roads around here are not in a great state anyway, but the rains seem to tear them up with huge potholes appearing overnight. Much of the time, on our local neighbourhood roads, we are driving cautiously, zigzagging across the road trying to find the way through that will cause least damage to our suspension.

When these potholes appear, the local authority have a very functional approach to repairs. A couple of men – or sometimes women, will appear with a wooden hand-cart loaded up with a pile of broken bricks and mud. They then tip the cart out into the general area of the holes. They then spend the next couple of hours bashing the bricks with spades and hammers until they roughly fill the hole. This process does of course leave lots of protruding bricks ready to do all sorts of damage to your tyres, but after a couple of days, enough people have driven over it to level it to some degree.

One of the best sights of the monsoon is the little children from the small slum near our house. As soon as the downpours started, they were out in the street enjoying the rain, playing in the puddles, splashing each other and having such fun.

Driving in India is great fun. At first it looks like a free-for-all with no rules at all. In fact, there are rules, but they are just different. Pulling out into traffic takes some nerve because you don’t wait for a gap – you make one. Constant use of the horn is mandatory, otherwise someone will definitely pull out and into you. There is also a great degree of flexibility about which side of the road you should drive on. Technically, people drive on the left – unless it will be quicker to drive up the right side of the road – or down the middle.

Last week, we were driving home at night up a major dual-carriageway. For some reason, our side of the road was completely jammed. There was, however, a gap in the central reservation and so a number of cars, ourselves included, went through the gap and up the other side against the traffic in what should have been the fast lane of the other carriageway. I will have to try that on the M25 when we get back to the UK.

July in Delhi

Well we've settled quickly back into everyday life in Delhi, made a lot easier in this weather by acquiring our own second hand car and a driver no less!! It means we can step into an air conditioned car as the auto rickshaws were unbearable in the excruciating heat. For a few days we had no driver so Tim bravely manoeuvred his way around the roads! He actually enjoyed the freedom of driving here with no real rules to abide by and got very proficient in using his horn. I, on the other hand was a nervous back seat driver and I think , at times, Tim got very close to throwing me out of the car!! Now that we have Sunil driving for us I feel more relaxed.

The monsoon has been flexing it's muscles in the last week with some very heavy downpours but nothing too prolonged. It's a wonderful sight when the hot rain falls, seeing the local slum kids running half naked in the puddles splashing each other.
However the roads quickly flood as any flood drains are blocked up with rubbish and silt or built over!! The pot holes in the roads make driving through the floods worse as suddenly you sink into hidden ponds of water. Hope our car survives?!!

Last night we went to India Gate in central Delhi. This area is basically a huge park area with famous war monuments and a view right down to the state government buildings. The heat of the day had been replaced by the relative cool of evening with a warm wind blowing and several thousand people must have been there, picnicking in family groups, wandering around and swimming in the filthy lakes. No health and safety here as young boys splashed and cavorted in the large Victorian fountain, clambering right to the top and splashing those below with water from the large dish! It was great to watch and I so wished we had our camera with us! I just want to record all these moments!!! Everywhere people were selling toys, balloons, candy floss, corn on the cob, chappatis and sweet chai. The people of Delhi seem to struggle through the day barely functioning in the heat but then as soon as dusk falls out they pour on to the streets, full of life and vitality , making the most of the cooler temperatures! There's such a buzz and party atmosphere, it's great!!

We're wanting to use the church centre more in the week to involve the whole community. So I'm busy preparing material for some English classes to be held there for beginners and intermediate level and above. Tim is going to hold some skills classes in things like giving presentations, power point etc; another course of guitar classes are starting and also we're going to have a games night where people can play table tennis , chess and carrom (an Indian cross between snooker and draughts!}

Return to Delhi

Sorry there has been such a long gap since my last entry!!Have just returned from two months in the UK, seeing family and friends. What did we love about being back in the UK ? Obviously catching up with those nearest and dearest to us was the highlight of our time there but also the amazing fresh air and sunny spring weather; walking through the rolling , green, lush countryside with our dog; the cleanliness of everything; peace and quiet; English newspapers; English puddings and cakes; sausages and roast dinners. These are just a few of the things that stand out to me now as I write this.

What things did we miss about India? The crazy hustle and bustle of life on the streets; the colour, noise , smells all around ; the whirr of ceiling fans; spicy food; the passion and resilience of the people and the unpredictability of life.

The first thing that hit me as we exited Delhi airport was the smell of India! How I love that smell that's so hard to describe! To me its a distinct smell that you don't find anywhere else. I was trying to explain it to a Venezuelan friend recently and she said that her sister who came to visit her in April said exactly the same thing about England. That it had a distinct smell too!! Fancy that!

The second thing that assaulted us was the June heat- at one in the morning it was still in the high thirties and humid too as the monsoon is approaching! We feel like we are in a continuous sauna all the time- even walking up the stairs in our duplex brings us out in a sweat. Yesterday apparently there was 96% humidity! There is talk that the monsoon rains will be early this year as we have already had the odd welcome shower – I brought my flowery wellies out with me just in case everywhere floods! I don't really fancy paddling around in flip flops knowing what the roads around here are like !!

Another thing we've noticed since our return is that the hot weather has brought an invasion of insects into our duplex. A huge lizard came down our stairs the other evening and a baby lizard jumped on Tim's foot as he was in the shower! There is obviously a family of lizards that have taken up residence with us. Lizards don't really bother me but the emergence of cockroaches and giant ants do!!! We will have to find ways of exterminating them me thinks!

Well we have unpacked , settled back in and am writing this in out in our little courtyard just as it's getting dark. Tim has cooked a wonderful curry and I wonder what the next six months will hold for us?!

Springtime in Delhi

I can't believe my last blog entry was in January! February was the month for visitors, one after another, both friends and family descended upon us! It was wonderful to see everyone and great to show them the sights of Delhi. My parents in law left in the early hours of this morning and now a stillness and emptiness has descended upon the house. Time to get back to Hindi language learning and English teaching!

One of the highlights recently was a short trip to Kerala with Mum and Dad. We felt that two weeks in the sprawling, polluted city would be too much for them so in the second week we flew right to the other end of India to Cochin on the tropical southern tip. We hired a house boat and one day sailed out into the backwaters- miles upon miles of meandering rivers, lined with palm trees and paddy fields. We lay on chairs on the sheltered deck and watched the world drift by. Lining the river bank were small huts with women and children washing pots and pans in the river water or beating sheets on the banks. Every so often small fishing boats passed us by with freshwater prawns, crabs, lobster and other varieties of fish. Out in the paddy fields we could see women sporting large hats, bending over, transplanting the rice – such hard, back breaking work! Lunch was served us on huge banana leaves – a sumptuous selection of Kerelan vegetable dishes and freshly caught fish! The spices were very subtle with fresh coconut and pineapple as well as pepper and chillies.


As I lay on the deck I felt every part of me relaxing and unwinding. It made me realise that life in the city is very demanding. Just being among so many people, always on the move, always congested can make your whole body tense up and just coming to a slower pace of life was sooo refreshing!

The benefits of Kerala were soon deleted by our third trip to see the Taj Mahal since December, this time taking Mum and Dad!! We think that the UP government should give Tim and I jobs as tourist guides as we've been there so many times!!! The Taj still never fails to stun us with its white marble glinting in the sun but the journey to Agra takes about 5 hours one way and the traffic is so crazy you always end up feeling totally exhausted! My parents couldn't believe the traffic jams with vehicles (i.e./ cars, taxis, buses, bullock carts , camels, bicycles, hand carts, rickshaws, meandering cows, in fact, you name it!!!!!) trying to cross in every possible direction all at once!!!



The weather is beginning to heat up now with the thermostat rising every day towards the mid 30's. It is still at the stage of being pleasant especially first thing in the morning. I love waking early just as it’s getting light. It's the only time you feel a sort of peace and calm settle over everything. The air is warm but fresh and the birds start chirruping in the trees outside my window. This morning a pair of chipmunks were chattering away to each other very loudly!!!Gradually you can hear the sounds of the street cleaners sweeping outside and the men cleaning the layers of dust off the cars. Occasionally you hear the chatting of groups of maids in their local Bengali, Rajasthani and Punjabi dialects, as they enter the sector to disperse to the various homes to clean.


March here is like May in the UK with everything blooming. There is a profusion of flowers in the parks and on balconies – petunias, dahlias, roses, bourgenvilia, poppies, snap dragons and many other species that I'm not familiar with! Also the scent of jasmine fills the air especially early in the morning and in the evenings as I walk in the sector. I wish Delhi could stay just like this but I know that in a months’ time everything will start to shrivel and become parched and the parks will turn to dust baths!

January in Delhi

After three weeks of family visiting from the UK, life has settled back in to the usual daily rhythm .
The Delhi winter seems to have been short lived, thank goodness!! The weather is warming up nicely in the day with clear blue skies and temperatures in the early 20's. The evening air still has a chill in it but nowhere near as cold as it was. I can't believe that soon we'll be looking back at these 'cool' days with longing! Everyone keeps going on about the horrors of a Delhi summer with it's unrelenting heat, hot winds and dust so I'm trying to make the most of these halcyon days by venturing out on foot somewhere as much a s possible to explore the city.
Yesterday Tim and I discovered Haus Kaus village, a suburb of Delhi further into the city than our sector but it didn't feel like the city at all! Forests surrounded the village, a deer park and a lake which actually is an ancient water tank built by the mogul kings to supply water to the surrounding area. The village is a mixture of ancient tombs and mosques and small 'upmarket' clothes and antique shops, art galleries and eateries. It had more of the feel of a Mediterranean village rather than an Indian one. with its narrow streets and whitewashed houses.,

On Sunday after church we ventured in to central Delhi to a renowned eatery called the Andhra Bhavan. It is more of a canteen than a restaurant and is incredibly popular. When we arrived there was a scrum of people around the entrance, fighting to get in and out!! we had to squeeze through the crowds to get a ticket – we were no.243 and they were at present on no 75!! We wondered if would we have to wait all afternoon but after 50 minutes we tried to once again fight our way through the throng of people to get to the canteen. As soon as we were seated at the formica tables vegetable thalis were given to us along with mutton curry and their famous Hyderbad Biryani. The food was delicious ,really spicy but with wonderful flavours that exploded in your mouth! It was a true Indian meal eaten with our fingers and only cost us £2 a head for as much as we could eat! Worth every minute of the wait. Andrha Bhavan has not seen the last of us!


NO day is ever boring in India – that's why I love it so much. ! I can't remember much happening on drives from my home to Morrisons in Woking but an auto rickshaw ride to the local shops here is fascinating as there is so much going on all around you. As I hurtled down the road today, the rickshaw driver swerving left and right to avoid the many potholes, there was so much to catch my gaze. I passed a bullock cart laden with sacks of grain and a man wobbling along on a bicycle with 5 gas bottles hanging precariously all around. We passed a building site and I saw women carrying huge baskets of bricks balanced expertly on their heads, their multi-coloured saris caked in dust.


At intervals along the roadside there were barrows full of fruit and vegetables and one fruit seller was pushing a barrow laden with green and black mountains of grapes. There were other road side stalls too selling chai ( India's famous hot spicy tea) and others cooking chapatis and samosas and other snacks. I noticed a man by the side of the road having a shave and haircut by a barber, a mirror tied to a fence post . A group of cows meandered lazily down the middle of the road, heading for the overflowing rubbish bins where no doubt they would chew their way through numerous plastic bags. As well as the cows numerous stray dogs lay in the road sunbathing in the sun . The cars and rickshaws managed to manovoure around them, the cows and dogs not flinching in the slightest.! Lots of slum children, their bodies blackened by the sun and layers of grime, hung around the local temple, hoping for food. No expensive toys for them! Instead they seemed happy enough digging around in the dirt with sticks and stones and some boys were swinging on hanging overhead cables ( hopefully not live!!!)
These sights I've just recorded are only a small snapshot of the many things constantly going on on the Indian streets so you can see even a ride to the shops is definitely not boring!!

India really gets under you skin and I feel a bit like Rudyard Kipling who wrote to a friend in 1883 and said

'I am in love with this country and would sooner write about her than anything else........I find the heat and smells and oils and spices and puffs of temple incense and sweat and darkness and dust and lust and cruelty and above all, things wonderful and fascinating, inumerable.'

Dilli me Christmas

When you’re a long way from home, Christmas is a time when you feel the distance, you feel the separation and you particularly feel the difference in culture. Not that Christmas isn’t celebrated in India – the shopping malls celebrate it with great decorations, huge trees and Santa’s grottos. You can buy most Christmassy things here, at a price. We had a tree and decorations, and a limited selection of cards was available. The most ridiculous thing we saw was a box of ordinary shop mince pies on sale at 1200 Rupees - £17!
Our Christmas was a real mix of home and India. On Christmas Eve, we were at a very traditional carol service – 7 lessons and carols, followed by a delicious biryani, kebabs, daal and naan. Our sons, Michael and Simon were with us and we spent Christmas Day itself with friends in the British High Commission compound – turkey, ham and all the trimmings. The turkey was delicious – although it did arrive with the neck still attached and everything still attached inside. There weren’t many volunteers to put their hands in and fish it all out.
One of the highlights of Christmas was going over to the girls’ home and putting on a Christmas party for them. We helped them decorate their Christmas ‘tree’ (actually a couple of bare branches), played games, gave them a traditional tea of samosas and cake, and we had bought presents for all of them – mostly jumpers, jackets and socks as the home is very cold at this time of year. It was so great to see the joy in their faces and how excited they were to get gifts. It really brought home once again how blessed we are, and particularly our children to be brought up in a loving caring environment.
Delhi has been very cold for the last few weeks. I know that for people in the UK who have been struggling with snow and sub-zero temperatures, this will sound like a bit of a whinge, but in the UK, no matter how cold it is, you come home and your house is nice and warm, because it is well insulated and the central heating has been on. Here, there is no heating, we have marble floors and huge gaps around our doors and windows that let the warmth out and cold in. Fortunately, it is heating up a bit now and I am sitting outside in our courtyard as I write this at 9 in the morning.
Our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter have been with us for the last couple of weeks and on Wednesday we took them to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal (our second visit in 2 weeks). It’s about a four hour drive away so it’s a long day trip. Little Siena created quite a stir – many Indians seemed more interested in taking photos of her than the Taj. We lost count of how many times we heard ‘sooo cute’ or ‘soooo sweet’ as we walked around. It was the first time out of our three visits there that the Agra air was clear and you could see the Taj clearly from the fort from where Shah Jahan would gaze down the river to the tomb of his beloved wife Mumtaz. No matter how many times you visit, the Taj is still an incredibly beautiful building and the first sight as you come through the gateway takes your breath away.