Shimla

44 C and possibly on the way up - walking into my kitchen is like entering a furnace full on. They say heat rises and of course it does - it all seems to be in my kitchen- but you will be happy to hear that this does not happen at 7,234 ft above sea level. There it is positively spring- like, warm but with a fresh breeze blowing, cooler out of the sun and in the evening a chill allows you to wrap your pashmina happily around your shoulders. 

We escaped and we headed to the hills and were soon reminded that in the olden days it took them four days of back breaking travel to get from the burning plains of hindustan to the hills but they considered it well worth it. When you go you too will realise what a completely different feeling Shimla gives you.

The Britishers as they are called, collective name for a bit of a disparate lot but we all know who they are, discovered this area around the 1820s and by 1864 it was crowned the summer capital of the Raj. A place that Rudyard Kipling said was "full of frivolity, gossip and intrigue" and which brought much relief to the many who wanted a respite from the summer heat.

Shimla was dicovered and within a short period summer residences dotted the hills and grand baronial buildings were built to house the officials and their administration. You can see much evidence of old Shimla  in Shimla today and that has an enduring appeal to me as I am always curious to see the history and live the present.

It is built on seven hills- that is what makes it a meandering, high, precipitous place which is both colourful and congested, refreshingly different but familiar. The houses are high rises built on the sides of the mountains with many having their parking at ground level. All houses, eateries and even offices have monumental views and the roads wind and twist around these seven hills in a slow slithering line of traffic which mercifully still moves at snail's pace but where soon the vehicles on the road will simply out strip the horizontal ground available to park them.

Much to write about in the next blogs from the wonderful Wildflower Hall to the Viceregal Lodge but I leave you today with pictures of Shimla at a distance and a crazy cow with a head for heights ( see behind the parked car by the edge of the building works ) !

Arushi Girls home - a Salaam Baalak Trust Home

It is to my good friend Celia Marsh from Switzerland that I owe this initiative as she very kindly and generously supplied the money for it and I put it into operation. I visited Arushi girls home sometime last year and was struck at how well organised it was and how the girls supported one another. I asked what they lacked and the idea was planted - the girls love to dance and listen to music but they didnt have a proper sound system so today a compact but top of the range sound system was delivered to them.The girls wanted to know about Switzerland and I said it had snow and lakes and was very beautiful like Kashmir and that quite a few Bollywood films were made there. They wanted to know how people earned their livelihood so I told them about Swiss cows and banks. Someone jokingly said yes that is where Indian politicians keep their money !

They were curious about Anthony and me and how we liked India and what we were doing here. I practised my few words of Hindi but much more impressively they talked to me in almost fautless English that they learn in school

Once installation was complete we needed to try it all out so we did at full blast and the girls danced away and I joined them for some faulty Bollywood moves at the end. Great fun.

Rewari

Did you know that there is a special place not far from Delhi where Steam Engines and their controllers live ?

Yes, for all of you out there who were brought up on Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends and model railways this is a little corner of India worth exploring- it is called Rewari and it is some  80 kms from Delhi, an easy car journey to Rewari itself but be aware the shed is tucked at the back of the Main Station and there is a detour of some interest to get to it.

Rewari was one of the biggest junctions of the meter gauge route dating back to 1893.It existed for some 100 years but was shut down in 1993. In 2001 it was decided to convert it into a heritage shed and since then wonderful locos have been brought here from all corners of India and lovingly restored and fired up. Usually one is fired up every Sunday but check before you make the journey if you want to see them in action. It now has a little coffee shop and a small but very interesting museum with all the coats of arms of the various districts and the implements used all those years ago. It is the pride of dedicated lovers of steam engines and it will not surprise you to hear that on the day we visited a coach of British steam engine fans arrived, all the way from the UK, on a special Indian steam engine trip of considerable excitement to them all

Cos they are both Special Boys

Today's post is dedicated to two wonderful men, one lives by my side and the other was the first Prime Minister of India.They are honoured today for their illustrious lives.Both are capable of abundant love. I am fascinated by them in equal measure and whereas the quotes of one are profound and finite the quotes of the other are somewhat cynical but continue.....I have collected a few that I share with you today.

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

How true for all of us living here.

“Time is not measured by the passing of years but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves."

“I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.”

Even more pertitent for many of us who live disparate existences all over the world.

     “What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.”

"Life's a bitch and then you die."

"English is a precise language."

"Money is merely a tool".

Seher and Subash

These are my little choclit kids - they belong to the landlady's driver. The family came from Bihar  because the wife has some health problems which at great cost and a lot of time the driver is trying to solve with limited success it seems. The result it that they have been living on our compound for some months now and they are the sweetest and handsomest children I have met for a long time. Their names are Seher and Subash and their smile and countenance are instantly uplifting whatever your mood.

There was a time that I was concerned that the children were not going to school and that they needed to. I think so much was spent on the wife's medical expenses that there was little left over for school fees and uniforms but also because the children were enrolled to go to school in Bihar.

The end result - no school while they were here and a joy for us all to share. We hopped, we ran, we chased Tara, we bounced on the trampoline and we did crazy kiddie things together which perhaps now that my boys are older I miss and I had endless supplies of "choclit hai ? " I have sat down with them and done lego and looked at books though my Hindi is pitiful and their English not much better but we understood each other perfectly and had fun.

Sadly for me they have now gone to Bihar because it is not usual for employees to have their families living with them and in their father's sadness to see them go I too feel keenly their absence from my life.

Fleeting Moments

My previous post generated a lot of comments and I welcome each and every one of them though I may not agree with all. NIMBY by the way stands for NOT IN MY BACK YARD. My friend N, is familiar with this term as it is something that occurs in every corner of this planet not just India.

Daily thoughts and scenes are always a mixture and in as much as the previous post was critical of the state of affairs here, this post is a reminder of the quirky and the different which is also so prevelant but often so fleeting. 

A morning of dancing butterflies. Went on a wondeful walk with Tara in Vasant Khunj and spotted no less than 15 different varieties of butterflies from irridescent blue, to bright yellow, to flaming orange to whimsical white and ice-blue. Just beautiful.

Watching crows eat melted ice-cream from a pavement. They bend their head and suck in the ice-cream sideways. Hilarious.

Seeing a man riding a bike with one hand along a busy road holding a baby asleep on his shoulder.

Frightening.

Seeing a family on a motorbike as you often do but the little boy was fast asleep on the fuel tank.Uncomfortable. This one I captured for you.

NIMBY

I was waiting to be collected from a well known shopping precinct. I stood on the corner by a small kiosk that sells sweets and tobacco pouches, both popular in India, and manufactured "singly" so people can afford them. The trouble with that is that men buy them, tear them open and throw the packet on the floor. The kiosk man was busy cleaning the patch in front of his kiosk. He painstackingly moved motorbikes and shifted chairs and swept all the rubbish into a nice pile and then ...he swept it under the parked car right next to the kiosk !

A young man finished his Sprite and simply threw it on the floor as he walked to his motorbike. I was too stunned to protest but patience is a virtue here and as I stood waiting, a woman with a worn and tatty sari came along carrying two plastic bags full of plastic bottles and plastic cups. She scooped up the plastic bottle and hey presto instant recycling.

On my way home I saw a mum lifting her toddler onto a wall and the toddler pooped in someone else's garden.All part and parcel of the state's failure to provide ....

Hence the well known acronym NIMBY. Don't for a moment think this is India's problem only.It happens wherever that selfish gene takes over and shows a lack of responsibility to the community you live in. In India's case one could say there are mitigating factors perhaps because of the states failure to provide.It is all a question of education and collective consciousness but you would have thought that 60 years was long enough to get this sorted.

Can you guess what it stands for ?