I've been here two weeks and two days and loooving it as usual; there's more than a month till return and I'm already dreading it.
I spend my days mostly walking around, eating, shopping, reading and painting (not really that much painting). There are still a lot of foreign people around Besant Nagar; mostly Europeans, but there are a few Africans and East Asian people too. By now they've melted into the landscape and nobody even looks at them any more. I'm still baffled as to exactly what they do here. Work? Where? I just came from FabIndia where I saw these French girls... I'm still in raptures, and not just about their pretty speech. They were so elegant! Especially one in a simple white kurtha with chikan embroidery (I think) and beige pants. I want.
There are a few things which still irritate me... in fact seem to have worsened. One of them is the roads which are pathetic and potholed and not even straight. Then, the bed of dust that lines the road (aka sidewalk), is dotted by random piles of rubbish. It makes no sense to me at all that nobody does anything about them especially when they're fronting opulent, mansion-esque houses with otherwise impeccable gardens. My grandmother lives very near the actor Vikram (big in Tamil films, was also the bad guy in Raavan) and his house is absolutely massive. He seems to own around 15 cars and there are always a team of secucrity people at the front. Then a few metres away, a huge festering heap of rubbish. You'd think that at least the smell, pushed exactly in their direction by the sea breeze would propel them to do something?!
This brings me to another point, something that makes me very, very sad. The huge number of strays in the street that feed on this pile of rubbish. They live terrible, loveless lives trying to stay alive in the middle of thick traffic and are reviled by the general population who immediately assume that they're riddled with rabies or something. When they try to find food in the rubbish (which, apart from being unsuited to dogs, I'm sure it's gone off) they usually swallow the plastic that covers it, strangulating the gut and killing them slowly and painfully.
That aside, I've been watching movies: Tintin (not my thing, but cute) Bol (the best movie I've watched all year!) and 180 (again... for Siddharth). I've been reading books: Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (excellent), 15 Amar Chitra Kathas, some P.G. Wodehouse book, a few Filmfare mazines, short stories by Premchand, Rumi's poetry. Most of these were within the first week, now because luggage space is limited I've restrained myself. But it's so hard to hold back when they are so cheeaaaaaaaap.
Then I went shopping! Mostly the usual places, bought some tops, jewellery, a kurtha and a sari in Nalli's :p and then this new shopping mall that's opened. It's massive! And more impressive than any single place I've ever seen in Sydney (including Westfield, Bondi) or Melbourne.It has Gloria Jeans, Cookie man, Forever New, Toni and Guy and Roxy. All Australian brands I think ... for a moment I was like, eh? But it irks me that, while this can be seen as a symbol of "progress", it sits so comfortably alongside outside filth and poverty. It's a striking image when you look out the window of the Burberry shop and see leathery old destitute women, beggars and children, practically rolling in the dust.
OK that capitalism post is on hold because I am tooootally not in a political economic frame of mind right now and it's a very difficult, vast topic.
I spend my days mostly walking around, eating, shopping, reading and painting (not really that much painting). There are still a lot of foreign people around Besant Nagar; mostly Europeans, but there are a few Africans and East Asian people too. By now they've melted into the landscape and nobody even looks at them any more. I'm still baffled as to exactly what they do here. Work? Where? I just came from FabIndia where I saw these French girls... I'm still in raptures, and not just about their pretty speech. They were so elegant! Especially one in a simple white kurtha with chikan embroidery (I think) and beige pants. I want.
There are a few things which still irritate me... in fact seem to have worsened. One of them is the roads which are pathetic and potholed and not even straight. Then, the bed of dust that lines the road (aka sidewalk), is dotted by random piles of rubbish. It makes no sense to me at all that nobody does anything about them especially when they're fronting opulent, mansion-esque houses with otherwise impeccable gardens. My grandmother lives very near the actor Vikram (big in Tamil films, was also the bad guy in Raavan) and his house is absolutely massive. He seems to own around 15 cars and there are always a team of secucrity people at the front. Then a few metres away, a huge festering heap of rubbish. You'd think that at least the smell, pushed exactly in their direction by the sea breeze would propel them to do something?!
This brings me to another point, something that makes me very, very sad. The huge number of strays in the street that feed on this pile of rubbish. They live terrible, loveless lives trying to stay alive in the middle of thick traffic and are reviled by the general population who immediately assume that they're riddled with rabies or something. When they try to find food in the rubbish (which, apart from being unsuited to dogs, I'm sure it's gone off) they usually swallow the plastic that covers it, strangulating the gut and killing them slowly and painfully.
That aside, I've been watching movies: Tintin (not my thing, but cute) Bol (the best movie I've watched all year!) and 180 (again... for Siddharth). I've been reading books: Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (excellent), 15 Amar Chitra Kathas, some P.G. Wodehouse book, a few Filmfare mazines, short stories by Premchand, Rumi's poetry. Most of these were within the first week, now because luggage space is limited I've restrained myself. But it's so hard to hold back when they are so cheeaaaaaaaap.
Then I went shopping! Mostly the usual places, bought some tops, jewellery, a kurtha and a sari in Nalli's :p and then this new shopping mall that's opened. It's massive! And more impressive than any single place I've ever seen in Sydney (including Westfield, Bondi) or Melbourne.It has Gloria Jeans, Cookie man, Forever New, Toni and Guy and Roxy. All Australian brands I think ... for a moment I was like, eh? But it irks me that, while this can be seen as a symbol of "progress", it sits so comfortably alongside outside filth and poverty. It's a striking image when you look out the window of the Burberry shop and see leathery old destitute women, beggars and children, practically rolling in the dust.
OK that capitalism post is on hold because I am tooootally not in a political economic frame of mind right now and it's a very difficult, vast topic.
