Hyderabad Day One

I touched down in Hyderabad to begin my solo travels in a part of India completely new to me. It was far cooler than I was expecting after people in both Karnal and Delhi had said the weather would be unbearable! 

It has been a very interesting first half day here. Visited Golconda Fort and heard about the vast history through a light and audio show. I could not think of a better commentary voice than Amitabh Bachchan's for the show! Knowing some of the history of the fort made it so much more fascinating than just seeing yet another ruin. The rest of the evening was scattered with army stories, including the particularly interesting selection process. Heard and racked my brain to some great questions involved in their psyhological testing!

I think this is going to be fun. 

Flight (Del-Hyd)

Bagged an aisle seat on Spicejet SG-233 from Delhi to Hyderabad. Ideal. I am writing this as the plane is in ascent through the clouds. This flight comes on the back of watching a film about a plane crash (Flight), so I find myself paying a little extra attention to every bump and noise. Luckily I am slightly weary from a late night at Blue Frog (2/2, 100% attendance record) so will probably still spend the duration of the flight eyes closed, mouth open. Might as well eat those high-protein insects. (Gotta catch 'em all?)

(Before Blue Frog, we went to a ridiculously nice Pan Asian restaurant at the Radisson Hotel, Delhi. Ma Po Tofu is the one! Sessed. Before that I made my fourth trip down GT road between Harayana and Delhi. Also sessed.)

Key
Sessed = obsessed

The Last Supper at Karnal

Sitting at the foot of the bed poised to write this final blog from Karnal, a scene the resident lizards have become accustomed to over the last ten days, I have been reflecting on my stay. As I look about the room I see that my immediate surroundings tell a large part of the story, from the "Good Knight" insect repellent tablets to the stack of brick-shaped books on the shelf.

The small-engined Activa scooters driven by all, from pre-teen kids to aunties in sarees, aptly describe the pace I have been living at in Karnal - not that life's speedometer reads so low for everyone here! This has been a very nice change as it has given rise to a dramatically different set of day-to-day activities from home. The peace-inspiring and self-searching readings have been ideal for this environment, and I am intrigued to see how relevant I can make them in the future.

"Calmly active and actively calm." 

On a slightly different note, the last three days have registered a significant amount of time playing "The Subzi Game" with my four-year-old cousin. The game involved putting invisible subzi (vegetables) into cushions. Similar to GTA.

Lily flowers and melatonin tablets

The last two days slid away without any blog updates because the most significant aspect of my time in Karnal (Haryana) has been the learning. That may sound supremely pretentious with hints of banditry, but that is the way it is at present. There has been the shopping for pots and pans, trying to find the best garam masala in Karnal, and getting the tailor ("master sahib") to adjust everything possible on a suit, but these activities are worthy only of being the subjects of a tricolon.

The readings and discussions that have comprised the aforementioned significant learnings have revolved around spiritualism and being at peace within. Ironically, I am now relying on melatonin tablets to get to sleep these days with peaceful lily flowers aggressively racing around my mind! 

Ok so this was basically written for a GCSE English Literature class to meet their syllabus requirements. 

Delhi stop #1 (Son-day)

(Written 23/09/2013, 11.30am) 

The morning unravelled with a level of leisure that is only really excusable on a Sunday morning in real life. Not mine! Di departed fairly early to return to said real life. 

My cousin and I were planning on heading to the currently "most happening" venue in Delhi that evening.  However, amongst the newspaper articles about dubious political activity and stories of missing people, lay the day's most disheartening piece of news that the club had been closed for a few days due to some environmentally unsavoury behaviour! My cousin went on to say that this was a scam, which was his opinion on pretty much all government activity in India! 

Later in the day, we visited Akshardham temple after advice that it is more impressive than Taj Mahal. Now I haven't been to Taj Mahal, but I can't recall seeing anything more intricately decorated than Akshardham in my life! Even the information buildings surrounding the main temple were comprised of flawlessly detailed carvings. The base of the temple was made up of a series of majestic elephant carvings, with equally impressive designs within the marble upwards from the base. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but since I was neither allowed to take a camera inside, nor do I have the thumb-stamina to write a thousand words, I think this will have to suffice. Although highly impressive, I currently have a big question mark in mind as to whether it is appropriate to build monuments, particularly religious ones, like this while a third of the world's poor population sits in India. 

I learnt a lot about working life in India, and it now makes sense why so many more people that you come across in India have their own businesses (however small and obscure), compared with England. The salaries and working conditions when working as an employee in India just don't seem to lead one to a chilling life. This may be inaccurate, but it's the impression I am getting.  

Ok so slightly off track, but all this was a big part of Delhi stop #1. We also went to the cinema, which was fun. Two pretty jokes observations: 1. people will gladly talk on their phone during the film with their outdoor voice, and 2. the cinema people do not care one smidgen about the placement of the intermission in relation to the film - it was mid-word!

Cruising down GT road on the way back to Haryana. This may actually have been a thousand words. 

Delhi stop #1 (Saturday)

Fairly early on Saturday morning, Di and I set off on our 3-hour drive from Haryana to Delhi. Knocked out solidly the whole way - nothing to report!

Chilled and listened to some nice music with Pradyut and Anirudh (cousins) before getting ready for something of a night out. Headed to Gaurav and Shivam's (cousins') house to have a few drinks and a gentle bit of food. We got to experience some of the growing electro-scene in Delhi at a club called Blue Frog. Pretty cool music and lighting, but it wasn't as busy as expected - it seemed more people were hanging out at the indoor section of the club. This was an illustration of knowledge we had earlier received: Delhi clubbing is about standing approximately still with a nice expensive drink in hand looking pretty, where as Mumbai is about cutting shapes and giving it some. 

Aaaaand the reinactment of Wacky Races continued.

Fun in the rain

Obviously.

Friday #1 (not Twitter)

Friday saw a tad more shopping, lots of Golf-playing, some fun in the rain, and our first bite of non-domestic food since arrival day. We went with some cousins to Haveli, which is effectively an outdoor food court with a DJ playing innappropriately loud (but enjoyable) music and a seemingly quite random array of statues/models. Really nice food though, and possibly the best Jalebi I've ever had! Despite having been on road in India many times, I don't think I will ever get over the zero-rule driving technique. Nearly all of the manoeuvres (including simple lane changes) are a struggle, and I reckon half are near misses. If only we were living Burnout...

(See next post for "Fun in the rain")

Kids-fend-for-themselves-day

Similarly to the behaviour of baby penguins when mama penguin leaves the nest early to catch the morning fish, sister and I took the parent-free opportunity to have a lie in (Attenborough, 2011). 

The other "key event" of the day has been captured in slightly blurry fashion below. After giving Papa 7/10 on his efforts to learn to email on the iPad, Di (sister) and I received 5/10 and 3/10 on our Hindi-speaking efforts respectively*. Thanks. 

That will be all. 

*Di's 5/10 was rather unjust, but the 3/10 for me was fairly generous. (Fun fact?)

Reference:

Attenborough, D. (2011), Frozen Planet, the one where the polar bears were filmed in London Zoo, but he pretended it was the flipping North Pole.

Simple one (day 3)

This day will be described fairly briefly given that one of the key events was me beating my sister's high score on Fruit Ninja.

I visited my grandad's free Ayurvedic clinic, which saw over 100 people satisfied with their treatments in less than 2 hours. Contrasting to the UK, all of the patients seemed very happy with their treatments. This may have had something to do with simple and efficient system by which the clinic is run.

Almost four-and-a-half minutes after my sister's arrival we teleported to the shops. This was where my Fruit Ninja feat was achieved. The rest of the day saw the relatives come and go (talking of Michael Angelo). xoxo

Day x <3 (yeah, that's more like how you use the less-than sign)

(Written 17/09/2013 22.34)

Ok so day number two, and I have comfortably reached double digits in the cups of tea tally. I was given a copy of the Bhagvad-Gita to read. It seems as appropriate as ever a time to read it, although it is taking about as much concentration to keep the book from falling to de-brie as it is to actually read it. No lie. We got WiFi installed in the house and spent some time trying to teach Papa how to use the iPad. First "computer" of the house - zero to hero!

The rest of the day was back to the familiar routine. Lots of eating nice food, drinking tea/Limca/Frooty, reading, spot of exercise and then walk with talk after dinner. Tomorrow Di is coming to Karnal to tear it up - i.e. Golf shall recommence. I Prashan't continue any longer. Laterz.

Day 1 at the Big Brother House

(Written 16/09/2013 22.48)

After a tiny panic about getting to the airport on time through the storms (but mostly the traffic), the rest of the journey to India went off without a hitch. Standardly sampled some overly strong drinks and pasted my arms in aftershave in duty free before heading to the gate. We reached the gate 20mins before scheduled flight time, as we observed what could have been with a man missing his flight at gate 22 next door. 

Watched a good film (Kahaani), ate a pretty nice dinner, fell asleep for "a couple of hours", then awoke pretty baffed to breakfast and just one hour til arrival at Delhi.

Knock-out (KO) all the way in the car to Karnal apart from a brief stop at our standard Dhaba for some parathas, paneer pakoras and a tea "with halka meetha" (less sugar). They lied. 

We arrived at the house in Karnal, and the familiarity was good. Pretty chilled day after that. Papa (grandad) gave me a book on meditation by Osho (Meditation - the first and last freedom), which was surprisingly relevant. It focuses on meditation as awareness and unattributable joy. Papa then sat me down to practise speaking some Hindi, which was well overdue! 

It has occurred to me that I might have written far too much for such a non-earth-shattering day, but somehow it felt significant. Safe.

Departure Day for India

As desired, it is a dull and cloudy day set for packing and, of course, picking all of the vegetables in the allotment. Fun! I am sure I have many other things to do right now while I am writing this pointless blog-entry, and I may live to regret this particular post when I have forgotten my passport at home! Packing was mostly done in advance because of the excitement of taking a backpack rather than a suitcase. Yes, tres exciting. About three hours until we leave for Heathrow, and I am returning to the garden to take photos of the grapes. Skeen.