Possoms in India

Gardening in Delhi

The garden was one of the main reasons we chose the bungalow in Vasant Vihar. We've been here three months - I know because I just gave an unreasonable amount of cash to the landlord's agent for our second quarterly rent - and now that the monsoon is over I can start to do some serious gardening. 

When we moved in, the garden was a classic 'pocket handkerchief' garden: house in the middle of the plot, lawn on three sides, and flower borders on three sides (front, back and side). 

The existing structure is not too bad - there are a few established shrubs and the beautiful climber over the verandah, as well as an interesting mixed hedge at the front made up of bougainvillea and two or three other shrubs. I have a few flowers put in by the mali this season - and a few canna lilies left over from previous years (see left). Also at the back we have a large mango tree and a clump of bananas. I've never had such exotic fruits in a garden before, they certainly would not have survived in Cambridge. 

I have a few objectives:

1. Reduce the amount of lawn, especially down the left hand side, where it is very poor quality due to the proximity of the large mango tree. This will reduce the amount of water required for gardening. 
2. Flowers all year round in the borders
3. Increase structural plants
4. Make the garden less square by increasing the size of some of the borders

Yesterday I went on a trip to Mehrauli to buy stones to put down the left hand side of the house (to work towards objective 1). Mehrauli is an 'urban village' which means it is an old village that was swallowed up by the expansion of South Delhi, but has retained some its character and old buildings. It is a good place to buy stones and rocks, I assume because the quarries are nearby in the Aravali hills. The parking space was right next to an old (could be 15C?) building but of course it's all falling down and has been converted into dwellings and goat houses. 

We found a stone place - a yard full of pink stone slabs, good Delhi slate hacked out of a quarry somewhere, of varying hues of pink, and finished with varying degrees of accuracy. I selected 12 2' x 2' slabs at Rs 50 a piece and they were duly stacked up and left by the side of the road for a rickshaw wallah to collect later. 

Next stop a nursery on MG Road - to buy a few plants. I am very bad at the names of Indian plants, but I know I bought two white hibiscus, a 'chandni' (silver) shrub, two flowering shrubs, and a few small ground cover plants. It will fill in some space and create some structure to put annuals around. 

Plants were loaded into the car carefully so as not to make the carpet dirty, although Sunil did start shouting at the mali once because a shrub had slipped off its newspaper and was in danger of shedding a small amount of earth onto the floor of the boot. 

Then off to another 'rock shop' by the side of the road. It sold smallish rocks as well as decorative blue and green stones for building work - Sunil informed me of this otherwise I would have bought the colourful ones for the garden. The same place also sells rather smart outdoor pots which I might consider for the front entrance, but they were rather pricey (Rs 1,500 each) so not an impulse buy. The three bags of rocks were delivered to the quarry yard (Rs40 to a cycle rickshaw wallah ) and the auto-rickshaw finally agreed a sensible price for delivery to the house (Rs 250, the first asking price of Rs 550 was totally outrageous considering that, in the words of Sunil, 'they have this CNG natural gas, very cheap madam'). 

Of course when the slabs arrived at home half an hour later the mali had disappeared and there was a problem because the auto rickshaw drivers would not carry the slabs onto the drive: 'we are drivers, not labourers madam'. Eventually it was all unloaded - I just left them to sort it out themselves so I'm not sure who gave in and did the deed. 

This morning, I went out to get a facial in the newly refurbished Lakme salon, and returned to find the new path, pretty much as I had requested it (see right). They need to move some plants to the other side to soften it, and put some marble chips in between the slabs, but it's not too bad. It is pretty much straight, which is quite impressive since I am sure that the only equipment used was a piece of string and their bare hands. 

So I have started at least. I have bought an Indian guide to gardening which should help me to identify which plants flower in which season, and when to plant them. This is very different to the UK, because of the monsoon seasons. Most annuals flower in winter (February) and have to be planted in September/October from seed - so I need to get started with that. 

Moving to the bungalow

We're settling into our new place, a bungalow 50 yards round the corner from our old house. How we came to be battling power and water supplies instead of moving back to civilised Cambridge deserves a longer post than I have time for today. And most of you have heard the story already. For now, here are some practicalities that I would like to remember with a smile in a few years' time.

First, water. We were warned by a couple of people that this house has a 'bad' water supply. This is relative: our old house had a 'good' water supply for Delhi, which meant that water came regularly for two hours a day, between 5-6am and 5-6pm. The new house only receives water supply from the mains once or maybe twice a week. It has no less than four water connections - at least two of them must be illegal - including a connection to a bore hole that isn't very reliable or clean. Fortunately the landlord has done his best to mitigate the problem by installing a huge tank in the garden and two large tanks on the roof to store water. We're going to see whether he can improve the supply through official channels. Otherwise, Sunil will speak to his friendly engineer at the water office and see if we can be connected to the bore hole that supplied us in the old house, as that was pretty reliable.

All of this does make me feel guilty about the lawn which requires copious regular watering to keep it green. We are responsible for maintaning it - it was a selling point of the house for me, and the landlord wouldn't be very happy if we let it die off - but I do worry about exhausting the bore well to water our lawn when millions have severe water shortages in Delhi and the monsoon this year looks like it will be poor. Just one of many moral dilemmas in Delhi. I think the answer is drought-hardy plants and maybe to dig up some of the lawn and replace it with gravel.

Much of today was taken up with the installation of an inverter. Andrew thankfully dealt with most of this while I updated the household accounts and devised a new cash book system for Ganesh and Sunil (I was pleased to note that we are not bankrupt even after moving house and taking a UK holiday). It has been a real challenge to work out what power backup we need. We experienced load shedding (no mains power for about an hour every evening) regularly during the hottest days of late June and July, and it wasn't funny to sit in the dark when it's 45 degrees outside and you slowly melt as the temperature inside steadily increases. The choice for power backup is betwen a generator (plenty of power to run everything in the house but it is noisy, smelly and very expensive) or an inverter (will run only a limited number of appliances, not usually AC, but quiet and much cheaper to run). I was keen to get an inverter as most middle-class Delhi families survive with one and most Delhi families have no power backup at all.

We visited an electrical shop to get an idea of prices and then decided to ask the landlord's agent (who has so far been amazingly efficient and helpful) to arrange one. We made this decision yesterday. By 5 o'clock yesterday evening a well-spoken sales agent called to discuss our requirements, and then this afternoon a team of engineers, electricans, boys and a sales rep turned up to install the inverter. To get technical for a minute: we asked for a 3kVA sine-wave digital inverter which they said should run a few lights and fans plus the fridge (important), TV and computer (necessary for Andrew when he is working). They didn't have a sine-wave inverter in stock but suggested that they install a less hi-spec one today and then replace it in a few days. We said yes, so the team arrived and spent 4-5 hours trying to decipher the completely muddled mains board to work out which circuits to connect the inverter to. The circuits seem completely illogical. The main bedroom power sockets are on the same circuit as the kitchen pwer sockets, so I have to be careful not to use my hair dryer when Andrew is making a cup of tea or the circuit will blow. The TV is plugged into an AC circuit. The iron is plugged into a light circuit. And on and on.... we can't work out where the servant's quarter is wired to so Sunil can't be hooked up to the inverter which he is very disappointed by...... Andrew spent about an hour turning off and on switches to identify the wiring patterns.

The team got everything wired up at about 7.30pm by which time it was pitch dark and they were working by torchlight (obviously no mains light when working on the mains board), but then the inverter couldn't support the load so we had to switch it all off again. It looks like we actually need a 4kVA inverter - no great surprise to us as we suggested 5kVA originally but were told 'that is far too much power Madam, 3kVA will be sufficient'. The larger, more technically proficient inverter should arrive on Saturday and we hope it will be easy to install now all the hard work has been done.

We feel quite pleased that the inverter setup should work, it feels more like being a local and less like being an expat. Now we can feel very smug when all our neighbours' noisy generators kick in next time there is a power cut.

Mumbai

The last two days have been very difficult. Now that it seems all the terrorist-occupied sites in Mumbai have been cleared, maybe I can begin to get some perspective on what has happened. 

The first shock was a very personal one. I woke on Wednesday morning to find a message from a friend saying 'Thank goodness you are not in Mumbai this week'. When I checked the BBC news website I couldn't believe what I saw - the Taj Mahal hotel, where Andrew and I had stayed only three weeks ago, was occupied by terrorists. I was very upset and rang Andrew in tears. Meanwhile, Andrew in the US and our parents in the UK had known for several hours that something had happened in Mumbai. Although they were worried about me, they knew that I was asleep and so I'm grateful that no-one woke me up. Instead, I found out the terrible news in the early morning, and then very quickly had to move into work to make sure that everyone was safe, and reassure our visitors from the UK. This meant I had to stay busy and didn't have too much time to think about what was going on in Mumbai. 

Over the next two days, stories emerged of many near misses and the loss of one family friend. My company was very lucky. We held a big event on Wednesday evening at the Taj Land's End hotel in Mumbai (a few miles from the two hotels that were taken over by terrorists). Our global CEO-Chairman was in Mumbai, along with many of our India leadership team, and they all left the Taj Mahal hotel on Wednesday afternoon. By 9pm the hotel had been stormed by terrorists. I hear that the Hindustan Unilever board was meeting on the first floor, and I hope they are safe. Unilever is a very important company in India. A colleague has lost a childhood friend. He was the only son of her former neighbours, and was due to be married next week. The family is devastated. The Oberoi hotel is very close to our Mumbai office. The partners normally stay there when they go to Mumbai. It feels like a very personal attack for them - these businessmen spend a lot of time away from home, in hotels, and so for these two important hotels to be attacked is almost the same as an attack on their homes and families. Since the Oberoi is so close, several of my Mumbai colleagues were trapped in the office overnight on Wednesday as it was not safe for them to leave. That must have been very unpleasant. 

Meanwhile in Delhi, life goes on and we have been focusing as much as possible on 'business as usual'. We had a very successful visit from some London colleagues. They were extremely level-headed and there was no question of cancelling the visit, for which I am very grateful. However, us Brits are pretty used to this sort of thing from the IRA and more recent Al-Qaeda bombings in London and elsewhere. I do worry about the Americans' reaction. It has been very quiet so far - no doubt people are spending time with their families over Thanksgiving - but I know that they will be very concerned. I just hope that it doesn't put them off from visiting India, investing here, and bringing work to India. India had been reasonably well-positioned to continue economic growth through the global recession, but this could make a difference. 

Also, it is election day today in Delhi. My other concern is that fear will influence the polling and the more right wing politicians will do well out of this. Together with more strained relationship with Pakistan (which seem inevitable), this could easily reverse the recent progress made in Indo-Pak relations. One colleague expressed the view that democracy is too corrupt to be effective against terrorism and that military rule is the only answer. I hope that this view doe not become more mainstream. 

And I keep returning to memories of our very happy visit to Mumbai three weeks ago. We sat at the poolside bar in the heritage part of the hotel, watching Kevin Pietersen being chatted up by beautiful Mumbaikers. This week grenades exploded at the bar and the pool was reportedly full of dead bodies. Andrew and I enjoyed a Japanese meal at the Wasabi restaurant. This morning, that restaurant was the final place to be occupied by terrorists, and was the scene of a long gun battle ending in a raging fire. We walked along the passage-way linking the old and new hotels several times, and the doors were held open for us by polite hotel staff. Who knows whether those same staff are still alive now, and the passageway itself was apparently a strategic location for the gun battle. 

It appears that the battles are now over and that Mumbai and India can begin to pick up the pieces. Andrew returns from the US tonight to a changed country. 

Wedding invitation

Believe it or not, this is a wedding invitation. Delhi weddings are typically quite flashy, and everything from the invitation to the decorations has to be as glitzy and expensive as possible.

We have received several invitations, and they tend to go overboard on the glitter. But this is the most splendid by far. There's about 200g of almonds in the bottom. To put it in context, this is far flashier than the Diwali gifts that I received from my bosses at work. And the bridegroom? Our plumber!

England v Mumbai friendly match

We're watching England play a warm up match against Mumbai in the Brabourne stadium. The barmy army is not here yet so it's a bit quiet, but some local cricket club boys are making up for it. The England team is staying at our hotel so I was within 2 feet of Flintoff's tatoos yesterday!

Kumbalgargh - mediaeval Rajasthan

We're on the first leg of a Rajasthan/Madhya Pradesh tour. We're staying in Kumbalgarh, about 50km North of Udaipur, for three days to start with, and will return to Udaipur for Diwali before going onto Gwalior, Orcha and Kajuraho.

Kumbalgarh is a tourist village close to the main attraction - the fort. But none the worse for that, and our hotel - Aodi Hotel - blends nicely into the hillside. After a lazy start to our holiday, we walked up to the fort - about 2km - this morning. The walk was great. Unusually, the countryside is green and fairly quiet. It's really good to be away from the noise and pollution of Delhi. The fort is extremely impressive, 26 miles of walls perched on the top of a hill, and a small 19th Century living quarter at the top of the hill. For once we weren't pestered by pushy guides so we were able to wander slowly up to the top of the fort by ourselves. Just as well, as it was a very long way to the top and it was getting warm by 10 o'clock. The view from the top was incredible: we could see a lot of the walls and across the plains to Pushkar.

Afterwards we took a jeep on a village tour. This was really just a drive around the countryside. It's very intensively farmed in small plots of land irrigated by bullock-cart powered wells. The farming techniques appear not to have changed since the fort was built in the 15th Century: manual sowing, threshing and harvesting, and ploughing by bullock cart, although I expect the fertilisers are more 20th Century.

We have seen some improvements in infrastructure since our first visit to Udaipur 18 months ago. The new terminal at the airport is now open, and is very smart and spacious. The roads have improved as well - new dual carriage-way for some of the journey to Kumbalgarh. But it's still India: trucks going along the wrong side of the carriage-way, stretches of road that are still under constructions, and then the crowning glory was a herd of about 50 cows being driven along the road to the nearest town to be blessed at the temple.

Disastrous Diwali - the economic view from India

Until this month, India seemed to think itself immune to the global financial crisis. Colleagues at work said "We have a strong economy fuelled by domestic demand, the credit crunch is a problem for the US banks only". In the run-up to Diwali, those illusions were blown away. On Friday 24th the SENSEX lost over 1,000 points and closed at 1995 levels. The Rupee touched Rs 50 to the Dollar. As the headline in the Times of India read; " Not a happy Diwali at all".

So what changed?

Foreign investors have been driven to liquidate investments in India in order to meet committments at home. India needs foreign direct investment to fuel growth, so the dearth of liquidity could suppress future growth. Falling commodity prices have hit the likes of Tata. And the IT and service industries will undoubtedly suffer from the recession to come in the US and UK. However, India still looks to be in a reasonable position compared to other economies. Consumer credit is not high - in fact most well-to-do Indian families have significant gold reserves in the bank or under the bed - and businessws are significantly less leveraged than elsewhere, so the Indian banks are unlikely to suffer catastrophic write-offs as in the US. Domestic demand will slacken off as construction slows, but with some luck, this will turn out to be a slowing of the economy not a recession. The government has shown it is willing to act by taking measure to inject liquidity into the markets, and will continue to invest heavily in infrastructure. Hindus will pray fervently to Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity, this Diwali. 

Diwali celebrations

Diyas in the office at Diwali

Harriet and Andrew and a few million uninvited guests visit South Africa

It all started so well. Andrew was invited to speak at a University of Pretoria conference, so we decided to take the opportunity to visit the Kruger National Park and see some lions, since we had enjoyed the tiger-hunting in India so much. We left Delhi on Wednesday evening, and started the long trek to Kruger, via Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and Nelspruit. We finally arrived at our game lodge, Lion Sands in the Sabi Sands reserve, around Friday lunch time. after spending a couple of hours driving on dirt track roads. When I woke up that morning, I had felt as if someone had beaten me up overnight. Andrew swore he wasn't the guilty party so I assumed it was jet-lag and was looking forward to a massage at the spa. But I started feeling very strange, so as soon as we arrived at the lodge I went to lie down....and burst into floods of tears. Not normal behaviour when you've just arrived at your luxury private game lodge in one of the world's best game reserves. The hotel staff were a bit worried, and when we realised that I had light sensitivity and a fever they called out the local paramedic. By the time he arrived my fever had climbed up to 39.5, and then they stopped telling me what it was (A later told me it peaked at 40.7C. Scary). The paramedic consulted with the local doctor on the phone, and they decided that I should be airlifted by helicopter to Nelspruit - 20 minutes by air, two hours by road.

I was completely immobilised and in almost total sensory deprivation for the trip: I had put a mask over my eyes because of the light-phobia, the paramedic gave me ear phones to protect from the helicopter noise, and I was strapped to a trolley with an IV line into my right arm. The only mobile bit of me was my left arm, which was holding on for dear life in case I fell out of the helicopter (not very likely I know but I wasn't totally rational). I remember several people carrying me, and the paramedic injuring his hand somehow, and then someone saying "watch me as you take off because there are eagles in the area". Then we were off. I held on for dear life during the flight, hoping I wouldn't panic or get claustrophobic. I was hot and thirsty, and had no way of communicating with the people in the copter (too noisy). So I just held on and waited, for what seemed like a very long time. Eventually the doors opened and I felt a breeze....I assumed that this implied that we had landed. I hadn't even noticed. So it was a very smooth ride.

Once in the hospital, they looked after me very well. It was a bit confusing at first, but within an hour I had seen the doctor, they took a battery of samples to test and x-rayed me, and I was moved to a quiet private room where I could get more comfortable.

The docs were worried about meningitis, dengue, malaria and typhoid. I think they found the whole India thing a bit scary - interesting given that parts of Africa have all these diseases as well. Two days after I was admitted, I had a preliminary diagnosis of typhoid, and this was confirmed by subsequent blood tests. I must have picked it up somewhere in Delhi  - not that difficult during the monsoon when everything is wet and damp and rather smelly - and brought it with me to South Africa. But it was a bit surprising, since I had the vaccination before going to India for the first time. The South African doctor didn't put much faith in the vaccine - but this was later contradicted by our Delhi doctor. I also had a helping of e. coli on the side - all the bugs decided to party in my stomach just when I was feeling tired from the journey. The hospital was a bit spooked by this tropical disease and so put me in isolation. This meant that Andrew and all the nurses wore a gown and mask the whole time they were in my room (a bit surreal for me and uncomfortable for them) and no-one else could share my bathroom (peaceful). 

So we were left in the rather bizarre situation of having to stay in South Africa while I recovered. Fortunately the hospital was excellent - thank heavens for private health insurance and antibiotics! I had six days in hospital on IV antibiotics, six days in a small hotel just outside Nelspruit, and then we were lucky enough to be able to return to Lion Sands to continue our holiday for three days. I was pretty tired, but able to do some game drives so I have lots of pictures. Unfortunately Andrew was not able to go to Pretoria to deliver his paper at the conference - but we did meet up with his SA colleagues just before we flew back to Delhi.

The whole experience was very strange. It was odd to be so far from home (either UK home or Delhi home) and family, and to be so ill. It was a pretty strange time for Andrew as well: he spent a week in the lovely 'Road Lodge' hotel in Nelspruit, whose only recommendation was that it was a five minute drive from the hospital, and passed his days sitting by my bed in a surgical gown and mask, speaking to the insurance company to confirm that they would cover our extended stay in SA, and updating family and colleagues on my progress. But I'm thankful that the fever didn't start while I was on the plane from Delhi, and that the care from the SA medical staff was so good. And in a way it was fun to recuperate in a different environment.

Now we're back in Delhi and I am fine - just trying to recover my energies to go back to work next week. I will have been away for three weeks - a long time, and I know that lots has been happening. In the meantime, I'll write a bit about the visit on the blog and sort out my photos, and submit a claim for our SA expenses to the insurance company.....

Green, hot and humid

Definitely not Delhi!

It is difficult to believe how green Kerala is until you see it. Our first view was from the plane as we descended out of the clouds to land at Kochin airport. Miles of green, broken only by patches of water flashing by. When we stepped off the plane, the humidity hit us. The whole atmosphere is lush and warm (around 36C).

Kerala is known as "God's own country" because of the abundance of food and the beautiful landscape. What isn't immediately apparent is how much of the landscape is man-made. As well as the lakes and lagoons, there are many canals and paddy fields where the water is kept at the right level by pumping stations. The fields are used for different purposes depending on the season: during the dry season, they are filled with brackish water and used for prawn and fish farming. During the monsoon, they fill with fresh water and are used for rice-farming. Every other person you see on the waterways is fishing: either with nets, the famous chinese fishing nets, or with a line. And the trees are certainly full of fruit: mostly coconuts (imported originally from the Polynesian Islands, although it is very hard to imagine the Keralan landscape without them), but also Jack fruit, papaya, mango and of course bananas. The bananas in Kerala are the tastiest we have ever tried! So it may be God's own country, but man is exploiting its potential to the full.

We wanted a relaxing week. Fortunately, there is something about the soft Keralan atmosphere that means you automatically relax. It might also have something to do with the humidity which makes you want to lie down and sleep in the afternoon. We had a very quiet week - two nice hotels to relax in, a day-long boat trip and a half day on a canoe and a bit of sightseeing in Kochin.

On the last evening we were given a Keralan cooking demonstration by a very charming and friendly lady. She was actually from Tamil Nadu but had moved to Kerala a few years ago when she got married, so she has learned all the Keralan recipes from her mother-in-law, friends, and the TV. The demo was great, very hands-on, and we were able to grill her for lots of good fish recipes.