Bizarre.

Have you seen my cool?

It's official.
I have lost my cool.

You'll ask: How the hell do you misplace such an important thing, where could it have gone?
And I'll tell you: It was easy and It's probably in the same place as all my bobby pins and socks.

It could have all been prevented if I had just not stepped off the plane on the 15th of Jan 2009. I could have just stayed on the plane and gone somewhere else. But at that point, I never thought I could be so careless.

So anyway, here I am 6 months later and I look at myself in the mirror and I can see behind my eyes, there is no more cool. There is only heat.
Who the hell am I? I don't raise my voice. I don't demand things. I don't crap on people.
Well, I never used to. Now I do it all the time.
All of you who know me, imagine I get in a taxi in South Africa and the driver doesn't know where my destination is. I flip out. My voice is raised, my face is red, I'm threatening to take the cab company to the consumer court. I'm giving it to this guy like he has never had it before. Behaviour to make my parents proud.

I'm not trying to make excuses, but Dehli is an aggressive city. It has one of the most extreme climates (below 3 degrees to above 45 degrees) and historically it was the first place to be invaded every time India was at war. These things and I'm sure others have given it a really hard edge.
So I jumped on the band wagon. I got aggressive. I got angry. I got furious. After exercising my virgin vocal chords for a few months, I realised that I had raced way ahead of the band wagon. Delhi is not furious or angry. It just knows what it wants and it does whatever it wants, which is pretty admirable. So unlike me, Delhi has a cool heat.

Now I am stuck with a heat I want less of and a lost cool. I've tried yoga, I've tried swimming, I've tried meditation. Still no cool.

So I ask again. Anyone seen my cool?

ayee ayeeeeee ah! Holler man.

This video was taken at 8am on the road outside my apartment.
This guy is selling something, I'm still trying to figure out what...
He sings/shouts/calls/hollers/?!?!?!?!?!? to let everyone know he is there.
Notice how he turns around to do another lap.

Beauty in the Gurgaon beast.

This is the view from my desk.
And if you look a little closer...Nice.

Taking it home.

The family all dressed up in their Kurta Pajamas.

Passing the time

I have slowly been teaching myself to read in the car to pass the time on my commute to work. The roads and traffic are so bad that car sickness is a hard beast to tame. I was pretty damn impressed this lady was not vomiting over her husbands shoulder. Maybe she's had more practice than me.

Sleeping on the job or the only place to sleep?

Here is a really interesting article with a lot of details regarding the laws and usage of cycle Rickshaws.

Taxi Drivers

Arriving back in India from a 'normal' place like Cape Town is a bit of a shell shock.
Besides for the weather and the traffic, you realise that there are actually a lot of other people in the world and that the universe does not center around you and the people you love.

1,147,995,904 people can really make you feel small and insignificant and lonely and humble.

In India, I interact with or walk past at least 40 people per day (not including work). In Cape Town this would be about 5 if I'm unlucky. You really get a sense of all these little universes around you. People doing what they do... which, in Delhi, generally means not caring what anyone else thinks about what they're doing.

Example... taxi drivers. I take a taxi to and from work every morning - it takes me 45mins to 1 hour each way and every day I have a different universe driving me.

Driver number 1: Spoke to his friend on loud speaker from the minute he picked me up until the minute I handed him cash. This totaled about 45 minutes. Despite how much this obviously killed me, how does he afford to chat for so long? He spent a fifth of what I paid for the ride on his call.

Driver number 2: Sang Hindi songs. Quite well. Nice.

Driver number 3: Kept me waiting for an hour and then drove in circles looking for a non existent turn off while he was getting directions to do another U turn from the head office.

Driver number 4: Took me through his favourite CD compilation. It sounded like the best of all the NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC albums. You know, all those songs that don't have actual words or just don't make sense:
Da da wee oo da da wee oo here we come.
I'm blue, if I were green I would die???
La da da di da da da da wanna be my lover.
Boom boom boom I want you in my room.
Even a little big of Shaggy and the Pussy cat dolls' version of Jai-Ho.
If I was drunk I would have been dancing!

People doing what they do. Being the best version of themselves they can be.

My best version of myself lands up letting driver 1 speak to his friend even though I'm squirming in my seat with irritation, not huming along to Driver 2's Hindi songs, getting out of Driver 3's taxi and taking an auto home instead and not asking Driver 4 for a copy of his CD.
I sucks, ha ha.

Passport photos

I went back to South Africa last week to apply for a new Indian visa.
For the application I needed 4 passport photos.
So, before I left, I went to a store in the Defence Colony market (New Delhi), had my photos taken and was told to come back in 10 minutes.

When I arrived to fetch the photos, the 'photographer' handed the envelope over together with a very unusual smile. I opened the envelope and inside were, to my horror, 4 beautifully airbrushed photographs of myself. My skin was perfect, I think he even put a twinkle in my eye.

I told him how beautiful he made me look.
He grinned and gave me a thumbs up sign.

How to negotiate like an Indian

Negotiating in India is a necessity. I am VERY bad at it.
The people I deal with always leave smiling.
Hopefully these tips will be helpful.

My first Hindi words

And according to Nusrat, the Hindi translation for 'Excuse me' is 'Hello!'

Indian Summer It's the beginning...

39 degrees in April. WTF!

HOW TO BEAT THE INDIAN HEAT (before it beats the crap out of you):

- Wear loose, light cottons
- Wear light colours
- Don't wear make up
- Always carry water
- Be all old school and carry a hankerchief
- Drink nimbu pani or coconut water or other cooling drinks

- Use a parasol... mmm, parasol, great word





- Abuse your AC (but always keep a big bowl of water in the room)
- Keep a spray bottle of water in the fridge, (this can double up as a cruel joke).
- Swim swim swim - most hotels have memberships for their pools.
I'm down with The Qutab Hotel.

- Wear a hat. Especially a stylin one like I bought for my brother at KM toilet.






- Go on holiday to one of these places
- Stay inside and play abusive games
- Stay inside and google Indian Summer

Panicker's Travel Company

Imagine... an Indian travel company tailored for people who panic(k)...
Tranquilizers, airbags on every seat, airplane vomit bags, itinerary where every minute of every day is organised, double flights are booked just in case, the guide is also a trained psychologist... Genius.
Unfortunately their site doesn't demonstrate such a cool sense of humour.

Be kind to animals

It's a good deed to feed pigeons and cows are sacred.

Weird right? And causing a truck load of issues in the cities. Cows randomly walk across streets, pigeons randomly live on my balcony and nest on top of my extractor fans.

The short version of why cows are sacred is:
Milk. Work (used for farming). Reincarnation (someone you knew could now be a cow). The Hindu God, Lord Shiva rides an Ox. At one point the cow asked the Gods to save the earth. A little bit of tradition and superstition. Here is the long version.
Here is an interesting article on the legal issues of 'cows and the city'.

When I searched how many pigeons there are in Delhi, this answer came up:
18 326 038
This can't be right as about a quarter of this live on my balcony.
Despite an hour wasted on Google, I still have no idea why it's a good deed to feed them.

Wildlife

Without thinking and probably just to make conversation, I asked someone if there was wildlife around Delhi. I really felt like an idiot after they stared at me long and hard until I realised the stupidity of my question. To my defense, most of these guys are pretty tame... except for the monkeys.
I borrowed the cow image as I didn't have one of my own.

Things I'll never get used to

I guess there had to come a point when I needed to complain.

1. Hooting.
There are 2 points to this complaint.
Firstly, here they call it horning and I just can't get used to saying: Stop horning. OR I can't bear all the horning. OR He horned at me.
The American guys working with Dan think it's hysterical that I call it Hooting coz hooters means a whole other thing...
I said: When I stopped at the robot, he hooted at me and I gave him a zap sign. This was met with a lot of confusion and laughter.
The second part of this complaint is that people 'horn' as freely as they breathe. The time it takes for people to start 'horning' when a traffic light turns green is approximately minus 10 seconds. Then you get 'horned' at to warn you they are driving past you, 'horned' at to let you know they have passed you, 'horned' at to say hi... I could go on. They're very very 'horny' round here.

2. Scooters.
When I first saw a man, his wife and their kid crammed onto a scooter I thought I'd seen it all. Then I realised that the wife had no helmet and was sitting side saddle. This was too much for me. Then I saw a man, his wife (side saddle no helmet), his 2 kids (one on the handle bars, no helmet) and his friend all on one scooter. I think there must still be a surprise for me around the corner, what about his parents and her sisters?!?

3. Visitors.
I'm so used to living my private Cape Town life where no one rings your doorbell unless you're expecting them to. Before I started working I would get summmoned out of my bed at 8 by the buzzing. It would begin with a cleaning lady looking for work, then a man who wants to put up blinds, then the guy collecting the trash, then a guy who wants to install gas, then the landlords driver with an extra piece of crappy furniture, then the guard asking for money and then and then and then.

4. Aaaaaayeeeeeee-aaaaaahhhhhh
Ok, there's this guy... I don't know what he's selling, but I'm sure it's nothing that I want. He begins his work day at about 7:15. He cycles past my apartment about 6 times an hour. How he lets everyone know he is there is by 'singing', loudly, in a very nasal voice this one word, which will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life: Aaaayeeeeee-aaaaahhhh.

5. Driving to Gurgaon. This fabulous place is where I work. Uglier and dustier than sin. Worst part is that it's an hour commute each way in heavy traffic. Only bonus about this is that I get a lift with a super entertaining and interesting guy.

Holi dance

3 guys with Indian style drums moved around the party all day creating little dance hubs.
Rocking.

I got to do some Indian circle dancing??? with a bunch of crazy, drunk, high on bhang people (most of whom had forgotten to do up their flies). (Obviously not referring to the people in the vid).

Barbie's coming to our place in her princess chopper.

Huge roof terrace + left over Holi paint = totally camp Helipad.

I wish you could smell this...!

1. A group of young Indian men on a Friday night smells similar to the perfume area in a British department store, but on steroids. Imagine a quarter of a bottle of aftershave per person and there's a group of 30. It's actually pretty refreshing after some of the other smells... see below.

2. The Nala... This is a shit river. Literally. It is an open air sewerage system, pretty common in Delhi. I walk/ drive over it on the way to the market every day. The smell feels like a very personal and insightful insult, or being slapped in the face with a porcupine and most of the spikes go up your nose.

3. The spice market: Cumin, saffron, tumeric, tamarind,cardamon, pepper, ginger, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, all in one sniff.

4. Meat market. This is not a smelling experience I can put into words. If you are ever in New Delhi, go to the INA market and find the meat section. Make sure you enter from the far side for full effect.

5. Car fumes. Delhi traffic is intense. It used to be so bad that they converted all public transport to CNG (compressed natural gas). This apparently improved the 'choking of Delhi', but it has not improved the 'choking of Casey'.

6. Masala tea. 3 times a day, I receive a mug of steaming masala tea on my desk. I don't ask for it, it's just assumed I want it (which I do). It's made from masala spices, full cream milk, normal tea and about 6 spoons of sugar. Mmmm... when's the next one coming

7. Arriving home to food. We recently hired a woman to cook and clean for us. After 2 months of take aways, opening the front door to home cooking is a knee weakening experience.

8. The sea. Ok, so there is no sea in Delhi, but there is a sea in Cape Town and at the moment, home sickness smells just like the ocean.

One of the best movies uploaded to youtube of all time

The Evolution of Dance