Friday 16th December
I am up earlier this morning. The sounds of the household are becoming familiar to me: the scrubbing noises as floors are cleaned, the swish of the grass brush, the clank of pots and metal buckets, of water pouring and the various tones of the different voices that inhabit the place. I’ve had a somewhat restless night disturbed by mosquitos and the subsequent itching that the bites give rise to. I meet Prakash soon after I rise. He turns the water on upstairs and we make an attempt to use the toilet, to check that it is working, to discover that water is leaking from the connection between the pipe from the cistern and the toilet pan itself. There are a number of minor ‘snaggings’ as we would call them in the UK, various bits and pieces not quite right or useable yet.
By 10.00 a.m. I have been visited by Shiv lal and with the help of Prakash and his brother managed to get all of the rest of our things, including the fridge and the contents of the kitchen up into the new space. I also manage to have my first bath in the new washroom. Prakash and I then venture out for supplies, dry foods, cleaning materials and light bulbs. My intention on returning is to begin to clean the kitchen equipment and then to get this essential room operational. However I am thwarted by the fact of the water being off as the plumber attends to the various leaks in the new system. At 2.00 Shiv will pick me up to take me over to Suvidya’s house. Shiv tells me that he hasn’t visited Suvidya since the last period that Sahishnu was here. I find myself disappointed that the group doesn’t stay in contact between the times that the project is in operation. This isn’t new and also might account for Shiv’s anxious queries – a similar energy that I detected in Saraswati’s voice on the phone yesterday – about when Sahishnu will be coming. He relaxes a little when I explain that we hope she will be here in the next month.
By 2.00 I have managed to work through a good deal of cleaning and tidying. And so to the familiar trip along the Loni Road towards Shanti Nagar perched on the back of Shiv’s rickshaw. The journey brings back many memories from the first year I was in Delhi. I see how much has stayed the same, at least in broad outline, as I look around me – the familiar street side sellers peddling everything from fruit, clothing and shoes through to dusty adult magazines, plastic ornaments and live chickens. The road surface itself has been improved and a central foot high kerb has emerged making it impossible to cross to the other side – as many vehicles do when there isn’t a barrier of this nature. There are breaks in this structure but their placement seems not to have been decided based on the proximity of an entrance to a side road but rather determined by the whim of an arbitrary hand.
We reach Suvidya’s house in half an hour or so. Sunita and Suvidya live in very small and poorly served dwelling, without running water and less that adequate sanitary facilities. To add to this, the arrangement of wires that make up for what otherwise might be described as the electric supply has come untangled. I witness both Suvidya and his son Siddartha rather dangerously meddling with this mess, fearing that one of them will be electrocuted. Thankfully nothing happens. I learn from Suvidya that he has been very ill and incapacitated for over a month with typhoid. Though now recovered he is alarmingly thin, especially for a man who has never carried much weight in any case. We chat about various things connected to the local groups and agree on some weekly times for services and children’s Buddhist classes. Suvidya asks about other Amida members in the UK and listens opened mouthed to my brief description of Sahishnu’s accident and her injuries. It appears this is the first he has heard about it.
Shiv, Suvidya and I then walk together through the winding uneven and narrow streets to where Saraswati lives. Saraswati now hosts the children’s classes Sahishnu teaches since Suvidya and Sunita no longer have the space in their small dwelling. It is a friendly light meeting with one or two people from the community popping their heads around the door to offer greetings. We have some tea and talk about subjects similar to those I have covered with Suvidya. Rakesh - Saraswati’s son - is present, and as he has a good grasp of English the conversation is more fluid and feels less strained than it has at other times today. Before leaving and saying our goodbyes I accept an invitation to return on Monday to share a meal with the family. Suvidya and I then hop on the back of Shiv’s rickshaw for the ride back to the flat.
We return in relative silence, this only being broken when Suvidya points out to me the various groups of workers labouring at the side of the road, all gathered around huge hole-boring poles. We see about eight such scenes. I am fascinated by how the men are doing this by hand, two from the group spinning around the pole as if it is a piece of playground equipment and they children. Suvidya explains that this is the commencement of setting the foundations for a new flyover to bypass the Golshakar junction. I wonder about how this will effect the small traders, market sellers and shops along this stretch of the Loni Road. Already there are large green tents covering areas of land that front some of the bigger stores. These I assume are where the teams of workers sleep during the period of construction. I wonder too about the lives of these men moving from one contract to another, sleeping alongside busy roads that they are labouring on all day. It sends a slight shudder down my spine as I imagine living this way.
My evening is taken up with finishing cleaning up and organising the kitchen. I eat with Prakash at around 9.30 before responding to some emails and retiring for the night. The mass of mosquito’s in my room concerns me. I have no way of fixing my net and don’t want to start using the can of ‘Hit’ - the popular brand mosquito spray – that I have unpacked. So I end up deciding to sleep in the room next door which has been set up as a shrine room, knowing that it would be unwise to experience another night at the mercy of little blood suckers.
Saturday 17th
An uneventful day mostly spent at the flat aside from a short excursion to buy vegetables around 5.00 p.m. In fact it turned out to be a very short excursion since a seller at the corner (under the electricity transformer – one of the land marks to help me find my way back) had a good selection of the items I needed: One kg of onions and one of potatoes; half kg of carrots, tomatoes and small aubergines; 250g root ginger; coriander and chillies for Rs32, less that 50 pence. Prakash quizzes me when I return not confident that as a Westerner I won’t find myself paying inflated prices and insists that when I go to buy food I should ask his brother or Mother to go along with him. He seems pleasantly surprised when I tell him the amount. Whilst I am grateful for the continued solicitousness I am conscious - as I have been on previous visits - of the need to function independently of our supporters, to not rely too heavily on them for such simple daily needs. I have to confess that despite having been in India before I still find it challenging to negotiate these areas of domestic life, so it would be all to easy to just allow someone to do it for me or assist every time.
It does appear that prices have risen and whilst India’s economy continues to grow according to the news programme I saw yesterday, inflation is currently at 9% and the value of the rupee continues to drop relative to the main Western currencies.
This evening I engage in some practice and resolve to establish a shrine room routine, this being necessary to create the conditions to ground myself in the work and life here as it unfolds over the coming weeks. The background to this has been the struggle to acclimatise, partly I think because I have no easily definable function at the moment other than to maintain contact with the communities we are supporting and help with getting the flat ready for when Sahishnu arrives sometime in January.
Sunday 18th December
This morning I am up around 6.45 and sit for a hour before a period of chanting and recitation of the morning liturgy. At 9.00 I make some tea and put the water heater on for a stand up bath. The water heater is essentially an element like one would have in a kettle hung on a wire which is plugged into the socket high up on the wall. I leave this on and get back in bed to have my tea. It’s a cold morning and with the front of the property open and exposed at the moment it is proving hard to stay warm particularly in the morning and after dark. After my bath and breakfast – porridge with peanut butter, banana and raisins – I do some clothes washing and then venture out to the ATM. The most local one which I discovered on Thursday is not working so I end up walking further up the Loni Road to the bank I used during my last stay. It’s a pleasant morning by now, warm in the sun. There are lots of people in the park near LIG flats, many of whom are intrigued and curious to see a white Buddhist in a red robe. Some are more forward than others in making gestures of greeting and a few stop me – a gesture of anjali or to shake my hand. Others eye me with what I think looks like suspicion. I could say I am used to this or that this is to be expected but I think also that perhaps this is more a result of my self consciousness or my own suspiciousness rather than a truthful reflection of their actual regard for, or attitude towards me.
As I reach home I am stopped by one of the neighbours, Monu, a young man of around fourteen I would say. He invites me into his home, introducing me to his older sisters before proudly showing me his two goldfish. I think this is the first time I have seen a fish tank in India. We exchange a few words before I take my leave. The rest of the day I devote to doing some background reading for future teaching duties, for the Buddhist classes here and the Psychology programmes running in the UK.
It sounds like considerable change is afoot in the local vicinity, I hope that establishing the shrine room will indeed help you to settle into some routine. Preparation for the weekly children's Buddhist classes will no doubt provide more focus. It seems incredible to hear of typhoid and wonderful that Suvidya is continuing on his recovery. Warm thoughts and wishes xx
Posted by: Kay Mitchell | 12/18/2011 at 06:24 PM