More notes from India

I'm in India for the week in an aging and run-down building that appears to be undergoing a "renovation" of sorts. During the week I have been trying to decide whether the building actually needs renovation, or whether demolition would be more appropriate. There's scaffolding set up all around the outside walls. The scaffolding is supported in places on the uneven ground by pieces of brick under the legs and it doesn't appear to be tied to the building anywhere. What exactly is holding it up, if anything, is mystery. There's a workman using a high-pressure hose to clean the outside of the building. He's standing up on the scaffolding, several floors up in bare feet and I can't help thinking about how slippery that wet scaffolding must be. He's wearing a safety harness, but the harness is connected to a rather sad-looking piece of rope which is tied to the scaffolding below him. The mind boggles - if he falls he's going to go crashing down until the rope pulls him up, possibly before he hits the ground. I'm not sure which would be worse - falling on the ground or being smashed into the side of the building on the end of a piece of rope (assuming the rope doesn't break). Something that smells remarkably like diesel or perhaps kerosene is being used in the high-pressure cleaning and there's a mist of it wafting around the corridors.

The mystery source of the Naan - found!

Lunch and morning and afternoon tea is served in the "Executive canteen". Tea consists of a cup with a tea-bag in it, which is then filled with teeth-tinglingly sweet milky water from a large urn. Lunch is essentially the same every day, and while it doesn't look particularly appealing, the contents of the large stainless steel trays sitting on burners are actually not bad at all. One of the trays is marked "non-veg" (it's the one that contains meat, although they mostly all look the same, hence the need for the sign I suppose). This is a different take on what I am used to: having one or two dishes marked "vegetarian". Here in India, vegetarian is the norm and eating meat is the exception, not the other way around. Every so often someone appears from behind the scenes with a tray of freshly-cooked Naan, which is quickly snapped up by the lucky few who are nearby. I wonder in passing where this Naan is coming from. Later in the week, while I am on a walk around the complex, I spot a guy standing outside the building next to a tandoor, with a table of balls of dough. He's preparing the dough, then popping it into the tandoor. I've found the source of the Naan!

In the training room, there's an overhead projector hanging from the ceiling. The remote control is long gone, which is hardly a surprise of course. But I find an old stick (actually the base of a roller-screen which presumably hung on the wall at some time in the past) in the corner of the room which I can use to just reach the on/off button on the projector. It's my "remote control" for the week.

The class is quite varied, including people of widely differing seniorities in the company. I'm pleased to see that there are also four female students in the group. During the week I continue to be impressed with the ability of the students to pay attention throughout the entire day, and not only that, but to also retain the material to a remarkable level of detail. The quiz held at the end of the course confirms the impressive ability of these students to learn - and not just memorize -  the material.

The morning commute

I begin to recognise the same things every morning: The cow in the middle of the intersection, scratching itself against the (not working) traffic light. The mangy stray dogs lying peacefully on the roadside while the traffic rushes past. The man on the scooter with a steel milk urn strapped on either side (presumably making the morning milk delivery). The woman riding side-saddle on the back of the scooter, her thick braid of black hair hanging all the way down her back and her sari flapping in the breeze (at night the sari neatly obscures the tail light). The previously neat, but now abandoned traffic police stands in the middle of intersections. The vagrant with a mop of unruly hair and pants that haven't been washed - or probably even taken off - in perhaps years, lying on a traffic island in the middle of an intersection. The collapsing buildings with pieces of masonry dangling ominously from upper levels, handing by their reinforcing rods. The old men with white beards and turbans, squatting on their haunches by the side of the road. The piles of rubbish collected along the roadside. The occasional rubbish skips, full to overflowing, with a collection of cows, dogs, and people rummaging through their contents looking for something to salvage. The roadside barber, rickety chair on the footpath, mirror tied to a tree or to a wall, wet-shaving someone with a cut-throat razor. The impeccably neatly dressed school boys in their blazers and ties, running to catch the next rickshaw.

Colourful shops along the road

Looking ahead, there are two cars, a couple of scooters, and a bicycle bearing down the road in the opposite direction, each overtaking the other. The driver doesn't flinch - or slow down - and as we meet, somehow all the vehicles manage to pass by each other unscathed. I'm reminded of the story of the mad man who had come up with the idea that since everything is made of atoms which are moving freely in space, it should be possible for any object to simply pass through another, emerging on the other side intact - and then tried to prove his theory by driving his car through the one in front. A bit later, there's a woman on a scooter coming down the middle of the road towards us. Naturally I expect her to pull back to her side of the road, but no, she continues gradually crossing over to our side, and then as we meet, she passes down our left side since she wants to turn onto a side road (there are other oncoming vehicles passing our right side). So we go through the middle of two opposing lanes of traffic. At the only intersection where the traffic lights are working (complete with a count-down timer to show when the lights will change) the middle of the intersection is filled with scooters and motorised rickshaws who are positioning themselves to jump the red light on any gap in the traffic. They have stopped, but there's no way that they are going to wait for the light to turn green before heading off.

Recycling old engine oil at Vijay Motors