Sacred Cows

Jammu- My 'Native Place'

~By Anu. I've just returned from my native place, Jammu. Wikipedia says, in olden times, the area around the river Tawi was thick with forest. One day, the ruler of Bahu state, Raja Jambu Lochan, came hunting... and reportedly saw a lion and a lamb drinking water together.
    Exclaiming it to be a place of peace and tranquility, he ordered a palace to be built at the site (a good way to destroy the peace if you ask me). Thus, a city called 'Jambu-Nagar' was built, which later came to be known as Jammu.
    I've always known Jammu to be a noisy, crowded trading town where gaunt, dusty porters with steel trunks on their backs compete with auto-rickshaws, impudent scooters, imposing bulls and endless streams of colorful pedestrians in the city's narrow lanes. My grandfather's house is in the old bazaar, Purani Mandi, across from the Government Boy's School, where my parents and most of my aunts and uncles were married.
    As kids, we were always taken to Bagh-e-Bahu, a Mughal garden on the eastern side of the Tawi river, for picnics. We were also made to climb up to Bahu Fort, a temple whose entrance is perpetually lined with beggars and cheeky rhesus monkeys who will snatch food and cameras if not voluntarily given their fair share.

We have broadband, but no water...

~By Anu. "What's holding India back?" asks the front cover of last week's Economist. The magazine believes India's bloated and inefficient bureaucracy is bleeding India dry.

    Of course, I haven't had time to read the Economist all week, because Jalil and an ever expanding circle of builders have been pounding away in the kitchen. Not content with the noise from sledge hammers hitting stone... they've also spent much time arguing at the top of their lungs. Jalil quarrelled with the man fitting rusted metal supports in the walls to hold the new countertops (one of which is almost at breast-level- great for Tarquin, not so good for my cleavage!) Then, he quarrelled loudly with the man who came to install glass in several windows, finally dismissing him angrily. Lucky for us, a second guy held his nerve long enough to finish the work and there are no longer mosquitoes pouring into the flat by night.

Inky pads and a crazy trip

Here's what it took for me to buy a kitchen sink... This is Kotla market, typical of Delhi's goods and hardware markets. Narrow lanes where people park their cars, even if it means no one can move as a result. At one point, we were stuck for 10 minutes while a huge Tata truck tried to squeeze through while bicycle rickshaws, motorcycles and pedestrians pushed through any gap they could find, making the truck's progress even more difficult. At one point, I saw a man haunched just outside a shop scooping builder's gravel into a sack as people walked OVER him.... Loopy.

We also signed our lease at the High Court. It took five clerks to do it. And we had to sign every page and put our fingerprints on the back....Apparently, people later alter the lease by taking out pages and replacing them...!

Delhi Headlines

2 infants burn to death in incubators

A newborn baby was charred to death in a government hospital in Delhi late Tuesday, reports Metro Now. The baby, born on March 7, was admitted to the ICU nursery, after being born premature. At 2a.m., a surge in the power supply (a common occurrence in India) caused the incubator to catch fire. The baby's mother saw the blaze, but could not rescue her child because doctors and nurses had locked the nursery's doors and left. By the time security guards and nurses arrived, the child had perished.

Meanwhile, in Gujarat, in western India, another 3-day-old infant died in an identical blaze, after an incubator short-circuited.

Top hospital short of cotton wool

The Times of India reports that Delhi's top government hospital, Lok Nayak, has been without cotton wool for the past ten months. The hospital is not short of funds... and there is no shortage of cotton in India. The story is murkier than that. It seems last year, the hospital's administrator cancelled the cotton wool  contract because the supply was of poor quality. Since then, no other supplier has been willing to sign a contract because of threats by the blacklisted contractor who runs, perhaps, the world's only cotton wool mafia.

Meanwhile, patients are being asked to bring their own surgical gloves, plaster, medicines, bandages, and cotton wool from nearby medical shops, which are making a killing. Rinku, 24, who fractured his right leg in an accident came for treatment, but had to wait while his family ran across the road to buy lots of bandages and cotton wool.

Bust up in the rasoi (kitchen)

~By Anu. Meet Half-Crack's crack team of kitchen renovators! The poor buggers have been at it for days, chiselling and pounding away at the primitive brick, concrete and iron bar monstrosity that is the kitchen counter. They've stripped it back to its foundations so that they can extend it and lay on a new sink and shiny, green marble counter-top. Now I understand why last year, when the building next door to ours was being knocked down... there was so much infernal pounding.

    Instead of using hammer drills, or wrecking machines... Indians still employ an army of poor wretched men who are expected to demolish a building, brick by brick, in their bare hands and feet, using sledge hammers and chisels... with not so much as a hard-hat or safety goggle in sight...! Nothing much has changed, then, since the days of the Taj Mahal. Talk about a labour of love!

    This morning, I arrived to find Half-Crack on his haunches, using a massive electric drill that he'd hot-wired into the socket. I couldn't tell if he was sleepy or drunk, because he kept putting the drill bit in the wrong place and then his younger employees would yell and tell him to move it up, or down, right or left. They all had a good giggle whenever he missed his mark.... 

The peacock has landed

~By Anu. Just a short post to say we've arrived, it's not too hot yet and we've found a flat! Delhi property prices have sky-rocketed, rentals included. We were shown a shoebox in Jor Bagh, in central Delhi, that was going for $750 a month! The sitting room was 10' x 5'!!
    The young turk from 'expatriates.com' complained to us that the prices for his serviced apartments (which go for a minimum of 1200 GBP) don't take into account the fact that he has to pay 40% tax on his income.
    'Welcome to the capitalist economy,' we said.
    But we've landed on our feet once again. We're renting a ground floor 2-bed apartment in Nizamuddin West, again very central and green. It's being painted at the moment, by a guy called 'Half-crack' (as in half-cracked)! A team of laborers is smashing through the old kitchen and hopefully, at the end, there will be some proper cupboards, a new marble worktop and new tiles.
    After three nights' terrible sleep, we've made it a priority to find a good mattress, a top notch water filter (Delhi's water problems are just getting worse), and broadband.
    Will post again once we've settled in!