Toodle Pip India ...

Wednesday 21st March 2012

We leave the hostel in a convoy of TukTuks - there are after all 3 of us plus luggage - with a heavy heart. It has been the most wonderful refuge from the madness of Delhi. Immaculately clean, lovely people who run the place, even nicer people who look after each floor and bring hot water in buckets etc. The meal we had last night was probably the best I have had on this trip, despite being served on metal trays, and the location is absolutely second to none of the 5 stars hotels.

I have in fact already  booked a return visit. Caroline has always wanted to visit India and so I propose to bring her here in January 2013 on the 26th January - Independence Day - where we will attend the Independence Day celebration on Rajpath. It will be possible to walk there from the hostel! I cant wait.

We drive to Menakas house where I sit and worry about all the extra stuff I have with me. Keke goes off and buys a suitcase for me and it soon all disappears, other than a patio umbrella I have also bought in a moment of madness. It is huge but Menakas maid packs it expertly in brown paper and tape and all is well! I just see it in the Gallery adding colour to the place.

There is total pandemonium when I reach the airport as I have no idea that Jet Airways have changed their flight schedule from Terminal 1 to 3, and the latter do not allow Tuk Tuks into their inner sanctum, and so I have to commandeer a taxi at the gates to the airport and hot foot it in, where I have to politely barge every queue going to get onto the plane. Whilst in England this would have elicited some negative reaction, here the people could not have been nicer.

I sit typing this in the middle of the Maidan Oval ground in Mumbai, having just arrived from Delhi and with a 14 hour wait to board my flight to London, decided I would come into town and have a look around as the other day I did not see that much.

I am was not that enamoured with Bombay when I came the other day, and have to say that at least so far, there is not a great deal that I have seen that is going to change my mind

Watching youngsters playing cricket in the red earth of the Maidan Oval is a delight, and they wave to me and shout as soon as they see me take my camera out. They show off their best Tendulkar style as I snap away and I end up with some OK photos. The batsmen are pretty impressive as they slog the ball all over the ground, rather better and more enthusiastic that what I remember from school.

I consider cricket the second most boring game on earth - the honour of the most boring is left to soccer - but the effusive enthusiasm of the crown here is making me maybe change my mind, maybe swapping it with darts in my list of top ten!

There are some even younger boys being marshalled by their sports teacher into playing foot and he lines each one of them up with a kick which they also do with great abandon,giving whoop of exhaled energy as each on connects with the ball.

I have been to the Oxford bookstore to buy something to read on the plane home - my Kindle having run out of energy and rebuffing my charging effort, largely due to the fact I appear to have forgotten to turn the plug on!  book on the Independence of India will keep me going through the tedium of the flights back to London.

And so the end of this particular journey. I have been here for a purpose, namely to see my distributor - who has placed the biggest order for Econotest in its 27 year history - and to spend time with Oscar and Tom and introduce them to my friends Menaka and Puran for whom they will be working int he coming weeks.

I cannot say that I have enjoyed the trip a great deal. Delhi is not a tired town (apart from of course the relatively small part of Delhi around the parliament buildings) with far too many people and far far too much traffic. It all still works, but only just. The pollution is unbelievable and the filth and squalor in the streets may be attractive to those who visit India for the first time, but I have had enough of it.

India's economy is based on a false premise. Namely that of cheap labour. One way or another overseas companies invest here because the people of India are cheaper to employ than people in Europe and other places.

They are also of course extremely clever, numerate and literate … and this is to their advantage, but when all that is taken away, all that is left is that the Indians, by and large cost very little.

Of course is spawns an expansion of the economy as more and more companies turn to India's chap labour, but so long as the Indian government continue to turn a blind eye to the corruption of the clever and the exploitation of the poor, it will all  continue until the bubble bursts!

As I sit in Bombay looking at the hideous skyscrapers that dot the skyline, I admire those that can afford to live there, but there is to my mind no point in pretending that  their success is on the back of their fellow countrymen who, from what I have seen, are ever more driven into the ground which in the end will cause untold social problems as the infrastructure of the towns and villages - where the workers live - crumble and disintegrate more and more!

I stop for a glass of sugar cane juice - SO refreshing - and when the attendant waterline squeezer objects to my IR10 note, on the pretext is has a hole through the middle, a passing man, who speaks good english, sees my predicament and buys me my drink!! The people are as always utterly charming!

But as for the economy…well, I cant see it carrying on as it does now. As soon as prices rise labour prices rise ….

I went back on my word and made my way to the Taj Palace hotel by India gate to spend the evening. I have a fistful of rupees left over and need to spend them and so in order to write about what should (but probably wont) be a wonderful meal - mind you i do propose to limit myself to one course - I have come here.

It starts badly. I go to the bar and order a beer - being somewhat bamboozled by the price of anything else. The beer arrives in a glass that has clearly just come out of the washer and is warm. It goes back …. rather to their chagrin! Another arrives and i almost freeze my teeth on the beer. We'll teach this whippersnapper a thing or two !! The beer is accompanied by a tray on nibbles, one of them being a wondrous crackly thing which is covered with the strongest mustard flavoured coating.

The bar looks out over the water at India gate…but do they light it up ? No, they do not. Quite unbelievable and so all there is to look at are the crowds, some of whom look in on us, looking out at them.

The bar could be absolutely anywhere…with brown sofas, brown tables and an eclectic assortment of people who are clearly staying here and who are spending a great deal of money on their pre dinner drink. The Indians on the next table have just ordered a whole bottle of vintage red wine. It arrives and they taste it with much fanfare…and complain it is not cold enough….! 

The waiter doesn't bat an eyelid and brings an ice bucket……bless !

There are a couple of cheeky choppy Englishmen at the next table  - (OMG!!! as they say …the wine connoisseurs have now had their bottle decanted into a sort of Ikea'esque glass decanter…double bless!) - who are drinking beers and discussing CNC machines with 2 Indians 

At the far end of the bar,  Joyce Grenfell is holding court to a couple more enthralled locals. I am not quite sure what they are discussing - apart from I overheard her mention how dusty something was…I assume she is not referring to her room here ! She looks the part, is quite delightful and is beautifully dressed in a beige dress with a wonderful pashmina….well, pretty wonderful..not a patch though on the one i have bought for Caroline…and looks a million dollars ! She is calling her fellow drinkers 'darling' and throwing her arms around for emphasis as she talks…. I call everyone the same, a habit which has rubbed off, in an ironic way, on Oscar ! 

I now move closer to nose in on her conversation as she really is quite scintillating… and am now sure she is some sort of upmarket tourist guide, taking a couple of rather ghastly Americans around, as 2 men, one young and one monosyllabic and older, sit transfixed by her use of the English language. She throws the expression 'throwing a wobbly' into the conversation which flaws them completely…quite hilarious and great fun to observe! Only in India!

My favourite public figure in the whole world - Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF has been in Delhi for a couple of days, no doubt returning favours for the Indian vote to replace DSK - and of course secretly I hope she has maybe come for a day to Bombay (she hasn't! Ed.) so we can have dinner together. 

But no, and so I slope off on my own from the bar to the restaurant.


I have given up trying to keep up the daily verbage...it is too much like hard work and frankly the things I have got up to have not been that interesting.


Oscar and Tom arrived from Mumbai on a train. They have enjoyed themselves, but looking at their pictures only serves to confirm my suspicions that I would have not appreciate the cramped conditions, the rather boring scenery and the food ... and so am delighted that I came here by plane, albeit at extra cost !
I have had a very satisfying outcome to the trip from the point of view of my business, and feel I have more or less secured the continuity of Econotest for the best 3 or 4 years or so, and that not even allowing for orders from elsewhere as well as the imminent launch of Econotest Omni into a market where fuel consumption has become one of the hottest topics on the planet!
It has as usual been a pleasure to deal with my Agent here even if we have had one or two tense moments in our discussions, culminating in my threat to return to the UK if their attempts to fleece me of discount did not cease. It seemed to work a treat. as my contract was confirmed within 5 minutes of that phone call!
It has been also a pleasure to have Oscar and Tom join me here for a few days. They have now made contact with my friends Menaka and Puran whose SHARP NGO they will be working for, They all seem to get along like a house on fire, Tom and Oscar enchanting their small some Venky , as well as their teenage daughter Tanya, who we are looking forward to visiting in Paris on her upcoming exchange trip in May.
We went out for a lunch with them on Sunday, after which we had a wonderful walk almost the full length of Rajpath in the evening, all the way to India Gate which was crowded with people all enjoying the relative cool of the evening. We also noticed that India Gate, though similar, is somewhat larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and had a but of fun pointing this out to my  French friends on Facebook! It was wonderful to see the people milling about, enjoying the evening and enjoying family life. It reminded me of the passegiata in Italy on a Sunday evening.
Last night Tom Oscar and I went out for dinner and a few pints of beer - quite a few pints - to a very nice bar in Connaught place, where we sat outside, high up above the traffic looking out over the city of New Delhi. After our 5th glass of Kingfisher, we spied some camels ambling through the square which gave us a double take moment at our glasses to see what we really drinking. But apparently they come all the way from Rajasthan and exercise the camels in the cool of the evening ...this being in the region of 11 pm !
We went shopping for hats as the temperatures have soared in the past few days and the heat is now oppressive ( didnt find any!) and Oscar and Tom have been out on their own alot to explore what will be their home now for the next 5 weeks.

The Taj Mahal

I m unable to sleep these days if I am to wake up at an early hour the following morning, and tonight was no exception.

We have booked a taxi at 5 am in order to be ahead of the hordes who hot foot it to Agra to view the Taj Mahal, if not at sunrise, then at a time when the temperatures, which have been officially declared the hottest March in 5 years in the Delhi area, get out of hand.

I got up at 4 30 and boiled myself a bucket of water - it takes about 10 minutes to heat up quite enough hot water for what my Yorkshire born mother would have called a 'right good wash'…had she not been taught to speak posh!

I rolled decorously around on the bathroom floor washing everything which in that position is accessible, and even had a few jugs full of hot water left over for a rather pleasant additional rinse just for the sake of it.

I dressed, made sure the boys were up (they had declared themselves worried that they would not be, but they were!) and headed out to meet our taxi driver whose name escapes me!

We headed off into the traffic - surprisingly thin for that time of the morning - and off to the Agra Highway, which for a large part of the 200 or kilometres there, is actually a 3 lane highway complete with its own toll booths.

The driving on the road is no better than anywhere else, with lorries hogging the fast lanes, almost every piece of overtaking being done on the inside, and occasionally cars, motorcycles, walkers and above all motorised rick shows headed the wrong way down the motorway…. often in the contraflowing fast lane. Get the picture? It was, especially whilst still dark quite quite terrifying and I am pleased that Oscar and Tom were able to sleep through it!

The sunrise was wonderful off to our left and I am afraid I inveigled our driver to stop a few times in order for me to take some very atmospheric shots over the misty fields towards the rising sun. 

I stopped a few more times to dive into small villages we passed through to take photos of people and things as we passed and found at least my human subjects smiley and willing to be photographed….the animal subject were a little less forthcoming !

We stopped for a quick but rather good breakfast in a roadside service stations which looked more like a wimpy bar from the 1970's before heading off again towards Agra.

The filthy conglomeration of Delhi we left behind was replaced by the equally filthy conglomeration of Agra, and we were stuck in queues amidst belching fumes for far too long. It was awful…at least for me who has a pathological dislike of queues at the best of times!

We entered the carpark serving the Taj Mahal and were immediately set up by the usual fakirs and chancres, but did employ a very pleasant guide who was to spend 1 1/2 hours with is for about 17£ Not bad in my view

We were allocated 'foreigner' tickets which meant no queues at all to get in and soon we were gasping at the sight of the Taj Mahal, which I first saw over 30 years ago. I am unsure but I think Oscar was slightly overcome by its majestic beauty! Doesn't surprise me.

To my surprise I was approached first by spmeone who asked me for my autograph and then by someone else who asked to be photographed with me. I suspect it was because I had managed to find a rather splendid Panama hat in the carpark (I had been trying to find one for ages) and so looked a little like the epitome of an eccentric Englishman!

We learned all sorts of things about the Turkish Architect of the Taj, why Jihan built it (in memory of his young wife who dies after giving birth to the 14ht child in 8 years!) and also found out one or two less savoury things about him, mainly that in fact the Taj Mahal was in large part paid for by donations from his subjects! Oh well…. the Indian way.

We sat for a few minutes in the gardens and stared at the building before being shepherded into a gift shop on the pretext of seeing how the descendants of the people that built the original….were able to continue the habit….oh, no excuse me…how they run shops selling strengthened alabaster pretending it is marble and trying to rip off the tourists !

We decided against going to Fakherpur Sukir - as the road there and back to Delhi was too bad - I distantly remember the same excuse being given 30 or so years ago - and so headed back to Delhi once again in the heat of the day in a car where the aircon was shall we say a title feeble!

We stopped once again at a service station where I commandeered the kitchen to make myself a Chapatti based pizza which was rather good and devoid of all spice, before heading back to the hostel where we spent the rest of the evening taking it easy!

In conclusion

I have given up trying to keep up the daily verbage...it is too much like hard work and frankly the things I have got up to have not been that interesting.

Oscar and Tom arrived from Mumbai on a train. They have enjoyed themselves, but looking at their pictures only seres to confirm my suspicions that I would have not appreciate the cramped conditions, the rather boring scenery and the food ... and so am delighted that I came here by plane, albeit at extra cost !

I have had a very satisfying outcome to the trip from the point of view of my business, and feel I have more or less secured the continuity of Econotest for the best 3 or 4 years or so, and that not even allowing for orders from elsewhere as well as the imminent launch of Econotest Omni into a market where fuel consumption has become one of the hottest topics on the planet!

It has as usual been a pleasure to deal with my Agent here even if we have had one or two tense moments in our discussions, culminating in my threat to return to the UK if their attempts to fleece me of discount did not cease. It seemed to work a treat. as my contract was confirmed within 5 minutes of that phone call!

It has been also a pleasure to have Oscar and Tom join me here for a few days. They have now made contact with my friends Menaka and Puran whose SHARP NGO they will be working for, They all seem to get along like a house on fire, Tom and Oscar enchanting their small some Venky , as well as their teenage daughter Tanya, who we are looking forward to visiting in Paris on her upcoming exchange trip in May.

We went out for a lunch with them on Sunday, after which we had a wonderful walk almost the full length of Rajpath in the evening, all the way to India Gate which was crowded with people all enjoying the relative cool of the evening. We also noticed that India Gate, though similar, is somewhat larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and had a but of fun pointing this out to my  French friends on Facebook! It was wonderful to see the people milling about, enjoying the evening and enjoying family life. It reminded me of the passegiata in Italy on a Sunday evening.

Last night Tom Oscar and I went out for dinner and a few pints of beer - quite a few pints - to a very nice bar in Connaught place, where we sat outside, high up above the traffic looking out over the city of New Delhi. After our 5th glass of Kingfisher, we spied some camels ambling through the square which gave us a double take moment at our glasses to see what we really drinking. But apparently they come all the way from Rajasthan and exercise the camels in the cool of the evening ...this being in the region of 11 pm !

We went shopping for hats as the temperatures have soared in the past few days and the heat is now oppressive ( didnt find any!) and Oscar and Tom have been out on their own alot to explore what will be their home now for the next 5 weeks.

Tomorrow we are off the Agra and the Taj Mahal, after which on Wednesday I return back to the UK which I have to say I am looking forward to !

Free day in Delhi

Friday dawned bright and sunny ! The temperatures, even in the hottest part of the day were comfortable - around 27 degrees - with a light breeze.

I hired an Auto-rickshaw for a day - after discarding a couple who didn't speak English (no point in a driver who doesn't speak Englsh as so many do!) I came across Keke (Rosberg as I called him !) who was a lovely man who has been driving Tuktuks around for 32 years ! He knew every part of Delhi and was happy to whizz me off and show me !

I had to slow him down a little as actually I was only interested in looking around New Delhi and so off we went. First to India Gate - a wondrous archway which makes the Gateway of india look silly - at the end of the equally wondrous regal road called Rajpath - the sort of The Mall of Delhi.

New Delhi was largely designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and there cannot be a more brilliant use of space and urban majesty as his design for New Delhi. Huge wide streets, building on raised mounds and red and beige sandstone everywhere. 

Keke was a little worried about going anywhere near Parliament buildings as the security is very tight indeed. They do not allow you to stop, even for an instant and so I had to make do with seeing everything from inside the Tuktuk, which was at least better than from the inside of a taxi!

Next stop was Indira Gandhi's on Safterjung road which has been turned into a memorial to her. A really lovely, homely house where one can see how this wonderful woman lived as they have preserved her artefacts, paintings and furnite as it was when she was there. Even fresh flowers are put out every day.

There were also some wonderful photos around of her family, including her sons Sanjay and Rajiv, the latter going on ot become Prime Minister after her assassination.

In the garden was a very dramatic representation of Indira's assassination by 2 Sikh bodyguards, where the path she was walking along has been covered in glass shards

You get the picture of a really warm person, who happened also to be Prime Minister of the most populous country on earth.  I would like to go back there maybe with Tom and Oscar.

Next stop was the Birla House, or where Mahatma Gandhi lived for the last years of his life and where he was assassinated. Again, very peaceful with wonderful grounds, all very well maintained, with his urban ashram at the end of the garden where he was going to pray when he was assassinated.

I was pounced on by a rather earnest young man who recited at me, rather than to me, all about the ideals Gandhi espoused, some of which was rather interesting but in the end I had to cut him off as he was going on a bit! But he was very nice and refused when I tried to give him some money for his services! Very Gandhiesque !

I then went inside the house which I have to say was rather strange. They have tried, in my view rather too hard, to be very spiritual and there are some things on show which really have very little to do with Gandhi and are not very interesting at all…for instance a toy train which lights up and emits steam engine noises, but which I am sure enthrals the kids!

I was followed around the house by a young girl who I am sure was also very Ghandhi in her thinking and who I think was going to have a go at selling me more mumbo jumbo idealism, but who gave up when I clearly wasn't terribly interested in what I was looking at.

Next stop was lunch at Claridges Hotel - by far my favourite hotel in Delhi - followed by a nice cup of coffee in the garden.

Claridges hotel is again right in the middle of New Delhi and despite being a 5 star job has retained a little of the old times of Delhi, rather than all the other hotels which have abandoned their Indian heritage to become ghastly impersonations of other 5 star hotels around the world….most of which I detest with a passion..!

After lunch Keke and I went off again on something of a wild goose chase to try and find a tailors that I had ordered a suit from last year before I was stuck in hospital. Unfortunately they have moved and so our journey there was a complete waste of time, and as by this time I was beginning to feel a little ill, decided to return home to the hostel and lie down.

I was of course sugaring from Delhi Belly…having rather stupidly not thought that the restaurant we ate at last night might possible cause me a problem!

I had a rather important meeting with Maruti in the evening and so forced myself out of my room and into a taxi at about 7.30.

I was taken to a part of northern delhi that I had never been to before and which I am afraid I never want to go again. The roads were track, there was water, sewage, animals and detritus everywhere and in the end, feeling as I was, I felt quite sick.

But I had carry on but went into the meeting - in an office which turned out quite civilised -  in a pretty dreadful fame of mind, having to excuse myself every 5 minutes to dash to the loo!

Anyway, I don't think I did too badly and ended up on tenterhooks whilst Marute convenened tomorrow afternoon to give me the biggest order in the 27 year history of Econotest!

Arrival into Delhi

I was delighted to leave the hotel at 9.30 and went to the airport.

I had spent quite some time last night looking at the various airline options for my flight to Delhi and concluded that there is some sort of cartel going on as they were almost all exactly the same price. That is about 5 airlines, flying to Delhi all within a few rupees of each other! Eat your heart out Easyjet!

As a result I had something of an argy bargy with the ticket counter of Indigo Airways when I collected my ticket. They ever so patiently explained to be that they were sorry, but they didnt have a flight at 11.15 to Delhi and even if they did they did not see my name anywhere on their records. No, no you must be mistaken I told them. I booked it last night at 11 o clock. No you didnt not Sir. yes I did...we could have gone on all day.

With only with a modest amount of eye rolling and shaking of my head, I left the counter determined to prove them wrong.

Unfortunately on checking my emails it transpired I had booked with Jet Airways....oops! Silly me

The check in was a bit silly too. They, very efficiently give you a padded and lockable box to put your 25 wallets, 3 computers, 8 pens and stuff in. They then lock it and give you the key on a huge metal fob! And of course that sets the alarm off....ha ha etc, but we soon got over that one and I was aboard our lovely plane to Delhi. My God, was I pleased to get out of Bombay!

Our pilot was a girl...I am still old fashioned enough to be a little surprised and no little pleased when I fly with a girl-pilot, but this one was funny too. She came over the intercom and made an announcement which completely cracked me up.

Ladies and Gents, welcome aboard this flight to....eh....oooooh, let see now....DELHI...that's it!!

Great stuff.

I finally got my iPad working with a new SIM card and found myself a hotel in town for one night. We rocked up there and it was fine. A nice room etc and after much haggling on the price, I was shown to a very nice room indeed.

The evening was spent with my Agent here in Delhi, a couple of employees of his and a huge big wig from Maruti at an excellent restaurant miles from the hotel. Great food which I will get writing about soon and some fairly productive discussions.  Tomorrow or the day after I am hopeful of some exciting news!

Before going out for dinner with Vinod, i took a walk around the immediate area of the hotel. It was the usual rather scruffy street, forcing one to dodge the sleeping dogs, building detritus and general mess that is. or has become, endemic of Indian towns in general, and, as I was to ecome aware, of this area - Karol Barg - in particular.

My first port of call was a dress-maker !  As I was walking down the street looking in the shops, I came across one where a young girls - she cannot have been more than 22 or so - was standing arranging her window. There seemed to be a number of European style dresses on display and so I decided, in the interests of NelBlu to walk in and take a look.

Her Name was Sandhaya Soni and she was a dress designer. She had a huge collection, many of them in the Indian style, but quite a number of a more European design, in bright colours and modern fabrics. The prices of her creations were of course higher than the usual here - a rather fetching ball-gown with Svorovski jewels, was going for about £200 or so. 

Next port of call was an art gallery ! Yes really, I happened to look up and saw 'Art Gallery' on the 2nd floor of a building, and so after much searching for the entrance and stepping over bricks, mud and rotting food, went up to take a look. Very Au jour !

Lots of rather bling paintings, but one or two by an artist called Handamana were very good indeed, though again rather over priced. 

There were also some items of Brass figurines, along the lines of the Kama Sutra, pressed onto glass which were rather good and very original, so I might go back and take another look at those some time too.

Dinner with Vinod and his cronies was a jolly affair with the man from Maruti (shades of the Man from Delmonte!) being a particularly interesting fellow with an abiding love of  Magnetos and vintage Morris Oxfords!

We went to a restaurant which was a long way  away and was apparently quite famous in foodie circles! It was started in 1959 and has been going ever since.

Full of locals, it specialises in Tandoori and so that is what we ordered. Excellent it was too and it came with grilled pieces of a form of cottage cheese and some Dal. 

Absolutely detest Bombay....so I absolutely refuse to call it Mumbai!

No and I'm sorry, but Bombay is a dump. An unmitigated dump. From what I have seen, and frankly I don't want to see any more, it has not got one single redeeming feature. 

It is an industrial/business city by and large and whilst it may have some sort of self-appointed veneer of sophistication somewhere, it is hot, dusty, choked with fumes, noisy, crowded and ugly in the extreme.

I am leaving tomorrow to go to Delhi…the boys will be fine with that…probably elated even,  and they are staying behind as they are booked on a train on Friday night to Delhi.

After a cancellation I have booked a room at the Delhi Youth hostel, which people rave about and which is right in the middle of the diplomatic quarter of town and a wonderful launch off point to see things.

So there is brief is what I am up to. Now for what we have done today !

The boys slept in this morning, as usual I couldn't sleep much beyond 10 am despite going to bed in the end at 5 am local time and we left the hotel at about 12.30 and hired a driver for the day. INR 800 for the day with 80 kilometres included.

The traffic was something else….I mean just unbelievable. We crawled into town and were bumper to bumper for about an hour in the searing heat. It was quite awful.

Anyway, we made it to the main train station and staggered about until we found  the mythical "Counter 52" which is where they dole out the tickets for trains which are held back for tourists. 

It was all very efficient, computerised and stuff, but I am afraid that as soon as they announced to us that the Rajahni Express, the train that whizzes to Delhi in a mere 17 hours and has a degree of comfort, was fully booked my eyes glazed over and I lost any will whatsoever to travel there by train, as the alternative trains were going to take 24 hours and probably longer and would stop at every second bend!

The boys were of course up for whatever was going and so we soon paraded out of the station with 2 tickets in 2nd Class AC on the somethingorother mail train from Mumbai to Delhi on Friday ! My God, I do admire them, but frankly rather them than me!

From the station we drove over the the Gateway of India, where in the old colonial days the liners landed with the Raj types aboard. It looks a little like the Arc de Triomphe and is located for some reason right on the edge of the water.

Well, I don't know….it is an arch in the midde of nowhere with a lot of tatty people and tatty things like acres of nbuilding materials around it and really looks nothing at all when compared to other arches I have seenl. But anyway we dutifully plodded around it and I suggested we take a boat out into the harbour to see things from the water.

The waterfront of Bombay is of course huge, and is filled with rustbuckets of every sort as far as the eye can see. There are a few ghastly gin palaces lying at anchor like the sort you see in the South of France and a few Indian Navy ships - including the old Ark Royal complete with launch ramp which I think we flogged them as a job lot with HMS Victory many years ago! What amused me was that even the sea seemed dusty and dirty !

Anyway, we returned to dry land and had a quick mooch round the Taj Hotel which is right next to the Gateway of India and which is considered the 'best' Hotel in India.

You  know what I am going to say, don't you. Well, I absolutely hated it…and I think the boys did too !  It is exactly the same as so many other modernist 5 star hotels around the world, with more or less exactly the same shops selling absurdly overpriced tat. 

It was full of self important Europeans and even more self important Indians who somehow think that by dressing in expensive clothes at 3 in the afternoon confers an air of sophistication on them !  The whole place reminded me of the Wynns hotel in Las Vegas, though the Wynns was much classier and much nicer located !

We then went to have an early dinner as we were all tired. We went to Marine Drive which is the Corniche here in Mumbai. Again what on earth it has going for it I cannot imagine, but I suppose if you live here it is all you've got! Rather crummy buildings are on one side of the huge dual carriageway full of traffic and an OK beach is on the other !

We went onto the beach and sat down at a sort of beachside food area which it has to be said was rather nice. It was all very local and w ordered something called Dhosa, which was a type of wrap made of mashed potatoes and onions. It came with some dal and another quantity of slop on a metal plate. 

We sat on the ground eating and felt very much 'au jour' and trendy! 

Afte dinner we went for a stroll on the beach. Our first port of call was to buy a corn on the cob which the chef cooked on some embers but then promptly slathered in lemon salt (revolting, though Oscar manfully munched his way through it!).

We then went on to buy a fresh Mango from another vendor on the beach which was equally revolting and tasteless and also slathered in Lemon salt ! Oh well….

We then went to a bookshop where the boys bought a guide and I bought a beautiful Parker pen made in India for very little, and then we went back to the boys hotel and I came back to my hotel and crashed!

No, today was wonderful from the point of view of being able to spend time with Tom and Oscar - and as I had no intention of swamping them  my leaving tomorrow is just the right thing in order to let them get their feet under the proverbial table of travelling on their own, which they seem to be taking to like a duck to water.

But from just about every other point of view it was absolutely dreadful. I make the world and beyond one promise….I will ever ever return to BOmbay !

Buona Notte and see you'll in Delhi tomorrow. I fly at 11 am with Indigo airways and arrive there at 2 in the afternoon.

A word about NelBlu....our art gallery in Cowes

Let me digress here a little an write a little about this art gallery thing!

Caroline is an artist of considerable talent, but like all artists fails to produce a single picture on account of other things she has to do and the general feeling that 'her' art is nowhere near as good as 'their' art.

The logic here seems to be that 'their' art is exhibited on the internet, in galleries and in cafe's around the world and 'her' art isn't, ergo theirs must be better. Absolute rubbish!

It is my contention that her art is somewhat better than 'their' art, judging by some of the tat I see exhibited around the place but she needs what is commonly referred to in artists parlance as a 'kick up the bracket' to get her going.

So what better than providing her with an art gallery all to herself ! Well, that of course is not the intention, but I am hopeful that she will now start painting again, and that her pictures, together with selected pictures of other artists both from the Island and not will hang side by side in our little gallery which is located in pole position in the High street in Cowes!

I also take the occasional photo and even more occasionally some of them come out 'all right' and so I would like to have a little fun and display some of my photos as well just to prove to myself what I have suspected for years that if you present a photo well enough packaged people will buy it, and so  am in the process of ordering up prints of some of my better photos to see what happens.

However we mustn't run away with the idea that either Caroline or I are under any illusion that what we are doing is either sensible or an automatic passport to untold riches, fame, or better infamy ! We may well fail and close down in 12 months time, and if we do...we shall be the first to say 'I told you so' ....so don't waste your breath!

Most galleries in the provinces fail miserably or are supported by benevolent owners  with deep pockets. I am neither benevolent nor have deep pockets, though we are sure we can well afford the rent which is derisory.. There are no rates to be paid for 12 month, and hopefully by that time we will have an idea of what we are doing. The (to me) worst thing is the notion of having to be 'on site' 12 hours a day, rather than skiving off with the dog or jetting around the world !

But in the meantime I at least propose to have fun. I am going to get a whole load of artists onto our books - with Caroline and I being the final arbiters of what we want to display - find sculptors we can display too, and also put in the odd 'oddity' (Our amazing collection of shoes we bought pack from Morocco being one such idea) which I hope will attract attention as people walk by our place.

I you are in Cowes do come and see us!  We are at 9A Bath road, and extension of the high street. Our premises are tiny but very cute and in a lovely house, owned by what appear to be lovely people.

If you are an artist, a sculptor or produce art in any other form and would like us to consider you for the gallery, do contact me. We will have our own website soon (www.nelblucowes.com) but in the meantime drop me an email.

Thank you!