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.