Touring part 2: Delhi

Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's Palace - designed by Lutyens, like much of new Delhi. I hadn't realised how recently the capital moved from Calcutta - a British decision taken in 1911. 

Me by the Salt March monument - as part of a renewed push for Gandhi led a 240m mission to break a British law and gather salt by the sea, resulting in 60,000 taking similar action and being imprisoned. There's also an excellent Gandhi museum nearby. * 

A Baoli, or step-well, built about 1000 years ago - the alcoves used to have market stalls while travellers could collect water at the bottom. Now somewhat incongruously round the back of a block of residential buildings.

* New outfit #1

Learning languages

ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ (namaskara, hello!)

Almost everyone in Bangalore speaks some English, but understanding and accents inevitably vary - on several occasions I've been flummoxed even by a cheerful offer of a carrier bag. When asking for auto drivers to stop my first reaction is to say 'anywhere here is fine to stop' which does neither of us any good. One simple suggestion from Sunil is to order coffee 'sugarless' which is much more effective than 'without sugar' or 'no sugar'.  I'm learning fairly fast to drop the more English expressions of politeness and every day speech, (would you mind?) but constantly surprised by how many of them I use without thinking.

Apparently Hindi is widely understood, but views vary as to how useful it is here. In the UK I was told that it is sometimes seen even more as an imposed language than English itself - rather like Russian in Eastern Europe. The two South Indian languages that seem to be most widely spoken here are Kannada and Tamil (although there are plenty of others). Kannada's the state language, which means its on road signs and shop fronts, so that's what I've started learning. My homework for the end of the week is learning to recite a new alphabet... which looks like this. And perhaps some of the more practical phrases.

Road trip: Indian wine at Grover's

Just outside Bangalore, towards the Nandi Hills, the climate is about right for growing grapes. The founder spent his career in industry importing heavy machinery from France - and decided to experiment. French methods still proudly dominate, apparently. After some experimentation with different grapes (full history on their website) they've concluded a number of varieties work.

 I enjoyed the whites, but was less keen on their red. Sadly too the wine they're selling to help preserve a local endaged species is very sweet.

A chemist explaining methods for storing, aging etc

The tour was organised for a group from the Overseas Women's Club (including rather more menfolk than average) - and took in the vineyard proper, the making progress and some tasting. We also had some excellent biryani for lunch.




If anyone can tell me anything about English wine, would be very grateful - aside from Denbies near Mum and Dad's I know very little!

Roads and pavements - and Malleswaram

I had a request a week or so ago for pictures of what the roads and pavements were like, considering India's terrible reputation for traffic. Sometimes the pollution can be oppressive, and travel times vary, but that's equally true of London even if traffic lights are less rigorously observed. Mostly pedestrians walk on the road even where there are pavements, but today was the first time I've walked down a main street or high road (Malleswaram) and thought only about the shops and stalls around me rather than the traffic/dogs/likelihood of tripping - sadly no photos today of the beautiful flower garlands, but they will follow... and I did have a delicious (if not very Indian) doughnut...

Malleswaram is the location of Mantri Square Mall which is the biggest in India (according to their website) and home to a cinema, food court, the Body Shop and a Marks and Spencers (oddly reassuring, but I'm not planning on regular shopping). Rather than the mall, which is good for practicalities but not always that inspiring, we went to see the fruit, flowers and veg in the market, wondered around past lots of fabric and clothes shops and finished at a restaurant for a thali selection of excellent if rather hot vegetarian food, followed by gulab jamun (honey/syrup soaked Indian doughnuts), banana and ice cream. There were lots of families out, and it felt like one of the more 'normal' places we've spent time in, particularly off the main road, where the streets were quiet, cool and treelined. A little more like the garden/pensioners city of Bangalore folk stories than other areas. Should we ever need to move, I think I'd be very happy there...

This is me walking down the street (there were plants overhanging the pavement and just isn't really worth using). On the right of the photo above are women ironing in the street - the irons are enormous things with hot coals in them, I've yet to make friends with our local person, but will put up photos when I do.

Around the city there are lots of murals decorating various government and other buildings - I'm not sure whether there was a policy decision taken, but my favourites so far are the local (ish) animals, and the surprisingly specific defence ones...

Reading and readings

I was lucky to get several books by Indian authors or about India before we left. As the stuff from our house we shipped - including most of our books and dvds - has yet to arrive, these have been very welcome. The three that have made the biggest difference so far are:

 An Indian Housewife's Cookbook, which although written for a British audience has a list of Indian - English spice names I couldn't have got through shopping without (supplemented with the odd online search). It also has recipes for unfamiliar vegetables, which I intend to embark on next week.

A Suitable Boy; I've loved Vikram Seth since I read The Golden Gate in sixth form, but I've never picked up Mum's copy of this book which is about 1500 pages and three inches thick. The length was a blessing week before last when I accidentally got a wee bout of food poisoning and self-housebound. As well as the interesting parallels around local elections (Uttar Pradesh and Maharastra go to the polls next week I think), communalism, more cheerful, even cheeky references to Jane Austen and various religious festivals, I also again sought out the food and descriptions of drinks for special occasions.

and...
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, a delicious book of short stories elegaic, funny and full of the politics of partition and the history of India.

To add to the rest of my (limited but very high quality library), on Saturday afternoon I went to the National Gallery of Modern Art for Bangalore's first literary festival, Lekhana. Amidst poets, critics and journalists, I was particularly struck by several young novelists. Once I've obtained copies - not least of the one set in my part of town, will provide updates. The gallery was a appropriate venue - modern architecture, plenty of shade and different spaces. This picture doesn't do justice, but the only one I remembered to take on my phone (of poet Joshua Muyiwa):