daily

21/01/11

Smoke choke rickshaw rides back and forth to jeevan nager's centre, the indian sun now begins to warm the air. more and more barefeet in flipflops appear clad in bells and polish, the air thick with dust and smog shimmers. the children get restless also, back at school and attending these extra english classes, each willing to be there , keen to learn and have this free opportunity but no less children(or brats to quote myself after a bad lesson).

Jeevan Nagar

11/1/11

an ugly concrete building surrounded by a concrete yard and walls with iron gates, opposite heaps and heaps of rubbish are surrounded by a makeshift market. the rickshaw stops here, jeevan nagar, my place of work for the next two months.

A squealing roar greets us and we're mobbed by an array of children, some small, some brightly coloured, sequins glinting, some with matted hair and barefeet, each showering us with rose petals and adorning us with garlands of marigolds. little hands shaking mine, kisses on my cheek and the women shyly shoo them away until we're sitting with eight shining women, each with a different colour salwar kameez and matching thick scarf wrapped around them. they beam as they tell their stories. Some are community health volunteers(CHVs) and some supervisors.

Halima looks into my eyes as she talks, she doesn't even seem to blink as she tells of a life transformed. once a muslim women who couldn't leave the house, now a pillar of the community, caring for 200 families and petitioning the government officials about sanitation in the slum.

Back to Delhi

7/1/11

In the search for my bed for the night on the 19hour train to delhi i find a choice travelling companion, a polish phd student in india looking for sanskrit manuscripts. straight talking, smart and savy. we have a sleeper bay to ourselves but it quickly fills with a group of men playing some form of trumps on a table cloth held across their legs. a group of korean tourists dressed in tourist turbans and fake beards snake down the isle as the delhi express creeps in one direction for 20 minutes before creeping back again.

8/1/11

Vast and colourful and tragic and vibrantly alive. the railway tracks are playgrounds, kitchens, bathrooms. back and back the breeze-block and corrugated iron shacks sprawl out from the tracks, two or three stories tall. fires, washing, carpenters, barbers, a community of great magnitude built from rubbish and performed to commuters daily.

it is dry and cold as we creep through the outskirts of delhi, the part i am to familiarise myself with over the next few months, so far away from the brahmins of pushkar and the hoteliers of jaisalmer. so far away from the whiteman's travel size knowledge of what india is and needs.