Merry Christmas!
The beautiful image was not made by me but by my Portugese friend, Margarida Oliveira (of Forma Design, Lisbon), but I am borrowing it because it is so beautiful - I hope she doesn't mind!

We have celebrated Christmas in the Netherlands with our family, and are now off to the not-so-snowy mountains of Switzerland, where we will indulge in fresh air, swiss cheese, lots of wine of course and hopefully some snow to go skiing. And yes, we will meet more friends there!

We wish you a fantastic, fascinating, colourful, healthy and happy 2007!
Do join us again in the new year for more adventures in Incredible India!

Partytime!

Not for us, mind you...but in India, the months of november and december (and february, I am told) are months of weddings and celebrations! A wedding in India is not something to be taken lightly; astrologers are consulted to determine the perfect day for the wedding, bestowing the maximum amount of happyness, luck and good fortune for the couple - and in february there seems to be a day on which the moon and stars are so perfectly aligned that 40.000 weddings are planned for that day!
The average amount of guests attending an Indian wedding (of wealthy Indians, that is) is app. 1000 -1500 people - elephants are involved, as are white horses, a live band or dj, fireworks and the occasional helicopter. In order to fit so many people in an open space, the so called "Partyhouses" were established, where huge gardens accomodate all those that wish to celebrate the occasion.

So a partyhouse is a house with a big garden where party's can be held....like the one we are living in...or the one our neighbours are living in...needless to say that there are a couple of these -illegal, but that need not be a problem- in our proximity! So at the time we are enduring loud music, fireworks and yes, the occasional helicopter. Sometimes we hear Indian music, which is quite nice, but at other times the dj is playing house-music (of which we only hear the drums) or -even worse- the occasional guest takes to singing a hymn, and unfortunately these seem to be the people that really need to take advantage of the situation as normally no-one would let the near a microphone!

We have taken to sleeping with earplugs but especially the singing seems to be unstoppable. We were explained that in India, in order to be convincing, things have to be exaggerated...loud music, loud colours, loud everything. We are now planning a party of our own and as soon as we have found a band that is willing to play Dutch folksongs (smartlappen), on a day where all stars are misaligned and everyone is resting, at a volume enough to cover the Scala, we'll hold it!

What a week!
Coming back to India after three wonderful weeks in the Netherlands (for me that is, T had a LOT of work) I felt ready for a Christmassy, cuddly time...only to find that the temperature had dropped considerably and our house was cold, big and not cuddly at all! Now I understand why everyone kept saying I would need carpets!
Then the next day the trouble with the personnel started (as everyone predicted it would, but we had hoped in our case things would be different). The father-in-law of our cook turns out to be living in our garden, the kitchen has been used for cooking (and not for us!) and the gardener presented a bill for a blanket and the story that "he is a poor man" so could we please pay it. O yes, and could we also buy a buffalo....and suddenly, 5 years India seemed like a Very Long Time!

Luckily there is a large group of veterans whose shoulder is available for moments like these - they laugh, they tell horror stories of their own and they assure you that after a year all is settled and by then you don't mind about many things any more. Or, as one veteran put it, you pick what to get upset about and you leave the rest. In eight months' time, we'll see.

In order to get over my "what the hell am I doing here" feeling I decided to emerse myself in social engagements, and -amongst other things- joined a "spiritual walking tour" through Old Delhi. The pictures show the shrine of the Sadhus of Bankhandi; here is where the orange and yellow robed holy man meet and can stay as long as they wish. The sadhus walk to Haridwar to collect Ganges water, barefeet with a colourful decorated bamboo stick across one shoulder. They walk from tempel to tempel; some do it only for a year, other leave their families for good. We had to take our shoes off (this is customary at temples and shrines) and walked on our socks trying to avoid the pigeon shit, sadhu spit and wet patches where the floor had just been cleaned (at least we think that is why it was wet)...still, very interesting (I did wash my feet though when coming home).

Old Delhi itself is one bustling, full, colourful, smelly, intreguing and tiring bit. I have not explored it fully yet, but I visited Chandni Chowk, the main street. More to do in the coming months!

Long time no write...not because there was nothing to tell -never a dull moment in India- but because our Very Fast home internet connection turns out to be Not So Very Fast after all. It is different in business cities like Mumbai or Bangalore, but out here in Pushpanjali the Indian Digital Highway is very much like the regular one: full of obstacles (like pedestrians, ox-drawn carts, riksha's, three wheeled trucks, scooters, cows, monkeys and what have you) so you can move with an average speed of 40 km/h. In short Not So Very Fast.

But I have been busy! In the past month that we now live in our house, there have been two (2!) days on which nothing broke down, was finished, or needed to be taken care of NOW! My personnel is great but their downside is that if they have decided that something needs to be taken care of, it does not seem to occur to them that NOW is maybe not the very best time for me because I am, perhaps, on the phone talking to someone, eating, or even sitting on the toilet...

And in between repairs we have had celebrations for Diwali (the Hindu festival of light for which I had to dig up all Christmas lights and decorate the house in order to keep the bad spirits away) and Eid (the Muslim festival for which my hand was decorated with henna ...no christmas lights involved) and T's first business trip to Dera Dunn which took him and mr. Gill 17 hours (back and forth) over the regular highway.

Now, we are in The Netherlands. T is having lots of meetings and I am having a great time going to stores with real shopping carts, well organised shelves and the opportunity to look at the same thing for as long as I like without someone asking me how many kg or pieces I want! And as it is 10 degrees celcius (as opposed to 30 in Delhi) it is a great opportunity to cool down for a bit! And...no mosquitoes!

Meet Olly Kumar, the longest (and most active) cat in India!

I wanted a cat and had told a collegue of T who also wanted a cat and was going call her vet to check if he knew of a litter - in India there are many wild cats (and they are being sold as house cats) and one has to be careful where one's pet comes from. Then one day, I received a phonecall from her saying the vet had called about a little cat that had been brought back because the family that owned him had two hyperactive kids - and two hyperactive kids do not combine well with a hyperactive cat.
So I went to have a look -and to decide wether he would fit us- but when I arrived at the vet's office Olly Kumar was already in his basket and the vet was waiting with a form to fill in (here...where it says "owner"...) and that was it. I recall him asking if I wanted the cat while he was pushing me out the door, but I think he shut it before I could answer. So...I took Olly home.
He wasn't amused about the bumpy car ride and screamed the whole hour, driving mr. Gill crazy...at one point mr. Gill started to imitate Olly, saying "I don't know you I don't know you I don't know you where you take me where you take me where you take me..." and he started driving faster and faster. He also felt extremely sorry for "Sir" who would now have to deal with barking dogs on one side and a screaming cat on the other...Sir was not going to sleep another night, that was for sure!

But Olly turns out to be a very sweet, active and funny cat, who is already sttled in quite nicely and now attacks Jubeda's broom when she is sweeping the house....and Bishnu's legs when she walks by....and anything else that moves, including imaginary things. But we are happy with him and all we hope for now is that he will start catching mosquitos!

Jubeda and Bishnu, my two house elfs...

Jubeda is the wife of Chunky, the gardener, and Bishnu is married to a guard of the Netherlands Embassy. Jubeda is cleaning the house (and yes...the stories about dust everywhere ARE true so I am very happy that she does) and Bishnu does the cooking and the ironing.
The first day they started they were on my doorstep at 7.30 a.m., ready to start unpacking boxes. Of course that was not entirely what I had in mind, still dressed in my again-found bathrobe and still completely overwhelmed by the size of my house...and obviously, control-freak that I am, I had wanted to unpack my boxes myself so I could really think quietly about what to put where. But this is India, and in India the best thing to do is simply letting things happen because trying to control things simply does not work. So there they were again at 8.30, unpacking things and demanding that I immediately tell them where to put them. True, I have never unpacked anything so fast...no idea where the stuff went, though. It will be somewhere in this huge house but as walking from one end to the other takes 5 minutes, I gave up looking. One fine day I will have located everything - until then, we'll make do.

Currently we have a better rithm - they come at 10 a.m. (which gives me time to dress properly and quickly do whatever I want to do alone, very pathetic I admit) and then I have to discuss the day, their work, my schedule and -still am not used to it- what I want to eat for dinner. Bishnu can cook Indian, Chinese, Nepalese and Bhutanese. She doesn't know how to cook western food yet, but we agreed I will teach her. She is a very good cook so I am hopeful Italian etc. should be no problem, though we will have to write the Hindi translations on all my herbs...the other day we spend half a day figuring out what the english name of Bunyapata was...cilantro, as it turns out.

With Jubeda I speak Hinglish (Hindi + English) which makes her laugh all the time, so I can only guess what I must be saying (?!). She swipes and mops and dusts and has switched off the water heater in our shower twice now (and obviously we find out in the morning when we have shampoo in our hair). She is very sweet though, and tries very hard to understand what I am asking her to do. Every once in a while she shows up with a beautiful golden stripe in the parting of her hair; apparantly a Muslim way of showing that you are married. Very elegant. Bishnu wears a red dot and sometimes a red stripe in her hair...Hindi way of showing that you are married. I wonder what colour they figure I should wear...orange?

We moved!
It was wonderful to wake up in my own bed again after three months of living out of a suitcase and a big surprise still awaits me every day now that I am unpacking boxes...I didn't know I had all this stuff! Part of it has been in storage for almost two years and I have completely forgotten what was in the boxes...proof again that the posession of things is relative.

The Indians have a different view about "having" than we do anyway; nowadays I am taking Hindi lessons (an absolute must as two thirds of my personnel does not speak english), and our teacher does not only teach us very practical words like "come at 9 o'clock" and "this is not clean", but she explains about the Indian culture as well.
In India, one does not "have" things. In Hindi the literal translation of "I have a car" would be "near me car is"...so near to me that I can consider it mine (which is food for thought...). Whatever I posess is mine in this life, but before me it belonged to someone else and after me it will also belong to someone else....I can only imagine the looks on the face of that someone whenhe/she is trying to lift the bookcase that we just bought! (It is actually and old doorframe with some shelves built behind it...solid wood!)

People one doesn't "have" either - they either exist or don't exist (and then they are dead). "My husband exists" (and therefor is mine) is a normal Indian expression.

Well, our house is very near us, and so is our pool. So near actually that the picture above was taken from inside the pool...what a delight, what luxury, to jump in your private pool whenever you like! T wants to go skinny dipping but as there are 11 people living behind the vegetable garden, he didn't dare until now - we are sure they are watching us because we must be terribly strange in their eyes! Still, swimming in the evening, when it is still 20 degrees outside, does feel awfully decadent!

Busy days!
We have been very busy organising everything for the house... waterdispensers, waterbottles (we are using these big 20 liter bottles with filtered and ozonised water), a gasconnection, diesel for the generator (powercuts are still very frequent) etc.
We have also had the washingmachine delivered, in what the Indians call a "tempo" - a little three-wheel truck. That is already quite sophisticated, because the waterdispensers were delivered on a riksha...all the way from delhi to our house, over roads full of potholes, stones, cows, cars, people, bicycles etc. Poor guy.

And then, much sooner than expected, our container arrived! The huge 40 ft container turned out to be half empty, but still we felt very embarrassed when everything was unloaded and carried into outr enormous house...two days ago our cook, Bishnu, also moved in and her belongings wouldn't even fill one of our many bathrooms. Suddenly the big gap between "us" and "them" becomes so obvious again...but India does that to you. Here, so many people have absolutely nothing - but it will take another 50 years before that is changed, I am afraid.

For now we will return to our many many boxes and start unpacking (and in the process we will have to stop our personnel from helping us, because once they start unpacking I fear I will never be able to find my things again!).

There is a Jewish curse that says: "I wish you a lot of personnel!".
After hiring a driver, a cook, a cleaning lady and three gardeners, I am beginning to understand why personnel is the favourite topic of conversation at expat-gatherings... and yet, I am also experiencing the sense of responsability one has for these people, and the fact that we cannot change the fate of everyone in India, but we can contribute to those families in our care.

The picture above is of the Mali family (Mali = gardener); I do not know their last name, and I am suspecting neither do they, as it turns out they are illiterate and do not know their own age or what the birthdate of their children is.
The Mali's have four children, and one helper mali (far right) who probably is a relative of some kind. They live in the servant quarters behind our house, and have tended the garden for 18 years (!) already. We suspect that their son, Raj, is the only one who has had some education. Currently he is not going to school but learning how to be a mali from his father. Needless to say that we think all kids should go to school and that we will try to achieve that once we moved in.
The Mali's are Muslim's, except for helper mali who is Hindu. This immediately confronts us with the general belief that one's servants should all be either muslim or hindu, but never mixed; christians go with either.

The cook we just hired, Bishnu, will move in soon with her husband and 10 months old kid. Bishnu is from Bhutan, and her husband is from Nepal; they married for love, which is quite an exception in this part of the world. They are now living in two tiny rooms in the city for which they pay 2000 rupees per month (and he makes 4000 rupees, i.e. app. 65 euro's, per month with his job as guard at the embassy). For them, moving with us is an enormous step forward, not only because they will save the rent, but also because she will be trained as a cook.
My criteria for hiring a cook were simple: I needed someone who can speak english and who knows how to cook Indian; I could teach her the rest. Bishnu has never worked as cook before but she knows how to cook Bhutanese, Nepalese, Chinese and Indian - more than enough for me! She is adorable, and so is her husband. Training Bishnu to cook Italian, English, French, Japanese and Korean (which I can do), and training her to speak better english, will increase her value tremendously and will give her a shot at working for other expats once we leave. Bishnu and Harka were raised as Buddhists but converted to Hinduism when thwy came to India.

And there T and I were, picturing our own little soap opera :
The muslims cleaning the toilets and getting the beef as that is something the Hindu's do not do, the Hindu's getting the pork as obviously the Muslim's will not, the (former) Buddhists acting as mediators if the Muslim's and the Hindu's start fighting and us (being of Christian background) getting drunk besides the pool as we cannot cope with all that anymore!
But until the contrary is proved we are going to assume that all will go well and that our little enclave will proof that it IS possible to all live together happily ever after...and it will be nice to celebrate Eid (the Muslim Christmas), Diwali (the Hindu Christmas), and our own good old Christmas. All we need now is a Jewish guard.....

Life is slowly starting to become normal again.

Construction in the house is still going on; we are not sure what they are still doing there but as our container has not arrived yet it doesn't really matter. In my mind I am figuring out what to put where. The house is much bigger than we originally thought so we'll probably have enough furniture to furnish two rooms... what a wonderful space left to fill with all these beautiful things that can be found around here!
In anticipation of all this space we bought a "Naga table", which is an old indian massage table carved out of one piece of wood. We bought it in a very nice shop in Haus Khaz called Country Collection; they have beautiful things from all around India, old as well as new (made to look old - they are very good at that!). The nice thing is that they can tell you a story about all their items and that they do not try to sell you something new as antique.

We also have a car now, which makes life a lot easier, and a brand new driver to go with it - mr. Gill.
Mr. Gill used to be a taxidriver, and a truck driver before that, so he made a considerable promotion becoming our private driver. He was in fact still a taxi driver when we asked him - the first taxi driver who did not try to cheat us or lure us into doing extra business with him. In India, everything is about money and doing business, and as foreigner you know you will be cheated. This is something you have to get used to, because even if the amounts are small the principle is annoying. Mr. Gill is however watching over us, constantly making sure that we do not pay more than we should. We are lucky to have him.

Our car also has a CD numberplate, which is convenient for it "allows" us to park everywhere - something mr. Gill happily takes advantage of. He is also very happy that we are now allowed to enter the premises of the Hyatt without being checked. All taxi's and regular cars are checked for bombs, but apparantly we diplomats are not the types that blow up things...not literally anyway.

For me, it is still an unmeasurable luxury to have a driver who is waiting for you while you are shopping or having lunch.
I realise that the fact that we are hiring personnel insures them of an income, a place to live and an opportunity to send their kids to school, but the idea of all these people around to serve us...it will take a while before I am used to that, if ever. In the house, we will have three gardeners, a cook, a housekeeper, a guard, and of course mr. Gill...our own little private enterprise! It is not surprising that personnel (and the problems one has with them) is the favourite topic at parties. Well, we'll find out soon enough.....

Ok, the house is ours! The owner finally agreed to sign - as soon as our stuff arrives we can move in! That is, if repairs are finished by then, because there is still a lot of fixing to do. And in India, so we are told by the other expats, whenever something is repaired something else is broken...we have seen evidence of it already so the question remains how much of the house will still be standing once we are ready to move in.

The garden has partially turned into a swamp, now that heavy reains have been falling on Delhi. We will need to fix that because there have been warnings that Dengue will be heavy in october...no water should be allowed standing for more than 3 days. As T is a mosquito magnet this is defenitely something we will have to watch out for...let's hope that our terrific smelling all-natural mosquito repellent (Al Fresco, bought it online from a very nice lady who developed it in the UK - www.alfresco.uk.com) actually will do what it promises: to repel most insects most of the time. We'll be testing it real soon!

Our car should also arrive any minute now, and then we can take the brandnew car and the brandnew driver to collect the brandnew licence plates at Khan Market, the fancy shopping center where all the expats shop. Khan Market is actually quite interesting and despite appearances almost everything thinkable is sold there. Foreign cheeses, good bread, meat, vegetables, shoes and handbags, clothes, books, interior stuff, freezers, licence plates...you name it, Khan Market has it.
Even the occasional monkey goes 'shopping' there; Khan Market also has several peanut-vendors and the monkeys patiently wait for the vendors to avert their eyes, so they can feast on the peanuts. I think it's funny, but I don't think the vendors will agree with me...

Still waiting for news about "our" house. Negotiations apparantly are not over yet, but we are not very positive. We shall see...in India, one needs time.

In the meantime I have been busy checking out the shopping areas in Delhi. The city is divided into "Colonies" and each colony has it's own shopping center. Every center has its own specialties, ranging from textiles to computers, antiques, silver, fabrics, or food. Khan market is of course very famous and frequented by diplomats, expats and rich Indians, but my favorite so far is Greater Kailash 1 with its friendly appearance and colourful Fabindia shops. I actually bought an Indian outfit there, consisting of a Salwaar (pants), a Kurta (tunic) and a Dupatta (shawl).

Shopping is quite an experience and I am glad that I am being shown where to go, because the best stuff is in places where no man has gone before, it seems. In India, one has to climb stairs, delve in basements, wiggle through backdoors or enter little seedy streets that look as if there is a mugger around every corner...but then a world of beautiful (though sometimes moldy, as I recently discovered) things opens up. The nicest fabrics, pieces of furniture, books, jewelry and coffeshops can be found in these places, like hidden treasures waiting to be discovered. Actually, it is part of their charm.

In the midst of it all one can find cows lying side by side with motorbikes, monkeys eyeing peanut sellers and birds picking at the remains of...yes, of what? (Do I WANT to know?)
But no shopping for us this weekend because T is down with the flue (we think). Let's hope it will pass quickly...it's the second weekend in a row he is ill and I am starting to become anxious to do so sightseeing, because there is SO much to see here!

Delhi is on red alert!
There have been threats of terrorist attacks on (or preceeding) Independence Day - the day on which India gained Independence in 1947 - which is on august the 15th.
All government institutions, major markets, airports, trainstations and major hotels are possible targets, and security has increased dramatically.

As we are staying in a hotel that belongs to an American chain, our hotel is taking serious precautions as well. No cars are allowed to stop or park in front of the entrance, all cars are inspected inside out to check for bombs, and guests have to enter via a metal detector. Every time there is a power cut (which happens app. 10 times a day, if not more) it now makes one wonder if this is perhaps more serious than a temporary blackout. I think we will spend our Independence at at the poolside, far away from the building.
This is the first time I have experienced the terrorist threat this close. It is a comfort to see that here everything is treated very seriously, and the staff comes prepared. Still, against a whacko with a bomb hidden underneath his/her cloth, there is not much one can do. All we can do now is cross our fingers and sit it out....

Our "Indian farmhouse" is a no-go...we just heard that despite our strict wish to ONLY view houses within our budget this one exceeds it by far, and the owner is not willing to go down in price. Right now I could kill the real estate agent, because it means we lost a precious week of house-hunting as we were waiting for the negotiations.
It also became very clear that in India they simply try, no matter what you say.

But that had become clear to me anyway, over the past 2 weeks. Here, everything is about negotiating and doing business. If you don't try, you will most certainly NOT get what you want...if you DO try, who knows.
Taxidrivers do that by asking way too much for the ride. Shopkeepers try to lure you inside to show their merchandise. Waiters can't wait to wait on you and snatch your glass away from you as soon as you finished the last drop...and sometimes even before that, so they can sell you another glass. And even the manager of the beautyshop (where I went on The First Monday T went To Work) actually managed to sell me lots of treatments I didn't ask for...but it did teach me how they do it!

I went for a manicure and pedicure, and sitting there (with someone at my hands and another one at my feet) was inspected by the manager. "Mhhh...you have very dry hair. Shall I give you a scalp massage with oil?" Granted, my hair DID suffer from sun and chlorine and seeing the beautiful shiney Indian hair made me wonder if I could look like that after a scalp massage, so I agreed. But it didn't stop there. "Oh...your muscles are so tight. Maybe I should massage your shoulders as well!". Ok...yes, we had some stressy times and yes, my neck does feel stiff. So ok, a little shouldermassage couldn't hurt. But it didn't stop there either! "Oh, I see now that you have a lot of dead skincells on your face. That makes you look old. You know what, I will give you a facial, ok?" Well, who wants to look old?
In the end I spend 3 hours in a chair, had approximately 20 different things smeared on, rubbed on, peeled off en massaged onto my face, was dying to go to the ladies' room and spent the monthly salary of an Indian waiter on the treatment (at least, that is what I am estimating). It was an experience, but I do not go anywhere near the salon again!

Still, I can't help but like the Indian people. After all, who can blame them for trying? And as soon as I have found the proper response to ward off any business I don't want, I'll try a manicure again. ONLY a manicure....!

Just went househunting for three days...how frustrating!
Houses in the city are expensive and hard to find, and many of them have been "improved" to meet foreigner's expectations...or so the owners seem to think, because T and I have never seen so many ugly lamps, kichens, bathrooms, ceilings and doors in our lives!
Unfortunately this also means that the authentic character of most houses is lost and what remains leaves us depressed and with an utter disgust for marble...marble! Marble is everywhere!

After looking at "townhouses" - freestanding houses in the city- and appartments we decided to also take a look at the so called "farmhouses", located app. 30 minutes driving outside of the city. These houses are called farmhouses because they are build on what used to be agricultural land. Their name suggests a rural type of dwelling, but nothing could be farther from the truth - the farmhouses we have seen look like little (marble) palaces with huge gardens and a swimming pool.
Still, we have spotted one we like. It is build "Indian style" and was left intact - no bad interior architects here!
We do hope it will fall within our allowed budget (still haven't been able to figure out how much that exactly is) and that it will be approved, because many new families are starting to arrive, and they will all go househunting beginning next week! If we don't find something now or real soon we'll be staying in the hotel for a loooong time...so we are holding our breath...

On Saturday the 29th of July 2006 my husband T and I moved to New Delhi, India.
T has accepted a job at the Netherlands Royal Embassy, after being professor of Industrial Design in Daejeon, South Korea, where we lived for the past 16 months.

Tagging along with him, out of fear of getting eternally bored if I don't do something useful, I have decided to combine two of my secret wishes (to write and to be more active in the wonderful world of online adventures) and start a blog...for friends and family left behind elsewhere in the world (of course dying to know how we are doing here) and obviously for everyone else who might be interested in whatever it is that I am writing.

As I have never blogged I have no idea what I am doing, but that will simply add to the adventure this whole move is anyway.
India has always been on my list of "countries I definitely will want to visit before I die" and I can only count myself lucky that we are here now - hopefully years before my death so I actually get to enjoy being here.

So...India, here we go!