Beyond All Boundaries

The Indian subcontinent has gone cricket mad since the start of the World Cup and I'm no exception. I've been spending a great deal of my spare time in a despicably unhygienic fried rice shop down the road from my house; which is the location of my local tellybox. I have to answer a lot of questions and it is becoming more and more difficult to nurse my portion of rice for 5 hours an innings, but it's still worth it.

The fact that India have been handed the right to host both the Commonwealth Games and the Cricket World Cup within one year represents both a fantastic achievement for the country as well as completely mystifying decision-making on behalf of the organisers. Personally, I wouldn't let this country organise my breakfast. The amount of bureaucracy that exists even at the lowest level is ridiculous and, I'd imagine, makes it impossible to organise something of this scale properly.

It was, therefore, unsurprising when the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata wasn't declared ready in time. Even their pleas of 'just 5 more minutes' weren't good enough on this occasion. Luckily for me, the match was moved to Bangalore and I had booked some time off this week to do a bit of travelling. So, after popping to a quick arranged marriage on Friday, I set off to Bangalore with the intention of bagging myself a ticket to the India vs England game on Sunday. There I met an acquaintance from the University of Leeds, a guy called 'Nosebleed' from Norwich (he used to have Nosebleeds a lot. Nothing more to it) and his friend who shall only be known as 'The German Michael Owen'.

The atmosphere around the stadium was fairly toxic, with the Indian police seeming worryingly keen to start smacking us with their sticks. To cut a short story even shorter, we didn't manage to secure any tickets. We couldn't afford the 140 quid to see our heroes in action so we made our way to the local bar to watch the game. And what a match. The draw was a fair result and meant everyone went home happy, especially as the match should probably have no bearing on the tournament as a whole. Towards the end of the match, myself and Nosebleed were approached by some documentary makers from Mumbai to film an interview with us sitting and chatting "naturally at the bar". 'Beyond all Boundaries' should be released later this year and features us wearing Palace and Norwich shirts whilst talking a whole heap of shite about a sport we know very little about. Anyway, one to Googly in a couple of years time.

Crikey.

'You don't have to be mad to live here, BUT IT HELPS!'

When I first started this blog, just after i'd arrived in India, it basically wrote itself. It turns out that being the fish that somehow finds its way onto dry land is both fascinating and pissing annoying at the same time. Looking back, the stuff I wrote at the start was about absolutely nothing at all; brief exchanges, blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of minutiae. The culture shock of living in a suburb of Chennai was enough to surprise any Billy Big-Timer from England, which also made for easy writing.

Now i'm struggling with the posts slightly. I don't find the place as mad as I used to and there's only so many stories you can salvage from days spent reading with children before you start to go over old ground. I was initially trying to stick to a post every 2 days, but it has slipped to twice a week. It has slipped so far that I couldn't even muster the cynicism to write 2 paragraphs about a trip to see a puppet show today, despite the fact that we had crammed 126 kids onto a little yellow school bus with additional volunteers and teachers. Now may be a good time to mention that the school does always need donations and really would like a 2nd school bus. In the words of Sir Bob Geldof, "Give us the fucking money."

There have also a surprising number of controversial incidents that I can't bring up, even though I've been gagging to write about them. I will have to tell everyone back home over a pint of bitter.

Ok, Cider.

Alright, alright, a small glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

Warning: the words 'Sweden' and 'Swedish' feature a lot in this post

Famous in my mind largely for Ikea, Ace of Base and Thomas Brolin; I used to think of Sweden as 'just a small municipality in Denmark.' It is then perhaps a little odd that a 6 month sabbatical (I refuse to call this a gap year) in India has provided me with an education in all things Swedish. This has a great deal to do with the school being run by a Swedish expat named Maria and therefore attracting many volunteers from Gothenburg and various other small towns I haven't taken the trouble to remember the names of. That being said, approximately 2 out of 3 people I meet on my travels seem to be of the Swedish persuasion. Remarkable really for a country that has the same population as London.*

The fact is, Swedes get around.

The good thing is that their English is excellent and so is their company, which is lucky because i'm currently living with 4 of them. Living with so many people from one place, you begin to pick up a lot of juicy tidbits about the country that some people at Ryanair are calling "my favourite country in Europe". Not me, I like England.

Anyway, some of those tidbits:-

• Swedish children don't start school until they're 7 years old. I can't work out if that is mollycoddled or sensible. That wikileaks chap seems OK. Apart from all that unpleasant business, of course.

• They also don't believe in using formal names in education. So, instead of, "Please miss, may I have some more gruel" or "Thankyou Mr Erikson", you would be more likely to hear, "oi Frieda, chuck us the ketchup" or "Ta Sven". Frankly, I didn't even like teachers trying to be friends with kids at school, let alone this flagrant show of disrespect for the rules.

• Swedish delicacies include Salt Liquorice and Rotten Herring. Both sound disgusting. Yet they can't get their head around something as delicious as Marmite.

• The English language has taken 2 words from Swedish: Smorgasbord and Ombudsman. Smorgasbord is a buffet and an Ombudsman was something I never quite understood in A-Level politics because I never bothered to read about it. Things haven't changed.

• Don't worry Kevin Costner fans! Robin Hood is alive and well and living in Sweden as the Prime-Minister. As something of a social policy fan, it shocked me to the core that the highest earners in Sweden pay 60% tax on all their earnings. 60! Now I consider myself a bit of a lefty but that has got to hurt. Although nobody seems to mind as I am told it is one of the most balanced countries in the world with very few poor. Apparently, if anything, they want to raise taxes on the rich. It has to get to the point soon though where the capitalists just cannot be arsed anymore.

• They don't much like them Norwegian folk. There are a set of 'Norwegian' jokes that the Swedes use and apparently the Norwegians use exactly the same jokes about the Swedes in return. The relationship seems a bit like that between the English and the Scots. The young Swedes i've met readily admit that the jokes aren't particularly funny and i'd tend to agree. More 'ha' than 'haha' certainly.

*Yes, I do love to bring up that fact at the dinner table as much as possible in order to belittle their kingdom.

Tales from the Auto (part 2)

If the regular auto(rick) is India's answer to a taxi service, then the 'shared' auto is their equivalent to a strange loner picking up hitch-hikers and charging them money (a lot less than the regular auto) for lifts. It is a slightly bigger, two-tiered version of the normal auto and by two-tiered, I mean that they have stuck a plank in front of the original seat for people to sit on. There are no particular rules for the driver to adhere to and he is allowed to pick up as many fares as possible, which means that the tiny vehicle is usually a very crowded and sweaty mode of transport.

This tends to lead to a lot of sitting on laps and some aggressive elbow action. The other day, whilst sharing Ahmed the driver's seat, he told me to put my arm round his shoulders because it was "safer and more comfortable" for him. Whatever his story, me and Ahmed had a nice long chinwag about the merits of him buying his own auto as opposed to renting one. This is a slight twist on the conversation I have with almost every single cab driver in England. It is absolute gold dust in these situations because they open up to you straight away and means you can sit back, pretend to listen and keep nodding away like you've experienced exactly the dilemma he's facing. When in reality, the closest i've come is not having enough money for the bus.

There has been a lot of strange interaction in Autos with curious Chennai-folk since I've been here too. Once, a man on his way to work was giving me earache with all his questions, so I thought i'd ask a few of my own. He was delighted with my interest and immediately gave me his business card, which informed me that he imported and exported human hair. I almost threw up the breakfast that I hadn't eaten. Another auto-driver who spoke minimal English thrust a phone into my hand and demanded I spoke to his family. The conversation wasn't sparkling but I managed to deduce that the woman I was speaking to was either his mother, his girlfriend or his wife. Maybe all three, who knows?

Just yesterday, when I was returning from the cinema where I had seen the decent '127 Hours', I hopped in a shared auto that was bursting with what seemed to be just one large family. Anyway, whilst perched on the edge of the vehicle, a little fat baby started to hit me. I looked round and there were two identical looking babies both slapping me. Much to my horror, they were twins named Paul and Pearl. I've always been decidedly edgy around twins, but identical twins of a different sex to each other is a recipe for disaster. No thankyou very much. I lied to their mother about her offspring being 'nice babies' and got out of the auto immediately. Because it was my stop. Of course.

Oh, and 127 Hours was very enjoyable. The Indian crowd was in typically boisterous form and welcomed A.R. Rahman's name with a huge cheer in the opening credits. Although I felt the ending, whilst emotional, could have done with taking a page from ITV's book of emotional climaxes by playing Take That's 'Greatest Day' over the top. Gets me every time.

A to B

In London, the only possible explanation for taking a rickshaw anywhere would be if someone was feeling particularly down in the dumps and needed to have a good chuckle. The rickshaw is, after all, the human equivalent of a hamster's wheel. Yet it is the easiest way to travel over here; mainly because they thought it would be a nifty idea to stick a motorbike on the front and build millions of them.

The 'auto-rick' is both a convenient and nippy mode of transport as well as remaining very cheap when you convert back to beautiful Sterling. This is something I used to try and remind myself when haggling with the drivers over the fare because there can be a lot of fuss saved by realising that you're arguing over 20p.

However, all that changed the day an auto driver went too far by asking for more money than previously agreed once we'd arrived at the destination. On this occasion I just walked out of the auto without giving the driver his extra money, leaving him a little bit miffed. But nowadays I have to work myself up into 'fightnight' mode for negotiations because I became fed up of being treated like Richie bloody Rich. Now, normally I wouldn't say boo to a goose, so it has been difficult but I've finally developed a routine that is sufficiently stroppy and impolite.

Typical Negotiations.

Me: "Alright. I wanna go Reteri signal. How much?"
Auto-Prick*: "eh?"
M: "Re-TERI"
A: "you what son?"
M: (trying and failing to roll my R) "reeleleleRETERI."
A: (shake of the head indicating he hasn't got a clue, but could quite easily be interpreted as a head wobble and therefore an agreement)
M: "oh sod it, just take me to the big bridge and we'll see from there. How much?"
A: "200."
M: "HOW MUCH?! I'll give you 70 and we'll call it quits."
A: (laughing) "no, no, no. Very long mister. 180."
M: (lying to sound like I know what i'm talking about) "I paid 50 just the other day."

And so on and so forth. I still pay well over the odds for fares but the most I've ever paid was about 200 rupees for a 45 minute journey and that's still less than £3. Everyone's a winner really because I can wander off quite happy in the knowledge that it would cost a heck of a lot more in England and the driver can be delighted to have charged me double the going rate. Party time.

*Like what I've done there, eh? 

www.howonearthhasthishappened.in

Due to various unforeseen circumstances, the guy who teaches IT at the school had to leave recently, which meant that there was a vacancy going for a hip young gunslinger to fill. Now I may have passed my European Computer Driving License with flying colours when I was 15, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect to be number one on the school's shortlist to fill the vacancy. Anyway, I was 'formally' approached one afternoon (Teacher: "will you do it then?") and, after graciously accepting their offer, I am now able to add 'IT Teacher' to the previous work experience section of my CV.

This means that after 3 months of relentlessly being called 'Uncle', I have made the transition to 'Computer Master'. Although I think a more likely description of myself would be 'jack of some trades, master of none'. The good news is that it is one of the easier jobs in the school because the kids love computers and tend to focus on the task in hand. However, every single child I've taught so far must think I have 'MUG' written on my forehead because every time I ask them what they have been taught in the past, they respond with "Games unccccclle". After informing the kids politely that I wasn't born yesterday, I kick off the serious business of teaching them how to draw their own faces on Paint. Whilst most of the children tend to draw pictures of Christian crosses or just nice trees, one boy took me aback a little the other day when he painted a heart with a knife through it over the Indian flag. Deep.

The IT role is also useful practice for the methods I would almost certainly use if I ever became a parent; saying 'no' 97% of the time. It works in much the same way as being a Crystal Palace fan does. You see, although we have to endure a fair amount of misery, it makes the brief moments of glory a hundred times more joyous. So, to deny children what they want (as long as it's not food and water of course) on the majority of occasions, will only serve to make them all the more ecstatic as you succumb to their requests when they least expect it. The lovely folk at Guinness said it best.

Happy Long-Life To Me

I was serenaded with 'the birthday song' a record-breaking 5 times this weekend:-

• At school. 8/10. Second verse curveball of 'Happy Long Life To You' added a bit of spice to proceedings.
• In the children's hostel that I live below. 7/10. I had water in my ears so couldn't hear a great deal.
• At birthday dinner. 5/10. Most were giving a repeat performance so everyone seemed to be going through the motions a bit by that point. Fair enough.
• At a club. 9/10. I turned 22 whilst in the club and, in my memory at least, it seemed as if the whole room was singing it to me. The truth may be a little harsher but, as history has proved, everyone is much happier living a lie.
• With a stonking great hangover in bed. 1/10 for enjoyment. 10/10 for the gesture. The Swedish people I live with marched (that makes them sound like Germans) into the room at a very kind 2pm, performing (that makes them sound like ABBA) the Swedish version of the birthday song. I can't remember exactly, but it sounds a little like 'The Grand Old Duke of York'.

The story of my birthday itself is a pretty boring tale of recovery and celebration. Although I was almost a goner when, soon after exiting the shower, I slipped on the wet floor and had an almighty fall on the rock hard floor. Happily, I can report that no limbs were broken but that didn't stop me wishing myself an incredibly sarcastic "Happy Birthday AJ", whilst lying naked and prone on the floor.

My favourite gift of the day was a bunch of red roses from Joel. Probably the first and last time i'll ever receive flowers and I may well just be saying this to try and win the 'difficult' metrosexual vote, but I find it refreshing that we live in a day and age where a man can buy another man flowers and not be chased down the street by an angry Yorkshireman.

Also, my mum wanted to send me some sort of care package and asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted or needed. I panicked a bit and asked for a single pot of marmite but, in hindsight, I don't regret the decision. I know for sure that India isn't quite ready for Bovril yet.

Incidentally, the club we went to was bizarrely named Chipstead. Take your pick as to whether it was named after the Chipstead with a population of 6,000 in Surrey or the 'almost a hamlet' Chipstead in Kent.

Anti-Atkins

Just arrived back from a little trip out to Georgetown. Put a mental image of what you think India is in your head and that is Georgetown. In a nutshell, bloody loads of people bustling about and trying to sell you things. If I were back at school and doing a geography case study on the area, I would point to a ridiculous level of 'functional zoning'*. That is one of about three phrases I have to thank GCSE geography for, along with Oxbow Lake and Longshore Drift. Anyway, in Georgetown, all the streets will only have one type of shop on them. It may be convenient because at least you'll know where to go to buy something but, for instance, there is a street selling only stationary. Lots of shops selling exactly the same paper right on each other's doorsteps seems completely pointless to me.

I did also read on Trip Advisor that Georgetown was like "Brick Lane with less Indians", which made me chuckle a bit although I couldn't quite work out where that lay on the racism scale (starting at 1 and finishing at Very Racist), so I won't be claiming it as my own.

Afterwards I stopped for a spot of lunch with Ottilia and Ida, the two Swedes I was with, at a bakery that was also serving South Indian meals. With only one meal on the menu, there wasn't a choice, so we had the usual rice and poppadom combo served with various spicy things. The table service was wonderfully abrupt with the waiter asking us 'meal? eat? money?'. Actually, he only directed this to me because he expected the male to be arranging and paying for everything but, frankly, there was little chance of that given the economic climate and my tightfistedness. The girls, who have only been here for a couple of weeks, struggled with their mammoth plate of rice whilst I wolfed mine down in record time.

I can now put away large amounts of rice in the way only obese lads normally can. I've heard rumours that this is down to a phenomenon known as 'Rice Belly' which would also account for the slight belly i've been cultivating nicely for the past three months. This is fine because another whisper being passed round the volunteer's grapevine is that when you return home and stop eating so much rice, then the weight drops off you like a, erm, big weight dropping off you.

*and there we have it, I have now talked about every subject possible. Indian functional zoning has to be the last drop to be squeezed out of this experience. Blog over

Birds.

I've only recently realised through conversation with various Indians, that I talk like a complete berk and almost entirely in English idioms. Three things have contributed to this:

• Working in a pub where you pick up a load of old tosh from regulars. Tosh that, unfortunately, sticks with you.
• Watching a lot of football because it is a game which has developed an idiom for every single possible situation.
• Watching all the regional soap operas since I was 5.

This means that when I talk to Indians I have to tone it down dramatically otherwise the conversation is in trouble immediately. English may be one of the national languages in India, but it is normally a secondary language to a regional dialect such as Tamil. An Indian may have an impressive grasp of the English langauge and often have a good knowledge of American slang due to the influence of Hollywood and even the influx of dire R'n'B music in clubs but when I attempt to be witty with English slang, I tend to hit a brick wall. However, I intend on sticking to the passing greeting of "alright" to all children and teachers just in the vain hope that they might ask me what the hell I mean. At the moment, they must just think it a strange noise.

There are many words which don't have the same double meanings over here as they would back home, as evidenced by the 'Hot Puffs' signs on every street corner. Leela, a teacher at the school, was very confused as to why the book she was reading had a character calling a young woman a word meaning 'a baked dish consisting of a filling over a pastry base with an open top not covered with pastry.' I awkwardly informed her that this definition of 'tart' actually meant that she was what the Oxford Dictionary termed as 'an easily-beddable loose woman, grrrrr'.


Whilst discussing these differences with Leela and some other female teachers, they said they'd heard Canadians talk about 'chicks' when referring to girls and asked me if that was what 'us Brits' call them. I couldn't let them think that so I mistakenly told them that some Englismen call women 'birds'. Of course we don't actually (in reality, it's only really Richards Keys, Andy Gray, Neil Morrissey and Martin Clunes), but I didn't want the Canadians having one-up on us. The problem is that these teachers have somehow got it into their heads that the word 'birds' is some sort of code amongst males for when girls are around. So, every time I am talking to a female volunteer, they shout to me "oh, there are a lot of birds in the sky today Andrew!" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Cue my face turning a shade of beetroot. I suppose it's more subtle than, "go on my son".

School Doze

My role at the school is still undefinable. 3 months into this gig and i'm yet to find my niche. I tend to lurk in the shadows and correct people's use of the English language when I feel it appropriate. I'm not sure anyone else knows what I do either. In many ways, I could be considered the Alastair Campbell of the volunteering community. Except more of a bastard.

Although i'm not sure if Alastair was allowed naptime if he was a bit tired. I didn't get my full 8 hours last night and had to bed down in the library for a 'quick' 2 hour siesta. One of the perks of not getting paid.

Guests at Chez Finbar.

I've got head-lice.

Which is actually fine because it draws my hand's attention away from my mosquito bites. Luckily, times have changed since they invented the comb and it isn't necessary to shave all your hair off anymore. It's also my only ailment so far and was always inevitable because they're as popular as Pogs amongst the kids at school. Certainly better than contracting Japanese Encephalitis which i'm reliably informed causes your brain to expand so much in your head that it explodes. Or something like that anyway.