Last week was a very rare 'pretty shitty week' and tested whether meditation does provide a sense of calm.....
In this post:
- I teach a baby a very bad word
- Indian men and shoes (throwing and breaking them)
- When Delhi becomes bad for your health- to AC or not to AC
- A below par Birthday
- I get censored
- ....the silver lining
Note: WARNING This blog post includes a high degree of 'old grumpy man' syndrome.
About 10 days ago I decided to get my shoes re-heeled. There are cobblers lining the streets everywhere you go in India. Ingenious workers who can rescue any pair of shoes with fishing line, a few nails and a hammer. It seemed like the logical place, and according to my colleagues the only place to get my shoes upgraded.
So one warm (late 40's ;) ) lunchtime, I walked down to the local cobbler, just outside Mr President's house on Pandit Pant Marg. I watched in awe as he sat in cobblers pose (yogis call it Baddah Konasana) and quietly prepared my shoes for their upgrade. Watch how calm and peaceful this nice man is in the video.....
The end result was this:
Now, I have a fondness for decent shoes. Lucky for me, that wasn't a pair of Barkers or I'm sure I would have reacted differently. I went back to the office amused but my colleagues were mortified that a westerner be treated so badly by a local craftsman. They marched back down to confront the man to at least return my 50rs ($1!). As as result he took the shoes and started to rip the whole heel off, totally wrecking the shoes. We walked away leaving the angry little cobbler man spitting out his poetic words (I saw him two days later peaceful again in Baddah Konasana ;) ).
I got back to my desk to find an email from my travel insurance company saying that they were pulling my cover as the hospital where I was being treated had said I was fine. Up until two weeks ago I wasn't able to walk properly without a brace, and I had been seeing my physio 6 times a week. My insurance company were telling a porkie. Deep breath.
So after having my shoes mangled and the possibility of no travel insurance, I get back to my hotel wanting some quick respite from nearly 50 degrees outside. I had to wait 10 minutes to get to my room as a coach party of locals had just arrived and didn't understand that you could get to the first floor via the stairs so were filling the whole reception waiting for the lift. When I finally got to my room I discovered that my new neighbours had moved half of the furniture out from their room to the corridor and were socialising there. The type of Indians who stay in budget hotels aren't quiet. Ask them to whisper and they just can't do it, ask them to please stop shouting and they shout back "I'm not shouting sir".
I ended up just heading out thinking nothing of it. 48 hours later, after getting only a few hours sleep I was an ickle bit frustrated. My neighbours, a family of 20 ended up having some of their members sleeping in the hotel corridor with screaming babies outside my room all night. I complained to the lads on reception who wiggled their heads then tried to reason with the family who simply pushed staff away and nothing was done. A couple of other westerners staying in the hotel complained but they left the next day. I could have changed hotel but based on my charity covering the costs here anywhere else would cripple my budget. I sms'd work and they said it was fine as the hotel had it under control but they didn't so I took the next step. The below site is what you get if you google tourist police and it looked pretty legit to me.
I did, however, miss seeing the words 'tour packages' in the middle of the screen. I got through to Sanjay who could help me with a luxury tour to Agra but not with a family camping outside my room.
The noise got so bad that I couldn't even hear a film when using headphones. The concept of just going out for a walk to escape seems easy but in the summer in Delhi if you have AC in your room and it's the middle of the afternoon, you stay put! After 3 days, the noise was getting worse and I confronted the family only to have a pot bellied, hairy eared chap wearing a string vest and doti (like a sarong) shout back at me then throw his shoe at me. Legend. I have to admit at that point after 36 hours, the confrontation did involve me to lose my calm (no shouting just some interesting language). As a result, I'm guessing that their baby's first word might be English and it might just be "c@@t".
So I called the proper police. I never ever ever ever want to have a real problem in India. It took an age just to find someone who could speak English (even asking "do you speak english" in Hindi meant I got hung up on twice). In the end I got through to someone who did, indeed, speak perfect English. He wouldn't listen though, and when I said I was just after advice and didn't want him to come out to the hotel he said he was coming anyway. 6 policeman turned up. Six! The hotel staff completely bricked themselves. Reception staff ran around frantically covered in sweat, making chai and bringing snacks for the inspector. To be fair, I was very impressed with the police, unlike most of the lads you see on the street scratching their balls or picking nose these guys did a good job. Within 5 minutes all the furniture was back in the room and the families were silently packing their bags.
The next day after another email from my travel insurance company saying they could not reach me on any of my numbers (when I'd been getting calls from others all day) I called up the CEO who I know personally. Within 1 hour I had an apology from the company and a statement that my cover was fine. Work also proposed buying me new shoes (which I declined). Insurance fixed, shoes.....well the thought was there.
Then came my birthday. I was feeling a bit crappy after 3 nights with no sleep but the day started amazingly.
Yoga up on the roof at 34 degrees and a cool morning breeze with the eagles flying around. I then nearly had a heart attack when a rickshaw driver insist that I pay based on the meter. My cheapest commute in weeks. Happy days.
The charity I work for wanted me to extend my visa to work on the project a bit longer so on my birthday I had to go to the Foreigner's Regional Registration Office (FRRO). Work had done my paperwork but I questioned some of it with the admin guy and he just wiggled his head and said "no sir it is all there and present and such".
One of my least favourite signs in Delhi:
Visits to the FRRO in Delhi are legend among westerners and mine was quite special. When I arrived the front desk there was no-one there. An unmanned desk and immigrants of all shapes an sizes from Afghan farmers to NYC blinged up tourists; all in the same sweatbox of confusion.
Thirty minutes later a man arrived at a desk and there was a scramble to see him. His only role was to give you a token to get passed security and into the administration room. Seemed simple enough, he gave you a number you went to the admin room and got seen by your person. I've been to Argos where they have multiple desks for different number categories - how complex can this be?
In the admin room there were c.200 confused people all looking at the number digital display as if they were in the bookies watching a race. I soon worked out that I would be there for a while so I should go and get some food. My decision was made easier when the admin staff shut up shop for their lunch. Imagine a room with 200 people in a queue, all of a sudden the lights and fans go off and the staff walk out. Quality service, Indian style. Even the security guard who had done such a good job of keeping the masses out of the admin room had gone on lunch. After a decent bit of street food and re hydration I returned. I was in it for the long haul so came back with supplies. The security guard was back on his post and the place was buzzing. I showed the guard my pass and he looked at my water bottle in disgust. No bottles allowed. 5 minutes ago the post had been unmanned and most of the 200 people from the room had gone back in with water. Rules are rules no matter how fkn retarded so I left my bottle outside.
One hour later I was at second in line in the queue and took a moment to kill time by eavesdropping. An affluent looking american was in front of me standing out in the crowd of farmers and backpackers. She had overstayed her visa. Now, I remember when I first arrived in India, and when immigration had asked me how long I was going to stay I'd replied up until the end of my visa they said "we hope you go home sooner than that". Overstaying a visa here is bad news. The walls of the FRRO might be covered in 'Incredible India' posters but a reply such as "well in america all visas are 6 months not 3 months so I didn't realise I had overstayed" doesn't cut it as the lady soon discovered. A number of staff gathered around to do some syncronised head wiggling then the boss asked for information showing that the lady had been travelling as a tourist. She smiled, pulled up her Prada sunglasses and said "don't worry honey I've lots of photos of me and my husband at the Taj". They took her off to a room, I never saw her again but am guessing she's now back in the US with a lighter wallet.
So there I was at the front of the queue. I'd done everything I was supposed to do to. Hang on, though the admin guy in my office had given me what I thought was the wrong paperwork but insisted it was OK. So after 3 hours of waiting in the sweatbox I heard the words I knew were coming my way. "This is not the correct paperwork". I then decided to wiggle my head. He was right and he gave me details of the paperwork I needed.
I returned to the office saturated from head to toe in sweat. AC was blasting out of the vents and whether or not it was lack of sleep or an overdose of Indian bureaucracy I started to feel rough. Nothing as serious as man flu, just not the sort of feeling you want on your birthday.
I had a chat with the admin guy in my office about the situation and he smiled and said that I would have to put it in writing to his boss as he could not deal with me directly.
Work then bought me a cake. The below was a fake smile. A birthday cake is a lovely gesture but I would have preferred not to have been out of the office for 5 hours for no reason. I was not impressed.
My mates were amazing for my birthday. My social network in Delhi has been limited due to me spending most nights getting my akle fixed so lots of calls, emails and messages from back home were appreciated. I MISS MY MATES!
My greatest gift was my akle feeling better. After 40 days of intense physio I hadn't felt pain in over a week. I'll be taking my physio team out for dinner next week. They are legends (and the main man Kaneer wasn't there for the photoshoot but I'll be sure to get him in the meal photo :) ):
The next day I made a plans to leave Delhi. I'll go into details in a later post as to why. I was going to go to Burma to do vipassana (10 days silent meditation) but Burma is tricky to travel in during the monsoon so I went on skyscanner and decided to chose the cheapest option out of India. Now, if I'd have done this when I lived in Dublin I would have probably ended up in Luton but lucky for me I got this:
Result :) So I'm going to Kathmandu and have applied for Vipassana there. I know it's off season, but I'm in Asia right now so choices are limited. My akle should be fine for some small hikes so landslide permitting I'll be spending some time in the mountains.
I recently saw that the blog is close enough to 10,000 views so I thought I'd see if there is any way I could make some income from it. I applied for Adsense from Google and a day later got a reply with a failed application. Apparently there is adult content on my page. Game on :)
So does meditation help in stressful situations? The fact that I didn't react to the people outside my room until a couple of days is a very different reflection of how I might have reacted say a year ago. I guess meditation is a very special form of meditation and I wasn't getting any so got grumpy.
I'm back in my bliss bubble now (with lots of meditation ;) ), and had a crackin b'day weekend then bought myself a b'day pressie of a flight down to Karnataka to hang out at KSV for a few days to see the other volunteers, staff and children. So this will be me this weekend :)
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