3rd June

I wonder what the people of the middle east and the orient would have done if the car hadn’t been invented? Actually, more the car horn really. I’ve been musing over this and I have come to a realization. The car horn has saved the monkeys from extinction. Well, just imagine. Along comes the businessman in his horse and cart. He notices another person on his cycle who is travelling too slow for him. He reaches behind him for his trusty monkey and yanks on his tail. In fact, depending on how angry he is, he may pull the monkey’s tail so hard that the creature’s eyes bulge out as he screams his protest. People on their cycles would have to have the smaller monkey perched on the handlebars. Those who were accustomed to having their family on the bicycle would have to have the child holding the monkey and directed when to pull the tail.

So, you see, whoever invented the horn as a part of the automobile, should be considered for the highest honour given for one who saves another species from certain extinction.

We had another storm last night. This one was different though. I was just settling into bed and heard a banging of a door. (In the corridor outside my flat there are two doors leading to two different levels o the roof.) I got up again and ducked out to lock the door that had been left open. Ahhhh. Now I can go to sleep. I was no sooner in my bedroom again, when I heard a rattling outside. Oooops. I think I may have locked someone out on the roof. Being so dark and rainy, I hadn’t imagined that someone would be out there. I dashed back out and unlocked the door. It was a young lady. She had been hanging out some clothes. (I couldn’t help but wonder at the point of it really.) I was a bit embarrassed, but we both saw the funny side of the incident.

I discovered another market the other day. It is closer to where I live than the one I have been going to. It has a much larger collection of shops and things to buy. The owner of the first shop I went into has a daughter in Auckland. He was very proud of the fact. His store was better than the one I was accustomed to going to but then I found another one a bit further down that seemed better again. (Not quite your NZ supermarket. More like your NZ corner dairy.)

I now have two companions at my flat and an uninvited, rather unwelcome guest. I have Raj in the bedroom. He’s rather cute and small. Now there’s Doris in the kitchen. (Or is it the other way around?) She’s a slightly bigger lizard. Not by much. Just to make life interesting, I have a rather large cockroach living in the kitchen cupboard. This fella makes the lizards look rather small. I hope he doesn’t land up eating them. He seems to like soap. He’s had a good chew on an unwrapped bar that was being stored in there. Fortunately he hasn’t found the food cupboard yet. That’s hanging fairly high off the wall. (Not that that’s a barrier for a hungry cockroach.)

27th May

So, I’ve been here for a month now. The course is going well, and we are preparing for another to start in July. (All going well, another full class)

I have a new companion. He popped in the other day. He’s an Indian lizard. He’s very tiny. I suspect he’s quite young. I’m hoping lizard are quite partial to ants. If he is then they’ll be plenty for him to feed on. He may even grow to be a nice big strong fella. That’s assuming it’s a he. It might be a she. Then I’d be in trouble, inviting a girl into my room. But, on the grounds that I’m not sure how I would tell, I think I’ll call him Raj. The ants are vicious little buggers. One had a chew on my foot the other night as I was cleaning my teeth. It’s a bygone ant now. (That’ll learn him. Ha!!)

I went to the movies last night. First time since I’ve been here. It started really late. 10.50pm. (I’m normally asleep and snoring by then!!!!) But at least I got Ashutosh away from the office for a while. He’s been working crazy hours for weeks. We saw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 4’ in 3D. The movie was OK. Not one of Jonny Depp’s better movies. It might have been better for me if I didn’t have the 3D glasses on. By the end of the night, I was starting to get a headache. Of course, it could also have been the time of night. I finally tucked myself in at around 1.30am. “uggggg”. The alarm mercilessly woke me at 6am as per usual. I would have been happy to yell at it and go back to sleep, but I knew the cleaner would be coming soon, so I obeyed the call and started my day. I blame it all on Ashutosh. Fancy going to the movies at that time of night. I didn’t even get to say goodnight to Raj.

20th May

We had a really wild storm last night. It started around 10pm and went through to 6.30 this morning. It was quite amazing. The sky was alive with thousands of lightening flashes and the thunder was intense. It makes our Christchurch storms seem ‘insignificant’. I woke to the alarm and no power, again. I turned on the hot water for the shower and, nothing. DOH!! Oh well. Its not as though I couldn’t have a cold shower. Especially as the cold water tap isn’t a lot different to the hot tap. (When it’s going).

The students were asked to give feedback on the course so far yesterday. On the whole they seem to be positive. There are some differences they have asked for which we wouldn’t do in NZ. They are asking for a revision day on Saturday to go over what we learned during the week.

This whole Saturday thing seems a little confusing here in India. Its as though there a split in perceptions. On one hand there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Saturday and Sunday are the weekend but, then there’s plenty of people who work Saturdays. Some of the students treat Saturday as a day to go home to the parents, then come back on Monday. It makes it kinda hard to get everyone through the course. Still, we can but do our best.

I went for a walk to the city centre with Avinash. It wasn’t quite as far as I thought it might be. There’s some fairly major reconstruction going on around the various parts of sector 17. Mostly in the courtyard areas. Given another year and it will look quite nice. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of big machinery here. Just lots of people doing the work manually. I did notice that, when they resurfaced the street I live on last week, they were using the ashfelt truck similar to what we use in NZ. But that was it. Even the vehicles that transported the ashfelt to the machine were not much better than horse and cart.

There are small businesses all around here. When I say small, they are one men operations. An electrician who’s transport is his push bike. All his tools fit in a bag on the bike rack. Or a cycle tyre repair man, who works on the corner of a street, on the footpath. His house is a tent held up by a garden wall. A richshaw driver who’s bed is the back of the rickshaw. He washes himself and his clothes at a public tap on the side of the road. The other day two men came around to install a sky dish. One chap had the dish in a bag on his back. The other had the tools in another pack. They both arrived on motor scooters.

One chap, just down the road from me, does everyone’s ironing. His house is a tent on the curbside. He lives there with his wife and daughter. You see plenty of chairs outside under trees. They are the local barber. Some even have a mirror attached to the tree or a freestanding frame.

18th May

I saw a great site today. A bus company called the ‘Chandigarh Transport Undertaking’. Well, after all, who ever said the word ‘undertaking’ only had one use.

Today was the last day of the first module of teaching. A mile stone!! Yay. In 2009, I didn’t get past this point on the grounds that I had to keep starting again with different students. It makes all the difference having a marketing team.

We have a new ‘faculty’ starting tomorrow. (That’s what they call staff here. ‘faculty’.) He’s good with animation and rigging and is keen to do some teaching. Which is really good because Rakesh is heading down to the bottom of India in early June for ten days. (Apparently it takes three days by train. Not sure that I would want to be in an Indian train for three days.) I think he’s off to a wedding or something.

17th May

Yesterday was a bit rough. I got into the office at the usual time, noly to discover that the air conditioning system wasn’t working. The classroom temperature was 33 degrees. The fans were going but they made a bit of a noise and were blowing papers around whilst the students were trying to work. During the morning, the power went of three times. When you are in a classroom with no windows, it makes it quite dark without the lights.

We had a new student start today. A slightly older lady. I think she’s got some connection with Ashutosh. I think she is currently training at another campus, and Ashutosh thinks if she starts training here, she’ll enjoy it and invite all her friend to abandon that campus for ours. I guess we’ll see. But, it wasn’t a good start to her experience.

To top all that off, Rakesh called in sick. Not sure what the problem is.

We finally got the AC going around 2pm. Fortunately the computer lab has a number of fans and extractor fans. So it was actually cooler in there than the rest of the college.

I got home after the classes and crashed on my bed for a couple of hours. I’m convinced that I will be somewhat thinner by time I get home. (I wonder if I can ask Singapore Airlines for a half fair on the grounds that I won’t take up much room?)

16th May

I’m typing a few lines to let you know that I’m still alive and all systems functioning normally. This past week has been all about the class really. We now have 17 students. They all seem a swell bunch of kids and are getting on with things. There are a few talented artists in the class. There is one lad who is scared of drawing but his work is not bad. My guess is that he hasn’t really been encouraged to follow his creative side.

The lessons are going well. I have Rakesh with me and he is really keen. He loves the teaching in the Lab. I don’t have to do much there. More of a supervisory role really. He’s warming up to the Creative Practice classes. The first one I gave him was the Perspective class. He really wanted to give that one a go. He had finished his lesson in a little under three minutes. (Just as well I was there.) I took over, making it out to be a tag team effort and we got stuck into actually giving it a go. I give him credit for trying. The next CP I gave him to do was Face drawing. That was much better. He got them to try using his techniques to draw some faces. For this one I was able to sit back and watch. Well, I did draw a few funny faces on the whiteboard, which they immediately copied, but I was trying to get them to have fun. So, we’ve nearly done the first module. About three more days and we will have completed the Logo design exercise.

The staff here are really nice. They are working hard to try to bring in more students. They always have a smile for me and are extremely polite. Its kinda fun trying to think of ways to help them understand what I’m needing. It’s not that they don’t understand English. Its just that they have different words for things. For example, they call a 30 cm ruler a Scale. When you think of it, it makes perfect sense why they should call it a scale but who would have guessed. The funniest one of all is when I say “Can I please have some milk?” They scratch their heads and ask me to ask again. “Can I please have some milk?” No, they don’t get it. So I ask again. “Ah, milk. Yes certainly.” The funny bit is when they say milk, it sounds just like when I say milk.

India is having a major problem at the mo, especially here in the Punjab. (The Punjab is the main rice and wheat growing area of India.)I heard on a report from the BBC that the water table has dropped significantly over the last 30 years. Whereas the water table used to be at around 30 feet, its now more like 100 – 200 feet and the water is not as good down there. There’s more salt in it. Therefore the crops are not getting the correct nutrients. This in turn is causing a food shortage and the farmers are going into increased debt. I don’t think the farmers are as well looked after as they are in NZ.

The Mango crops are down to 20% of last year’s season as well. Apparently the monsoons came at the wrong time and it wasn’t enough. That’s of course if you believe everything you hear on the news.

9th and 10th May

We started our first brief today. ‘Take a walk’. I seem to recall last time, it took around three or four weeks to get to this point. But, this time is much better. We’ve had a few more students arrive. Some will start today. More tomorrow.

I was rather amused that they students gave some feedback that they didn’t want to go for the walk. They said it was too hot. I guess I wasn’t really expecting that. I imagined it was just a normal day for them. Mind you, it was around 29 degrees at 6am this morning. Rakish is really enjoying the teaching. He’s very keen, especially in the computer lab.

At the flat, I now have an electric stove and pan. They arrived during the day along with a dish rack, and a few other bits and pieces. I can now cook up my own meals. Yay!!

10^th May

I was heading home from buying some groceries tonight when I came across a car that was being used to teach drivers. I think the instructor was waiting for his client. I couldn’t help but be amused. “They actually have driving school??” Then I got to imagining what it would be like to be instructed how to drive in India. In the cabin there are two horns. One for the learner and one for the trainer. The learner’s horn is very big and easy to reach. The wing mirrors are blacked out. (Don’t need those) The rear view mirror is for hanging things off. There are two gears. One forward for going really fast, and one for reverse which means go really fast, backwards. Then there’s the road code. “Right, so when you see a red light, what should you do?” “Ignore it sir?” “Yes. That’s right. Well done. What about going around a roundabout?” “Press the horn all the way round and make sure I hit at least one car, sir?” “Yes, yes. Well done. You’ll be my top student. Oh, by the way, you can take your blindfold off now.”