So, Delhi was hot. Jonny and Will arrived there a week ago and dampened my jubilant mood with their incessant cynicism and misery-mongering. We left the next day in the hope that i might lose at least one of them on the way to Agra, which is hotter than Delhi. Now, Agra is famous (in my experience) for 2 things: firstly a 1-month-old german shepherd called Tom:
Of course Will, ever the adventurous glutton, despite my reasoning that he'd be a bit stringy, tried to buy him from the hotel owner (who'd bought him for Rs5000 that day). When that failed, Will sat on Tom. Not nice. It was becoming a bit like a roadrunner cartoon until Will finally had his 4th lunch and fell asleep...
The second memory of note in Agra is this rather elaborate grave stone:
No photograph could ever do justice to this place. It is unbelievable. Probably about 3 times bigger than i thought - click on the above photo and see how big the people standing next to it are... I cannot describe how evocative it is to see something quite so perfect. Undoubtedly the most amazing man-made structure I've ever seen. In fact, what the heck, here it is again:
Next time I'm in Agra (which was the capital until Shah Jahan moved it to Delhi) I'll have a look at the fort and a few other things but alas there wasn't time on this occasion.
So, we made our way to Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, that afternoon. Its pink, dusty, hotter than Agra, camels aplenty, and was the scene of much bathroom disaster. I think we were complacent in Agra - its probably best not to eat in a restaurant with rats running round, or to eat cold "samosas" on the train after they've been walked up and down in the heat by a grubby man for 4 hours. In addition to the gut gymnastics we all partook in, I also sustained a screaming fever - my upgrade was most likely due to the sour iced coffee I drank in Agra. So, didn't see a lot of Jaipur, and it was fairly fortunate timing that we didn't need to go anywhere for a few days.
Now, the reason I am currently cursed with such terrible company is that, a couple of weeks ago, Will and I got drunk and (apparently) I persuaded him to come to India for 10 days on the promise that we'd go to see India play England in the ICC Championships. So, risking very real catastrophic potential, we went. The cheap seats had sold out so we paid Rs1500 for ours. We imagined this would take us to some kind of air-conditioned box with a private bar, butler service and (most importantly) nice toilets very close indeed. However... the extra money we paid was for the privilege of having a seat rather than a step. Except these were unfixed patio seats, on flat ground, behind several fences, sets of scaffolding and about 1000 other seats... all sharing 2 squat-toliets. So, we got involved. We moved our seats quite near to the front, as did everyone else, and an enormous game of musical chairs ensued. Except that instead of running around chairs the aim, apparently, was to steal as many as you could, to make as large a stack as possible, then to stand on the arms of the top chairs, and occasionally fall off. And instead of music, there were policemen with big sticks who occasionally stopped watching the match and made everyone sit down on just one chair. Fun was had. I couldn't take my camera into the ground, but lets break this up with a picture anyway:
So, the cricket crowd was a bit like a massive school trip with lots of sugar and no teachers. The most important thing was that everyone get wildly over-excited together, & not necessarily about the cricket. Sometimes the trigger for the us all to jump to our chairs and cheer at the top of our voices was completely understandable - a Tendulkar mis-field, or a fielder turning to vaguely look in our direction, for example - and sometimes (for example during the first ball of the Indian innings) the stimulus would be that a TV camera on a building behind us had vaguely pointed at us, and EVERYBODY would turn round, go crazy and put on our best Bollywood grins. It was fascinating, and I mean that (despite the 40 degree heat, cold sweats, pounding headache and ominous rumbles). It seemed that the joy of the crowd was not due to the cricket but to the excitement of the crowd itself.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this week has been seeing Indian people interacting with each other, without taking any notice of me. During the mid-session interval at the cricket, and on the train journeys, I've felt really privileged to see such beaming warmth and empathy displayed between friends. Its not something I've seen in the west, and is really very special.
So, Will & Jonny leave in a couple of days and I'll then head south, probably to a beach in Goa, which is hotter than Mumbai, for a week or so (I'd much rather be at work in sunny london, but needs must...). I'm really excited about this trip now, and having had less than 2 weeks so far, 6 months seems like a very long time.
(ps, sorry, i seem to have lost the ability to use commas. but, at, least i,m responding to popular demand and using a few capital letters now,)
