I forgot an incident in the city of Ahmedabad! We were out shopping on foot through the markets. I never realised how huge the market areas were. It just went on and on.
As it was near the end of our holiday, mum wanted to give some money to the needy, so she went to a few of these cheap food places that provide food for the poor at really low prices and basically gave them a wad of cash and told them to feed however many people it pays for. It’s a common thing to do I was told. I wasn’t quite prepared for the scramble straight after though! I remembered to stand back at the next place.
There are a lot of poor people around, beggars, homeless etc, and Mum is a sucker for people with disabilities. This teenager approached her, showing off his single arm, asking for money, and mum just emotionally collapsed and gave him 150 rupees. That’s like giving 20 or 30 pounds to a beggar here. Don’t get me wrong I wasn't complaining, I think its great, except she did it front of about 15 other child beggars who all started salivating.
They followed us for the next 20 mins wherever we want. We walked fast, we walked slow. We walked high, we walked low. We hopped, we skipped. Yet they were behind us all the way. Prodding us now and again and asking for money. They were really annoying me, especially this one kid who grabbed my elbow gently to get my attention. But they eventually got bored. Mum made a big mistake in giving it out in front of everyone :|
Note:
I hope I didn’t offend people with my “showing off his single arm” comment above. I think I’ll be serious for once. Being a fairly hidden person, it’s not something I like to do very often in something as public as a blog. I don’t tend to feel sorry for disabled or the homeless etc, unless I sense they feel sorry for themselves. Isn’t all that everyone is after is a vague sense of happiness? How is that happiness any different whether you can walk or are in a wheelchair? Its all a state of mind and anyone can achieve (although the wheelchair would be an obstacle for most people). We all know the man who has everything may be depressed. I would feel sorry for that man more than I feel sorry for a happy leg-less man. The body is but a shell and temporary, so why focus on it :) I guess if you believe we are nothing more than our bodies then you are entitled to feel sorry for them.
Another important point, if you had a disability, you wouldn’t want people feeling sorry for you. Using that insight, why feel sorry for them?
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Things you thought you'd never hear them say
My dad (that pics not my dad btw) comes in my room just now and says (in Gujarati):
"Can you just draw a line near my sideburns with biro? I need to shave them but I need a guide"
(biro = ball point pen)
WTF
I TOLD HIM TO FUCK OFF.
I didn't really. I did as instructed.
I DREW ON MY DADS SIDEBURNS WITH A BIRO.
Not many people can say they've done that :)
Monday, August 14, 2006
My last entry about India...
Well i'm back in the UK now, back hoommeee! Arrived on the 6th, but have been sooo lazy for the first week. Probably jet lag. Or maybe i'm just lazy. I didn't have access to a PC during the last 10 days in india for reasons i shall not go into here (ask if ur curious). So here's some stuff left during those last 2 weeks that i didn't get a chance to put up!
Bought a few DVD's:
I made up a list of about 30 dvd's i wanted to get. I emailed a copy of the list to my sisters, and they reply with another 30 dvd's they wanted!! So i had to trim the list as much as i could, and got it down to about 50 lol. But i knew some wouldn't be available, so off we trekked to a dvd shop, gave the man the list so he could start piling them up in front of us.
It was like an outside shop, but quite big, and there was sooooooo many fucking flies. I looked down at my legs/feet and there musta been like 5-10 sitting there. Gross. At first i just shook or stamped my foot every 10 or 20 secs. But i soon realised DVD man was gonna take LONNNGGGG making my pile. And i couldn't be shaking/stamping my leg about a hundred times. So i just stood there after and let them shat on my feet.
Ended up being 40 DVD's. He made up the bill.... FUCKING £200 ! :O but then, without asking, took 10% off, which was nice. Much more than my mum would have ever asked for. She always tries to bargain, but cos her maths (and her sense of working out proportions) is so bad, she always ends up asking for too little. I remember one incident where we bought a bunch of artwork from this little shop. The price came up to 3260 Rupees if i remember correctly. And my mum says "will you knock the 60 rupees off at least??" And i was thinking WHAT.
Lets turn it into pounds to get an idea of what happened. Total: £38, and mum asked for 70 pence off that. PENCE! Haha. And the funny thing was, the dude actually thought about it for a second, then agreed. Either he was a bit shocked at someone asking for a 1.8% discount. Or he was incredibly stingy and was actually wondering whether he should give such a discount (after all, this is the land of the Guji's).
Anyway, that was that, we bought £180 worth of Hindi dvd's. Far more than i thought it would come up to. works out to about about fiver per dvd. I hope he didn't overcharge us cos we're Brits.
Monkey Jumps:
I gotta mention the monkeys again. I saw one on top of a roof opposite our apartment on the 4th floor in Ahmedabad. I was astonished to see it take a massive 25 feet leap from that roof to a little roof on our building. It was one huge leap! And so high up! These are big monkeys too! Check my photo's page (see link at bottom of this entry) to see the monkey.
Puking boy on coach:
Heh this was a bit gross. We were on the coach going to another relatives house and a few seats ahead was a family with 2 young kids. One of the kids then threw up onto his seat before they got off the coach. The coach driver then wiped it a bit, not much. And a few mins later some other dude came on and just sat his arse right on that seat! Gross!
Raghav intentionally swears on daytime television:
I was watching telly in the early afternoon one time and there was an interview with raghav on B4U music. As i was watching, the lady interviewer said "shit".
And Raghav was like, "can you say that??"
And she's like "i can say aaaanything i like!".
And he's like "oh my gaaawd that's so cool. I can say shit! Shit shit shit! Shitty shit shit!" And then he broke into this freestyle singing and added loads of "shit" into it! It was quite funny!
Stare each other out:
I noticed another weird thing about the traffic in India. When you're stopped in traffic before some traffic lights, everyone seems to look left n right to stare at people near them. Not just a glance, but a proper up and down look, from head to feet (for the motorbiked ppl). Staring is so annoying. I should have done my Fragesh face at them if they stared at me (ask for details).
Touch my leg in a Rickshaw:
Oh man this was funny. I was in a rickshaw which stopped at some traffic lights. And there was a boy going around cleaning peoples windscreens and then asking for money. The rickshaw doesnt have much of a windscreen tho. But he must have noticed i was a foreigner, so he comes up to our rickshaw.... and im wondering what the heck he's gonna do for money.... he reaches his hand out and starts to fucking massage my legs! And then my aunt shoo'ed him off me. HOW RANDOM.
I think that's the end of my India blog! I doubt i'll have much more entries now cos my life here is so boring. I need material to write about to make entries.
Check out the photos from India
Bought a few DVD's:
I made up a list of about 30 dvd's i wanted to get. I emailed a copy of the list to my sisters, and they reply with another 30 dvd's they wanted!! So i had to trim the list as much as i could, and got it down to about 50 lol. But i knew some wouldn't be available, so off we trekked to a dvd shop, gave the man the list so he could start piling them up in front of us.
It was like an outside shop, but quite big, and there was sooooooo many fucking flies. I looked down at my legs/feet and there musta been like 5-10 sitting there. Gross. At first i just shook or stamped my foot every 10 or 20 secs. But i soon realised DVD man was gonna take LONNNGGGG making my pile. And i couldn't be shaking/stamping my leg about a hundred times. So i just stood there after and let them shat on my feet.
Ended up being 40 DVD's. He made up the bill.... FUCKING £200 ! :O but then, without asking, took 10% off, which was nice. Much more than my mum would have ever asked for. She always tries to bargain, but cos her maths (and her sense of working out proportions) is so bad, she always ends up asking for too little. I remember one incident where we bought a bunch of artwork from this little shop. The price came up to 3260 Rupees if i remember correctly. And my mum says "will you knock the 60 rupees off at least??" And i was thinking WHAT.
Lets turn it into pounds to get an idea of what happened. Total: £38, and mum asked for 70 pence off that. PENCE! Haha. And the funny thing was, the dude actually thought about it for a second, then agreed. Either he was a bit shocked at someone asking for a 1.8% discount. Or he was incredibly stingy and was actually wondering whether he should give such a discount (after all, this is the land of the Guji's).
Anyway, that was that, we bought £180 worth of Hindi dvd's. Far more than i thought it would come up to. works out to about about fiver per dvd. I hope he didn't overcharge us cos we're Brits.
Monkey Jumps:
I gotta mention the monkeys again. I saw one on top of a roof opposite our apartment on the 4th floor in Ahmedabad. I was astonished to see it take a massive 25 feet leap from that roof to a little roof on our building. It was one huge leap! And so high up! These are big monkeys too! Check my photo's page (see link at bottom of this entry) to see the monkey.
Puking boy on coach:
Heh this was a bit gross. We were on the coach going to another relatives house and a few seats ahead was a family with 2 young kids. One of the kids then threw up onto his seat before they got off the coach. The coach driver then wiped it a bit, not much. And a few mins later some other dude came on and just sat his arse right on that seat! Gross!
Raghav intentionally swears on daytime television:
I was watching telly in the early afternoon one time and there was an interview with raghav on B4U music. As i was watching, the lady interviewer said "shit".
And Raghav was like, "can you say that??"
And she's like "i can say aaaanything i like!".
And he's like "oh my gaaawd that's so cool. I can say shit! Shit shit shit! Shitty shit shit!" And then he broke into this freestyle singing and added loads of "shit" into it! It was quite funny!
Stare each other out:
I noticed another weird thing about the traffic in India. When you're stopped in traffic before some traffic lights, everyone seems to look left n right to stare at people near them. Not just a glance, but a proper up and down look, from head to feet (for the motorbiked ppl). Staring is so annoying. I should have done my Fragesh face at them if they stared at me (ask for details).
Touch my leg in a Rickshaw:
Oh man this was funny. I was in a rickshaw which stopped at some traffic lights. And there was a boy going around cleaning peoples windscreens and then asking for money. The rickshaw doesnt have much of a windscreen tho. But he must have noticed i was a foreigner, so he comes up to our rickshaw.... and im wondering what the heck he's gonna do for money.... he reaches his hand out and starts to fucking massage my legs! And then my aunt shoo'ed him off me. HOW RANDOM.
I think that's the end of my India blog! I doubt i'll have much more entries now cos my life here is so boring. I need material to write about to make entries.
Check out the photos from India
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