HOLI

Every Complex is busy making bonfires.  They'll  be lit tonight - it's Holi, the colour festival tomorrow - the beginning of spring and the end of winter.  So it's celebration time again !  Good way to get rid of all the old kites from the last festival - they are being tied into the bonfire stack and everyone is filling balloons with colour in preparation for tomorrow.  The sedate Dr Prasad warned me - "don't go out tomorrow or you'll be pelted".  Others have warned that the colour stays on the skin for weeks and in your hair for months !

RED

You can wear it in India.....that's a profoundly emancipating concept !

COMMUNICATION

Italy is supposed to be the noisiest country in Europe....but they don't do too badly here.  It starts early in the morning, when the carts of fruit and vegetables appear and the vendors start calling to attract attention, their voices echoing around the streets.  Their carts on 4 large tricycle wheels, move fast and they don't seem to oblige their customers by pausing.  The carts are ubiquitous in India - they function as platforms for selling merchandise and on many occasions, I have seen the 'proprietor' lying on his counter, fast asleep !   There is also the type with three wooden walls, parked on the side of the road, and the owner will be sitting inside, cross legged, reading or meditating - a little house on wheels, oblivious to the mayhem of traffic beyond.

Communication on the road is by hooting - a small hoot says that you are there, a longer hoot is a warning - 'don't try my patience' and a very loud hoot says, 'I'm passing you and don't argue about it'.  There is a never ending conversation of shrieks and grunts.  No wonder foreigners have cars and drivers and don't venture out on their own.

The other curious feature of the road culture is the protagonists - girls, as noted before, are covered entirely in swathes of scarfs to protect their skin from the sand and sun.  They even don long sleeved gloves for the same reason...but not to be outdone, men wear hankies round their face, tied in a triangle just below the eyes covering nose and mouth, they look for all the world like gangsters from a fifties movie, off to do a Bank job !

Of course there is a hierarchy - the bigger the vehicle, the more it can throw its weight around and do as it likes...at the bottom of this heap, are the pedestrians - they have no rights at all, not even at a zebra crossing.

GOOD NAME

"What is your good name" !  The first time I was asked this, I was bewildered as to what they were asking for...!  I hope I have a good name for reliability and punctuality....!  But, what is my good name ?  So now I give them my 'first name', but perhaps it's my surname, which is my 'good name' ?  Is my first name more good than my surname ?  Now that's a question....I thought this form of address was used only in India, but talking to someone from Bahrain on the telephone a few days ago, I was freshly taken aback when I was asked, in a heavy Middle Eastern accent, what my good name was !  Now I wonder if my 'good name' in  Bahrain is different to my 'good name' in India ?

SKY WARS

An inverted world, the battle was in the sky and the casualties are now strewn from every tree and telegraph pole.  'Patang' takes place on the 14th/15th January to welcome in Spring and the lengthening of the days.  They make the kites of tissue paper and bamboo and the tails are laced with powdered glass so you can cut your opponent down to size.  The streets were deserted while everyone was up on rooftops and terraces either flying a kite, watching or lighting fireworks !  I had read about kite flying in 'Kite Runner', but had not realised it was such a wide spread phenomenon in Asia.  Actually, the whole thing began the night before - midnight - the Old City was choc-a-bloc with people buying equipment for kite making for the next evening's spectacle.