Week  3 Feb 26 2006

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Feb 26, Saturday,  MSSRF

Not an interesting day diary-wise. I did my washing. My laundry from the first week has never reappeared so I need to hang onto what I've got. I could always get a new pair of trousers run up at the local tailors, but I'm not sure that I want a label called "Gay Man Outfitters" (I kid you not) sticking out of the back of my trousers. Then writing up more on a book chapter and checking the references which is always tedious. Google Scholar has come into it's own here. I have several reprints of articles which don't give the details of the journals they came form . If you stick the title into Google scholar, it comes up with the full reference. Very neat.

A few random notes on what I notice around me here.

• The sheer quantity of fabric around. Everyone wears miles of cloth. Saris are over 5 meters long. Salwar chamise are long trousers, a long over dress and a very long shawl. Men wear lungis or dhotis, great lengths of cloth wrapped round like a sarong. More often than not, topped off by a turban. You would think in a hot sticky climate you would want to wear as little as possible. The women who move building materials on trays on their heads (and even bricks, I've seen a young woman with 12 bricks balanced on top of her head climbing over rubble on a building site) wear a sari, topped by a long cardigan topped by a long shawl which is coiled on the top of the head to form a base for the load.
• Sounds in the evening, if you can get away from the honking traffic. People talking. Many people sit outside their houses in the dark and talk. Squeaking of water pumps. Most of the medium quality houses have hand pumps in a small front yard. Other houses use public pumps which are every 50 meters or less along the side of the road, and you hear then pumping all the time. During the day little children are made to stand under the spout while their mothers and sisters wash them to the accompaniment of load squawks. Peeping of frogs wherever there is dampness.
• Things to watch out for when walking in the dark. Potholes. Some of them go straight down into the sewers below. Don't even think about it. Dogs. Dogs sleeping everywhere, just curled up on the ground. People sleeping on the ground, come to that. Bicycles. You can't hear them and in the dark you can't see them. I've come closer to being hit by push bikes several times, far more than by any motorised vehicle. Bats flying around in the dark, and some of them are REALLY BIG.

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