Plugged In

Kolkata's ubiquitous blue bus, with the helpful introduction to the principles of Kolkata traffic for the uninitiated. Just in case you can't decipher the words on the back, they are: 'DANGER', 'BLOW HORN', 'GOOD LUCK'.

So I'm back but it still feels a little weird. Shopping in the supermarket on Saturday and rather than searching for bottled water to drink I was hunting for bottled water to put in my steam iron. Spent the bank holiday weekend watching the Matrix Trilogy. Figure that.

Ring ring, "I'm in."

Was wondering through the peaceful Bristol city centre today. Found a load of Indian fair trade goods on sale, including little gift bags made from old discarded newspapers by women around New Dehli. Looks pretty authentic to me, except I wouldn't dream of paying the equivalent of Rs80 for one in India.

I miss the smells. It's quite subtle here in Bristol and the changes are not so sudden. Back in India one could walk down the pavement and come across a different and quite distinct smell for every step one took. From curry and cooking chapati, to a variety of fruit, frying jelebis (syrupy coiled fritters), a smoking chai stove, a pavement latrine (not a welcome one), diesel from a passing goods three-wheel vehicle, and then the incense from a shrine built into a roadside tree stump.

Below is the street lad during the evening we had in KFC with one of our team. Saw him quite often outside the YWCA selling gum.

This is him saying goodbye to us as we got into the EMC minibus. He's holding parting gifts of a bag of sweets and a Flurry's box with a cake inside. He's saying goodbye but he's also taking the opportunity to ask for more stuff.

Our parting was a bit of an event for some of the local street kids we got to know. Lots of heart felt goodbyes and street handshakes. Possibly just because we would buy the occasional chicken roll or packet of crisps, but I comfort myself with the thought that it's also because we spent a little time with them. As much as they may genuinely like you, and I think we did sort of develop a friendship with one or two, they can't leave behind the beggar in them. In fact once or twice towards the end of our time, once they got to know us better, they would be more forceful trying to grab a bag to see what's inside. They would take absolutely anything... if we let them.

Picture below of one of the resident cats at the YWCA, christened "Fudge" by Leonora. He's pretending to be cuddly and not a rabid death monster. I didn't trust him. "Crackers" however was more friendly and would accept a little tickle without bearing fangs. He pushed the relationship with the team at the end of our time there, however, when he ate "Milo" the gecko that lived in the toilet cubicle. Got to know that gecko quite well in the early hours of one particular Thursday.

More pictures to come.