In most of small restaurants in India owners, to attract foreign customers, make an effort to prepare an English menu instead of the usual blackboard or piece of paper in Hindi or local dialect.

But obviously, they do it in “Jugaad” style, so just look around for anyone they have heard of is speaking English (be it cousin, uncle, neighbour’s son etc) and give him the job.

As a result, you’re getting a fantastic read that helps you beat (bit, beet?) overly extended waiting time before your khanna comes.

It can be amazingly creative, unexpected and hence – amusing. There are few words that seem to cause the most confusion. Chowmein for example usually turns into chow main, chamin, or even – and I’m not making this one up – cowman!

But my favourite menu by far was in Jaisalmer, in a roof top restaurant just next to Governmental Bang Lassi Shop and this charming place:

The menu of that restaurant was a real feast for eyes, especially since we were slightly more sensitive towards funny things after visiting the opposing governmental venue. There were dozens of mistakes, but for me, absolute hit was “a piece”. It was in the menu at least four times, and nearly everytime it was spelled differently. So “a piece” first turned to “peas”, than evolved tthrough “pees” and reached a soothing stage of “peace”. I’m sure I’ve clicked a picture of it, but I can’t find it now. But that’s ok, since the post scriptum to that story has been written in a momos stall just next to my office in Gurgaon. And this one I have documented.

Peace!

I just got a mail from one of my office collegues. And educated, smart woman.

“Some of you may know this, nevertheless, I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am leaving (…) after over 10 years of exciting work.

I have enjoyed my tenure here and I appreciate having had the opportunity to work with all of you. Thank you for the support, guidance, and encouragement provided to me during my time at (…). Even though I will miss my colleagues and the company, I am looking forward to this new challenge in life of being a full time housewife and a doting mother to my kids.”

I’m not judging it. I have learned, that for example arranged marriages happen to work often much better than love marriages. Even though the concept is unacceptable for most of us – firangis – here.

Same with this case – if a successful woman decides to go on maternal leave, that is usually for a limited period of time and in perspective – there’s always return to work. Those who stay as home as housewives usually come from different background and never really had a decent job or perspectives to get one. But here it’s a pretty often case.

I just don’t what will kids say about that

Yesterday in the office we had an interesting conversation about cow’s in India. Well, everybody knows that India is filled up with roaming holy cows. They are literally everywhere, from villages lost in high mountains, to posh districts of Delhi.

Everybody knows as well that you can’t kill them nor eat their meat (with exception for Kerala and West Bengal), and that for killing a cow you can even land up in the jail. Finally – everyone knows, that India is home to nearly 30% of world’s cattle and hence – one of the biggest milk producers.

But there are few things that cause a visitor to scratch his head… What happens to dead cows? Why nobody tries to capture all those roaming cows and milk them? What exactly does the “holy” status means – what is and what is not allowed when it comes to a cow? Most of these we solved during the short conversation over lunch and if you want the answers, you can find them here. And last, but not least… what happens to all those holy cows’ dung?

That is truly surprising, as India is not particularly famous for its clean streets. You can find pretty much everything here on the road, but surprisingly – cow dung is rarely one of those things. Ok -you would see some – but comparing to the number of cows roaming around, it’s really a little.

There are three possible explanations:

1) These are holy cows, so they don’t pooh

2) These cows are gentleman (heritage of British Raj), so they go pooh hidden places.

3) Third one is this:

Caked and dried on walls or rocks, cow dung is used in India as a fuel, fertilizer, mud brick additive, and …. even as a tooth polish, dish washer or skin tonic. At least according to this list of 101 uses of cow dung.. Somebody asked me, if India is a green country? Well – for sure it’s leading in biofuels and recycling!

And one last mystery. “Why do those cows stare at me like this?” asked Safiye (my flat mate).

Any ideas, anyone?

My first day in India was quite shocking, but I was prepared for that. I wasn’t really scared, I did not panic, I was just calmly taking things as they were. Dirt, noise, crazy traffic, beggars all of that I read about and I knew I’m going to have to face it.

But for one thing I wasn’t prepared at all.

I spent that night at the AIESEC guy place (greetings from this place Yatin, it was awesome!), who introduced me to local food and habits a bit. And when I was just about to go to sleep, I heard a repeating, approaching whistling from the outside. I asked Yatin what it was, and he told me, it’s the security guard and he’s whistling to alarm potential thieves that he’s around, not sleeping.

He whistled throughout the night, so I barerly could sleep.

Now I’m used to it and I sleep deep, uninterrupted dreams. In my area they’re whistling every night now. But I still don’t understand. How could letting the thief know precisly where is the guard help him protecting the district? Maybe someone could explain?…

There is a place in India, where everyday, thousands of Indians, of their own free will walk for over 20km, climbing up to over 4000 m altitude. Yes – you got it right. Not “drive up” – they walk. Everyone – from children to elder ladies… And it’s a pretty exhausting walk, as even I (and I’m pretty good trekker) got somewhat tired.

What the heck, you think, could possibly force this nation – usually so reluctant towards any kind of physical activities or sports (except for cricket maybe) – to make such an exertion. In the rain!

- How did you get to know about our pilgrimage? – asked me one of passers by. Yep, like always in India, when one doesn’t know what it’s all about, it’s about religion (and if not, it’s sex, power and money, like everywhere else). I had to dissappoint my interlocutor, saying I was not really aware of the holinest of this place, as we were heading towards Valley Of Flowers - highly praised himalayan “heaven on earth”, just a few kilometers from the main pilgrimage road.

The route is crowded with Sikhs, mostly man, although some woman and children are there as well. Ok, not everyone is actually walking, but those lazy bastards are fortunatelly a minority (and pretty often excused by sickness or age). There are barerly any non-sikh indian tourists, not to mention foreigners.

The reason for that, is one of the holiest Sikh temples located at 4600 (or 4200m – depends on the source) altitude Hemkund Sahib. The place next to a glacier lake, where the last Sikh guru – Guru Gobind Singh – used to meditate.

All of that makes the cities of Govindhat and Ghangaria – bases for all the pilgrims – quite an unusuall experience. Although located amongst scenic beauty of the heart of Himalayas, they dont’ resemble hill stations like Shimla or Manali you may know. All restaurants serve punjabi food and local market is filled up with sikhs religious items instead of himalayan handicrafts. India still manages to surprise me…

Ok, I’ve seen amazing things being carried ON bikes. The whole families (up to 5 people!), a pig, a dog, different kinds of loads (from windows to something that looked like someone’s whole life packed into boxes). But this is new for me…

Poor rikshaw wallah…

Jugaad – this Hindi word, which shortest known to me translation is “creative fix”, is supposed to describe one of national Indian features. Individual Indian is amazingly capable of finding unusual solutions to problems using whichever available resources. The most famous example are trucks with engine made of pump.

But the longer I live in this country, the more I realize that this amazing creative doesn’t come from nowhere. It is a direct result of constant resistance of the system. (I put it this way in purpose, to show similarities I constantly see between India and Poland – just that India is always “more”) Flexibility of Indian individual is a response to a total inflexibility, dumbness and blind trust in “paper”of Indian institutions (and their representatives). They don’t create and follow laws to solve problems. They seem to do it, just “because”.

Any law ever designed in India, any public facility, any public institution or regulation – they never seem to be design FOR the people. Regulations are often illogical, but beaurocrats are blindly sticking to the letter of written law, not willing to make even smallest adjustments.  Even if they are obvious, simple, cheap and would make life of both sides easier.

But in the clash between declared order and reality, reality always wins. We know it well in Poland, we learned this lesson well.  Indians, just as Poles, are perfectly trained in overcoming difficulties which they actually create themselves. Favourite Indian saying is “Nothing is impossible in India”, which means, that they first make a simple thing close to impossible, and then they find a round way to overcome it. They are taught not to obey the law, because otherwise they could not to anything. They are taught that finding gaps in regulations is a virtue.

We, expats, are learning that quickly as well…

Examples? Here you are.

We should start with endless cases of bribery’s (India ranks in top 5 most corrupted countries in the world), but let’s leave it.

Some more obvious example. Once we went to cinema, and I had a plastic bag with box of headphones I bought in the same mall 5 minutes earlier. The security guy stopped me and said, that plastic bags are not allowed inside. I asked, where could I leave it, but apparently, they didn’t have such place. ! After 5 minute argument we found a solution. Voila! I just left the plastic bag with security, and took the box inside. Regulation doesn’t say anything about boxes, does it?

Another example – NH8 and Ambi mall (it’s actually symptomatic for the whole road system in Gurgaon). The mall is located just next to the highway connecting Delhi and Gurgaon. There’s just a little trick – entrance is only from Delhi. If you want to come from Gurgaon, you have to enter the highway, pay the toll and do the u-turn few hundred meters further. Or -  do the u-turn just before the toll gate and cross 5 lanes of crazy traffic. Or finally – go against the traffic on the wrong lane for approximately one kilometre. What you think most people do?

Half of the trauma of Gurgaon traffic comes from the fact, that most residential areas have just one entry. Even if they are surrounded with main roads. And main roads have dividing wall in the middle, so you pretty often find yourself in the situation, that to get where you want, you have to drive extra 1-2 km to take a u-turn. Often in a heavy traffic jam.

Last example. I went with a friend from my office to famous FRRO to fix some issue with my Visa. The FRRO answer was an obvious “no possible, Sir”. So then my friend made a call to his friend in MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs), and in a minute, impossible became easy…

One last thing about Jugaad. It’s an awesome way to “make do” when one has a very limited resources. But a culture of Jugaad is a double side sword. Indians learn to satisfy with temporary, improvised, imperfect and often – dangerous – solutions. They treat them as normal, so as a result – they often give up on trying to really improve things, even if they do have resources. Things here are not meant to last and work smoothly. They meant to be fixed. This tolerance is a reason why, although I have no doubts India will grow dramatically fast for next couple of years, I’m equally sure, it will always be a messy country. That’s not a material status, that’s culture, what is best visible if you go to other equally poor or poorer countries – like Cambodia for example…

I wish that someday Indian institution will learn some about Jugaad, and Indian citizens – will forget a bit of it. It would be such an amazing country then…

We’ve been to famous Sunday book market this weekend. And I must say, I was slightly dissappointed. It wasn’t that big and that exciting as I expected, but maybe we’ve missed something or simply came too late (too avoid heat we went there around 5pm).

It’s a typically Old Delhi style market, with street food stalls, scooter parts and all kind of weird shops around. Squized between them are booksellers. They have mostly science/educational books and classics. We searched for a good read in vein, instead we found Lonely Planet India from 1981 and some swedish soft porn magazine.

This time I won’t write too much. Pictures will tell the story.

Just one thing bothering me… why in India there’s Mein Kampf at every corner?

I’ve moved recently. From a fully furnished and brand new, serviced apartment in condominium, to a nicer location, but a bit fatigued flat.  Saying it’s fatigued, I don’t mean it’s a crappy place. Just the opposite – it’s a really nice and spacious flat at the ground floor of a house, with a lovely lounge area and spacious rooms. Just – unlike the previous one – this place has been inhabited for a couple of years now, and hence there were thousands of tiny things requiring attention.

We have delivered the list to the landlord, and he said, that on Sunday, 10am, there will be somebody coming to fix things.

Sunday, 11am. Indian perception of time slightly differs from European, so I wasn’t surprised, a guy has shown at our door. He explained in his broken English, that he came to fix the A.C. and right away asked for a glass of water. He drank it at one go and asked for another one. Then, he started working. After some half an hour and turning my room into a small battlefield, he asked to speak with landlord. After a short phone conversation I’ve been asked by the landlord to pay 600Rs for the service (removing the old one and installing the new one, no philosophy!). I handed 600Rs to the service guy, but he looked at me and with his broken English said, it’s 200Rs more for disconnecting the old one, which he forgot to mention to the landlord. Since I was supposed to be reimbursed for that, I didn’t want to argue and I just asked him to give me the bill, so I had a proof of how much I paid. 5 minutes later he handled me a bill for… 1000Rs ONLY!. 600Rs+200Rs = 1000Rs. Indian mathematics? This time I called the landlord again, and soon after all request had been withdrawn and he just took his 600Rs and disappeared (I don’t have to mention, that with the bill of course…)

In the meantime, 5 other guys entered the premises and spread across the house, sowing chaos and doubts.

Plumber started working on a faucet in the kitchen. The only thing wrong about it, was a know, which was falling off. But he didn’t get the same kind of know so.. he decided to replace the whole thing. What more – we had a faucet attached both to cold and hot water, the kind that mixes both. He installed two separate. It took him half of the day, during which he 1) forgot to switch off the water before he unscrew the tap, so the water started spilling out of the wall and … WATCH OUT … since it got accumulated between the walls when he tried to stop it, it even started spilling out of ELECTRIC SOCKET! When he finally got it off, he started working on adjusting the size of the hole in the wall, so it would fit new tap. He did it so effectively, that he made a hole to the room on the other side of the wall.

Same time, electricians started working on water boiler in my bathroom. It wasn’t working at all, but after their intervention it went on fire when they switched it on. But Indian electrician is never scared! They bravely looked at it, scratched their heads and… turned it on again to see, if it’s gonna burn again, or maybe somehow it has fixed itself. No, id didn’t – again it went on fire. This time they gave up and said they gonna come the other day to fix it. Instead – they focused on old, not working electric socket. First thing they did, was taking out a dead (burned?) mouse. No wonder it wasn’t working… Then they got to… repairing a TV set. Right, electrician in India means, he deals with anything that works on electricity. Probably if I had a broken tramway in the backyard, he would give it a try as well.

Altogether, I had 5 people working in my house since 11am till 9pm. You will ask, how many things they fixed in this time? Well, let’s think… Replaced a tap which didn’t need to be replaced, opened a TV set and a water boiler, fixed one electric socket, installed A.C., repainted a ceiling in one tiny bathroom and replaced 3 light bulbs. Impressive, isn’t it?

There  is a small restaurant in Delhi, at Anand Niketan Market, called Bline. It’s a tiny (four tables) eatery, owned and managed by a mid-aged Russian, who personally prepares his national dishes, with bline’s as a brand speciality.

It’s difficult to explain, what kind of sentimental sensation was my visit there.

Bar Mleczny (Milky Bar) – this is a unique concept, memory of which would get everyone in Poland sentimental. This, a bit missleading term (as there were not only milk products), reffers to a budget restaurants, mushrooming across the country during communist times and remained common till early 90-ties. They were providing masses with cheap (cause subsidized), “home” food. Now, those which still exsist are a sad souvenirs of those times, catering mostly to students, poets and beggars.

Its specific ambience, besides of this unusual clientell, was a result of unmatchable mixture of cheap furnitures, oilcloths, smell of overcooked dumplings and unfriendly murmuring mid-aged ladies in totally outfashioned working coats and cook’s cap. The experience of being served by one of them, loading your plat with slow and bored gestures and looking at you like if you did a crime forcing her to work instead of going on another cigarette break  -that’s something one can’t forget. (I loved it though – since there’s been some rumour about me ragging on Poland)

In Bline, I felt like this for the first time since a long, long time. And they have pretty similar food to Polish, at really reasonable prices. Beef Strogonov for 220Rs or russian dumplings for a bit more then 100Rs and kompot (drink made from fruites boiled with sugar) to drink? Wait for me, Mr. Russian Cook! I’m coming back! And don’t forget to put the russian TV on, without it the meail will not be the same!