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Aboiut to go home [Nov. 20th, 2006|04:13 am]
Blog entry – 108th November 2006.

This will be my last entry before I go home to London – my last from India – and I think I should sub-title it ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’, for reasons you will discover later.

But first a general summary of how I am. Fine. That about does it although I still have this annoying pain in my right arm. I am hoping it is nothing ominous but I have a scan on the 27th of the month so all will be revealed then. If my existing tumours are smaller or gone and my arm proves to be nothing, then we can consider the Indian adventure to be a success. If they are bigger, or if the arm is something nasty, then things look a bit different and I must consider very carefully this new drug Tarceva. I would be running out of options then, but I am not at that point yet. I would say that I am cautiously optimistic. My western mind says ‘Yeah, if there really was a cure for cancer here, we would have known about it before now’, but, on the other hand, I have seen things here, met people who have been cured, that I have genuine hope. As I said, I am only cautiously optimistic of success but I also realise that I will be bitterly disappointed at failure; this would seem to suggest a certain expectation so I must have a degree of faith in spite of my western cynicism.

It is an odd feeling, as a cancer patient, waiting for your scan. I have discussed this with several fellow sufferers and the general feeling is that it is as if you are waiting for an interview with God. Like God, the PET machine can see everything and will judge you on what is, not what you would like it to be. It does not lie or make a mistake, well… not often, and so we all approach this periodic scan with nervous apprehension. This one, for me, is especially nerve wracking as it is late, I have this sore arm and I have taken the gamble of coming to India in the first place. Ah well, we shall see what we shall see when we see it.

But to other things. I am amused at myself because, having spent the best part of three months not having a good time at all here in India, I am now almost reluctant to leave. This has become my current life and I must confess there is a bit of me not looking forward to the stresses and strains of London life. However, on Wednesday morning, I will get on that plane and resume life.

Life here has been dramatic on an ‘Upstairs –Downstairs’ level in that the head man-servant, Modon, (normally as sober and steady a chap as you could hope to meet) had a dream on Friday night about the Goddess Kali. This upset him greatly and seemed to bring out lots of bitter memories; there is a background of great sadness there. Anyway, he took himself off to the Temple on Saturday morning to sort this all out. It must be a fun sort of Temple as he came back, four hours later, as drunk as a skunk. Some people get aggressive when drunk but dear old Modon simply gets very, very funny. At one point the assembled servants were squatted on the floor, as they do, trying to get some food into Modon who was quietly burbling away to himself. One was holding his shoulder to steady him as he sat but she had to turn away for a moment to deal with something else, leaving him on his own. Without leaving the cross-legged position, he simply rolled over, like one of these round-bottomed dolls he simply fell over. Oh dear, it was serious, but also very funny.

What was not so funny is that it happened again yesterday but, this time, the driver joined in so, by lunchtime, we had one of them out for the count downstairs while the other was zonked upstairs, and the poor maid-servant, Triptee, trying to hold the fort, not letting Madame know what was going on, in the middle. Of course, Madame knew perfectly well what was going on but, such is the etiquette of these situations, she wasn’t letting on. The day of judgement will come today when, hopefully both miscreants will be sober. The driver had actually to do some driving yesterday so, to my personal horror, he was roused out of his stupor, put behind the wheel of a car, and sent off to pick up some guests who were coming for a visit. They did mention, on arrival, that he was driving a little faster than normal, and ‘normal’ for him is pretty damned fast in the first plac,e so goodness knows what he was up to.

The guests were some friends of Madame including a seventy-eight year old mother of one of the clinic team. She had heard I had a piano and this was of great interest as she used to play in her youth. Anyway, they pitched up and, after a short while, the old lady got to the piano and, wonder of wonders, she played. It was some old Indian melody she had known, and it was pretty hesitant, but after a gap of some sixty years is was pretty impressive.



Today I have to get several things from shops, including an extra bag to take stuff home, so the day will go in now time I expect. I will keep this blog going until I am either cured or dead so the next entry will be from London again.

(I am not sure if I posted this twice as something peculiar happened with the internet connection. If I did - sorry. If I didn't - ignore this para. )

I will miss everybody here. Madame Mukherjee, with her moods and manners. She may well have saved my life so I will be eternally grateful to her. Then there is Modon, normally sober and steady, who has attended to my every need with his mixture of charm and stoic resignation; Triptee, who jabbers on at me in Bengali, absolutely sure I understand and stuffing good down my throat at every opportunity ; Raj, the driver, all dark brooding but with a smile that is charming when it breaks through ; and finally the Boy, Orija, who joined us a couple of weeks ago to help around the house. He is only about fouteen years old and has had a chequered history so far. However, he works very hard and would have appeared to have landed on his feet here as Madame is already thinking in terms of getting him some more education. He is bright so this could be the making of him. Let's hope so. I don't know if I will ever meet these people again but they have all played a part in this act of my own personal drama so I am grateful to them all.

That's all for now folks
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[Nov. 12th, 2006|06:12 am]
Hello all again,

It is now 12th November and I have only ten days to go before I come home. Having hated it so much it is not surprising that I am now starting to like it again, such is my naturally contrary nature.

The reasons for this change are twofold really. Firstly, my hostess has at last retired from her very difficult post as principal of a college in town. I think they gave her a rotten time there and she was glad to get out. Anyway, now she has and her whole demeanor has altered; she is like a different woman and the whole atmosphere is the house has altered accordingly. It's a pity I am not just arriving now - I don't think I saw the best of her at all, which is a shame. I am sure the treatment was on the ball but......

The second thing which has altered is the weather. Six weeks ago I didn't know where to put myself, such was the heat and the humidity which reached 99%! Really, I felt I was swimming from room to room and everybody, especially little Scottish boys from the arctic wastes of Glasgow, was soaking wet all the time. Horrid. However, now it is like a glorious, early autumn day, every day. The trees are still in bloom but there is that very slight early morning chill in the air that smacks of autumn. it is comfortably warm every day, with occasional showers - like one a week - and everyone is very comfortable in just a shirt. I don't think it is just me but I sense that the whole city is that bit more laid back in the cooler weather, not surprising really, I suppose.

However, I leave this comfort on the 22nd. I am told that it is cold in London but I will expect that I will welcome the novelty of the cold and am looking forward to it. I also suspect that the novelty will wear off pretty damned quick. I have a scan on the 27th, the results coming on the 29th. Madame, who is treating me here, has stated that the scan will be clear of cancer and that my arm, which is still very painful, will prove to be nothing drastic. She was quite definite about that which was encouraging. However, that stated certainty also gives me a yardstick of success or failure of the treatment here. She will either be proved right or proved to be in cloud-cuckoo land, me with her. The confidence is comforting but I am still very nervous about the scan. Let us just say there is a lot riding on it. I have such plans for things I want to do in the future, dying would really mess things up a bit - most inconvenient. However, what will be, will be. I have given this thing my best shot and am not finished yet. Indeed, according to the medics I have already beaten the odds; I was not meant to last this long yet here I am. Long may it continue.

I was asked at an orhestral committee meeting before I came out how I would like to be at the end of the year. I answered, 'Alive would be nice'. I know that what was being referred to was orchestral matters but I coldn't resist it. I feel I will be very much alive at the end of the academic year, no matter what the scan says,and so there is much to look forward to.
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Life in Calcutta [Nov. 7th, 2006|04:35 am]
November 7th

I am still here in India and realise that it is many weeks since I last wrote anything in my blog, letting the world, or that section of it who can get into Live Journal, know how I was getting on. The reason that I have been writing so little is that I really have very little of a positive nature to report and I would hate to be seen as a ‘Moaning Minnie’. However, as I approach the date of my return I thought I should drop everyone a note, no matter what the content may be, letting you know how things were.

First of all, let me deal with my ‘medical’ treatment. This, as I think I mentioned consisted of taking herbal juices several times per day and also taking bhasmas which are tiny amounts of literally ash, each one mixed with something complementary ; one with honey and juice, one with milk and so on. The herbal juice is made by boiling up a concoction of actual herbs for about fifteen minutes which would be fine if it were not for the fact that they are boiling it up in an aluminium pan – an old one at that –hmmm… I am also having a brew each morning made of the inner bark of a particular shrub, scrapped off by one of the several servants. I have doubts about the cleanliness of his finger nails but I have not, as yet, died so it must be OK. I really cannot complain as I have been very well looked after indeed.

I will, of course, find out how effective all this has been when I return to UK and have the dreaded PET scan which will be on the 27th November, the results coming on the 29th. I approach this with a certain apprehension as well as optimism. I do feel that the lung and pelvis cancers are better but I do have this, at times, acute pain in my upper right arm which worries me. On one hand the ayurvedic view is that this is due to being exposed to the ubiquitous ceiling fans to which I am not used and will go away when I return to my own climate. They might have something there are the pain original started in London in August when I was in the habit of sleeping with a fan playing on me. If that is what it was it would indeed be FANtastic. (A bad one, I know) On the other hand my oncologist, with whom I have regular email contact, observed that if something was both persistent and progressive it may well be sinister. It is a classic case of, ‘You pays your money and takes your choice’. I have chosen to stick this out but, as I said, the proof of the pudding comes later this month when we shall see what we shall see. I think I am guardedly optimistic

One problem I did have, which really cut down any activities, was that I developed some kind of infection based around my feet which swelled to the point I could not get them into shoes for about five weeks. They also get covered in large ‘heat’ spots. The locals said that this was a mixture of a climate change (it was very hot when I first came out) and toxins being flushed from my body by the medicine. OK. They may well be right but I sent pictures of my feet back to my GP and a specialist dermatologist in London and the verdict from them was that the spots were infected bites. I am OK now but the truth, I suspect, is somewhere in between. I am still getting what looks like little bites, or getting spots at least, in spite of the best efforts of the household who fumigate the whole building every day as a matter of course, but I am not reacting nearly as badly.

Linked to the medicine, of course, is a very controlled and restricted diet which comprises of rice (of course), ruttis (a sort of savoury pancake thing –quite nice) and lots and lots of vegetables, mostly of the root variety. The diet was OK, if a little repetitious during the first week but I have now been here for nearly three months, eating the same bloody stuff every day. I am told my hostess that it is very special, organic stuff and I quite believe her but I just wish there was a little more variety at times. It does save time wondering what to have for lunch though. Of course, if it were to be proved that it was curing my cancer then I cold eat it for another year but there comes a point that the life you are saving is not worth the living which, of course, opens up a completely new discussion. I can eat more things and, when I am back in UK I will have a more varied diet without breaking the rules laid down my ayurvedic doctor but such options are not available here. It is almost breakfast time and I wonder what I will have for breakfast. I think I know.

My existence here has been circumscribed by the requirements of my hostess and ‘doctor’ who is an elderly lady who retired from her post as Principal of a very important girls collegeonly last week. The period leading up to her retirement was very stressful and I found my self trying to be as supportive to her as I possibly could be, not putting any demands upon her and tolerating the fact that I was simply sitting alone in this flat, day after day. Since she has retired a reaction appears to have set in which I understand completely but at times I felt that I have been in the way, about as welcome as the proverbial cockroach in the curry and have actually asked I had done anything to offend. Of course, I had not but we still go nowhere. I suppose we all have out problems. Any effort on my own behalf to ‘lead a life’ as Dr Mukerhjee, the London contact, originally described is always somehow frustrated and so I am, therefore, having a pretty lonely time and I have found that email and Messenger on Yahoo have been a lifeline to the outside world. I realise now, however, that we humans have a sort of sell by date on us. If we are absent for up to six weeks people do keep in touch but, if the absence is longer people put us on an emotional back-burner. It is not that we are forgotten, no, we just drift off the radar of life for a while. It is natural and I am quite sure I will drift back onto the radar when I return – at least I hope so. I could have written more but, as I said, there was little new to report. However, I think some people back in London will be quite surprised to see me still alive.

However, there is one big issue that I have with Calcutta and India in general and that is the subject of NOISE. Living in India is to be constantly battered by thoughtless and selfish noise that comes at you from all directions. Now, I dare say, that I, given what I do, am a little more sensitive to noise that in the average bloke, but let me take you on a little ‘sound tour’ of my flat, a sojourn through the day, and you might see what I mean.

My room is at the back of the flat that is ‘mine’ for the duration, and the building behind is occupied by Nepalese who even the Indians regard as noisy. They seem to rise very early and want to wash their dishes, themselves and their children in the space immediately between the two buildings. Most of the dishes are metal so you can imagine the clatter. This has got better recently, of perhaps I am just used to it now. It would also appear that most adult males in India appear to ingest an octopus, or at least a small squid during the night. Only this would explain the amount of hawking and spitting that goes on in the morning and, indeed, throughout the day. Determined efforts are made to bring the entire thoracic contents up for inspection. It really can be quite disgusting but it is universal. Another source of morning noise it the water pumps that lift the supplied water from ground level up to the roof tank – there is no mains pressure as such, Calcutta being dead pan flat. Each building has its own pump and the one for this building is directly under my bedroom so, when it goes off, the noise and the vibration would shake your fillings loose. What is more, there seems to be a sort of water-pump union that has decreed that no two pumps, within earshot of each other, will operate at the same time – they seem to take it in turns so the noise is really never-ending.

So I get up and go to the front of the building. I think I mentioned, in an earlier blog, the love affair that exists between the average Calcuttan and his car horn. A car driving down an empty street here will blow his horn for no good reason four or five times in a couple of hundred yards. “Why?”, I hear you ask. “Because that is what we do here”, comes the answer. Each driver seems to have the need simply to announce his presence. It is aggravated here by the presence of a primary school (more of that later) right next door. When the kids are being dropped off or picked up - and, yes, the ‘school run’ exists here too, complete with Chelsea tractors (or Calcutta Tanks more like) – the mothers and parked cars just block the road. This causes a build up of traffic both ways, the drivers involved of course consider it their right to simply sit, stationery, with their hands on their horns. The noise is hellish especially coming, as it does, on top of the screaming sound of 400 primary kids saying good morning to each other. Doubly hellish!!. This reaches peaks at 8.20am, midday, 2pm and 4pm but the sound of the school, only feet away from our windows continues as an intrusive backdrop for the whole day, as do the horns. The day is also punctuated by hawkers all crying their familiar cries. There are probably a couple of dozen local hawkers patrolling the street each day, each with his own distinctive, raucous cry. It is like something out of Dickens and, as I write, another has just yelled from outside. They sell everything from plastic furniture, that they balance on their heads, to green coconuts. I think my favourite is the chap who sells cutlery and, along with his street cry, he shakes his entire stock in time with his stride - a mobile percussion band

Of course, such is the climate here that soft furnishings are kept to the minimum as they would just go mouldy at the humid period (99% humidity) at the end of the Monsoon, as did most of my jackets and trousers. This absence of carpets etc means that any internal sound rattles around the whole building like an echo chamber. I do have a little of my own back here as I have a piano but I wish I had my sousaphone.

There were very heavy rains some weeks ago, so heavy that they flooded large parts of the city, including where the power stations are, which meant that a large part of the coal dust, which powers the aforesaid stations, was washed away. Yes, washed away. This means that we are having ‘power sharing’ which sounds very community minded but actually just means power cuts to you and me. This could be taken as a quaint local custom but we have a bank immediately opposite us and they have an emergency generator which is the loudest, klankiest engine I have ever heard. Sitting in the dark might just be tolerable as the power cuts mean that all the local TVs get silenced, but the silence is always broken by this damned generator from across the road. (Oops, there goes another squid. No, I am wrong – several are going at the one time. The air must be thick with flying squid out there – there must be a squid honking club going past. Dear me!)

Then we come to the drums. I have felt a bit like Quasimodo who ran about muttering, “The bells, the bells”. In my case it is, “The drums, the drums”. It seems like every other day they have a puja, which literally means a festival. The Hindu religion has thousands of major and minor gods and goddesses which means that, if you fancy a day off you claim allegiance to some particular goddess and go out in public and beat your drum – literally. Each locality will organise itself into puja committees, raise money and build a pandal. Some of these are lovely, as I reported earlier. However, all of them are accompanied by the beating of drums. A recent puja, to the goddess Kali, involved the constant beating of very loud drums from around 6am until 11pm – for five days!!! Of course it would be very un-PC to complain about this as that would be ‘anti-Hindu’ and, such has been the rising militancy of the Muslim minority here, the Hindus insist on doing their thing as noisily and as close to Muslim areas as possible. They also insist on dragging images of their favourite gods through the streets behind large and very enthusiastic drumming bands. The noise is incredible, the whole effect being rounded off by some of the loudest fireworks I have ever heard. Really, they sound like artillery shells landing in the street – amazing. The final sting comes after the puja when the committee, by way of giving thanks to the local community, organises concerts of live pop music in the open air. Imagine Muswell Hill Roundabout being taken over, a stage erected and Status Quo being hired to give a concert – that’s about it as far as sound level and inconvenience is concerned. There are a rather nasty overtones of class, or caste, war going on too, the whole thing being extremely unhealthy on some levels. Not nice at all – a sort of militant ignorance, a levelling down, and nothing the do with the god or goddess at all! I am sure that there are many devout people around, of course, but the overall effect, to the lay observer, is like Christmas with firework and artillery thrown in and when all church bells are allowed to ring flat out for five solid days.

Oh, one little thing I forgot to mention – three little things really. Instead of pigeons they have crows, millions of them and all with attitude. They lose no opportunity to voice their opinions, as only crows can, usually on top of the air-conditioning unit outside my window. One of the things they may be agitated about is a hawk, black kite actually, that paid me a visit at 6am this morning. What a glorious creature he was but I can understand the crows taking fright. If I were a crow or a pigeon I certainly would not fancy that beak or these tallons one little bit (or should that be one little bite). Mentioning the air-conditioning leads to the second little thing, that being my a/c unit itself. It died recently, right at the hottest period of course, but a repair man came and revived it eventually. However, it now sounds like a Jumbo Jet at full power being fed backwards through a gigantic meat grinder – interesting. The third ‘little thing’ is the dog population. London has cats, Calcutta has dogs - thousands of ‘em. Now, all it takes is one of these canine teddy boys to wake up in the night and howl against his lot in life and they all decide to join in. It is the wildest and most haunting sound I have heard and the first time it happened it did strike a sort of fear right into the heart of me. It now just wakes me up and makes me wish I had a twelve-bore to hand ; I can understand why I see so many of them lying dead in the street.

In short, I have fifteen days to go and I am counting the hours. It has been quite an experience although more of an inner voyage than and outward adventure. We shall see what the eventual outcome of it is and if my cancer is diminished, or even better, gone, I will be very grateful and not regret a day of it. However, if I am not clear and have sat here in this maelstrom of sound, well………… let’s just say there is a lot riding on this scan. It has been ‘time out’ of life but it is not time to get back to my real world and live the life I am trying to save

Sorry, once again not to have written much over the past month ; I hope you understand why now.
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[Sep. 30th, 2006|10:23 am]
Hello to all, I am now waiting on my private yoga teacher to breeze along. The fixed time is ten in the morning but I have found that Indian punctuality leaves a lot to be desired. Arranging a time is actually a pointless activity; be content with sorting out the day. This is not what I am used to so I suppose it will do me good.

My treatment here is purely oral and is on two distict levels. Firstly there is the herbal side. My doctor uses many herbs, dozens, from all over the ganges valley. These get dried and then ground up to a fine powder. This is then mixed with water and drunk. Some of them taste absolutely foul in the extreme - and these are the good ones.

Then there is the heavy duty stuff. These are called Bhasmas and consist of minerals and precious metals cooked, or burnt, sometimes many times over, to produce a fine ash. Bhasmas actually means 'ash'. This fine ash, depending upon what it was originally, can be very toxic but in the quantities it is taken it can be a very powerful medicine. A dose can be put on the head of a pin, then it is mixed with honey or ghee and taken.

I am still being largely confined to the flat. I have a whole flat to myself but I do share it. There is a resident lizard who lives in the hallway. I don't bother him and he doesn't bother me. He just gets on with his life's quest which appears to be to get the resident cricket who also lives in the hall. I have not seen him although I have heard him every damned evening. He is very smart in that he stops singing, or scraping or whatever crickets do, just as I am homing in on him using my ears. He seems to know when someone is listening, someone who is not another cricket that is, and so stops making his noise immediately .

The primary school next door has the capacity to drive one to drink. I am reminded of the old Oscar Wilde quote. When asked if he liked children he replied that he did but couldn't eat a whole one on his own. These little lighters arrive with their mothers looking as if butter wouldn't melt but, as soon as they get inside the noise level goes through the roof. The are taught in Bengali and there is one teacher in there who, even though I don't understand what she is saying, scares the bejeesuz out of me over here. She must terrify the kids. Mind you, even though, as I said, they work in Bengali I distinctly heard one heartfelt cry in English; 'Right you lot. Shut up now!' It was effective

I am still waiting for my yoga teacher. The house has been rather disturbed by the fact that the driver went AWOL last night. He got his Puja (holiday) bonus and, reding between the lines, went out on a bender. He did not return so Madame had to go to work this morning in a taxi. Oh, you just can't get the staff these days. Seriously though, the dear lady is on the point of retiring and is getting a rough ride. The last thing she needs is a personal driver AWOL. I suppose, to her, it is like trying to start the car and finding it has died in the night, just at the start of a long and difficult day. Not funny.

Anyway, I will stop now and try and find out how to post photographs.





It is now the 30th September and I think I have uploaded a photograph. I hope I have. If you can see it it, it is of what is known as a pandal. Now this weekend is Puja weekend and could be descibed as a cross between Christmas and New Year, all rolled into one. Each neighbourhood, sometimes even each building, gathers supscriptions and then makes these beautiful idols of the Goddess Durgha, riding on her lion and killing the demon, usually to her lower left hand side. (He is the one who looks a bit dispirited about the whole thing - then he would, wouldn't he?) Around her are other deites, all related, who are responsible for different things. My favourite is Ganesh, the elepant headed character who looks after well being and prosperity. Why he has an elephant's head I am not quite sure; perhaps it is because he is the only one rich enough to afford a 'trunk' call in this country. Enough of that!

However, last night I went pandal-hopping for a while with a young friend of my hostess who is called Joydeep. I think, when speaking English, he prefers his nickname of Tanku - I think I would too. Anyway we set off and visited about seven of these structures, each more splendid than the one before. The one in the picture, if it is there, was made of jute and cardboard, soaked and remoulded - fabulous! Each is housed in a beautiful, and completely temporary, temple, once again each one beautifully painted. (It did strike me as odd, and typically Indian, that they paint these things, that will only last for five days, so ornately and carefully while ignoring their houses that are falling down for want of a coat of paint.. Hey ho. each to their own.) After the festival is over, on Monday, they take the damn-shoot down to the Ganges and fling it in. They are all made of totally biodegradable stuff, usually clay, so they all just vanish until next year.

The whole city is out admirning these things all the weekend and the young blades try and set a record for how many they can visit. The really big ones in town are the centre of a forest of eateries and fun-fairs so the whole thing takes on a very festive atmosphere. Everyone wears a new sari or costume and looks very smart indeed. Regularly, through the weekend there are dance shows with folk singing, etc etc etc. The whole thing is being held in spite of the unseasonal rain that has recently flooded a lot of Bengal and Calcutta. Even as I write this the rain is just starting again. I suppose the 'national holiday = rain' thing is something we left with them when we left, or did we get it from here? All in all, terrific fun though.

The devout hold services to these things and each one has an accompaning priest and drummer at hand. Mind you, if you ask some of the young things what it is all about you would get as much response as if you asked the average party goer at Christmas in London what the three wise me were called -- 'Who? What? Duh!'

My treatment is going on apace and I am told I look better than I did whenI arrived. The proof of that will come with a PET scan in November but I'm going along with it with enthusiasm - not a lot of choice really. I am starting to tire a little of potato and rice, however. Each days's menu, for me, is exactly the same as the one before so I am starting to get a little bored. Still, if it makes me well, who cares? Walking between all the instant eateries and the ice-cream stalls last night was a bit of an ordeal. I realise now why they don't let me out without a minder. That, and the fact that I would turn around twice and be totally lost. Not only to all the locals look the same, their ruddy buildings all look the same to me as well.

Post script concerning traffic. Picture a major road, four or five lanes wide, all stopped at a very long traffic like - one of the few. It is a long light and a queue oaf around 50/100 metres builds up. No problem. However, when the lights change everybody, including out driver puts his hand on the horn and holds it there until the line moves. Absolute hell, but that is typical Calcutta traffic. And through this weave motor cyclists with whole families on board; the record I have seen so far is four. You can always tell the breadwinner - that is the one with the crash-helmet. Lunacy, lunacy, compounded by madness and an optimism the likes of which I have never met before. I think karma has a lot to do with it. "If fate has decreed that this day our whole family will be rendered down to strawberry jam by a bus - so be it."

Anyway, that's all for today. Bye
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Life here [Sep. 23rd, 2006|05:29 am]
Hello to all, I am now waiting on my private yoga teacher to breeze along. The fixed time is ten in the morning but I have found that Indian punctuality leaves a lot to be desired. Arranging a time is actually a pointless activity; be content with sorting out the day. This is not what I am used to so I suppose it will do me good.

My treatment here is purely oral and is on two distict levels. Firstly there is the herbal side. My doctor uses many herbs, dozens, from all over the ganges valley. These get dried and then ground up to a fine powder. This is then mixed with water and drunk. Some of them taste absolutely foul in the extreme - and these are the good ones.

Then there is the heavy duty stuff. These are called Bhasmas and consist of minerals and precious metals cooked, or burnt, sometimes many times over, to produce a fine ash. Bhasmas actually means 'ash'. This fine ash, depending upon what it was originally, can be very toxic but in the quantities it is taken it can be a very powerful medicine. A dose can be put on the head of a pin, then it is mixed with honey or ghee and taken.

I am still being largely confined to the flat. I have a whole flat to myself but I do share it. There is a resident lizard who lives in the hallway. I don't bother him and he doesn't bother me. He just gets on with his life's quest which appears to be to get the resident cricket who also lives in the hall. I have not seen him although I have heard him every damned evening. He is very smart in that he stops singing, or scraping or whatever crickets do, just as I am homing in on him using my ears. He seems to know when someone is listening, someone who is not another cricket that is, and so stops making his noise immediately .

The primary school next door has the capacity to drive one to drink. I am reminded of the old Oscar Wilde quote. When asked if he liked children he replied that he did but couldn't eat a whole one on his own. These little lighters arrive with their mothers looking as if butter wouldn't melt but, as soon as they get inside the noise level goes through the roof. The are taught in Bengali and there is one teacher in there who, even though I don't understand what she is saying, scares the bejeesuz out of me over here. She must terrify the kids. Mind you, even though, as I said, they work in Bengali I distinctly heard one heartfelt cry in English; 'Right you lot. Shut up now!' It was effective

I am still waiting for my yoga teacher. The house has been rather disturbed by the fact that the driver went AWOL last night. He got his Puja (holiday) bonus and, reding between the lines, went out on a bender. He did not return so Madame had to go to work this morning in a taxi. Oh, you just can't get the staff these days. Seriously though, the dear lady is on the point of retiring and is getting a rough ride. The last thing she needs is a personal driver AWOL. I suppose, to her, it is like trying to start the car and finding it has died in the night, just at the start of a long and difficult day. Not funny.

Anyway, I will stop now and try and find out how to post photographs.
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India [Sep. 6th, 2006|03:16 pm]
Blog
30th Aug
Well, I’m here, safe and sound and established in the Mukherjee house in Calcutta. The heat hit me as I stepped off the plane; it was like walking onto a sauna, but the house has lots of ceiling fans and my room is air conditioned if I want. I can see that I am going to get through a lot of shirts but, no matter, I took one off and it was scarcely on the floor before on of the staff grabbed it and spirited it away to be washed. I could get used to this although I cannot get used to the word ‘servants’ – too much of the Raj. (One of them has just brought me a beautifully prepared apple to eat, all pared and cored. Yes, I could definitely get used to this. The house itself is, to Western eyes like mine, very basic indeed but there is everything I will need to do what I’m here to do. I joked about three months in Wormwood Scrubbs as an option but I think that the prison may have more in the way of diversion. Three months on my own here is going to drive me bananas. Mind the treatment will start very soon and I think that may well divert me. Everyone seems very optimistic that they can effect a cure basically on the grounds that I would appear to be so fit and well, apart from the little detail that I have cancer. Pity ‘bout that

The journey was uneventful although I have the distinct impression that the driver who drove us back from the airport was gone considerably faster than the Boeing 777 that brought me from London. I have only been that scared in a car once and that was in Greece when we told the taxi driver we were in a hurry – bad mistake. Road manners here are non-existent. They are as under-regulated as we, in UK, are over regulated. No road markings, no road signs and cars, lorries, buses, pedestrians and bicycles, lots of bicycles, all boiling along in one, lethal brew. I understand that if a car’s horn is out of action it is deemed to be undrivable. I am glad that I don’t have to tackle that lot, ever. I think you would have to be a Formula 1 driver on speed to really cope. Hellish, and it shows. I think they buy their buses, second-hand from Beirut.

30th August
Well, the treatment started to day in the form of a medicine that tasted foul after my evening meal. Here we go. It looks as if the whole things is going to be pretty hard line and that I will hardly be able to see anything apart from the inside of the flat, and it just that, a flat, in which I rattle around like a pea in a drum. Prof Mukherjee lives upstairs in a separate flat and the clinic is downstairs. It will be the bhasmas treatment that Jane, my ayervedic doctor hoped for but at the moment it is mainly herbal treatment, linked to a highly controlled diet – no fun at all. Mind you, my minders took me out today and, if the glimpse I had of Calcutta was anything to go by, I don’t want to see any more. It was hell, one long, vicious traffic jam, with no green space at all. Tomorrow morning I will go a walk, locally; that might be better. I’m not convinced.

1st September.
Am having cultural difficulties with the ‘servants’ who serve up the food and then, even when I am alone, want to stand in a row and watch the spectacle of me eating said food. I have persuaded them that standing in a row and watching is just not on so now they lurk just behind the door. It is what they are paid to do and I never have to ask for more rice or anything - it just arrives as if the thought is enough –but, after years of living, cooking and eating on my own, I do find this difficult. I wish I spoke Bangali. Still not managed to get connected to email. Feel very isolated.

Sunday 3rd September
Big excitement, well for me at any rate. There was torrential rain last night and now the street is flooded to a depth of around eight inches. This has cleared the street of cars but the courageous rickshaw-wallahs still try. I must explain that the hand pulled rickshaw is now largely extinct, although I have seen a few on my limited travels. In their place is a bicycle version, rather like a large trike, with the passengers above the back wheels and the one who pedals towards the front. It looks quant but must be darned hard work, especially if there is a heavy family crammed into the seat. Anyway, they are still plying their trade but, when the street is flooded they cannot see where the potholes are. I have just watched as on, with a very heave woman on board, crashed into what must have felt like a mineshaft. The poor wallah had to get off and had a lot of trouble heaving the thing out again. As he eventually managed and pushed off I could see from the state of his back wheels in general that this was not an isolated occurrence at all. I have never seen a more buckled set of wheels still moving in my life.

It is now the 6th of September and I think, I hope I have my email and internet connection workingl I got wifi piggy back from somewhere or other, I have no idea where from, but, although intermittent, it seems to work OK - sometimes..... a bit like India in general really.

My diet is being very strictly controlled but I suppose it is good for me. Going out is a problem so I feel a bit like a bird in the gilded cage. Mind you, from what I have seen of the place I am not sure I want to go out, certainly not on my own. I don't think they have thought of an A-Z of the place yet and, even if they have, it would be in Bengali and I ain't got that mastered yet.

I can go walks provided I take my minders with me (to ensure I don't grap a quick snack somewhere else) Mind you, I have never eaten so much food in all my life. Lots and lots to eat, and all vegetarian. I keep asking for a steack and they just laugh. I am one week down out of twelve and hope I can make it. I must just remember I am not on holiday; I have a job to do. Tha's all for now.
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Test [Aug. 20th, 2006|07:51 pm]
This is a test to see if it works. I am still at home but we shall see if this is capable of getting intformation out.
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