[ Hover mouse over the text for English translation. I had to write something for my Hindi class, so I thought I would post it… ] मार्च में मेरे पास सात दिन कि छुट्टी थी, तो मैं उत्तार प्रदेश गया । पहली बार थी । मैं हवाई जहाज़ से लखनऊ गया, और फिर मैं रेलगाड़ी से वाराणसी गया । मुझे वाराणसी बहुत पसन्द था। प्राचीन और दिलचस्प शहर है, और हिन्दूओं के लिए बहुत पवित्र स्थान है । भोर से […]
I had my first brush with Tropical Diseases recently. As I’ve moaned about regularly since arriving in Bangalore 17 months ago, I’ve been mildly sick quite often here… I mainly put this down to a combination of unfamiliar cold-like viruses and the terrible air pollution here, along with large amounts of dust during the dry parts of the year. (Whereas local people often seem to blame any sickness on “the change in the weather”.) But up to now, I’d […]
Photo: The Hindu / K. Gopinathan I learned a new word today — POURAKARMIKA. In Bangalore, this is the name given to the cleaners who pick up the garbage that everyone dumps on street corners and improvised rubbish tips. (We don’t have household dustbins here.) When I first arrived here it was a surprise to see that in a cosmopolitan and supposedly hi-tech city of 9 Million people, the streets are cleaned by women in saris, using 2 twig-brooms, which in the […]
