Beggars and snake charmers

I wish I’d read this before visiting India. I only came across this wonderful blog trapped in a hotel in Delhi whilst outside people pelted each other with paint. It was the festival of Holi and I was using Andrew’s laptop to try and find out more about what was going on. The above link tot he blog of the lovely sounding Dave and Jenny gives an excellent Western angle on what it’s like to live in India in the 21st Century. It was the first of many surprises that this wonderful, manic country had in store for me.

Whilst filming in the Punjab, at a town called Fatigarh Sahib, the people I was with interviewed a very canny old chap about his stance on sex selection (the basis for the film). He was charming and liberal in his views, an instantly likable character, much given to expansive gestures with his long fingers and flashes of his brilliant white teeth. Later, as I sipped sweet tea, I chatted with him. “You are from England.” It was a statement rather than a question, but I replied that I was indeed. “Then you know,” he continued, “where Nelson beat Napoleon!” I quickly said that I did know where Nelson beat Napoleon and more that that, came from the county where Nelson was born. He wasn’t interested in this however; “Trafalgar!” he cried triumphantly, the fingers of his left hand splayed upward in gesture of emphasis. “I used to get all the English papers delivered!” I was really warming to this man. I admitted to him of my own surprise at finding the north of India to be so well developed and prosperous. “Of course,” he smiled again, showing off his gleaming grin. “You think we are all beggars and snake charmers!” He was absolutely right.

I only spent a week in India, and then only in relatively rich northern Punjab region, but even so I was blown away by what I saw and the people I met. I was expecting the whole place to be a ghetto like those depicted in Slumdog Millionare, and these do exist and are much, much nastier than I could have imagined, but it’s also a place of incredible beauty and sophistication. In South Central Delhi there are branches of Louis Vitton and United Colors of Benneton. I didn’t know whether to be delighted or outraged, delighted at the level of development towards a western style shopping district, or outraged at the vast and blatant gap between the have and the have nots. And in India you either have it or you don’t; there is no inbetween.

With general elections coming up very shortly, India is a country fast becoming a major world player and has long stepped out of the shadow of British rule, which I have to admit was about all I knew of India before I went there. The campaign to increase voting Lead India 09 have even spawned it’s own incredibly sophisticated subversion, Bleed India. The people there are as politically aware and interested as any Western nation (probably more so). I even bought a book out there to help me understand it better, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, by Shasshi Tharoor, which I have to admit is pretty heavy going. But I’ve only had a taste of this vast and diverse nation, I’ll be going back.

Finishing what I started

I’m off to finish what I started.

Or rather more accurately I’m off to look at what I started but someone else finished.

In November last year I took part in the Nepal House Build Challenge with the charity ActionAid. Along with 24 other volunteers we each raised £3100 and travelled out to Belapur in a remote area of north west Nepal to build houses for the former bonded labourers Kamiaya people. We spent a week living in their village and working alongside them, sharing the everyday joys and tragedies and forming close ties. The people I went with and the people I met out there all made the experience utterly unforgettable. Since we left, we could only lay so many bricks in one week, local Nepalese masons have continued working on the houses, funded by the money we raised. Unfortunately my trip was cut short by a combination of indiscretion and stupidity on my own part.

Now I’m going back with a chap who became a good friend of mine while I was out there and coincidentally works for ActionAid, to visit the village again and see the houses finished. Returning to this place is going to be really emotional, although being a man there is no way I’m going to (let them see me) cry.

We’re also going to India for a few days (Andrew’s doing some filming for the UN), visiting Chandigarh, famous for it’s architecture by Le Corbusier. Now that’s cool. I think it’s going to be an easing in way of going to India, as by all accounts,  it’s much more Westernized than many areas. Compared to some the utter poverty of Kathmandu it’ll probably feel like home!

The only drawback is the number of flights we’re going to clock up in order to get round both countries and visit not just the village, but a couple of other ActionAid projects. We’ve got 5 internal flights plus the long hauls in and out of Delhi making about 30 hours in the air not including waiting around in airports. If you believe in all that carbon off-setting bollocks, which I don’t (you’re really in denial if you’re paying someone to make yourself feel better about jetting off to the south of France), then I’m doing more than my share of shortening the life of this planet. That is not, however, my main objective.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write something whilst I’m out there, probably from some grotty little internet cafe where half the keys don’t work on the keyboard. As anyone who’s been travelling will tell you (and I wouldn’t call myself a seasoned veteran of the modern adventurer lifestyle) it’s wonderfully liberating to be so far out of the bubble we generally live our lives in. For me, this trip is really about broadening my experiences. I don’t feel I can legitimately  argue the case for charitable giving without seeing it first hand. Also, as a nation, the Nepalese are the nicest people I’ve ever met.