Furniture on the Terrace

It's amazing how soon things go back to normal. The summer in India seems an eon away now. I'm still working with the material I collected there so I do think about it every day. A few weeks ago I went to Königswinter in Germany to participate in the XI International Seminar on Tibetan Studies. But I missed my panel. Subramanya got a scholarship in the last minute and came as well. In my absence he had to do a straight read while Geoff took care of the demographic part. There were quite a few people from TAR there and we had some good parties.

We cleared out the ground floor and sanded the floors there. All the furniture had to go outside on the terrace. The first week it rained and I had to get up at night to safeguard it. But this week the weather has been sunny. Tomorrow the floors are fixed and we can start bring ing everything inside again.

So Many Things

More post-script: Living in a suitcase for two months I had forgotten how many things there are in the house. Toys everywhere. I just want to get a shovel and throw it out. The basement is full of stuff too.

The weather has been OK but in the afternoon there was a thundershower.

Alice played her first soccer game with the team today- Lund Football Association. It looked confused. Sometimes everybody was chasing the ball, sometimes they were everywhere. Suddenly they had won with 2-1.

Life in the West

I suppose I have to start writing some kind of post script? Things snappped into normal yesterday when the kids started the fall semester in school. Esbjörn took the step from pre-school to elementary school. Usually he is rather AVVAKTANDE in new environments but that day he surprised us all by being unusally happy and social. The children sat in a ring stating their names one by one. Most of them were very shy, and one girl even cried. But when it was Esbjörn's turn he exclaimed that he would not state his name but his nick-name "Racer-Max", and everybody started to laugh. I have no idea why he said that. Racer-Max is a character in a children's movie called "Spy Kids Game Over". After that the teachers asked the children about their summer activities and Esbjörn said that he had been to India and stayed at a luxury hotel. So that will be his story. Alice went to football practice yesterday. They have a game on Saturday. She did not seem to have any problem getting back together with her friends.

Thupten emailed me from Bangalore as he had returned early from Germany. "Nothing much to do after staying one month there. Everybody's going on with their own work. That is life in west", he wrote. Yes, it's probably true and this is perhaps one of the things that we will miss from India.

Long Road Back to Lund

Back home again after 70 days in southern India. It was a long trip home. We had to get up at 2.45 in the morning to drive to the airport. There was a long line outside (!) the terminal for the initial security check, and an attached conintgent of rich Indians trying to bribe their way to the front. Had I known what would happen during this summer (bombs, threats of terror) and the consequences for air travel to and from the UK I would never have booked British Airways. But most people stood patiently in line and eventually we made it inside. The check-in was congested too with the airline strictly enforcing baggage restrictions. Many of the passengers were NRIs (Non Resident Indians living abroad) going back to the US and the UK after their summer vacation, their bags filled with cheap Indian goods (and maybe gods?). Many had to repack and some even had to dump part of their stuff at the airport. A heyday for the airport staff! After another security check we were inside but the departure was delayed for more than an hour. Someone had run a truck into the aircraft before it left Heathrow and they had to bring the big X-ray maxchine to scan for hidden cracks. At about that time Alice came down with some stomach sickness and she more or less barfed and slept through the flight. I suffered next to a girl who was coughing badly and jumping around her seat. After about ten hours we landed at Heathrow with 30 minutes to get on our next flight. The airport was totally congested with extra security checks but we managed to slip into the fast track line. Contrary to the information given by British Airways they were enforcing the new carry on baggage restrictions. Whatever we were carrying had to fit into a narrow wooden box conspicuously placed before the X-ray machine. If the bag didn't fit its owner had to turn back and get it checked in. But we had no time for that. I quickly distributed some stuff in the childrens backpacks and crammed my bag (2 laptops and all) into the box while and whipeed it into the machine. In the security check at Bangalore Airport they confiscated our three bottles of Pepsi. Now they took our two small bottles of water and a pen sharpener. The big water bottle slipped through though. Having cleared the security check we sprinted across the terminal, overtaking a team of policemen, and managed to get on the plane five minutes before departure. As it turned out we had to wait for some time as the policemen were checking the terminal for a runaway criminal. Two policemen searched the cabin, taking the opportunity to scrutinize the passport of a Pakistani looking young man. It's a weird world these days. He looked perfectly normal. Why didn't they check the crazy looking European guy that travelled in a traditional Tibetan khampa outfit? After another two hours we landed in Copenhagen. Of course, our bags were left behind somewhere on Heathrow. But it was actually a releif not to have to carry them home. We got on the train and about 45 minutes later we were in Lund. The house looked fine as did the car (and it worked too). I had to update the satellite access and restart the network gear. The kids ran around squeezing their toys, and Esbjörn tried his Playstation. The jet-lag was not a problem since it only felt as a very long day. I went to bed at my usual time and woke up about 7 the next morning (today). To be honest, when I smelled the smells of the Swedish summer, especially the way a shower of rain brings them out, it felt strange to know it was almost over and we missed it.

Baggage Restrictions

After Chennai Bangalore actually feels almost pleasant. The hotel is very good too, although the waiters in the restaurant trip over each other trying to help us at the table. The service is only one step away from mouth feeding. Did the cottage emporium tour today, but only after another lunch visit to McDonalds. This time in the famous Forum mall in Koromangala. Prices in the private emporiums were ridiculously Kashmiri. We could only find prices set for ordinary humans in the state cottage emporium on M G Rd. The way the shopping was developing I had to check British Airways' baggage restrictions. We have already changed the old blue faithful for a new Samsonite "Going to the US?" biggie. I bought the blue in NYC back in 1983 but had to sacrify this sentimental item. Now we're looking for a big soft bag. Together we can carry 92 kilos plus four cabin baggage items that I can stuff into the baggage rack without help. Should be enough.

Alice's ear has improved a lot after we started with the ear drop treatment. It doesn't seem to hurt anymore.

Some sceptic readers of this blog has asked for hard evidence of Anna's alleged swimming so I'm posting a photo of her in the pool at Ideal Beach Resort. She also took a dip in the pool at Sea Breeze, I might add.

Shop 'til You Drop

Life in the Monolith is elevated, cool and quiet. Congested Chennai disappears in its own haze. Back to Spencer Plaza to execute the shopping plan and a chaotic lunch in a food court somewhere in the maze of shops. Power Ranger toys all over the shelves. How could he choose? Tsering joined us and we went back to our hotel again. The display in Anna's laptop is broken, or at least its no longer showing anything useful. Tomorrow morning we are catching the 6 am train to Bangalore. Things are looking promising with flights from Heathrow again.

Stone Village

Drove back to Chennai today. It's quite a change from the dusty roads of Mamallapuram. Now we're up on the ninth floor of a 4-star (www.grthotels.com) with views over the western part of town and WiFi.

The comfort of Ideal Beach Resort, where we stayed the first time we were in Mamallapuram, was pretty hard to beat in the village itself. Things improved a lot after we found a nice, low-key Franco-Indian restaurant away from the tourist ghetto that was responsive to Esbjorn's diet demands. It was easy to spend hours there playing games and relaxing. Our room in Sea Breeze Annexe was OK and included free access to the big swimming pool at the main hotel. Alice and Esbjorn went stone shopping in this mother of all stone carving villages in the sub-continent. There are guys in every nook and corner chiselling away on everything from large temple statues to chillums. Street sellers chase you around with necklaces trying to persuade you to do "small business".

I went to check out the fishing village where new concrete houses were being built as part of the post Tsunami rehabilitation. I spoke to a guy and it seemed like things were developing better here than around Ideal. Here water was distributed in the morning and the nearby 5-star Temple Bay Resort had donated land for the new village. The fishermen were now asking for GPS equipment to be able to take their boats far out to sea.

In Chennai we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. It was alright but almost everything on the menu contained egg products ): Afterwards we went to Spencer Plaza where the kids planned tomorrow's shopping.