I have sinned...

To anybody still listening… it’s been approximately 45 days since my last confession. A shocking figure, I’m sure you’ll agree. Believe me, the idea has haunted me that one day I would have to drag myself to a computer and heave all this out, battling against a craving for sunshine and an internet connection made of treacle. Writing a blog entry is both a joy and a chore, like getting out of bed, going to a concert or, at times, like travelling.

So I’ve got to go back to… Chitradurga, Karnataka. This is what can be scraped together from the notes I sort of made at the time:

Hampi to Chitradurga on bus with an obnoxiously loud horn. Chatted to an informed bloke who had many things to say about the British impact on the Indian national mentality. I wish I could remember them. Simon, actually, he was called, this first of many Christians I’ve met in the south, with their incongruous, prosaic-sounding names. I staggered to a hotel, pursued by rickshaw drivers with their heads wiggling ominously. Almost nobody in the place spoke any English, so the room debate involved a hard-fought haggle in Hindi, using every trick in the (small yellow phrase-) book. Relations warmed somewhat after money was produced, and within half-an-hour we were all dancing to Hindi songs. Have expanded my repertoire to include the ‘stroking the ceiling while kicking away an imaginary rat’ manoeuvre.

And out, to the only site in Chitradurga that might be considered worthy of either ‘tourist’ or ‘attraction’. An old fort, then, coiled upon a great hill in the centre of town. I was quickly collared by a smiling security guard, who insisted upon showing me the back way up to the top – namely, a breathless scamper up a mountain-side, using footholds chiselled in the cliff-face. Every so often, my guide would half-turn round and rasp ‘confidence’. Or ‘competence’. With his accent, I couldn’t be sure, and couldn’t help reflecting that to some in India they probably mean the same thing anyway.

Through various temples, along the stinking banks of their holy water tanks. Rubbish caught in the reeds, a priest taking a piss. Interestingly, saw for probably the first time the language-barrier raised between fellow Indian nationals. The security guard who took me climbing knew more English than he did of the local language, Kannada (a beautiful, almost Italian-sounding speech). He was from Uttar Pradesh in the North, the state of Varanasi, and a Hindi-speaker. I heard several of these conversations, initiated by Indian tourists to the fort:

They: Question in Kannada.
He: Hindi bolta? (You speak Hindi?)
They: Kannada nahi? (You don’t speak Kannada?)
He: Thora thora Kannada (Only a little bit)

All accompanied by many a furious head-wiggle – so they understood each other in some way, at least.

Bus to Bangalore, local train to Mysore. Local train means ‘usually late and absolutely rammed’. A 4 hour journey took 8 hours, for most of which I was sitting practically on another man’s knee. Occasionally I'd bat away the legs dangling in my face to watch three guys playing cards for 100 Ruperts (about 1 pound twenty). It got pretty heated towards the end. On the way, we went past a monumental heap of rubbish – so large that the river flowed around it. It was almost beautiful, a huge cliff rising out of nowhere, a man-made wonder.

In Mysore I got scammed – it still happens. Cheerfully munching a brekky biryani with two Muslim brothers – Rahul and Rambo (probably not his real name) – I was invited back to their uncle’s shop where

“…between the glasses, row on row…”

there stood the jar of sandalwood oil destined to switch places with my hard-earned cash. Apply it on your skin twice a day, he said, scoffing at the petroleum jelly mixture I usually have to use to help my eczema. And he had a point – it was nice to think of applying something more natural for a change, something less… radioactive. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and a few weeks later the bloody thing burst in my bag. So, please, take 200 rupees. At least I’ll smell nice when I’m scratching myself to death, battling through the clouds of mosquitoes to find a rickshaw.

Piqued, I thought I’d face Mysore proper after that, prove I wasn’t no stupid, dupe-d tourist. This plan failed only minutes later when I couldn’t resist taking a ride on an elephant. Actually it was pretty uninspiring, not the bouncy Disney fun-a-long I’d been on some level expecting. I visited the wonderful Mysore palace. Built in seventeen something or other by someone, it really looks just like something out of 1001 Nights. Vast domed ceiling supported by marble pillars, gold, finery. One end of the great hall was completely open to the elements, like a giant, impossibly ornate grandstand facing onto the yard, where the military would parade and elephants joust. In the courtyard, two fabulously lifelike tigers, mirror-images, throw their heads towards each other, faces twisted in a timeless snarl. Actually now they’re a bit frilly around the edges, looking a bit disillusioned by their centuries-long hate, but the air of exoticism they lent to things was unmistakable. I felt a tingle in my spine: is this the India I was imagining all those months ago?

On my way back from a bus-ride to Srirangapattanam, I was forcefed sugar-cane by a very strange man named Daniel. On the next seat, two old men got into a fight and he sashayed his way in to stir things up, under the guise of calming it down. I realized what the deal was when I offered him water and he revealed that he had some ‘water’ of his own (ie. whisky). Immediately, he pointed out four or five people on the bus who had also been ‘rehydrating’, including the two scuffling men, and suddenly I could see them, swaying slightly more than all the rest at every turn. It was approximately 4 o’clock in the afternoon. This was the first idea I had of the alcoholism rampant in India, something I’ve done my utmost to research in a purely journalistic sense in the weeks since.

At about 9pm that evening managed to prise myself away from Daniel, who was slumped, salivating softly, atop his fourteen hundredth whisky. We were at the back of a shady wine-shop, where periodically men would come in and quaff half a litre of their chosen poison without pausing, and stump off into the evening. Drinking is less of a social activity here than a shame that must be hidden. A tipple with Daniel, married with four kids, had that clandestine and guilt-ridden feeling of children smoking. Pensive, I went home to (s)oil myself.

Next stop Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu. I was excited to be discovering this new place, apparently home to a completely different breed of people and a different culture altogether. This is where the original Indians live now, see, pushed south by Aryan and Moghul infiltrations. Siva himself, arguably the biggest Hindu deity, is a southern god. I was determined to pick up their language (they are even more opposed to Hindi than English, refusing to allow their northern neighbours to dilute their identity by conquering their speech) and utilise that famous caste-resentment to bitch about all the Brahmins, or temple priests (the ones who take my money). The Hindu caste-system is arguably based on race, and high-caste Brahmins are from the north. As I clattered out of Karnataka on the night train, a blind man came along the carriage, singing religious songs for small change.

Tamil Nadu and the USA: perhaps the only places on the globe where actors can become democratically-elected governers. The vast majority of Tamil Nadu’s governers since the 1970s have come from the ranks of the ‘heroes’ of Tamil cinema. And the devotion to these stars goes beyond mere political support. When ‘MGR’ (they love their abbreviations), already a vegetable following a stroke, finally slipped away in 1983, 31 people committed ritual suicide in his honour. Along with the usual suspects like Siva, Ganesh and Durga, there are road-side shrines dedicated to him throughout Tamil Nadu. Like the gods, he receives at these points daily offerings of food, oil, flowers and prayers. This despite the fact that his period of political tenure is now recognized by observers as a ‘dark age’ in the area’s recent history, when corruption and scandal were rife. With his energetic, ill-though-out policies, ‘MGR’ actually disempowered and denied the very ‘backward caste’ communities that chanted his name and relied upon his support. Even so, when he suffered his debilitating stroke in 1978, over 100 people hacked off their own limbs in order to placate the gods and ensure his recovery.

For a southern tourist, the most observable differences are at the temple. Where in the north, a central tower dominated the temple complex, drawing worshippers into the central hub, in the south the temple gateways (or gopura) are just as prized, and even objects of worship in themselves. And how they differ in design, making the simple stone carvings of the north appear ancient and confused. On the southern gopuram, finely carved in stucco and vibrantly-coloured, there wriggles and capers an astonishing assortment of gods and goddesses, minor deities and figures from legend, striking impressive poses and gazing challengingly down on the temple yard. Some of the sculptures are so lifelike as to be almost frightening, and at the same time it’s almost like a comic-strip. Durga in one of her many hands holds aloft the dripping head of an enemy. Vishnu peacefully doodles on his pipe. Murugan, son of Siva, flexes his muscles holding up a corner of the gateway, like some squat Atlas with a bushy moustache.

Why does a god always look like his worshippers? Why is Jesus so white, being from Judea? The observation is nowhere more pertinent than in Tamil Nadu. These guys look like they’ve climbed onto the temple from the nearest rickshaw, shedding beedi cigarette, sandals and clothing on the way. It’s interesting to see these people with their heroes, just like those from the cinema, who look right, walk right, do things, make pronouncements and exact punishments, in exactly the right way, in the way that makes cultural sense. Because the average Tamil person does look like this – stocky, dark, well-bearded. In fact I’ve heard say that they bear more of a genetic resemblance to Africans than to north Indians. From their dark skin, snub noses, round faces and strong limbs, in combination with the Aryan stream which is taller, more sharp-featured and slender, comes the full range of Indian colour and shape you can see today. In fact, the people are actually quite different down here, more reticent, less goofy with delight at seeing a foreigner. I’ve walked among people who’ve never left their own village surroundings and some don’t even bat an eyelid. This is, of course, not a blanket description. You still get your giggling schoolchildren, who sometimes run off in fright when you wave. They just seem a little… cooler. Actually, it was strange, and can be a little upsetting, now you are accustomed to it, to walk down streets where your presence doesn’t immediately brighten faces. But like everything else it becomes normal – all the more gratifying when someone would just love to shake your hand – and you find yourself surprised and delighted just like the first time.

On the first day in Chennai, I was lucky enough to meet Qais, Ahmed and Youssuf, all from Muscat, in Oman, in the Gulf. We became very good friends pretty quickly and even ventured out to a Chennai nightclub, me flopping around in borrowed shoes and pants (the less said the better – only couples were allowed to dance!). These guys had been studying in Chennai for three years, and had pretty much reached the end of their tethers when it came to all things Indian. They told me tales of classmates begging them for money, teachers refusing to teach in English, as promised, and showed me few amusing ways of getting what you wanted, in Tamil. They were also hospitable to the point of infuriating. In all the nights I stayed with them, they refused to let me sleep anywhere but the one bed in the house. I had forcibly to conk out on the floor and feign a comatose state just to give Qais his bed back. Every day they apologized profusely for the taps, which produced only saltwater (it was a bad house). I should have seen it coming when, on the first day, Qais swapped my half-drunk Pepsi for his full one when I was in the toilet, and pretended nothing had happened, making do with half himself. Lovely blokes, truly good guys.

A few more beery nights, and then the time was drawing near when I was due to start volunteer work in a small place near Trichy, a city in central Tamil Nadu. I’d sent an email weeks earlier on the offchance to the first organization that matched my search criteria on Google (‘Volunteering, poor people, Tamil Nadu’) – and thus began my association with “Society for Poor People Development”, a group of extraordinarily nice people led by a nice man named Raju.

I really was extravagantly lucky. With the SPPD, I landed on all four of my feet. In fact it was only one month after I arrived that I really left the SPPD behind, as my good friend Arul disappeared on the bus back to Trichy from Kodaikanal in the Ghat mountains, where we went for a two-day stay. Through this organization I think I've made my closest Indian friends to date. Not enough space here to go into much depth about what the SPPD actually does. It works in a particularly poor area of the south, where farming is nigh-on impossible for much of the year due to the exceptionally dry climate. They work to combat, among other things, the spread of aids and domestic abuse. They work for female emancipation, to establish economic independence for poor communities, and to implement advanced farming techniques in a region where most of the people migrate to hotel jobs in the cities, fed up with the tough farming life. Also, they work to assist the education of local children.

This simple wish gave rise, a few years ago, to the SPPD Children’s Home, where I spent most of my time. Twenty one kids currently in residence, in improvised quarters in a section of the SPPD offices. They had been taken as boarders, for the most part, because parents were unable or unwilling to provide for their education, needing or wishing them to work in the fields, or with cattle, to supplement family income. Not every case was this straightforward, however. Some had been rescued from a life of grime in mechanics shops or as hotel boys (sleeping in kitchens, washing dishes, covered in dirt from head to toe. Unfortunately, you see their less fortunate brethren everywhere). A small number of the children had been orphaned, and three or four had witnessed the horrific deaths of parents. (In this part of Tamil Nadu, and throughout rural India, the commonest form of wifely protest suicide is burning oneself to death).

My answer to ‘How can you help?’ was vague – teach, I think. Actually I taught, played, worked in fields, took part in discussions, and was involved in every part of the organizational work, before being politely asked to write their English website! Good to be useful, anyway. It took me a week, you can (probably) look it over for yourself in the next few days or so, watch this space for new web address.

First day. I'd arrived at night, and seen the children only at breakfast. When they returned from school (about 5pm), it was games time, and I nervously hung around the edges of the backyard. Before long, I was positively forced to join in a game called 'Go', which basically involves running and saying 'Go', just like the American army. Their akka (elder sister), or minder, Manonmani, took enthusiastic part in everything, saree hitched up, a huge smile on her face. You could see she was right back in the village square of twenty years ago, playing the games as a child herself - something she confessed to me later. My every move was met with a chorus of 'oo' and 'super running' ('super' is probably the highest accolade in Tamil) - though it certainly wasn't either of those things. It was all part of the procedure to make me feel welcome, and came straight from the heart. When in the game of 'Nundi' (basically like chase but hopping), I overreached myself a bit and came crashing down in the dirt like a tit, the group moved as one, with a great 'aa' of anguish and concern, to pick me up and dust me off. Ten minutes later, as a waited my go again, the children were still at my side, trying not to be noticed, picking the last bits of dirt from my clothes.

I made a good friend in Arul. Arul was, as he called it, 'black' (slightly darker brown), and evidently had a great hang-up about his skin-colour. He was often mistaken for a dalit, or untouchable, and forced to sit in certain places in public or drink chai at the stalls from a certain, lesser kind of recepticle. Actually, he was Christian, but the caste-system runs far deeper than religion - as does the custom of arranging marriage. The marriage of Raju, the leader of the organisation, and Santhhi had been arranged, and, though they also were Christian, they came from exactly the same subcaste. It was easy for me to compliment Arul's skin and tell him stories, which he couldn't believe, about English people rushing out into any available sunshine in order to be more like him. But was also painful to see him avoid photos because he didn't like how dark he turned out in them. Actually, that's quite common when you go south - people don't like looking at pics of themselves. It seems some brahminical values are harder to shake than others - the link between blackness and dirt.

I made some great friends among the kids. It really only took a few invented 'secret handshakes' - which after ten minutes weren't so secret, and a troupe of them come barrelling up and demand to try it out. On the second day, I introduced thumb wars - and must have conducted about ten thousand battles in the two weeks that followed. That was fun. I could converse pretty well in English (mainly about cricket) with a few of the older boys - the ages of the twenty-one kids ranged from 9 to 15 - and had to rely on all my repertoire of classroom tricks to keep them entertained. Taught them how to do kick-ups. They taught me lots of games involving a stick and a stone. They'd tell me about the jokes they played (they kept undressing one lad in his sleep), their skill at building 'human pyramids' (something that I thought went out in the 1950s but apparently still an acceptable mode of impressing dignitaries here), they picked the local plants that were good to eat, I ate them, and in the evenings Arul and I would sleep on the rooftop or under the porch, in the cool night air.

Usually after a discreet whisky. My room, actually, devoid of a sleeper, became a bit of a den of iniquity - the secret, men's place where we stored our tipples so we could share them with the nightwatchmen when the children had gone to bed.

I wish I could convey, or even remember, a decent number of the lessons I learned from them. First, eating. I was determined to everything 'Tamil'. Eating, Tamil-tyle, is with hands - or, more precisely, the right hand, since the left is reserved for 'unclean tasks'. I can proudly say that I've mastered it, but at times it was more difficult than others. Since they got up at 6 and I did not, breakfast (at 8) basically consisted of bleary me being laughed at by a roomful of Indian children (and their teachers), shoveling fingerfuls of spicy rice dish number 4 down my gob, trying not to think of that plate of hot buttered English toast which has haunted me all these months. ‘Is this a sausage I see before me?’ Nope, it’s a massive chilli, and it’ll dissolve your sinuses if you so much as look at it.

What else can I remember? This is all so hopelessly out of order. There was a traffic jam for about 6 hours once outside the office. This in the middle of the countryside. Bit of fun for us guys, anyway, who hadn't left the compound for days. Arul and I went out and tutted and squinted with them, as they manouevred the stuck trucks around the holes in the road like vast, spluttering chess pieces. I swear all the men were really enjoying it. A bit of a practical puzzle, a chance to assert authority and scratch one's chin. The world over, we're all the same.

The language: Tamil is a classical language, ancient. The written form, though convoluted, is graspable. The problem is that spoken Tamil bears little to no resemblance to it. I could have spent a year learning my phrasebook cover to cover and still elicited the same kind of puzzled frowns as when I stumbled through Jaipur 5 days into my trip looking for the Elephants' quarter excitedly asking ‘Haathi ka’haang hay? (‘Elephants where have you been?’ - it was a phrasebook problem). And my troubles didn’t stop when I’d decided to put my book away and note down instead their versions of things – they obstinately refused to stick to one pronunciation (or slow down enough for me to hear it), and any words they did manage to settle on obstinately refused to stick in my mind. My first attempts to initiate conversation myself were abortive. Dixie consoled me that this was because they are unused to hearing people speaking their language badly – an essential stepping stone for a foreigner to begin speaking it well – due to the lack of foreign attempts to learn it. I was like a man towing a cart meant for a horse – or maybe a rickshaw. Three weeks on, I'd hardly made any progress, though I did manage to one-syllable my way through a full, three or four-minute conversation. It helped that Tamil, like all Indian languages, is littered in everyday speech with English terms, and anyway I was mostly bluffing.

I'm giving up the order completely. Observations.

Things I like about Indian people:

1) People are strong here, wily. They’re used to games of strength and self-reliance, and to giving respect to those of superior force. There is nothing PC here – one child has, according to his classmates and himself, a ‘weak body’, while another distinguishes himself as the ‘hero’, the ultimate playground accolade – very like the ‘hero’ of Tamil cinema, who is violent and an excellent dancer. A bad-boy, respectable rather than loveable. There is something cruel but edifying in this straightforward physical categorization. These are hard people, and life more than anything is for them a physical endeavour.

One example: a snake came into the SPPD compound – a baby. It has slipped into the water tank and was hiding in the lilies. Karthik, one older lad and probably the ‘hero’, dark and strong like a horse, grabbed a rusty metal spike and disabled it with a smack. There was no attempt to shuttle the children away from the danger – when it arose, the women simply retreated, with their hands to their mouths (schoolteacher included), while the 'men' did their business. Karthik had been skilling snakes for years. Likewise, there was nothing PC in the disposal of the snake. Having knocked it out, Karthik lifted it skillfully out of the pool and drove its head into the earth. Cue the usual games of ‘chase the girls with the thing that will make them scream’. But there was no ghostbuster-snake-lover to call to rehouse the animal – snakes are an old enemy here, and a danger. In the evening time the the watchman, Subramani, took care of any snake (or pambu) coming out to hunt in the cool evening air. In the time I was there he killed three, and buried them all before dawn in a corner of the garden.

2) Their ability to use simple things well - like soap and water, wood and matches. Washing one's clothes with a small bar of detergent, in the sunshine, on a wet flat rock. Cooking rice on a woodfire. Water is still their element, and so important, holy even. You see them queueing up at burst pipes, brown skin shining in the sun. Even the pavement-dwellers are scrupulously clean. Something to think about when I can't be bothered walking upstairs to use the shower.

3) An add-on. Personal neatness. The feet and fingernails of your average Indian person will always be clean, the hair washed and combed with coconut oil, the moustache trimmed, no matter how dirty the surroundings. It's how they rise above the chaos.

4) The reliance on personal skill. The Indians are a skilful people, nimble with feet and hands, well-coordinated. The ability of a bus-driver to pass through a crowded street at 40mph without flattening a single banana is banked upon without thinking. In England, drive as if everyone else is an idiot - in India, cross the road safe in the knowledge that whoever's coming would probably pass every reactions-test NASA could set. If anything, they'll avoid you because they don't want to damage their vehicle. Safety-consciousness and procedure have stripped us of our ability to properly handle our equipment and ourselves. Personal skill - in walking, moving, living - is foisted upon them from an early age. When Joel (pronounced Joy-ell), the two year-old son of Raju and Santhhi, otherwise spoiled rotten, is climbing a wall, his mother will most probably be chatting and looking the other way, breezily unconcerned. These are the skills essential to survive what would otherwise be a shockingly dangerous tumult of uneven footpaths, jagged corners, sudden obstacles and hazards. "Come down off that wall" would be uttered from annoyance or embarrassment, never from a concern for his safety.

Their feet, unused and unsuited to shoes, are more capable of gripping, climbing, walking over sharp objects. I am embarrassed at my English feet, prone and vulnerable without their coverings. You can see that, already, we have evolved away from our surroundings. How many of us could cross a field barefooted? I think of the average Indian businessmen, slipping out of his shoes at the first chance, walking in his garden.

Nobody ever trips over here. Personal clumsiness is really very rare. Nobody really knocks anything over, drops anything, spills anything. They really were puzzled, I think, at how little I was master of my immediate environment. I think of England with its yellow lines and warnings.

5) The fact that, across the country, north and south, a few select mannerism must be shared by a billion people. Take, for instance, the lighting of a match. Hold the matchbox at either end with third finger and thumb of left hand. Strike downwards, away from self, and immediately cup the sparking match in the protective chamber between matchbox and palm, created by the aforesaid method of holding the matchbox. I have seen five hundred men, of all shapes and sizes, perform this simple act in exactly the same manner, invariably managing to light their cigarette or beedi with just the one match. I have seen a rickshaw driver light his beedi (NOT an easy thing to light), using this method, while we were travelling at forty miles an hour along a windy coast road (he was steering with his knees). This was in winds so full I could barely open my mouth, let alone offer him my congratulations. My eyes were watering from the g-force. One match.

Some other shared mannerisms. The head-wiggle. The method of applying coconut oil. Deposit a small amount in palm of left hand, used as store. Apply with fingers of right hand to face. At the death, rub both hands over face and then together in a warming motion. They bloody all do it. Rich, poor, old, young. There is simply a correct way of doing certain things, universally acknowledged.

They all wear shirts. Even the guys in the fields, when I went to work there (haven't got time to talk about that now) Cigarettes and small change in top-pockets. All of them.

5) They just get by.

6) They are natural people. Coconut oil. Every single one of them, every morning, after 'taking bath' (bucket shower). They are puzzled by my eczema. Since I arrived in India, approximately 120 million people have decreed that I should rub just 'little, little' coconut oil into my skin, and the whole thing would go away. Unfortunately, I have a different brand of itchiness to them. But the concept of a minor skin ailment incurable without medical help, indeed incurable without 'little, little' coconut oil is foreign to most of them, more so than to most English people. Eczema and asthma, it has to be said, are probably 'bourgeois' diseases, brought about by the over-use of synthetic (cleaning) products and inflicted on people who spend too long indoors. They are side-effects of the body's being forced to live in an unnatural environment, performing unnatural processes such as working out in a gym (the very idea of a gym has begun to seem ridiculous amid all this space and the physical demands here). Most are horrified, as my money-making Mysore mate was, that I spread petroleum jelly in the form of hydrocortisone ointment on my sores twice daily, but I'm a child of synthetics, and there's no other way. Throughout India, at least in the open places, I've met nobody with asthma (it would probably be the same in England). They all have beautiful, well-balanced complexions.

7) The habit of squatting on haunches, comfortable for them. It saves a lot of backs. I've seen very few bent-over old people, and many walking upright (some even carrying loads on their heads).

8) The seventies fashions. I've said about the shirts. Even the poorest. Add to this (when they aren't wearing lungi) flared trousers, accentuating the classic Indian body-shape - impossibly tiny waist (think around twenty-six inches, and this in large, fully-grown men), wide shoulders, and large, boat-like feet sailing along unhurriedly in flip-flops (chappel) underneath. On top place a beaming, moustachioed visage, some oiled hair. A 'gold' watch (they're big here). I've seen and spoken to countless chaps like this. Sometimes I think they're all brothers or that I'm hopelessly mad.

9) Brothers, eh? I love the habit they have of calling each other 'brother', 'father', sister', 'mother', 'uncle', 'grandfather', 'son'. This to complete strangers - taxi-drivers, waiters, people you pass in the street to ask directions from. The practice translates across all the regions I've visited, it is a central part of interacting in all the languages I've heard. This is India: possibly diverse (but are they diverse? Watch him strike that match), possibly a continent masquerading as a country, and possibly the largest family in the world. You've heard about the men, holding hands, embracing, on each other's laps. You can see the rickshaw-drivers, involved in a dispute, examining their small change, their heads so close together you'd swear they were lovers, or that they came from the same egg. On a bus, most Indians have the crumpled, buffeted but not-entirely-discontent expression of the puppy who is climbed over, at the bottom of the pile, in the fight for the mother's milk. Submissive, belonging. They don't care if their personal space is invaded - they don't have any - not when it comes to other Indians, at least (some would rather strike their match in an unaccustomed way - god forbid - than sit next to a foreigner). If they are smacked on the head by the conductor by accident, they don't even turn around. It's all part of living together, in this cramped, whirling chaos, where at each moment you have the potential to be lost, and you stick together organically because it is how you thrive.

On a bus in Tamil Nadu, I had a brief conversation with a man who was interested in my phone (I've since dropped it in a toilet). I fell asleep (did I tell you I've perfected Indian sleep? I can now sleep anywhere, vertical, in a nightclub, in the shower, upside down in a tornado), and when I woke up, he was sat beside me cradling a girl in his arms, sat on his lap. Both of them were gazing up at the bus TV screen, showing a Tamil movie, rapt. They had the exact same expression on their faces. Soon she dozed off, resting her head against his chest, and he soon joined her. In sleep, too, they did exactly the same things, chewing the air and half-waking every few minutes.

The bus was crowded. The girl's mother was squatting in front of our chairs with her baby (don't ask about me giving up my seat - she had a basket and wouldn't have let it out of her sight), trying to get some shuteye of her own in that impossible position. Happily, we jiggled along for another few minutes, before the family - mother, girl-child and boy-baby, discmounted, she carrying a huge basket full of fruit on her head, and one child in each arm. It wasn't until we'd travelled for another two hours, and my friend got down too, that I realised the significance of this. The family and the man had been complete strangers to each other. And yet this mother had entrusted the girl to the man - her anne, or elder brother - without a qualm, and quite happily they had both bounced off to sleep. The little girl didn't raise a hint of a fuss.

10) The lack of certain hypocrisies. There is nothing of the hypocrisy of self-sacrifice, for instance, after you, after you. If you want to sit, you sit. If you give up your seat or offer to carry someone's something, you'll be thought silly, not noble, and not thanked. They'll get by without you. Here, you can reap none of the smug rewards you can in England with such behaviour - the belief that you're a good person. That said, sometimes it's hard to see, and sometimes downright puzzling. I've seen pregnant women cradling newborn children, swaying in the aisle, while a young and strapping lad on a mobile phone makes himself comfortable on the seat next to her. I've seen guru-babas - the holiest of holy men, deserving of all respect - slumped against the poles, while devout and seated hindus look on unconcernedly. I've seen a family consisting of mother with child, grandmother and young chap my age boarding a bus, and into the one remaining seat leaps the lad.

Equally, here it's thought childish to say thank you all the time, and although the habit dies hard, this much I agree. Think how many times your average shopkeeper performs the perfunctory ritual of 'thank you/ you're welcome' in a day, ask yourself how many times its really heartfelt and whether this overuse degrades the term for when it is finally needed, and you might agree. I still say it all the time anyway, or, even more bizarrely, 'cheers', which is a trade off between saying thank you and saying nothing but which absolutely nobody understands and so is even more useless.

Bear up, guys, nearly finished.

Things I think I will miss (work-in-progress – I reserve the right to extend this list and also to not miss any of the things below when the time comes to leave):

1) The trains: huge, hooting rustbuckets barrelling through the countryside, or lowing like great cattle in the night.

2) The sudden, ammonial reek of piss on corners. Strange, but I’ll miss it. Mght even have to recreate it on Old Smithy Lane…

3) Pedestrians clubbing together to conquer the traffic. When a sufficient number have gathered (sufficient enough to do damage to a car if it hit them all), they edge out towards the middle of the road. More often than not they break and scurry back to the kerb, but sometimes the oncoming vehicle subsides with a greasy, defeated honk. Pedestrian power!

Whew. This hasn't reeeallly been a proper catch-up regarding what I've been doing I know, more a rant. In brief, from Tamil Nadu to Mumbai, to heat-rash, to Delhi, to Nepal. Yes that's right, I'm in Nepal, Kathmandu. If you want to know what's happened since Mumbai, please see Dixie's excellent account at dixieontheotherside.blogspot.com. Tomorrow we go on a trek into the mountains. It should be cool.

Last thing: to anyone who's seen the Beatles film Help! Hannah and Rosie. When the members of that obscure eastern cult who want to sacrifice Ringo go into battle, they shout 'Kailiii' or Kah-eeeeleeeee' or however it is you might spell it. 'Kaili' is the Indian word for lungi, those sarong-like skirts that men wear. So it's pretty much the equivalent of shouting 'troouuserrs!, or even 'pants!'. I thought that was really funny. If it's not, I'm sorry.