Feathering the Nest

It is rather strange gathering information that I have already written and used several times. I am looking forward to using the blog properly, but I am trying to be patient as I feel that I ought to have a record of earlier days.

24th January 2008

We set about adding a few feathers to our nest while awaiting our shipment. Everything is complicated here – setting up a bank account has proved infuriating. So for a while we have managed without spare cash and shopping was necessarily a careful exercise. In one of the older shopping malls, we found some rugs we liked but it was difficult to decide. It was nearly closing time and the men in the shop brought dozens of rugs for us to see. We hummed and hawed. I liked this one.... A liked another. We didn't have money to buy all and return what we didn't want. To our utter astonishment, the shopkeeper told us just to take all of them to try then bring back those we did not want. Neither address nor deposit was asked for.

"He said, "I trust you. And if you don't bring it back then I shall not become poor and you will not become rich."

The most noticeable thing about Chennai is the traffic – a mad boiling pot of cars, yellow auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, push-bikes and carts which are sometimes drawn by oxen. Motorbikes and pushbikes are often the transport for the whole family with the little one in front of Dad and the bigger child sandwiched between Mum on the back and Dad at the front. Sometimes a sleeping baby seems to dangle perilously on its mother's sloping lap as she perches side-saddle at the back of the bike.

Motorcycle etiquette is interesting. Young lovers clasp each other; young married women lay a proprietary hand on their husband’s knee; older women perch behind their husband feeling no need to touch; young men sit in the same way or put a hand on the shoulder of the man in front ….

Cows wander everywhere and, like goats, they eat everything that comes their way. You see them nibbling on paper and other rubbish that is lying around. They have no concern for the rules of the road and will happily walk towards the oncoming traffic.

There is building work everywhere and it is not unusual to see women of all ages involved in this carrying heavy loads of stones or clearing the building site. A number of street people scratch out an existence by the side of the road sleeping on the pavements or under a tree, stringing a cloth between branches above them. This serves a dual purpose of providing shade and preventing snakes from dropping directly onto them. At night, a cooking pot might be set up against the kerb on the road itself and washing will be hung on lines across the pavement. People here seem to prefer to walk on the road despite the constant danger from the unpredictable road users.

Life can be tough but during the monsoon it must be tougher still. The rain falls in sheets resulting in huge floods of puddles that people simply wade through in their sandals, hitching their skirts in a hopeless attempt to avoid being soaked through.