Passage to India part 4

Newsflash: I’ve been moved to a hotel! Whoop-de-doo! So instead of a 90-minutes-each-way commute, it’s down to 20 minutes. My hotel has wi-fi in the rooms so at last I can get up to speed with my regular blogs. I didn’t actually realise until now just how much I rely on blogs for my fashion information. Scratch that…any information. Style Bubble, Mrs Fashion, Fashionista.com, Jezebel.com, Blue Floppy Hat I live and breathe them all.

This move has made me tons happier, even if it’s only for a few days. I don’t feel so far removed from the action and I can spend more time at the office instead of in the car achieving precisely nothing. OH MY GOD an elephant just walked right past me on the pavement! Jeez, this town is bloody crazy! (I’m sitting outside a location waiting for a photographer to do a recce with me. Of-course, he’s on Indian Standard Time so I’m using the extra minutes to blog.)

Favourite daily sights:
Women in saris, riding pillion side-saddle on motorbikes and scooters
Men drinking their early morning chai on street corners
Teenagers in school uniforms marching in the playground next to my office
The hazy sunshine at 10.30am, perfect for a backlit shoot
Thums Up cola in glass bottles – this reminds me of my holidays to India when I was a kid
Ambassador cars
The clashing acid brights of contrasting kurtas (tunics), dupattas (scarves) and churi pants – I never get tired of this
Tradesmen (and women) carrying piles of crates, baskets and boxes on their heads
The general hustle and bustle of streetlife, it’s totally hypnotic
My driver Ratnesh -I’d literally be lost without him

The not so nice bits:
Broken pavements that force you to walk in the road
The gate-pass police in my building – every time I enter or leave I have to declare my camera/laptop/press samples to the security staff and fill in a form (or ten)
My driver when he spits out of the car door – hasn’t he seen the signs? ‘No Spiting’ (sic)