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)
29 January, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
Your driver is totally obeying the signs. He’s not spiteful in the slightest!
29 January, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
Yay… I’m glad the pros are outweighing the cons! I seem to come here and find all sorts of fashion tidbits so it’s actually me relying on you! The JCDC store, the Balenciaga store, the Stella thing…! How do you do it despite being all the way over there?!?
30 January, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Elephants on the pavement! And a turkey just walked by my window. We are indeed separated by more than geography.
Thank goodness for the reduced commute. And we think we have it bad in America.
This has really turned into quite the adventure for you and I’m glad you have better access for blogging, because some of us (me) are hanging on to every last word!
30 January, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
Elephants aren’t really that common a sight in cities..I remember being completely flummoxed by the sight of one going down Nizamuddin Main Road in Delhi last year. The side-saddle thing is really difficult, though- the only way to not get thrown off is to keep a death grip on the shoulder of the person doing the steering.
But yay for the hotel move- it means you’re back in blogland, a good sign for all of us.
1 February, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
I love love love your blog but the black background/white letters give me a headache and make my eyes go funny. Has anybody else ever mentioned it or am I needing glasses???