Oh Happy Days! Chicken and Fish in the one meal Delhi Pt 3

I'm paired with Babs a retired school principal who's been having some difficulty with her placement, so she's been sent to St Trinian's with me. Actually I should stop calling it St Trinian's as nothing could be further from the truth. But hell why let the truth get in the way of a catchy headline!

Barbara and I seem to work well as I get the students to do the work she sets and she knows her stuff! Between us we'll crack this teaching stuff, though I have to remind her that the Indian way of spelling is the English way not the American it's colour not color and organization has an s not a z in it. We've given them some homework for tonight and will see how it pans out tomorrow when they return it. The students want us to go to the market with them on Friday but she has a training session for Indian teachers and I'm supposed to be at a lecture (I'm going to give it a miss and go with them).

After lunch we got another compulsory Hindi lesson and then a two hour talk with a professor from the Nehru University on the history of India which was really interesting and the time flew by. Most of the stuff he was talking about I knew anyway, but he put more colour to what I already knew, and the Amartya Sen book I have from the Scot in Exile helped me a great deal beforehand.

I note the snow in London and cannot supress a laugh as the temperature here is 78 deg F and I only need a tee-shirt, I suspect the Metropolis has ground to a halt with the snow being the wrong shape as well as deep. Sorry Fe, but at least you may have got a day or two off work.

The dinner tonight had tandoori chicken and tandoori fish with nan (proper nan bread), dal and I felt duty bound to dig in to make up for the lack of protein I'm undoubtedly suffering.

Some of the more mature (?) lady volunteers are setting to organise a trip to Aggra this weekend, but since there seems to be some petty arguing between them already about what hotel to stay in much less the cost, I think I may go on my own.

Regards to the readers! Namaste!!

Professor Moriarty a.k.a. The Mad One goes to school (Delhi pt 2)

 

Day two at St Trinian's or as it is formally known as, the Habitat Learning Centre! With the Habitat name you'd think Terence Conran had his hands in this, and to be truthful I think he has as the place is really nice to be in except it is very large and I got lost trying to get back to where I was yesterday! Still it seems that although I'm late most of the pupils are too, so it is no great embarrassment. (Indian Time as I was told is flexible and never to be confused with GMT). Without a formal syllabus yet (the dept head is still missing), I run another ad-hoc session with testing their reading as the key point, and where there is words which people don't understand we have a discussion on its meaning and I get them all to write it in their books. We also had a session on questions Why, Where, When, What and How; which is the right one to use and then getting them to practice on each other and me as a dummy! No comments necessary on that last remark, although note for Sean Hyland!! Your comments did come through so you've been kidding everyone in Chevron about your IT capabilities, you obviously know more than you're letting on. The session was good and I think we all enjoyed it as pupils from another class were trying to get in, so that's a positive sign. Early evening had us all back at the base and we were treated to an exhibition of classical Indian dance and music, which I as well as all the women thought was brilliant. The Guru in charge of the girls was herself a classical dancer for many years and now teaches as well as running a formal group who perform at various functions in Delhi. I don't want to sound too much like a willie woofter, but I was genuinely fascinated by the grace, elegance and movement (all of which has separate meanings) and the music too was a change from Bagra or whatever they call Bollywood music. I've been asked if I'd mind one of the ladies coming to work with me at the Habitat as she's not at all comfortable where work is at present. No problem and since she's a retired headmistress I can learn from her which should help all concerned. Footnote to anyone thinking I'm in danger of turning into a veggie, we had pizza and ice cream tonight and there was chicken on the pizza. Ya beauty!!

In at the deep end ! A review in retrospect !

 I thought that I'd revisit the Delhi Experience from 11 years ago. so this is a regurgitation of the Delhi Blog,

This morning I'm taken to the facility I'm going to be working at to meet the staff, there's only one there and after a brief chat the students started to arrive, without further ado it's suggested that I start right away! The kids are from 14 to 20 year old and have varying degrees of English ability, but in for a penny in for a pound, so I have to get started sometime and now is as good a time as any! The group of ten are mixed and we end up getting on like a house on fire, it's good to here all their reasons for wanting to improve their English, but the one I liked is a young lady who tells me she wants to be independent as opposed to being a lawyer, doctor or something else. In view of the society rules here in respect of women's roles I admire her spirit! The facility in which I'm placed is enormous and palatial, with an arts complex, music and drama workshops and a fully functional I.T. department in which we're based. It even has free coffee outside the door of the class, so when I compare my placement with the ladies (who're working in almost primitive conditions within the slum areas) I've got the pick of the bunch. The very noticeable aspect of the class is the respect in which anyone in authority is held, I'm finding this strange to deal with as this level of return from them is not the norm in my world, but it is endearing to be addressed to so politely and I'm mindful of their culture so I need to keep some level of formality when I'd normally kick the formality into touch. I need to structure some learning in accordance with their syllabus, but as yet don't have that as the co-ordinator for their course wasn't here this morning and it truly was sink or swim! I'm sure it will work out okay and am looking forward to spending the next 8 weeks in their company and helping them express themselves, as they are really very genuine and interesting people. Back to base in the afternoon for "Hindi lessons" (compulsory), but a help in any event. Then the group were broken up into teams and sent out to carry out tasks in the local market and surrounds. Shanta and I were set the task of finding out the cost and details of inclusions in hiring a car & driver for a trip to Agra/Jaipur, negotiate for discounts and then hire a rickshaw taxi back to base. I must admit that I didn't do the haggling bit with the poor guy who picked us up and took us home as the fare for his journey was only 20 rupees and to take 10 off of that would have been an act of daylight robbery! Maybe I'm slipping since I left Chevron and SCM!

I will go to jail before I'll pay another penny towards the Biased Broadcasting Club in Scotland

The BBC has become merely a vocal tool for the Government in Westminster and has lost any respect it ever had, with me at any rate, on the basis of its blatant bias and outright propaganda! only 50 years ago this message rang true and now it is even more so !

Successive Governments all over the world have used their state media to brainwash the general public into swallowing their party line. 

Now I can't speak for the other countries in this Untied Kingdom, since in England their regions and the Welsh and Northern Irish have their own versions of the BBC.

What I can say unequivocally is that the version we get in Scotland is so utterly abhorrent in their unequivocal opposition to our own Government in Holyrood much less any version of Independence, and their alleged "news" staff blatantly kowtow to instructions from elsewhere or in the case of the most obnoxious of them all, Sarah Smith, she is merely a ventriloquist's dummy for the Scottish Tories. Even she admits to being "pushy" and she is an admirer of the dyed brillo pad head Andrew Neil from whom she took over as presenter of the "Sunday Politics" in 2017.

Having withheld my licence fee to ensure that they do not get a single penny from me, when the Licence checkers come round, I will not be paying and even if fined I will not pay that either. Instead they can jail me and save me some pensioners cash by feeding me in Jail and giving me a new outfit to wear. 

I also hope that the incoming Government on May the 6th consider revoking their licence in Scotland at the same time telling Westminster to take their staff and equipment down to London with Trident !

A Grumpy Old Man's guide to life in the 21st Century

 My morning view in the mirror !

The guide is that when you reach your seventies, things no longer work as they ought to, your memory is distinctly vague and cloudy and the smallest things get on your wick.

1.  Remembering things from 50 years ago clearly but not yesterday or for that matter, this morning!
2. Wearing slip on shoes since you get dizzy bending down to tie laces.
3. You want to hibernate during winter.
4. You become an antiques expert (?) through watching daytime television such as; Antiques Roadshow, Bargain Hunt, Homes under the Hammer etc;
5. When you return from the shops and you have at least four gripes about prices, service and queues.
6. You begin to feel that everyone on the planet except your wife/husband was put on the planet to annoy you.
7. The thing you do most in bed is to get up to go to the bathroom several times a night.
8. You can spell with alarming accuracy and get ratty when people don't use proper grammar in their sentences.
9. You appear to get heavier by the week and not just the bags under your eyes.
10. There is excess room to spare in the house but not in the medicine cabinet.
11. Your choice of car is more to do with reliability than speed.
12. You go around turning off lights for less than romantic reasons.
13. You're constantly upset by the youth of today.
14. You think conscription would cut crime.
15. Your repeat prescription is longer than a Mafia run drug cartel shopping list.
16. You have to refer to your Grandkids for help with such things as things as             I-Phones, Computers and anything that was invented in the last 25 years!

There are benefits to the 21st century but I'm damned if I can remember them !!

21st Century Generational disconnect will have profound consequences.

It would be too simplistic to suggest that "Capitalism" in its crudest form has created a gulf between the teenagers of today and their parents, but in truth if it did not actually create the gulf, it most assuredly has exacerbated it.

The youth of today look at their elders who have had (for the most part), the luxury of employment, housing, goods, and a future that included travel, holidays and choices. 

They see an inequality between them and their parents, and frankly the pandemic of Covid-19 has brought this disparity to the fore of the youth outlook. The financial opportunities for the teenagers of today is disappearing quicker than snow off a dyke in May. 

Not for them is the chance of property ownership since the likelihood of owning a property has halved, job security is even more scarce as the younger employees are easier to get rid of, with official data showing that 88% of net employee job losses during the pandemic, being those of the younger generation.

Their education has been slashed due to the Covid-19 with consequential interference in attendance at school, ergo it is not too fanciful to describe them as potentially a "lost" generation in terms of education, opportunities and a future!

Our obsession with home ownership now means that the youth's opportunity of "Getting a foot on the ladder" in their actually owning a property is even more remote, since capitalism in the form of lenders/building societies, means that the funds available for the purchase of property ensures that financial deposits required are ever increasing as being necessary to purchase your place on the first rung.

The pandemic and associated "lock-down" requirements have placed increased stress and strain on the youth as despite technological advances in computers etc, they are having to stay at home in houses that will always out of their reach until such time as their parents die off. Their companions are out of physical touch unless via email or some other I.T. system that we old fogies know nothing about.

"Age" is what used to be what class was electorally and the conflicting generational differential will possibly result in some form of civil disobedience.

We "Old Fogies" have been warned !