hatches...matches...and liquid dispatches

Well it’s been a strange week or so. I have miraculously encountered two separate places where football is being played to a reasonable standard. I now have an Indian staff (the wizard type, not the slave type) and my 3rd standard games period was interrupted by a bus load of university students who have been based at the school for the last 4 days. My exploits with Indian transport continue. I have now had the experience of riding atop a bus (an experience my hosts were none too pleased to learn I had had), I have unleashed my (in)famous driving skills on India’s roads and have been given a lift home by someone who seemed to equate having an Englishman on his motorcycle as some form of major world event. He proceeded to drive the entire way, in the dark it should be added, with his mobile phone glued to his ear as he contacted what seemed like his entire phonebook to tell them the earth-shattering news.

I’ve had a slightly dickie tummy for the last few days, attributable I think to eating too many Indian sweets – trust me they can give even my sweet tooth a run for its money. I feared at one point I’d managed to give myself IBS, but now feel my full vigour returning just in time for Sodagar’s nephew’s wedding, at which of course there will be more sweets!

So to begin in earnest…

Since my last communication I’ve been deepening and, I hope, learning. Deepening my efforts to be patient and just be me, and learning that I must spread myself in a way that empowers me and enhances my energy instead of spreading myself too thin and as a consequence being no good to anybody. By this I mean that I have been suffering a little from feeling torn in about 17 different directions at once. Everywhere I go to play games or sport with people they then expect me to return day in day out. The challenge I have been trying to resolve is to understand the longterm benefits to the school and the community that my actions will have. I guess I am wrestling with the classic 80-20 principle, trying to work out how to use my time and energy so that 20% of me in any area or village can have a lasting fourfold benefit.
The other side to the story of course is to simply stop trying to do things and let the doing happen of itself – become more human being than human doing. My gut feeling is that this will sort itself out once we get some form of after school clubs going, so that my time will naturally be spent exclusively at the school and I can bring in outer village involvement as and when possible and suitable.

Four days after the above…
I write this on the eve of the wedding’s second day. The festivities are done, and all that remains is being sick out the window of an offensively ostentatious SUV and dissecting who’s new clothes were best/worst. Thankfully I’ve not been directly involved in either yet, but the 80-20 principle has still been in full effect. I’ve enjoyed 80% of the wedding doings, but the 20% that just didn’t sit right are taking a fair effort to digest – possibly due to the fact that my tummy’s still not right and I’ve had to resort to the emergency measure of taking antibiotics to ward off an attack of tonsillitis. Given that the same anti-biotics have probably killed off a good portion of the healthy bacteria in my gut, I have probably used a snake to kill a mouse with no way of taming the newly empowered snake.
I feel as though I am in the middle of a giant tumult, desperately wishing I could both see sight of land, and had some way of knowing how to surf the surge. In every moment I am confronted with the two sides of the story – on the one hand the hope that we can forge a brighter future through our collective efforts on behalf of the planet and all its species, while on the other, I am battered constantly by the enormity of the challenge of even daring to think this is possible, so great are the obstacles that seem apparent. There are definitely times when I feel like just drowning. My frustrations at my inability yet to fully merge my personal goals with those I seek to forge at the school as completely as I imagine should be possible, combined with the constant flux in my soul of seeking recognition for my poetry one moment, knowing it could have a profound impact, to doubting myself in the next and accusing myself of seeking hubristic aggrandisement have left me feeling a little bit ‘fuck it, fuck it, fuck it all and fuck it again.’ This on top of my lurking shadow, which is the person I have always been - one able to inspire with words and to create wondrous plans, but deliver only a last-minute thrown together efforts that have a fraction of the influence that would have been possible had I grafted them carefully and diligently to fruition.

But a deep breath later…a cup of tea…and a moment’s gratitude at having a place to say these things where people who care about me can read them has left me feeling energised and aware that each moment is the most important of our lives, so I’m going to seize this one and say a few things I’ve wished I could say for some time…

Here is what I wish to achieve at the school by the end of December – my xmas present to myself and the school if you like:

4 cricket nets
2 volleyball courts
2 badminton courts
1 5-a-side football pitch
1 Kho Kho pitch

An afterschool club that offers:
• Sports
• Music + Theatre
• Cooking
• English conversation

An equipment cupboard housing:
15 footballs
Take-downable nets/goals for football, volleyball and badminton
6 children’s bats of various sizes
4 sets of stumps
12 ‘sixer’ tennis ball cricket balls
6 real cricket balls
A 50m tape measure
2 stop watches
2 volley balls
8 badminton rackets
4 10m rolls of matting to cover the net wickets and provide a smooth
1 pitch roller

Here are the obstacles to achieving this:

Nothing.

But here comes the honesty part…technically I am completely skint. I owe our dear friends of HSBC a total of £1800 in overdrafts and credit cards.

The cost of the above I estimate at no more than 400 quid.

My family have been supportive in ways I could never hope to repay, both financially (my sister wiped a £3500 credit card bill in one swoop, my parents give handsomely whenever they get the opportunity) and in terms of their patience and support.
The example of my parents and the kindess of my sister have led to me having a strange relationship with money. When I have it I tend to give it away to people/projects I think deserve it/need it more than me, and when I don’t have it I inevitably seem to lean on those who’ve already given more than I deserve.

I neither express my gratitude or love for my family as openly and often as I should – no doubt a combination of a boarding school upbringing and some kind of foolish pride/reserve, but in this vulnerable moment let me state in bold that I am so truly thankful and honoured that whatever creates life saw fit to place you, my family, in my life. I can be an insensitive prick and a complete fuckwit at times, but I love you so much and when I truly pause to think about it, I cannot but help laughing in disbelief at my luck you are such empowering beings in my life. Thank you. I love you.

This deep and life affirming gratitude extends to all the friends who have blessed my life to this point. Some have passed on to different shores, following different currents and winds of life. They will return when the time is right, and I look forward to it. For those present in my life – 2Quick always, the gaians/canalsiders, the BKITS, the PGR massive and all those who seek to bridge GAPS, thank you, bless you, love you.

It was my hope that my flat would, by now, have long been let and would both be providing me with accessible funds to get the sports rolling herein India, whilst eating away at my molehill of debt back in the UK. Sadly this has not yet transpired.

This is therefore an open call to anyone who reads this to give anything if you can spare it. Perhaps a Gaian reading this may see fit to find a jar into which the odd note can be stuffed and passed onto Janet. I have already £170 we raised the Sunday before my departure. Therefore, if together we could find £230 that’d be amazing. If not, I’ll probably do what George always does and see if my ma can sling me a couple of hundred quid till my flat rents, but I’m hoping on this occasion not to have to resort to that route.

Well…now back to my activities of the last few days/weeks…

I have found in Bhuna – the nearest town sized place – a regular footballing contingent who meet every Sunday at the local high school for a decently competitive game of football preceded by some basic but clearly useful coaching. Proceedings are run by a gentleman whose name I think is Gurjan, but I can’t be certain – this is one area I definitely struggle with. Indians tend to say there names ridiculously quickly, in a swallowed kind of way (or this is how it seems to my still-acclimatising-to-the-accents-ears). Gurjan was delighted to see me, much to my embarrassment once this delight began spilling over into interrupting the pre-match coaching so he could both tell me all he knew about english football and introduce me to various of his inquisitive friends who he assured me were all ‘qualified’ men. Quite what they were qualified in I’ve no idea. I suspect qualified was Gurjan’s way of saying decent/respectable.
Gurjan insisted on people wearing proper kit, which seemed to consist of shorts and football boots. I was glad to have my rubber trainers. The thought of playing in studs on the pitch we played on gives me blisters even contemplating it. The match was both knackering and hugely enjoyable, with a mix of abilities from the young and genuinely able, to the adult and giant, whose defensive tactics were more Aain than Able. I was slightly miffed at my team being allotted a guy of about thirty who was well built, tall…and clearly completely shit-faced. But, never judge a book by its cover (or a footballer by his level of sobriety it turns out). Mr Shit-faced received the ball from kick off and embarked on a meandering run that took him past a good four or five players with a lightness of touch and an awareness of the ball that was astonishing.
The goals used seemed to be irrigation pipes that had conveniently sprouted from the earth in just the right symmetrical places to serve their alternative purpose. They were sufficiently small to make having a goal-keeper fairly unnecessary and as a result the game flowed well, because people were not tempted to try the long shots larger goals might have provoked.
We played for a good hour or so, with the game eventually being won by a solitary goal courtesy of a sublimely-ridiculous combination between myself and mr shit-faced. Having picked up the ball in space down the wing, I proceeded to turn my man inside out, before clipping in, left-footed I might add, a cross so perfect it took the semi-goalkeeper completely by surprise as it fizzed past him and found Mr Shit-faced arriving at the far post (far post is of course a fairly loose term, there being only 5 feet between the two posts). This was the only time in the game Mr Shit-faced showed his true colours, as by some remarkable fluke he managed to mis-time his intended deft finish completely, only for the ball to hit him somewhere near his balls, ricochet thence onto the post, back onto mr shit-faced’s shin and into the goal. Mr Shit-faced realised this was what he’d intended all along, and set off at a gallop to celebrate with anyone who would hug him. I opted for keeping the whiskey fumes at a safe distance and went for the double high-five instead of the full blown hug.
The return journey from this match features the mobile phone bike ride incident that had to be experienced to be truly appreciated. He literally did not stop using his phone once as he taxied his prized ‘englishman’ to his destination. There was little danger of injury should anything untoward have happened though, since to facilitate the hearing of the conversations he was having with all and sundry he slowed to a crawl that was quick enough to make me feel cold as my sweating limbs stiffened in the night air, yet was slow enough to make a journey of 8km or so take nearly 25mins

The Tuesday prior to Sunday’s adventures I had decided to visit Kulan, a village about 2km from the school, because the previous week I’d seen what looked like a capable game of volley ball being played at the school’s plauground. with no idea what time the game actually started, I arrived what I guessed to be around an hour early with a football stashed in my bag, I was glad to see there were already two footballers practicing by a full sized goal. An encouraging sign. Unaware that I was receiving a precognitive lesson about Mr Shit-faced, it turns out the footballers I encountered upon first arriving in Kulan were only footballers in so far as they were dressed like footballers. True they had some rudimentary ability, but not a great deal more. Still, a start’s a start I guess. After a deluge of

Stop press – I have just been interrupted in the writing of this by what I can only assume is a cross between a drunk and sleepwalking sikh, who proceeded to stumble from his bedroom into the toilet, where he may or may not have relieved himself, he then stumbling back out into the corridor, where he spat on the floor a couple of times, before stumbling back into his bedroom spitting merrily on the floor and his feet as he went. He is now snoring. I’d love to know whether he is just drunk, or was infact dreaming and imagining himself to be some kind of immense fire breathing dragon battling enemies of a magical and far away kingdom. I think the former more likely sadly. Anyway, enough phlegmatic interruptions…back to the football…

Young children desiring to know ‘what is your country’ and ‘what is your name’, some actual footballers arrived…closely followed by Santa Singh.
I have since discovered that Santa Singh is anywhere from a bit, to prettymuch completely mad. At this point in time, however, I was encountering for the first time an Indian of average height (which for an Indian seems to be just slightly shorter than me) whose body defined wiry and sinewed. He seemed to consist of fairly big bones for his size held together by muscles that seemed to be made from a kind of ealsticy leather, if you can imagine such a substance. as yet unaware of his madness, I was trying to decide if he had just consumed his own weight in speed/cocaine, or if he was just hyperactively enthusiastic. The jury is still out on these possibilities, though madness seems the more logical conclusion. He proceeded to introduce himself , to express his great joy at meeting me (accompanied by innumerable handshakes that seemed to double as tests of my strength) and to tell me more than once that ‘he was form singapore nevermind,’ before seeking to demonstrate his linguistic proficiency by counting to ten in Chinese, Singaporean, English, Hindi and Punjabi all in the space of one breath. If Edgar Allen Poe did a load of drugs, and then sought to make a crazy Indian the hero of his most famous eponymous poem, he might well have come up with a character like Santa Singh. ‘Nevermore’ would become ‘nevermind’, as it seems to be Santa’s favourite word – uttered at the end of every statement as though his next point will be far more salient and vital to hear than the many non-sequiters that preceeded it.
I still maintain a sneeking suspicion that Santa Singh may be some kind of Zen/Tantric master. It is said that they will often adopt the guise of fools in order to scrutinise potential disciples. Watching Santa on the football pitch kind of dissuades me from this line of thought however. Anyone who ever watched the cartoon of the tazmanian devil will instantly have a picture of his play. He is utterly fearless, utterly tireless and seems to feel no pain. He is also coordinated in such a way that when keeping goal he manages to pull of unimaginable feats, saving shots that simply should not be saved, using parts of his body that one would never have thought were designed to be used for the noble art of goal-keeping. He makes Rene Higuita look positively sedate!
Just prior to Santas arrival on the scene, a young sikh player had turned up, wearing both boots and a turban type thing. He turned out to be pretty decent, and I have since forged a decent football working relationship.
The desired game of volley ball did transpire, but by the time I’d finished my stint in the football pitch they’d pretty much finished. My contribution amounted to playing the last few points and succeeding in losing them the game. Indians play volley ball in a way that makes the game a fairly tedious affair. Its kind of like multi-player badminton with a ball. They don’t seemed to have grasped the fact that the use of the three touches of the ball per side could be used for forcing an advantage/winning stroke instead of making up for any error in one’s initial attempt to get the ball straight back over the net.
I returned the following week and tried to impart this knowledge with carrying degrees of success. Unfortunately I’m not tall enough/springy enough to play the slamming executioner of the three touch series and when we had found a suitably lanky candidate, he tended to drift in and out of awareness of the game and what was required of him that we had to give up our tactics in preference for the functional, but tediously effective badminton approach. It turns out they play a mamouth game, up to (I think) thirty points. My team lost, but it was close.

Now we come to the wedding…actually, I might as well complete my sports round-up with a 5-over per side cricket tournament I took part in with some of the lads from Kothi (my host’s village). This proved a highly amusing parenthesis on the first day of the wedding, sandwiched as it was between the morning’s ceremony and the evening’s dancing. I took the opportunity presented to get out on the scooter by dropping one of the guests off at the school, before heading stright to Kulan – the destination for the tournament. My football and volleyball exploits at the ground had clearly done the word of mouth rounds, and no sooner had I arrived at the ground and sat down to wait for my team mates, than the annoncement rang out over the PA system, ‘would Mr George please come to the stage…oh Mr George, please come here’. there were probably close to two hundred people at the ground, all of whom seemed to follow my progress around the boundary, the children uttering whoops of delight and the teenagers snickering to themselves. It’s still taking some getting used to. It doesn’t really massage one’s ego, because you feel half like a VIP and half like a performing monkey, never sure which role the person addressing you has decided for you.
What followed however was superb fun. The organisers had two mics and a PA set up, and were delivering commentary in broken English for the benefit of a crowd that I’m sure barley understood a word. I was invited to commentate, and it will surprise noone that my inner showman relished the opportunity. I think my fellow commentator was a little surprised by the breadth of my cricketing knowledge, as I compared various players styles or efforts to well known international players, it would often take him a moment to assess and concur with my comparisons, before agreeing wholeheartedly and giving an over-elaborate summary of what I’d just said. We had a huge amount of fun though, as I went from being richie benaud, to geoff boycott, to myself and back again. I managed to label one fielder as monty panesar, and one as less capable than my mother. I felt a little guilty over this last insult. Even my mother would have done better than the fielder in question.
My team-mates were clearly having split loyalties between the wedding festivities and the cricket, because come the start of our match we only had six players from Kothi. The rest we cobbled together from an impromptu practice session just before the game started. We put in a decent fielding performance, limiting the opposition to just 39 – a very gettable target, given we were not playing on a full sized cricket pitch, and were using a type of tennis ball. We made an excellent start and were on 17 off the first two overs, when our first wicket fell. This brought yours truly to the crease. Three overs left and we needed just over 7 an over. Our captain was at the crease and was striking the ball well. My job was clear. Just get bat on ball, rotate the strike and pick up any boundaries on offer. Oh those best laid plans…
Having arrived at the crease at the change of over, I was at the non-strikers end. The first ball was guided down to third man by our captain and a misfiled sent me dashing down the wicket convinced there was a run. Our captain didn’t think so and yours truly was comprehensively run out without facing a ball.
I don’t know who was more disappointed – myself or my former commentating partner, who had clearly been looking forward to at least commentating on me facing a ball. Such is the game of India’s blood. We lost by three runs, having needed ten off the last two balls. It grated with me more than it should, but this will be of no surprise to those of you who know my competitive streak.

So the wedding…if I was being harsh, I’d sum it up like this:
The men spend money and drink, while the women buy new clothes and gossip. Guests eat as much as they can and all this takes place in as obviously ostentatious and costly setting as possible.
It is of course not quite this bad, and many of the things that seemed a little vulgar, or over the top to me turned out to be long held traditions of the marriage process. A couple of areas were a bit. There were some entertainments, consisting largely of a man and a couple of women wearing various costumes and miming famous bollywood songs. After this the dancefloor and stage were turned over to the revellers, while the girls continued to add glamour. Sadly, for those younger males who’d had a little too much whiskey, this was like an invitation to rut. A tradition seems to exist whereby one throws money in the air if one appreciates the dancing or DJ’s song choice. Here it became throwing money at women to express how much you wished to… … …
Whenever money was thrown in the air there was an inevitable rush by those working at the function to grab the money. This even stretched to crawling into the middle of the bride and groom’s exit procession. Whilst I appreciate the relativity of my position, my western-tinted specs with which I look on the situation etc, the maitre d’ in me was outraged that waiters could so neglect the decorum demanded of their roles. As a whole the spectacle was at times wholly unedifying. True, my perception was not helped by the fact that I was battling mild tonsillitis, a badly upset stomach and the shits, and I’d had just about enough of being stared at by every pair of eyes present, but the emphasis placed on displaying wealth one way or another made the fact that it was a marriage seem a bit hollow, as though this was simply a ceremony to accompany a business transaction, with the bride and groom nought but businesses being traded and merged by two multinational companies.
The final straw was the lift home I received. Gopi, one of the principle ‘dogs on heat’ throwing money at the ladies on stage, bid me jump into his friend’s SUV for the trip home. By this point I was knackered and glad to have the decision of who to go home with and how taken out of my hands. Sadly what followed was a bout of ‘show off to the Gora’ that I could really have done without. I was asked the usual questions of marriage status, place of habitation etc, with the added ones that always seem present among young sikh males – do I smoke, do I drink, do I eat meat? Disappointed at my negative response to all three questions, they turned their attention to showing me the seat back TV screens installed in the SUV. They were showing videos of Punjabi songs that were the Indian equivalent of 50 Cent – all money, champagne and women. By this time I was feeling pretty numb and my stomach was becoming noticeably painful. Upon reaching Kulan I noticed we’d gone the wrong way to the direction we should have gone for home, and too late realised the driver had stopped to buy me what he thought was my favourite Indian dish. To be fair it was pretty tasty – a kind of fried vegetarian cheese burger – but it was also pretty much the last thing I needed at that moment. My famously thin patience was wearing threadbare, even despite my numbness, and was not helped by my being coerced to get out of the car so I could thank the stall holder and tell him how tasty my white skin had found his fried burger type thing. This task accomplished, however, I returned to the car grateful that at least now we’d head home.
This however is India. It turned out that the car directly behind us had a duplicate copy of my showy chauffeur’s number plate. Depite being clearly drunk, he headed off to report this fact to the police. Given that Punjabi is constantly spoken at argument-level decibels, I can’t be certain if what followed was a tete-a-tete, or just friends chatting, but it went on for f**king ages, leaving just me and a clearly very drunk passenger behind in the car with just some really inspiring music videos for company. After about 10mins the passenger began puking out of the car door. I’m not pleased to report that at this point my patience snapped and I got out of the car intent on walking/hitching a lift home. Needless to say I was quickly grabbed by a shocked Gopi and pleaded back to the car, whereupon we set off at breakneck speed back home.
It was at this point that my ‘fuck it all’ sentiments pretty much peaked. The resounding argument being ‘what was the point in seeking to do good work at the school, if the children’s elder generational siblings were so locked into the cycle of display wealth, drink, be macho etc’ I felt as though any positive influence that might rub off on the children and then seek to manifest itself in the years to come would inevitably meet with an immovable barrier, a squashing fist – given the extent to which ‘respect your elders’ is such an untouchable creed.

However, change is the only constant. Once I began writing this I immediately felt better – perhaps a problem shared is a problem halved. I am aware of course that all moments and beings are mirrors placed on our path for us to learn from. Once my initial anger and frustration had cooled, I began the search for meaning…realising, not too surprisingly, that I was far too focussed on the negative things I’d encountered, rather than rejoicing in the positive. So I state here and now my deep gratitude to the children at the wedding. Every time I felt down I would go and sit with them and play Frisbee or dance with them, or let them play with my video camera. Their genuine fascination and desire to engage and have fun was so refreshing from the adult whispers and furtive glances/blatant stares. Truly the children were my refuge, especially one of the GMMCS kids who served as a very capable translator/dance partner for much of the day.

My stomach has definitely had enough of wedding food and sweets. It needs a break. The only trouble is that there are loads of sweets left over and they are so deliciously tempting. For now my fecal exploits are a little watery to say the least. Hopefully I’ll have more substantial news to report in my next missive.

Massive love for now.
xxx

Here are some poems:

The softness and the rain

Today the rain came
It washed away the gritty dusty heat
Leaving a pungent freshness
That was yet soft as the cotton

I did not understand at first
That the rain-drops were your tears
Falling in joy to celebrate
The breathing of the earth

It took me a moment
To hear in the gentle wind
The fading echoes of your laughter
As you danced with your children

When I think of you

When I think of you
‘Think’ itself is redefined
I sink into myself
Swimming in the infinitude
That is my truest self

And there I first catch your glimpse
Perhaps a flash of your smile
Memory of your eager embrace
Or vision of your delight
And that thread is all I need

I follow it with my stillness
My stillness that pulses
With a life more real than my own breath
Till I tumble upon the whole of you
And there you are, waiting

For me to take your hand and soar

A Moment’s peace

I walk out from the marriage house
Desiring a moment’s peace amid the festive clamour
I walk with soft purpose
Through the crisp, still night

Alighting at the canal bank
Stilled by the swift eddying swirl
That decorates its perpetuity of flow
I find the peace I have been seeking

Lifting my head from the calming surge
My eyes find the awesome Pipal
Lit in union by the festive glow
And the radiance of my starry goddess’ diyas*

With a creeping smile
And a swell of grace clothed joy
I sense her dance revealing itself
Step by wondrous step

She is the dancing of my dance-floor feet
The breeze-dance of the Pipal’s leaves
The dancing of my heart
And the gift of this still moment

As I sit, loved and loving
Watching the Canal’s whirling waters
Dance by

* Diya is the Hindi word for lamp

India’s Flowers seek nourishment

The dawn mists have barely
Burnt off
Yet already the flowers of India
Are making shit cakes
As if their lives depended on it

Because they do