India Fatigue

I'd like to start this post by saying I am glad I came here. I'm glad I was brave enough to come out here and experience this country with Ollie. I'm glad I'm here, and I wouldn't swap this trip for anything else in the world.

However, I am tired. I am tired of the noise and the stink. I'm tired of not being able to buy things I need. I'm tired of being looked at like a subnormal when I go into promising looking shops to ask for the things I need. I'm tired of having no privacy. I'm tired of being honked at constantly because I CAN'T walk on the pavement (literally, they seem to be rubble storage rather than somewhere for pedestrians to walk safely out of the way of Indian traffic). I'm tired of not having properly clean clothes (Really, ISI? 1 washing machine for an ENTIRE student halls? Really?). I'm tired of not being able to go for a walk in the fresh air (I will never complain about living in Lancashire again, I will be in the Trough of Bowland in a fucking heartbeat when we get home). I'm tired of not knowing whether I'll be able to have a shower from one day to the next. I'm tired of food going rotten because the promised fridge never appeared. I am tired.

It's bringing out a really bad side of me, a side I didn't realise I had, to be honest. I'm snapping at strangers, the smallest thing reduces me to tears and I no longer like myself because of that. Things really suck when you don't like your job, where you live or yourself. I am homesick and tired. I miss my bed actually being comfortable, I miss being able to cook and bake, I miss being able to walk places. I'm actually missing Autumn, and it's wind and rain and turning leaves.

This is mostly brought on by feeling crappy and not being able to sleep. I've been sick the last two weekends, which has put a serious kybosh on enjoying myself. I want to go and explore Mysore, but we can't book train tickets because we don't have an Indian bank card. So we need to go into town to a travel agent to get them to book them for us.

Last week was a bit of a non-starter, I was ill on Sunday and felt royally rubbish on Monday and Tuesday. I was in work Wednesday and Thursday as normal, but on Friday we had the grand Children's Day Carnival at the nursery. It was good fun, a few games for the kids and parents, a magic show and I think everyone had a good time. Saturday we went to MG Road to meet up with a couple of Ravellers, we had brunch in Cafe P and a big ol' chat. Ollie was a bit worried it would mostly be yarny talk, but other than a brief oohing and aahing over a few knitting projects it was mostly general nattering.

We bobbed along to "our" tailor to commission some secret awesome presents, and hit Higginbotham's for some other Christmassy things. Ollie wanted to pop into the Penguin shop as well (Penrose and Hawking for him, Camus for me) and I had hoped to get a choli (blouse) and petticoat for my saree. This wasn't to be, we went into 4 or 5 different saree shops and were looked at like we were mental for asking for the things that 50% of women walking along the street outside were wearing.

This, and the stunning rudeness of various drivers (I'm a bit embarrassed that I was rude right back in the finest traditions of Glasgow) drove us back to MG Road and "our" local. We imbibed a few too many cocktails and pitchers of beer, which did an awful lot to improve our mood, I'll grant you, then headed back to the ISI for crap film-watching and an early night for Ollie who conked out half-way through Doom with accompanying snores.

Sunday I felt like death warmed up (yay for colds, urgh). Some of the kids at work have been walking snot factories this week, so it was only a matter of time before I ended up with it. We puttered about the flat, did some basic cooking and I got on with the business of knitting my cardi.

Today is also a holiday, and Wednesday will be to. Hopefully we'll sort our train tickets out on Wednesday and get to Mysore for a couple of days. It's only 2 hours away by train, so I'm looking forward to that.