Mind in two palaces: three top weekends.

Udaipur: 29th April

First weekend away from Jaipur. We got an overnight bus. It felt nice looking out the window, wind in my hair, noticing how strange it felt to be led down whilst passing the familiar sights of Big Bazaar, Apex Mall (where I get off for work), the two bridges. Udaipur was, as expected, beautiful with it’s hills, the lake and narrow streets. It was a very indulgent weekend.. We looked around the palace, drank silly amounts of coffee, ate several muffins, meandered around the streets, drank beer, went on a boat ride, watched the sun set and we even got our palms read.

I’m very sceptical, cynical yet intrigued about palm readings. He said I’ll have a nice husband (he kept telling me that he’d be better than me); at least 7 more trips abroad; that I have an open heart and if it’s good or bad I’ll express it; that sometimes I get mind trouble; “your mind is in two palaces” he said “you’re always torn and confused.” “Use your mind properly” he said “ and don’t waste your time.” I will have 2 jobs, 2 sources of income. 3 Kids-1 girl, 2 boys. Marriage in early 30s. He said I drink too much. The funny this is though, last week I went to a jewellers and I got my palm read again to find out what "my gemstone” is. So I sat down and I noticed how he poked my hand more than looking at the lines. He said a lot of the same things which was weird- 3 kids, married in early 30s, will spend a long time abroad, that I’m romantic but overly emotional and think too much. Again, he said that I'll 2 jobs and that my mind is always in two places. My stone is the “catseye”-basically keeps the head/heart battle in check. He also said that I'm a "peaceful woman" but if i'm made angry it takes a long time to cool down. So apparently this will help me make more logical, less impulsive decisions. Now that’s good sales for you “This beautiful stone, that brings out your eyes, will balance you”.

They're not far off the "mind in 2 palaces" thing though-I know everyone is torn about things but I feel very indecisive at the moment. I'm a homebird with itchy feet which makes decision making difficult. I have a need for structure and a desire to feel rooted and obviously lots of people at home that I love but I always long for new experiences at the same time. There’s a happy medium there somewhere. We’re all scared of looking back on our life with regret-and there’s a risk of regret in whatever you do especially if you go too far either way. So whether it’s all just mumbo jumbo or not it's still thought provoking and the ironic thing my mind is “in two palaces” about whether to take any of this on board or not.....I must admit though I’m half tempted to buy the pendant!

Agra: 06/05/22

It’s hard to say what I thought of the Taj. Selfish I know, but I wish I could have seen it for the first time completely alone so I didn’t just feel like another tourist with a in some sort of weird production like; “ok stand there. Take a picture. Good. Now, move there-no, stand there. Smile.” It just feels a bit weird. Sat on the steps just through the archway (where everyone takes pictures) it was amusing watching people’s awkwardness when they had a picture taken alone in front of the Taj (we took mock awkward standing alone in front of the Taj pictures: see picture for my example!!) and watching massive tour groups in matching hats and families who looked so stern and serious as there picture was being taken.

I noticed, sat on the step, how some people walked through the arch, didn’t even look at the Taj and turned their back to it straight away and smiled ready for the picture. There’s something strange about the whole thing-yes there’s a romantic story behind it, but what makes some buildings so ridiculously more famous than others? I just found it all a bit weird and sort of forced somehow.




Jaisalmer 13/05/11

Probably one of the best weekends yet. Even getting to the train station was an adventure. We were running really late-we were still in the rickshaw with two minutes before the train was due to leave-“if you a play a song in your head, by the time the song finishes the train will have left” Michael reassuringly said. We got there about three minutes late. Ran to the entrance- couldn’t find the entrance-couldn’t find the platform, found the platform-it was over the bridge, spotted the train as it was pulling out-ran through crowds of people over the bridge half planning in the back of our minds what we’d do and where we’d go instead-as I ran down the steps I noticed the train wasn’t in sight but as caught up with Laura and Jerome I notice the train was STILL pulling out (they’re proper long). So we all ran as fast as we could, ducking and diving between people, caught up with the train, grabbed a rail of one of the doors, pulled ourselves up the steps and jumped onto the moving train, sweating and out of breath. We then had to stand there shoulder to shoulder with loads of other people squashed next to the toilet before we could get off at the next station and find our actual carriage, seats etc. By the time we got on the sleeper train we all slept like babies.

The camel ride was more relaxing- riding through rocky and sandy areas with trees scattered around and of course the sand dunes. The shadows, breeze, sun, the motion of the camel walking and clicking sounds the camel guides made to make the camels speed up and making various other sounds to communicate. When we stopped to rest under a tree our legs shook when we led down. We ate melon under the tree (the taste of melon always reminds me of being at my grandparent’s house in Essex, now I wonder if it’ll remind me of being in India ) drinking chai and sharing riddles and jokes with the camel guides-don’t ever try and explain how a “knock knock” joke works. Our guide was funny. He kept saying “hunky dory”, “lovely jubbly” and “diamond geezer” as well as randomly coming out with, accents, riddles and strange poems about chai, women and chapattis. My camel, Calu, was great too- very well behaved compared to the others. Bergit’s camel spent the whole trip randomly straying from the group to eat leaves off trees and Michael’s camel had mental health problems. We ate dinner by the sand dunes, watched the sun set, drank a couple of beers (which tastes 50 times better in the desert) and all sat around putting the world to rights as people almost instinctively do in contexts like this.

When you’re detached from everyday life- in the sea, on a mountain, in the desert-conversations always tend to become “deep” or reflective in some way as perhaps being in an alien situation makes you feel more objective or detached somehow. Anyway we named the desert “the desert of truth” that night as it managed to tease all our secrets and stories out of us. We didn’t have the “magically romantic” view of the stars but the night was interesting in a different way. It was, in all honesty a bit scary! We all had out blankets laid out on the sand dunes (that we, with childish glee, earlier ran across, rolled down and jumped about in) and shared stories as we fell asleep. I felt a bit like Truman in the Truman show looking at the sky and how dome-like it looked. It was cloudy but the moon was ridiculously bright you could see everyone clearly. Then the wind kicked in and the sand started hitting us and getting in our eyes, ears and mouths. At the same time there was silent lighting on the horizon either side of us and on top of it a beam of light on the horizon scanning and moving from the Pakistani border.

Then the wind kept getting stronger so we had to hold onto our bags, lie on our flipflops and tie our hats to our wrists with a scarf wrapped right round our faces. During the night my imagination was getting the better of me and I kept on picturing “The Mummy” and this bollywood I’d film I’d seen where a mother and son get separated- “Bambi” style-by a massive sand storm in my head. In the morning I woke up on Jerome’s blanket and mine was just a massive pile of sand. I’d drawn the short straw and was sleeping the side where all the sand was coming from. In the morning it was “hunky dory” though waking up to eggs, toast , chai and a sunrise over sand dunes. 3 top weekends. Only 1 weekend left to go and then I'm home again, home again-jiggity jig.

A 3D hindi horror, a wedding and nearly 90% happiness.

I struggle to keep up writing here as I feel so busy and have little time to reflect (and when I do have time to reflect I’d rather spend it reflecting, rather than writing about reflecting). But it’s been a while now and I feel a blog is overdue...... I’ve never known time to quite this fast-it’s ridiculous. It’s a double edged sward really, because on one hand it prevents me from missing home but on the other hand I feel a bit panicky sometimes that I’m not savouring it enough. It’s a bit like when you go to a posh restaurant really hungry-the meal is amazing and you know you should be taking your time and appreciating all the different tastes but you’ve waited all day to eat, you’re starving and end up guzzling it down so fast you hardly taste anything. Cheesy metaphor, I know-but it does feel a lot like that.

It’s just a bit of a whirlwind here, everything is in constant flux. Nothing is permanent, even for a minute so you end up feeling swept along by it all. You’re constantly facing beginnings and endings. Yes, I know that nothing is permanent but change feels more dramatic here somehow. Since my last blog loads of staff have left or moved camps, new staff have started, Caroline’s gone back to the UK, the volunteers from the volunteers house have moved in. Things are new, then familiar, then gone. People are new, then familiar then gone. So there’s hardly any use and certainly no time to get really attached to anything, whether it be a person or an experience or a certain routine. It forces you to “live in the now” I guess, which can’t be bad.
It’s nice to have a (really top) group of people to do things with though: read next to each other in silence, share Wednesday night beers with on rooftop bars, go to pizza hut and the cinema (3D hindi horror-scary and ridiculous with an amazing interactive atmosphere as everyone talks, cheers, whoops and claps throughout); singing dancing and cheering at the Rajasthan Royals game at the cricket stadium trying to spot Shilpa Shetta and Liz Hurley and learning the rules of cricket the night before thanks to a lesson from Michael....it’s all these little things put together that give me an almost constant buzz of excitement in my stomach.

Nearly 90 % of the time I feel really happy and content here. As always in situations like this feelings are intensified-when you’re “up” it feels bubbly, intense and sometimes even overwhelming-caught up in a parade of a wedding, dancing in B2B (club in the basement of a mall), in a rickshaw listening to music in the hot breeze...it catches you by surprise sometimes and makes you feel giggly and alive ....and when you’re “down”-which is very rare, thankfully, it feels intense again. It’s ridiculously hot here (as soon as you sit in the rickshaw you start sweating and at night the mattress feels like it’s heated) so at times my patience is low and the heat makes me tried and irritable. At times I catch myself with a strange knotty anxious feeling in my stomach and have that weird feeling like I’ve forgotten something. But feelings like that are just stirred up by the whirlwind of it all and swiftly pass.

In terms of the actual work I’m doing, I try to work as hard as I play! The logistical side of time management is difficult- keeping on top of what each member of staff has learnt, re-working the timetable when staff join, leave or move camps, lesson planning, making a syllabus and then juggling the bookings and volunteer feedback forms on top of it. Sometimes I feel like hitting my head against the wall when I feel a lesson drying up, or if something isn't going in or I run out of ideas. Like, at times I think it’s going well and then I pass a student on the stairs and they’ll say “I’m fine” out the blue or they’ll give you a cup of tea and as they put it down say “you’re welcome” before I have chance to say “thank you” and I doubt whether it’s working at all.
I can be stubbornly determined at times and because I’m not here for long I want to leave feeling like I’ve done something worth everyone’s time-but perhaps wanting to cram in and “achieve” too much causes more damage than good. I guess I’ve learnt you have to be guided by your students and not your own pride to do what you set out to do. So I’m learning to slow down a little.

The IDEX staff that I teach are top though-enthusiastic, funny and entertaining. With the higher level groups I learn more from then than they will ever learn from me -the rules of cricket, the ups and downs of development in India, women in India, education, food, politics, religion and the caste system. The lower level groups, so the cooks for example, are the most challenging group as some are illiterate, have never been in education and for one girl, Sunita, Hindi isn’t even her first language. Lessons are constantly interactive, energy consuming and fun. Sometimes it’s only me and Sunita in class and even with the language divide we still find ourselves giggling singing and dancing in the kitchen-“we dance in the kitchen” and when we make chai it’s a good time to revise “crush” and “ginger”- “I crush the ginger”. It’s hard work but a lot of fun and let’s face it, I prefer a challenge and to be busy than feel unstimulated and bored.


I’d love to be able to say that I feel changed or that I’m going to come home a “different person” but I must admit my experience in India hasn’t exactly been a spiritual one full of enlightenment, de-toxing and meditation. It’s been, in all honesty really fun and very indulgent. The food is so tasty that I don’t worry about how much I eat, I tend to get seconds and going to the sweet shop at the end of the street to buy a lassi has become nearly a daily ritual. The closest I’ve got to anything that goes much deeper than that is sitting on a camel on a tourist trap camel trek feeling all “one with nature”-in the middle of the desert, sleeping under the moon etc etc! It’s riiite, next time I come to India I’ll go on a spiritual journey, find myself, achieve enlightenment and go clubbing with the Dalai Lama whilst I’m at it and come home annoying calm and at peace with myself.....but for this trip, I’m going to carry on savouring it all and come home a few pounds heavier and a tan line instead.