Stories from Matt.

Blogger Late Than Never

In which we post some pics and have a chat.

So I haven’t been back to the blog for a fortnight and more. I hope some of my readers will persist – as I’m averaging about 8 hits per post, I really can’t afford to lose any of you.

The “toxic” cloud of “poisonous gasses” persists.

This view from our car will give you some idea of the atmosphere. It actually got a lot worse since my last report.

I’m giving the adjectives toxic and poisonous “bunny ears” in my description, simply because of how quickly one becomes complacent about living in these conditions.

A couple of weeks ago, as the smoke reached what would be considered “disastrous levels” almost anywhere else in the world, I began to see reports on international news sites about Delhi’s air quality crisis. Reports invariably loaded up with those scary adjectives “toxic, poisonous, cloud of death”.

I don’t want to play it down. It really does kill people, but – and the effect has been likened, by scientific type simile builders, to smoking fifty fags a day – like smoking or working, it does so through a slow process by which the victims aren’t really able to make the connection between their illnesses and the cause.

So the overwhelming majority of Indians just go about their normal daily lives, ignoring the air around them, tolerating the constant feeling of having an unpeeled kiwi fruit stuck behind their larynx, and absolutely do not attempt to take any precautions against the “toxic,poison,hell-fart” that it is their lot to endure.

It is something of a window on the Indian person’s attitude to life, I’ve found.

Nevermind the mild inconvenience that might take you to an early grave.

Just shrug it off and get on with the business of the day.

Monkey Business

For a couple of days last month, the business around our neighbourhood was monkey.

*grammar note* if I ever knew the collective noun for monkeys, I have forgotten it now.

This small troupe of the local monkey species, lives somewhere nearby, no idea where, but New Delhi has a lot of green spaces, parks and reserves.

When they come through the street, all the local dogs (there are a lot of local dogs) go nuts. Last time they came by, they got into a rumble with some construction workers, who had been renovating the house across from ours and attacked our security guard, who tried to fend them off with a length of sprinkler pipe. Then, having established their authority, they camped on the roof of the house next door for two nights.

I am hoping to see them around here on a regular basis. Sure they’re a bit scary, actual wild animals, with thumbs, but they really liven things up!

More pics’n’chat coming this week – I promise