Saturday 9th February

Saturday 9th February

Many MANY years ago I lived in a sort of big barn.  I longed for the day when I could move into my beautiful new house, with its red carpet and black slate floors – yes you can date the house project by this; it was indeed 1979 - so I could invite my neighbours and be just a bit respectable… I had everything looking as schmick as possible and settled back with my three small girls to await the (very critical) visitors about to arrive.  “Mummy I’m THIRSTY!”  Well of course they were thirsty; children are never-endingly thirsty and hungry, aren’t they?  I smiled lovingly (I was VERY happy, in my new partly-finished house,) and went to get a brand new bottle of blackcurrant juice… And oh OOPS it slipped out of my hands and smashed, on the brand-new black slate floor… I don’t think it is possible, in words, to do justice to the sticky, horrible mess.  The thick syrup went everywhere, and there were fine slivers and large chunks of broken glass tastefully stuck in between the tiles, which weren’t properly grouted (in fact, they didn’t get properly grouted until we put the house on the market nearly 20 years later…)

I gave a startled cry of distress and galvanised into action…bucket, mop, Handy Andy, towels, three small girls whose already stickyfeet had to be purified… I mopped and MOPPED and wiped and swept up glass, and hoped against the odds that my visitors wouldn’t notice.

They did notice; how could they not?  The floor was still sticky; squelch squelch, went many pairs of feet as women walked and children scampered across the vast expanse of sticky smeary slate…

India #84

At some late hour in the evening we all went down to the Racecourse Hotel, about 500 metres from the Club where we were staying.  This was Amed’s idea.  (Vish’s nephew)  He finishes work very late and loves to stay up till all hours.  Anjuli, who is also a dentist, doesn’t work so late and she prefers to get up early so the poor woman was just about asleep with her head in her plate by the end of the evening while Amed was sparkling away on the other side of the table.  Anjuli gets up very VERY early, about 4.30, to cook a hot breakfast for her teenage girls, who get up at five to eat and then study.  They are very ambitious and both want to be dentists too – I have probably already told you this but never mind…

         

There was a very big round table for all of the Sharmas plus hangers on (ie Pete and me).  Amed’s sister Seeta, who lives in London, her husband Amit, their daughterRani, plus us four Tasmanians.  Rani works in London in some very high-powered bank job and is engaged to Nigel, who was about to be posted to Kabul.  She and her parents were in India to organise a huge Indian wedding for the two of them in February this year.  This was an enormous task, as you can imagine.  People were flying to Mumbai from all over the world, and food, clothes, venues had to be found and organised.  I talked to Seeta about this for a while and it made my head spin, because she is mostly organising it from London, this was only a fleeting visit.  I was profoundly grateful for Claire’s and Stuart’s lovely, simple wedding which was all being planned and organised in my absence… Rani was a lovely girl, in her late twenties, and she spoke so lovingly of her Nigel and of their future together in – gulp – Kabul and beyond.  So we were all very sad to hear, after we got back to Tasmania, that it is all off.  No wedding this year at least.  Some problems with visas, her job transfer, whatever.

         

When we had finished our delicious meals it was time to stroll on back to the Club.  But no it wasn’t!  The big high steel gate had been locked.  The only way back was to walk around the streets, maybe a kilometre or so.  We were OK with this idea although it was extremely hot.  Amed thought this was a terrible idea; anything might happen to us!  He said he would drive us back, which meant making about three trips in his small car.  “No need for this!” we shouted, as one.  “We are Tasmanians, we can climb over the gate!”  Amed didn’t think we could, not at all.  Three of us, after all, were LADIES.  He rushed ahead to negotiate with the racecourse security guard – surely he could unlock the gate for us, just for a few seconds?  But no, the guard was haVing none of it.  In the meantime we marched up to the gate, looking purposeful.  I went first, up and OVER.  Not it wasn’t all that easy, it was high with spikes on the top, and I was wearing a fairly flimsy dress.  I think I achieved my climb with great speed but not much dignity.  I dropped to the other side to find some young blokes on motorbikes, who had pulled over for a smoke and a chat, staring at me totally gobsmacked.  A few seconds later Hana dropped beside me, closely followed by Mary, Vish and Pete.  We were home and hosed, and had saved Amed several trips round and round the block.  As well as this, we had entertained what was by now a reasonably large group of fascinated young men.