suzanne in the sub continent

monday was officially the first day of spring in india, celebrated with a festival called vasant panchami, when hindus wear yellow and the world is a brighter, happier place. i wore a borrowed yellow suit and welcomed in the spring by returning to rishikesh, the heavenly town on the ganges, which is surely hippy paradise. i've made friends with a charming man who runs a small restaurant/guest house on the banks of the river and is very discerning about the people he allows to eat/stay there. unlike indians everywhere else, who are always trying to intice you into their shops, he turns away anyone he does not like the look of; the lucky ones are welcomed with open arms and fine japanese/italian/chinese food (and splendid homemade spinach bread) and charged a measly rs 50 a night to sleep with the most fantastic view of the ganges. i wasn't even allowed to pay the rs 50 however, or to pay for my dinner, as i provided a couple of hours of violin playing instead. rishikesh offers yoga classes galore and every other person walking the paths along the river is a sadhu dressed in saffron, lending a very spiritual, peaceful air to the whole place. i took a great yoga class in a hall overlooking the ganges and was able to the see the lights of the pooja that takes place every evening on the river in front of the main ashram, listening to the drums and chanting as i attempted to balance on my head. pretty special.
as much as i love it, i am not going to move to rishikesh, as i joked to the pestalozzi director (who has already lost enough house mothers this year), but am certainly keen to return as often as my off days allow. meanwhile back in dehradun, the sun is shining brightly and it really does feel as if spring has sprung. the birds are tweeting loudly, the trees are blossoming, and the monkies are going mental. they stole one of each of three pairs of my favourite woolly socks from the roof. why didn't they just take a pair, instead of leaving me with three odd socks?

india is a treat for the senses: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations

things i notice...
sights - the cows, freely wandering the streets, looking for any eatables (as everyone calls edible foods), sometimes adorned with colourful necklaces, bellies perhaps swollen with young; a bull with pained horns. although i have never seen them being aggressive, the children keep their distance, afraid. but i watch this nationally celebrated animal up close, touching the camel-like hump in bemusement, just what is it for? also the monkies, swinging, arguing, grooming and pulling faces, so like humans.

sounds - chanting from the hindu temple round the corner, which i sometimes wake to, but which starts before my morning alarm, and is audible again after dark. then, the clear ring of the little bell we use to signal the start and end of classes/dinner etc. which i've not heard since my days at primary school. i remember the excitement these children have of occasionally being allowed to ring it. then the car horns! i can only imagine that it is for the simple fun of making noise that the indian drivers use their horns so much, as blowing the horn achieves very little in stationary traffic, other than to illicit an equally noisy reply from neighbouring vehicles.

smells - incense, filling the air of the busy market streets, in contrast to the rancid smells lingering around overfloing bins or the smoke of rubbish (plasic and organic) being burned. or the slightly sickly, unfamiliar smell that fills the house once a week when the milk cream is boiled to make ghee (each morning i scoop the hardened top off the large bowl of milk that was heated the night before and collect this thick cream in a tub). the leftover liquid is used to make wonderful homemade halwa, which is soft and totally different to the hard, pure honey & sesame halva we have in the uk.

tastes - cardamom is the first taste of the day as i crack pods with my teeth to make either chai or cowboy coffee (heated in a pan, like the tea, then strained). followed by the joy of chilli. hot chilli sauce on chipattis and dahl, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. the chilli makes my nose run and lips burn, but even as i gulp down water to ease the pain, i am reaching for seconds. there is a perverse pleasure in sucking air through my teeth to try and cool my burning, watering, mouth, and it surely adds a bit of fire to the freezing temperatures? in contrast to the chilli, yummy indian sweets. sticky; hard; infinitely varied. whole shops are dedicated just to sweets, with shelf after shelf of colourful, neatly displayed treats.

sensations - feeling the water of the river ganges flow over my feet; the sun on my face after a freezing night; and, i'm afraid, the pain of chill blains in my fingers (who would have thought i'd come to india and get chill blains! many of the children are suffering too) and the irritation of nits in my hair. aren't children just wonderful?