Emasculated? Moi!

The Shangri La hotel New Delhi, a splendid example of how a hotel should be. Fabulous staff, first class food, luxurious surroundings and an oppulent swimming pool which was to be the scene of my first admission in person, that I am now a house husband. It was not something that I had given much thought to but it has become fairly obvious very quickly that ex-pat's and locals' alike, jump fairly swiftly to the conclusion that I would be that bread winner while "A" stays at home with the boys. We were befriended - all be it briefly - by a French couple who have lived here 4 years and use the hotel leisure facilities at the weekend. Things seemed quite amiable untill he asked the killer question.
" So what company have you moved out here with"?
It was the first time I have been confronted with the question and have to admit I thought about lying for a split second and saying Microsoft or Hewlett Packard but fronted up and replied.
" It is my wife's company we have come out here with"
"What are you going to do"? He enquired.
"I am going to stay at home and look after the boys"
I might as well have told him that I was a murderer. The look on his cheese eating face was one of pure horror. His eyebrows raised and his face distorted he said.
"So you will be dealing with all the shit"?

There we have it. In a nutshell, my future summed up by a Frenchman in a pair of speedos laying next to me in the kids pool. John Paul Sartre he may not have been but technicaly he was correct. I will be dealing with the shitty nappies and all the general shit that Indian bureaucracy can throw at me but do you know what? I don't care. I am really excited by it, not just the new way of life in a new country but having a hand in bringing up my boys. Watching them grow up and having a bigger input into the sort of men they will become and hopefully the lifetime bond that should come with it. House husbandry is going to be great if I can just remember to stop using dishwasher tabs in the washing machine!

With "A" up to her neck in it at work I find myself with long days to fill which is a doddle in 40deg plus heat when you have a pool, will it be the same when we move in to the new house? Time will tell but confidence is still high. The boys and I have taken regular forrays into the seedy streets of Parhar Ganj, visiting some of our old haunts and have reccy'd the area surrounding where we will be living (Shante Niketan). In the local market I finally got the beard shaved off while Raff had his haircut all for less than a quid! He also got a sharp introduction to the fact that chicken does not come in little packs off the shelf at Tescos enquiring:
"why is there smelly chickens in cages everywhere"
I didn't have the heart to tell him they were going in my Jalfrezi that night and told him they were all being sold for egg laying! The boys are settling in remarkably well and so far Raf has asked some pretty incisive questions about a place that is so far removed from Berko as to be another planet. A few examples include:
"Why do men always spit red"?
"Why do people with children always ask for money"?
"Why do people in cars stop and stare at us"?
"Why does India smell"? and my favourite so far.
"when I am a big boy will you build me a motorbike that can carry chickens"?
The answers all seemed to go in one ear and out the other but when I asked him what he thought the main difference was between Berko and Delhi, he thought about it for a second or two then replied:
"In Berko it doesn't itch as much when you get your haircut"!

So, great travel writers, politicians and philosophers of our time have struggled to come up with what makes our two great nations so different, yet my 4 year old sums it up in just a dozen words. What a genius.