Pesky rain.

Just to put a more manly stance on the last blog, I may not have been quite so philosophical if the rain hadn't stopped play for most of the day!Pesky Brittish summer time is playing havoc with my testosterone levels and I don't even live there!

www.Indiansingledad.com!

It is has been a strange week for the artist formerly known as Indanhousehusband. The loss of the better half has been a strange experience. It started out with a horrible foreboding, yet has actually been a good confidence booster. There was a huge amount of anxiety that very quickly slipped away on 'A's' departure.

I quickly realised that I am a fairly capable dad now. I know I can cope with the day to day grind of nappies, tantrums and tear ups but had wondered how I would cope without the relief that comes with 'A's' arrival from work each night. No matter how much fun and games I think I provide to the boy's each day, they still welcome the arrival each day of mum and a fresh face to entertain them. It is also a welcome relief for me to have some adult conversation and someone to share the day's stories with.

This set me thinking about how tough life must be for a single parent. How do they cope knowing there isn't going to be that key in the door at the end of the day, that relief of duty for the last hour before bed and that companionship that we all really need whether we like to admit it or not. I have the utmost admiration for how they keep mind and body together dealing with what is - whether us male of the species want to admit it or not - a tough job.It is easy for me 'playing at it' for a week knowing that 'A' will be back soon and all will be well but a month, a year or a lifetime, I can't comprehend.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am truly grateful that I am in a good relationship. That 'A' and I work really well as a team, that the boy's are happier with the two of us trying our best to make them happy. Most of all I really miss my wife. The thought of 4 day's of uninterrupted Ashes viewing is really no substitute for the love of my life and her safe return to our beautiful home can't come fast enough.

Beautiful game update

Further to my last post, I thought you might all be interested to know that my experiment with the communal water cooler was in fact a mistake. Consequently I may now have to also revise my weight loss from 8 pounds to about a stone by this time on Wednesday.Please think of me when you are moaning about the weather in Blighty!

The beautiful game!

It was an innocent enough conversation between My beautiful wife 'A' and Annand, a work colleague that ultimately left me in the sorry condition I find myself in today. Sorry condition? That actually doesn't come anywhere near doing it justice, if I was the proverbial horse, I would by now have been led out the back and unceremoniously blasted in the head!

In complete agony with a bad back, torn hamstring, constant cramp in both calves, blistered toe's, heel's and ball's of feet, not to mention alone - 'A' is UK bound with work - and all this on my 7th wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary darling I love you more today than ever, but will not forgive you for that pesky conversation with Annand!

'A' made the mistake of mentioning to Annand that I had played a bit of football in my time. Though this may be true, my time was unfortunately too far back in the murky depths of time to be remembered. I was introduced to him and he asked me to:

"Join me and a few friends on Sunday for a game"

It is very hard to say no to anyone here, as they are so genuine and enthusiastic about everything. Also it has to be admitted, I still fancy that I can "do a job" for any club, anywhere and at any standard if pushed! This clearly is a ridiculous thing to think and has been proved utterly incorrect on more than one occasion, however I just can't resist. Ever since I scored a 40 yarder at my cousin Nigel's 40th birthday game 10 years ago -it gets longer every time I see him - I still feel I have that little bit of magic to offer and thus agreed to play!

Mistake number 1!

Play however I did and though I may not be able to walk properly ever again I have to say that I really enjoyed myself. On arrival at our meeting point, the Hari Nagar sports complex it started to dawn on me that this wasn't going to be a Sunday afternoon stroll at the local park. This was a fairly serious affair with good facilities and what appeared to be a well kitted out bunch of athletic looking guys in their mid 20's. After a bit of stretching and 10 mins of knocking the ball about I was asked - due to my height as opposed to them witnessing my first touch I hope - If I played in goal. I replied that I was predominantly a defender but had played in the midfield quite a bit as a youth.

Mistake number 2!!

After a bit of pre match chat - which involved me telling anyone who would listen I was nearly 40 - it turned out that this was in fact the squad of the Delhi Cantt football club - yes that is cantt - a well respected member of the Indian fa national league!! I was so far out of my depth I was in danger of getting the bends and was seriously considering feigning a hamstring strain! The only glimmer of hope I had to cling to was that I am a good 2 stone lighter than the last time I pulled on a shirt and I no longer smoke. These faint glimmers were unfortunately completely overshadowed by the fact that it was still about 38 degs and 90 per cent humidity, the pitch was like concrete, the other players were younger and fitter not to mention acclimatised and I haven't played for a long time! I was in trouble and knew it. On top of this I had already drunk most of my 2 litres of water and we hadn't even kicked off!

Mistake number 3!!!

Now the fact that I had drunk my 2 litres of water will not seem like a problem to most people. Here however, drinking water from a source other than purchased bottles or home filtration systems is like playing Russian Roulette. The main difference being that instead of the contents of your head plastering the walls, the contents of your stomach plaster the porcelain. For about a week! This now left me with a serious problem, dehydration or dysentery?!! I felt like Bear Grylls in a pair of Adidas Gazelle and a yellow bib. I could hear his voice going through my head over and over again:

"In these conditions a man can die of dehydration in hours. He has to find water and fast but from a reliable source. Drinking contaminated water in this environment is an instant death sentence"!

All this and we hadn't even kicked off! I decided I had to drink or die and so filled my bottle from the communal water cooler a decision I am waiting to see if I regret! Finally we kicked off and I immediately stepped into the holding midfielder role, thinking I would just stand there, collect the loose balls and pass it on.

Mistake number 4!!!!

I seemed to have the responsibility in this position of picking up probably the best player in India. Within 10 mins of kick off I was ready to collapse. Shirt soaked, head spinning and breathing the way a goldfish does when tipped from the bowl. All ready to admit defeat and head for the side lines an extremely odd thing happened. I received the ball from the centre half with my back to the oppositions goal on the half way line. Summoning up all my powers of strength and concentration,I got on my toes ready to get my touch right when a cry of "man on" went up! Oh the sweet international language of football! I snapped out of my dehydration induced dizziness and as if in slow motion my body became at one with the ball. I rolled round 180 degs while bringing the ball under control and with a swivel of the hips and jink of the foot side stepped the on coming Indian Pele before stroking a perfect cross field ball to the feet of our left winger.It was like old times. I had remembered in that few seconds what it was like to play properly, how you know when something you did looks good from the sidelines, feels good inside and is respected by others on the park.This is why I was here, this is why I said yes, this is the buzz only football can give you! With a mixture of adrenaline and shock, I headed off down the pitch looking for a return pass from the tricky looking little Sikh winger thinking to myself maybe I can still play, more than that, if I can get fit I might still have a season in me, sod that I might even have a world cup in me!

Mistake number 5!!!!!

The return pass never came! Not only did it never come, I was now in a situation where I had to sprint to get back into position, this I duly did wanting to show willing for the team but knowing it was probably going to finish me off and boy did it. Realising the error of my way's I returned to my holding role and prayed for the end of the match. Half time came and now feeling the 4 litres of water I had consumed taking affect I asked the skipper where to go for a pee. His response was:

"Find a wall, make sure there are no women watching then go naaa"

Re-hydrated and rested over half time, I approached the second half with renewed vigour and a fourth wind. It was quite a surreal experience to hear players using phrases like "good shot", "man on" and "knock it" interspersed with their native Hindi.I started to think I know how it feels for the foreign import, thrust into a team he doesn't know speaking a language he doesn't but loving the game enough to put up with it. Javier Mascherano basically only taller, fatter and rubbish. The full time whistle came and not a minute too soon, we shook hands and I dripped off to the car with Annand to be deposited at home where I stumbled into the house near death. As I sat on the settee and basked in the aching limb glory of it all, I realised that I actually enjoyed it immensely. Though hard work and possibly doing damage of the long term variety, you just can't beat a game of football.It doesn't matter if you speak the same language, are the same colour, caste or ability it is the perfect game for male bonding anywhere in the world.

For the record,my side won 10-2, I drank 7 litres of water - and only pissed once - lost 8 pounds in weight, scored 1, made 2 and have been invited back to play next week with the coach's words echoing in my head

"We would like you to come again next week, you have good height"

Will I be going again?

Definitely.


Mistake number 6? !!!!!!

Don't look back in hunger.

There is more money spent each year in the USA on domestic garden products than is collected in tax every year by the Indian government, where the population is over a billion!

Staggering isn't it? I have to stop from time to time and remind myself just how desperately poor the majority of this country is. You can find yourself becoming so desensitised to the poverty surrounding you everyday, living in the relative wealth that we enjoy. No more than 500 yards from our home is a flyover where several families - including babies - eat, drink, wash and sleep. They fetch their water from a well on the other side of the road using a bucket on a rope. When you stop and consider it, it is so disturbing to think that people live like that in a civilised world, so close to one of the most upmarket parts of the city.

I had a moment last week were a beggar - a girl younger than 10 - came up to me at the traffic lights and rather than pester me for "one chapati sir" looked in and walked right past. She recognised me and realised that she had tried umpteen times before with no joy so wasn't going to waste her time again. It was only when she ignored me for the first time that I could actually comprehend the absurdity of the situation. What is more unusual, an 8 or 9 year old girl walking past you in the street and not asking for money or a shoeless unwashed 8 or 9 year old girl begging for money in 40 deg heat? The fact that I thought it was the former disgusted me. I felt Completely ashamed, guilty, and horrified that I had let myself think of this girl begging as normality and not something that the whole country should be ashamed of.

The problem is that the gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' here is absolutely massive and unlikely to change anytime soon. The 'haves'- the category we fall into -have the means to live an extraordinarily privileged lifestyle.They say that money can't buy you love, but here money can buy you time. Time to spend doing what you want to do with the people you love the most thanks to the drivers, nannies,cleaners, gardeners and cooks in your employ which are all par for the course. It seems so gauche sometimes to have all this staff but the guilt is balanced out by the fact that you are at least employing people and helping them to make a better life for themselves.The average wage is less than 1000 pounds pa and someone would be considered to be 'doing well' if they earned 4 -5 thousand pa!

Our housekeeper, Indu gets about 100 pounds a month which is a decent wage by Indian standards - and incidentally manages to put her son through university in Australia - but do we have a responsibility to pay her more? We are told not to by the Indian locals we know but I can't help but feel the status quo suits them. There has never really been much encouragement for the lower caste's to better themselves and the higher caste's would like to keep it that way but change has to come in this country from the bottom to the top and everyone needs to do their bit. We did ours this weekend by giving the housekeeper more money. It may not make a difference in the great scheme of things but it will do to Indu and at least we are trying. Lets hope the Indian government starts doing theirs sooner rather than later.

Marmite nation.

I met one of Amanda's work colleagues Jules a couple of nights ago and we had a great night out but something he said really got me thinking. Jules is a top fella who lives in the same part of London as we used to, eats in the same restaurants and drinks in the same bars we used to in fact he is very similar to us in a lot of ways. Yet when I asked him if he likes India I was surprised to hear him say he detests it! He could come up with countless reasons why he disliked it but when he asked us why we liked it so much we struggled to come up with anything remotely tangible. The thing about India is that it is complete Marmite - apologies for the plagiarism Reynolds! - People that have visited this country are always split straight down the middle when asked what they think. It is a country of such extremes and impossible to pigeon hole and that is part of the attraction for me. As the reasons we gave to Jules for our love of India held no sway I decided I am going to try and explain in greater depth why I love it.

I like living in a place where material gain is not the ultimate aim of people, a place where the goal's of most 'working class' families is to get the children a good education and teach them some morals. A place where people have a smile on their face but no money in their pocket's and are thankful for what they have, not bitter about what they don't have.I like all the little idiosyncrasies that would drive me nuts in Blighty like rickshaw drivers claiming to have no change (in the hope you will tell them to keep the difference),people not respecting queues anywhere,getting 'cut up' on the roads constantly and people trying to sell you something wherever you go. I like the fact that car's regularly drive the wrong way up motorways and it doesn't make headline news I like the climate,food,and beer, the city and the countryside. I like the fact that Sir is used to address each other and a smile is always returned.I like the fact that there is no compensation culture, that there is not necessarily a claim where there is blame and health and safety doesn't dictate how people live their lives. I like the fact that if someone arranges to come and do a job for you they come when they said they would with what they need to do it.I like the people,they are a kind, gentle friendly race full of joy and optimism not hate and cynicism.Basically a negative of how I sometimes felt I was becoming slightly in England. I like it most of all though because it seems to bring out the best in me. I feel more calm and patient, relaxed and at peace with myself here than anywhere else in the world and that is reason enough to love it.

Mclaren in India testing shocker

Lewis Hamilton has commented today on how happy he is with the new car and how good it was to visit India. Hopes are high now for his first victory of the season after a "dramatic rethink on how the car was set up". Lewis was quoted today as believing it to be "a radical re-design, stripping the car back to it's basics and starting all over again". A photo of the new design has today been released to the press after secret test sessions in Jaipur.

Nescafe moment brings peace to the roads

I have today been involved in my first incident of road rage. Well I say road rage, it was probably more,road mild irritation if truth be known.It wasn't even actually aimed at me, in fact scrub the first line completely and let me start this all over again.

I was in the back of a rick - where I seem to spend half my waking hours - when it overtook a man on a motorbike and blasted it's horn. To those of you who have been to India this will not seem too untoward, as - for those who haven't been - this is perfectly normal.Out here, the horn is actually a replacement for an indicator, brake light and reverse light and in the evening the headlight's. I am not exaggerating I promise the horn can mean any of the following at any time:-

I am overtaking you.
I am undertaking you.
I am turning right.
I am turning left.
I am going straight on.
I am stopping.
I know it is dark and I have no headlights but you will hear me if you can't see me.
Get out of my way you tit.
Why did you do that.
I am going to come past you whether you move or not.
I hate you and I want to kill you.

You get the message.

The point is that the horn means everything and nothing but when used it never usually raises any kind of reaction from the hornee (think I have just invented a word). You get none of the snarling and gesticulating that goes on in Blighty. No threats of retribution issued through the windows and never do you see people out of their car's at the lights ready for 'handbags' if you dare to lean on the klaxon. I have no idea what separates the Indian man - I say man because it is very rare to see a woman driving here which some might say is no bad thing, though not me obviously because I am in touch with my feminine side and think women are wonderful driver's who never have trouble negotiating roundabout's - from his British counterpart but am going to make it my mission to find out.

Can you imagine what I can achieve if I can get to the bottom of it? Take a busy London road in 40deg heat with everybody cutting each other up and beeping at each other but just getting on with it. It would be Shangri La, Utopia and Heaven all rolled in to one, the roads would once again become a pleasurable place to be. It is my mission from this moment on to discover the secret and bring peace to the UK roads,and all because a little fella on a scooter gave the universal signal of (i know not many under 40's will get this reference but I am going to use it) Gareth Hunt coffee bean shaking! Watch this space.

A tryst with destiny

"A tryst with destiny" is the fabulous phrase used by Nehru, when India gained it's freedom from imperial rule in August 1947. A momentous day in the history of India- who had spent century after century under the rule of one nation or another- and a phrase that resonates greatly in me at the moment. It was while picnicking by India gate on a humid, steamy Sunday night that I realised fully for the first time since our arrival, that this really does feel like the right thing to be doing. This is right for my family and I, it is where we belong, where we feel complete.

India gate is a magical place to be at sunset, particularly on a Sunday when all the Indian's regardless of caste, wealth or age come together to do what they do best. Pose! Star crossed lovers promenade up and down in the throes of courtship, extended families meet up for ice cream, even the eunuchs are out to preen their feather's. The most prominent group though is undoubtedly the single male. They stroll around in vast gang's holding hand's in a display of availability that is matched no where in the animal kingdom. The Indian male of the species is a particularly vain beast and personal grooming is very high on their agenda. There are several male grooming salon's in every market square and a barber chair on every street corner. Great care and attention is taken to make sure the moustache - a dying look in the UK much to my dismay being a secret admirer - and hair is in perfect condition at all times. These people, all here as the sun goes down behind the imposing war memorial posing, preening, promenading and courting, but most of all staring at the odd bunch of Westerners with the enormous blonde baby!

Oh yes, quite a stir is caused wherever we venture with the chunk that is Silas and India Gate on a Sunday night is certainly no different! People queuing up just to get a glimpse, hanging around long enough to pluck up courage to get a photo or even better a hold of the beast. We have seen it all before though with Rafa. When he was a baby and we travelled here one of my favourite memories is of being at the Taj Mahal on my parent's 40th wedding anniversary staring up at the beauty and majesty of the world's most spectacular building, then turning round and seeing most of the people there photographing Rafa! I remember so many times like that, looking around and trying to savour the moment and wondering where we would be in 3 or 5 years time. Hoping we could find a way to get back to this wonderous country that we both love so much and here we are again.

It feels like a fait accompli as I watch 'A' playing cricket with Rafa and Silas eating everything in sight and I can't help but wonder what the next few years have in store for him and the rest of us. There is a small sense of vulnerability as it is not solely in my hands and I don't want this happiness taken away from me. As the fear rises though I can't help but keep remembering that beautiful phrase - a tryst with destiny - and feel assured that this is probably ours.