DAY 167

This is one of the courtyards at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi, a big complex of buildings that houses several organisations working in the fields of environment and habitat ... and the American Diner (see Day 118) It was designed by Joseph Stein, who incidentally also designed the American School.

DAY 166

This absolutely made my day today. A beautiful, typical Guwahati-style house and my favourite Indian car: the Fiat Padmini. Check out the numberplate.

DAY 165

One of the things I love about India (I've probably said this before, sorry) is that when you go to different parts of the country, some things are the same but just a little bit different. Like this cycle rickshaw. It has a roof that extends to cover the cyclist. The ones in Delhi don't (see Day 151). Maybe because it rains more in Guwahati?

DAY 164

This is the Brahmaputra river. It's huge. It starts in China and ends in the Bay of Bengal. My colleague also told me that it's the only river in India which is named after a male Hindu god, Brahma, because of its infamously strong current. All the others rivers are female and named after goddesses.

DAY 163

My colleague told me that the market where I took these photos is very old. The produce is brought down the river from villages in Assam to be sold here every day.

DAY 162

[I'm cheating a little bit: the next five photos (including this one) were taken on Friday in Guwahati. I was there for a meeting. It's an interesting city on the banks of the Brahmaputra river: the capital of the Northeastern state of Assam. Last weekend I was in Hyderabad for work and didn't manage to take any photos, so I was determined to take some here.]
I liked this man's mobile tobacco and paan stall. The man behind him has just put a huge leaf of paan into his mouth, which is why he has a strange expression.

DAY 161

Guest photographer: Ed. Not bad, right?

DAY 160

Louie and Oslo went to their first birthday party in Delhi today.

DAY 159

Right next to the American School, probably the most expensive school in India, there is a slum with fairly permanent structures but no running water. I'm not sure how often this water truck comes.

DAY 158

I love this well stocked shoe shine stall near my office. Check out the office chair cushion he uses as a seat. And the brushes. And the shoes - whose are the shoes? A client's or the shoe shiner's?

DAY 157

Ed and I spent the morning yesterday in Pharaganj - Delhi's backpacker ghetto. It's still the same as it always was.

DAY 156

Today is the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan. Girls tie a 'rakhi' (a decorated sacred string bracelet) around their brothers' wrists, who in turn give them a present and promise to protect them forever.

DAY 155

Just around the corner from where we live. Also note white line of chalky stuff on the road. This is put down every now and then, especially near drains ... it's some sort of pesticide, maybe against rats? Cockroaches? Not sure.

DAY 154: FIVE MONTHS IN INDIA

I've finally managed to finish the film we made when we were in McLeod Ganj in the mountains at the beginning of July.

Here's the link:  http://youtu.be/b-K5ajiYors

:-) 

DAY 153

There are lots of walls facing onto the street in Delhi with tiles of Hindu gods and other religious symbols on them. Who wants to guess why they are there?

DAY 152

Oz is doing half days at school for the first couple of weeks. While they waited for Louie's school day to finish today, he and Ed went on the pedalos at India Gate.

DAY 151

Independence Day today.

DAY 150

We have our milk delivered every morning. It doesn't come in a bottle or a carton: it comes in a little plastic bag. I love the illustration, especially because she doesn't look particularly 'Slim n' trim'.

DAY 149

#3 in my series of shops on bikes. This is a roadside food stall on a bike. There's channa masala (chick pea curry) in the big brass drum and the little stove attached to the gas bottle is for cooking the parathas (I think - some kind of bread anyway) to go with it. Note the little bit sticking out on the left that serves as a board for rolling out the dough. Possibly my favourite so far.

DAY 148

Louie and Oz have started school! So far, so good.

DAY 147

Another in traffic photo I'm afraid. I seem to be spending a lot of time in traffic at the moment. This is the back of an auto rickshaw. The words say 'Ram Ram'. This is a religious saying and sometimes a greeting, to do with Rama, one of the incarnations of Vishnu. It's quite common for autos to have the name of a Hindu god or two written on the back. However, it's also quite common for drivers to write their wife or children's names on the back too. The other day I saw one that said 'Palak' which means 'Eyelid'. So I asked my colleagues: why would an auto driver write 'Eyelid' on the back of his auto? Apparently it's quite a common female name, so was probably the name of his wife. Imagine being called Eyelid, I thought.

DAY 146

Bit behind on the blog but I'll catch up. These stop signs are on the road near where we used to live. I can't work them out. There's another one that says 'Stop bribing'. I can't work out whether they're just stop signs that someone has done some clever graffiti on, or whether they're signs put up by the city council ... in which case it's a pretty odd message. Someone said they thought it meant that drivers should pay more attention. I'm not convinced.

DAY 145

This week I spent a day in a recording studio for one of the digital products that we are working on. Above the door to the studio was this plastic bag full of water. Apparently, this stops flies from coming in - they fly towards the bag, see a magnified version of themselves, get scared and fly away. Anyone ever heard of this technique before? It works, apparently.

DAY 144

Oranges aren't orange in India. Although actually these might be what are called sweet limes ... not sure. They're orange sized though.

DAY 143

This lives just down the road from us. Clever way of making the side car nice and light...

DAY 142

Guess what the latest obsession in our house is...

DAY 141

DAY 140

This morning we visited Humayun's Tomb for the first time since we've been back in Delhi. Great place for experimenting with my new camera.

DAY 139

If our car had a cousin, this is what it would look like. Saw it in Jorbagh colony today. It's a Ford Consul. Anyone ever heard of it? We hadn't before today.

DAY 138

Blue skies today. First time in a monsoon while. Lovely.

DAY 137

Hand powered blender at the juice stall outside my office. Check out the tap too. Totally brilliant.