The final count-down

In 24 hours or so I'll be back at Indira Gandhi International airport checking in with Air France and what I hope will be a relatively shortish journey back to Steenhive. There are, as you may imagine, a variety of emotions coursing through the veins today! I haven't exactly said farewell to Mother Teresa's as I'm going back tomorrow to foist my fashion sense (or lack of it!) onto the guys with all my western clothes. I just know that this will be a "ball-breaker" as Sister Maria has told me that the guys have really taken to me, and she is such an honest person that I can't see her ever telling a "porky-pie".

My thoughts about the whole thing are difficult to quantify or indeed put into paper/writing, but I hope that the blog has been a wee taster of the sort of time I've had the privilege of having here in Delhi. This is particularly the case at MT's, more so than the Habitat Learning Centre, since the need at the former is so much greater!

Has India changed me? Without a shadow of a doubt it has had the most profound effect on my attitude towards things commercial. I won't say that I'll not be trying to cut a deal wherever possible and for whomsoever I'm working for, but the fact is that no matter what problems we (collectively) have in life, then we can all rest assured that they are as nothing, in comparison to the residents of MT's. On that basis my patience has been forced to review it's speed of running, and to adopt a more pragmatic approach to life at a slower pace. The grinding poverty some of the 1.2 billion people live in without a state safety net of social security is not a pretty sight, but they are still entitled to dignity as that has no monetary value, and at that price dignity is cheap for everyone.

I said in an earlier post that the paradox of India is the extremes of everything; wealth, health, technology and kindness to some animals while at the same time demonstrating an almost blase approach to death in all of its forms (accidental, suicidal, homicidal, fratricidal, matricidal and any other "cidal" you can think of). The Billionaires against the 20 rupees a day labourer (if he gets paid at all). The leading lights in I.T. and medicine and the almost middle ages style of rural agriculture where the tools and methods are still the same as those of the 13th century.

India is a very proud and ancient civilisation, there is a passion about being Indian which is endearing and unlike other forms of nationalism which I tend to gloss over. In a society where there are so many forms of religion, they exist side by side, with each being equal in everyones eyes (a lesson there for Scotland!). Their constitution has this equality cast in a tablet of stone and no-one would dream of trying to dismantle the status quo in that area. There is a paranoia which I found disconcerting when it comes to Pakistan, the antipathy towards their near neighbour is tangible and is one area which has the capacity to really set the region alight if it's not kept under lock and key.

The quirks of India have been too numerous to mention here, but the traffic, and their propensity for beeping the horn of whatever they're driving both night and day, is a drain physically and mentally while you're in it, yet there seems very few instances of "road-rage" which is perhaps a "Hindu" thing and, the being re-born dependant on how you've behaved in this life. Which brings me back to guy who comes into MT's every week on a Thursday with cakes/sweets for all the male and female residents. The Barber who gives up his time to give the guys a shave and hair-cut once a week free gratis. Neither of these two guys are "Christians", they're both Hindi! (Mmmhh can't see that happening in some of Scotland's cities)

So "Mera Dosts" with a heavy chunk of sadness at leaving Delhi and it's people whom I've really taken to, here's a final Namaste from the "effin ref". In fact I don't think I was that bad a referee.