Child Abuse

I do not believe what just happened. I was sexually harassed by a 7 year old child. Just came back from the movies in PVR Select City Walk and tried to catch an auto. As I was bargaining, about 5 small children walked up to me and started begging. I took my bag in my arms and ignored them for the rest, but they insisted. Two of them were holding my hands really tightly, another one started pulling my bag. The fourth put his arms around me and squeezed my body. Suddenly the fifth one was deliberately touching my chest. Then I did something I thought I could never do. I got so angry that I became aggressive and pushed the kids away in a quite strong way. I could finally jump into the auto as they got a hold of my bag again and drove away. The whole time there were about 5 auto guys standing around me, not doing anything.

Rose Petals and Tooth Paste

Just had my second Indian pedicure. I never want a Belgian one anymore!

You walk into some dirty indoor market in Gulmohar Park in Delhi, one floor up. You make your way through the dust and find the entrance to this small beauty parlor Excellence. The door and windows are tinted so you actually don't know what kind of place you are about to walk into, but you do it anyway because you were told to. You open the door and there is this older man sitting at a desk, as if he were a lawyer, and a couple of maroon colored ladies in all kinds of Indian races standing around. The older man tells you to go through a curtain. It leads to the actual beauty parlor, which, to you, looks more like a hair salon. In this area there are even more of these maroon females, all of them looking very surprised to see a white woman entering their kingdom. Then one of those maroons asks you what you want to have done. You mention you want to have a pedicure. At first it looks quite impossible as you don't really see a space that could accommodate a pedicure. There are only these hair saloon seats, but ok, you are open minded and do not have any expectations.
Then your maroon starts running around the small area gathering all kinds of attributes from magazines up to tooth paste and yellow bottles and a big basin of steaming hot water with rose petals and all other kinds of today's greeneries found in the backyard. At the same time, you feel these other maroons are staring at you through the mirrors.
Then the practical part of the pedicure becomes clear: you stay in the hair saloon seat and the maroon sits on this small tabouret doing the footwork on her lap. Not like the European way where you lie down and she does the work while sitting on a chair.
First she removes the nail polish from your toes and cuts the nails if you respond yes to the question whether you want to have your nails cut. Maroon asks if you want a facial. You say no. Then she puts some kind of greasy yellow cotton on each of the nails followed by a soak in the hot steaming bath (my feet have never been so red) full of rose petals, greeneries and soap. “Didi, facial?” “No”. Then it's time for the tooth paste. No it is not for brushing, it is supposed to whiten the nails. “Didi do you want some juice” .
Then comes the good part. She pulls up this kind of foot scrubber tool which you have never seen before . She takes one of your legs, lifts it up in the sky and starts scrubbing with full force. That’s the point when you cannot manage to read in your magazine anymore. You feel extremely ticklish, painful and an indescribable necessity to kick the maroon ... but you love it. And after several rounds, your feet are free from hard skin and are clean. And you somehow just feel exhausted. “Didi, after one foot you have to give me the other one” maroon says. And other things in Hindi that you don’t understand.
Then comes the regular hard skin scrubber which she uses with the same force. The kicking necessity flings up again.
After all that is done, maroon removes the basin and puts your feet onto her lap. She takes some ... yes .. maroon... massage oil and starts rubbing you legs and feet with a strength that you have rarely seen before. She is basically beating you up. Especially when she inserts her knuckles into the soles of your feet, pressing spots you never even knew they could be painful. But the sensation afterwards is so relaxing!
Finishing touch with nail paint and of you go.

I said: "Maroon, you are one strong woman!" and tipped her.

Contraceptive

Although the Indian government has been campaigning a lot to increase the usage of condom, India's young upper class' sense of an contraceptive is more of an after-the-deed matter. Whereas many women in Europe take the normal birth control pill everyday and in case of an accident, gather all their courage and visit the pharmacy for an emergency pill, Indian young women seem to be very comfortable with not caring and find buying the emergency pill every time after sex the easiest way to prevent pregnancies. Not even mentioning that emergency pills do not protect in anyway against STDs. "No condom? No worries, there is the emergency pill ...".

The morning-after-pill is actually a very high dose of the regular birth control pill and messes a lot with a woman's hormones, causing many side effects, especially when taken regularly and when taken at a too young age. Emergency pills are not meant to be taken on a regular basis but are meant in case of ... as the name says ... emergencies.

The one to blame for this recent behaviour in India is definitely the manufacturer of the brand "i-pill". India's TV channels do not show advertisements for regular birth control pills or condoms but do show plenty of clean, family planning advertisements for "i-pill". "i-pill" sales have been rising a lot after it become a rage for Indian young people and the ignorance of the young people about the "i-pill" is striking: it is considered "a contraceptive method" as any other.

Long live sexual education!

Good excuse ...

Always wondering what kinds of excuses to use if you want to stay one day longer on your vacation? Try this one:

I was asked to join a filming crew on their quest for monkeys (rhesus macaque) in the Shimla area with my still camera. The goal of the documentary, by All Time Productions, was to show how monkeys and humans influence each other's life, after deforestation has lead the monkeys to migrate into the cities and onto the fields.

The last day, we were filming in some fields in a village about four hours from Shimla, connected to the city by an unpaved road on the edge of the mountains. We went down to the crops, talked to some children who are put to work on the fields to scare away the monkeys and then did an interview with the school teacher. By that time, big dark clouds were gathering around the mountains and soon it began to rain really hard. After tons of water, the rain became less strong and we went on with an interview with a farmer's family.

When we finished, we were supposed to return to Delhi. The locals explained us that the road was closed from the left due to a landslide, so we had to do some detour and take the road from the right. We thanked the locals, said good bye and left for Delhi. After a couple of kilometers there was a jeep standing still, in the middle of the road. We took a good look and it appeared there was another landslide, blocking the road. So yes, it happened: we were stuck between two landslides on a five kilometer stretch. It took about three hours of work by the locals and our crew (of course the ladies didn't do anything). Trees, shovel, stones, rocks ... everything was used to prepare the landslide to be surmountable. The jeep succeeded quite early but our Toyota Innova took a bit longer.

With high hopes of reaching Delhi early morning after a full night of driving, we continued our journey.
- And no, the story ain't finished yet. As you can see there is more text following, so you can expect something else to happen. - And it is ...... bam bam bam bam ....... Tension tension......... Yes .... thank you Murphy ....... A BIG ROCK on the road. It was a couple of huge rocks that fell on the road, a couple kilometers further, making it only possible for a motorcycle (Indian English translation = bike) to cross. Stuck between three landslides. And superman just didn't want to pick up his phone. Bloody Lois.

Luckily we knew where the guy with the jeep was staying, so we drove back to the village between the second and the third landslide and could enjoy his lovely hospitality. It was a gaon with about 7-10 houses and many fields. The family served us dinner and breakfast (last food we had was breakfast), offered a bed and a good laugh!

The next day, the landslide was supposed to be cleared by 11 am. After breakfast we left as we were told it was cleared up. We arrived ... surprise surprise ... it was still there.... But some landslide removers were there, trying to hammer the rock in order to make it smaller. It became very obvious that this would take a long time. So they decided to extend the road instead. Now this road extension plan is the most marvelous thing I have ever seen. You have to imagine the edge of the mountain next to the road which is really steep... so there was not really anything that could serve as a support for the road extension. But these men were the best engineers I have ever seen. They started gathering huge rocks from everywhere and they managed to make this steady extra one meter of road supported by nothing in two hours! No education, no nothing ... but Master Engineers! So we passed and drove to Delhi and arrived at 3-4 in the morning!

I hope Murphy left us somewhere in Himachal ...

ps: and all this with me suffering from the dhaba food and no toilet paper ... gotta do it the Indian way, which allegedly reduces the risk of colon cancer (the squatting position, not the water part)

Aam Ka Achaar

A couple of days ago, the servant forbade all women from the office to touch the big jar of mango pickle. Without using many words the reason was given as such: when a woman is menstruating she is impure. This will cause the pickle to go bad soon. Since it was such a big jar, the servant didn't want to take any risk. He said: "the pickle had gone bad before here, there must have been some woman touching it".
Ok, I am culturally sensitive, the servant is not very well educated and this superstition is historically and hygienically explainable but there are two weird things:

• We are not menstruating the whole month, so why can we never touch it?
• Today I asked the servant to give me some pickle and he asked me to give him a spoon, as I was standing closer to the cutlery. So I touched the spoon which he used to go into the pickle jar, and he didn't object.
  

Blez

White water rafting in Kaudiyala.
The guy in the back in blue was already being stupid the whole time. During the rafting, I saw something blue on the hill and I asked him what it was. "Is that a temple". "No" he said, "it's a blez". I said a what? He said: "a blez". I asked: "is that Hindi". He said "Hindi, English, both". I looked at my Indian colleague and she had the same surprised expression on her face as me. I said "I'll look it up in the dictionary". He said "yes do that". Then he started explaining what it was. He said it is like a village but only a couple of houses, like three or four. As he was saying this, I suddenly remembering the servant also using this word.
Then at home we tried to look it up. English dictionary: nothing. Hindi dictionary: nothing. We thought - that word just doesn't exist. But the servant also knew it so we continued our search.
Suddenly my indian colleague figured it out ....................................................................

In must have come from the word village, which with the accent changed to billage..... blage....... blez.

Anyone else has an idea?

Alexandre

Alexandre,

that day you chose ...

since that day ...

the sky doesn't have the same color

since that day ...

you feel more peaceful

since that day ...

we feel pain

since that day ...

we miss you

Cute Indian Vodafone Commercial

Happy to help!

Jungle Book

Who doesn't remember Disney's jungle book. Based on Rudyard Kipling's classic novel, it is the story of the little boy Mowgli stranded in a jungle and brought up by Bhageera as a human cub.

Now being in India, the characters' names make so much more sense. Baloo the bear comes from the Hindi word Bhalu (bear). Akela means alone (the wolf). Shere Khan (sher means tiger). Hathi the elephant ... and I guess there are many other ones I do not know about yet.

"the simple bare necessities"

Wood work

Found some picture of me wood working. For the ones who never believed me.

Rain

It rains in Delhi.
Delhi doesn't smell like Delhi, it smells like rain with a small dash of Delhi.
People are happy.
Dust is gone.
Little flooding here and there.
It smells like rain.
In Delhi.

Leaners

Went to the movies today and had to come across this Indian phenomenon what I would like to call "leaners". It happens when a white girl sits in the movie theatre and the guy she does not know next to her finds it necessary to lean towards her side instead of his friends' side during the whole movie. The girl is not able to sit comfortably without touching the guy's arm with her arm. Not really much she can do, when she leans back, he leans even more towards her. When she tries not to touch him, she has to sit in an uncomfortable position, and the guy leans towards her side even more. She thinks talking wouldn't make sense as the "leaner" would never admit "leaning". She also doesn't want to create any fuss as she just wants to watch the movie.
So to all "leaners" out there, take a white inflatable doll with you, put her next to you in the movie theatre, and LEAN as much as you want.

Carrot

Get rid of your prejudices. Not all carrots are orange.
The Indian carrot is tasty, juicy and RED!

Hand Luggage

A couple of days ago I was browsing through the net, looking for some well written information on what to bring or not to bring in your hand luggage when flying. I found a Yahoo Question with loads of Yahoo Answers. The question was "What can and cant go in my hand luggage?". In between all the serious answers mentioning: no knifes, 3 oz, no weapons, 100 ml, ... one guy wrote this answer
"just hands..... nothing else... just hands"

MMMmilk the sequel

There is also the-bring-your-huge-bucket-insert-a-token-press-the-button-pour-into-the-bucket milk. Also known as Token Milk. As if the cow (or buffalo - whatever milk it is) is in the machine, being milked right where you are. Very useful in case you are a big milk fan. I'll have some vanilla pudding, norwegian brunost, yoghurt, creme caramel, filmjölk, kheer, creme brulee, paneer, ice cream, swedish cheese with osthyvel, banana shake and some more vanilla pudding. Thank you.

In the margin: To finally solve this international war about who invented the cheese slicer. Thor Bjørklund patented it in 1925! If he really invented it doesn't matter, the patent is important. Now shhhhh!

MMMmilk

When I think back about my primary school days, what I remember most is the sour smell of the small milk cartons the teacher used to give us during the break. The brand was Joyvalle - AA Milk. Milk that (according to the package) came from lush green fields, with clean rivers and singing yellow birds. I always wondered why there weren't any cows in the picture.

Now I have traveled and tasted and now I can say, there is REAL milk out there. My first encounter was in some really small skiing resort in the alps in France where we got milk fresh from the cow, the fat still on top of it! Yummy.

Then I found there is also such a thing as good packaged milk, when I came to Sweden. The milk doesn't stay well for that long but at least it tastes like darn good milk! Long live Arla and the Swedish Cows ... Moooohh.

Now in Delhi, Mother Dairy has bedazzled my taste buds. Their milk doesn't come in cartons or bottles like we are used to, but in plastic soft packages, like refill dish washing soap. It takes some practice and luck to open the packages and pour them in a container, but it's well worth your efforts. Again, doesn't stay good for a long time, but TASTYYYYY! And when you leave the milk for a few hours, there will be some treat on the side of the container, nice and thick cream, left for you and your spoon!

I am a definitely a fan of milk!

The return of Sabena

I thought our former airline Sabena was burried. But it is not really dead, it is living on as an independent flight academy in Brussels. It is now expanding and has plans to open an aviation academy in India, Hyderabad. Read the article here.

Holiday hai!

This weekend was very festive in India. It started with Mawlid, the birth of Prophet Mohammed for the Muslims on thursday, then Norooz for the Zoroastrians on friday, Holi on Saturday and Easter on Sunday.

Almost every religion was celebrating their festival. Their own, the other. Just celebrating.

Close to eachother.

Different religions. Respect. Together. One country.

Happy MaNoHoEa!

Do you sell witte pitloze druiven?

Yes I do, the fruit seller said...

I am still making sure I am in India and not in Suriname. Why would anyone want a Dutch description of the food in India? I don't even need it.

Belgium in the newspaper again ...!

In the global section of the newspaper, right next to Obama with an open mouth, an article about the death of Hugo Claus. I guess the importance is the way he died as I cannot really imagine that his work would be of any importance for the Indians. Anyway it's the short version of the AP article, so an Indian touch is hard to find.

Yes I do my little turn on the catwalk ...

Big news! A boob.

India was turned upside down by a Belgian Model, Debby, showing a dress designed by Rajesh Pratap Singh in Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. One of the shoulder straps accidentally slipped off and a glimpse of her left breast was visible. She was in all Indian newspapers but the articles weren't so positive ... People believed it was done deliberately to spice up the show.

It appeared in the Indian media right after it happened, only today it was mentioned in Belgium.

Debby will never forget this rather trivial "wardrobe malfunction".

The Result

My Gastro-Duodenoscopy

Note: What follows is a description of a medical procedure from the patient’s point of view. Sensitive readers might prefer not to read this.

Today I had my first endoscopy - trying to figure out what has been giving me this nausea for about a month now.
Doctor Ashwini Kumar Setya from Max Hospital has been very helpful and observant before so I trust him for this procedure. He kept on telling me not to worry. He didn’t explain much about the procedure so I tried to google a little bit. I read many reports of people mentioning that the procedure has improved a lot recently and the patient’s comfort is much better. There were some explanations of people who say they don’t even remember what actually happened. They gave them some sedative which made them so drowsy that they could still interact but afterwards didn’t remember what actually happened.
So I was all ready to go through. Anyways, anything to get rid of the nausea was a good thing. Even if it was annoying for a shorter period of time.
So there I was, the appointment was at 9.30 but I was asked to come at 9.15 so that the procedure could start on schedule. We (me and Sumit, my colleague who has a car) arrived earlier than that and the place looked quite empty. We had to put on these protective shoe covers which look like elf shoes, pointed in the front and in the back). So we waited and waited. Seemed the endoscopy machine was still in the intensive care so we had to wait for it to come. At 11 it finally arrived. All this time I was with my empty stomach being so thirsty!! Luckily I was the first patient. They called me into the endoscopy room, had to wear some hospital dress on top of my own clothes and had to take of my shoes. I had to lie down on the bed and they prepared me. The nurse tried to put a needle in my left hand, didn’t really succeed and started to move it around inside my vein. There was somebody else trying to help but it wasn’t good enough so they took the other hand. Two blue hands now. In the meanwhile they were monitoring the vitals, by pulse oximeter and blood pressure measuring. They made my lie down on my left side (I guess that’s the best position for the stomach to be in). They inserted some sedative in my right hand, but it didn’t make me feel any more drowsy than I was before. They also locally sedated the back of my throat. They immediately put something in my mouth that I was supposed to bite on, through which they were going to put the endoscope. That is exactly what they did. They put that tube in my throat asking my to swallow – I was constantly gagging and tearing and someone (I guess the doctor – I just saw tubes and hands) told me to take a deep breath through my nose which I tried but couldn’t . I felt they had taken over my whole breathing and swallowing system. Every time I swallowed I had to gag again. Then the doctor said: “I have taken out your acid so you won’t be having this again. “ But I guess it was just a natural reflex because of having something in your throat. Then they put something else through that tube, I guess it was something to take a sample with. They kept on saying it was almost finished but it seemed very long. Finally the thing was out of my throat, they asked my to spit, although they was really nothing to spit and I was rolled into the recovery room. By then, it felt like it all never happened.
Although the other patients I had seen before coming out of there were all groggy and sleeping, one even snoring, I just felt normal and was very awake. I guess the dose of the sedative was not big enough for my body. Don’t know. I didn’t feel at any point sedated or groggy, maybe a little calm just before the procedure, don’t really know if it was the sedative.
Anyway I do remember everything and can still imagine the thing in my throat!

So in short, it is not a nice thing to have done on you, it is uncomfortable, but it’s really not that long of a procedure and the only complications afterwards is some pain in your throat which is not even as bad as regular throat pain.

So thank you Doctor Setya for being able to figure out what was wrong with me, and I so hope it will solve the problem!

Dear Helicobacter Pylori

Dear Helicobacter Pylori,

Due to your long term unannounced visit, I would like to express my frustration by writing this letter to you. I have no other way. Maybe you will get angry, but you know what, I will just not care.

You have entered my body without even asking me. I just don't like your style. If it was only for a few days, I wouldn't have cared so much, but this has been a long time!
You sneeked into the stomach somehow, escaping from its deadly acidic surrounding by digging yourself a way in the mucus lining of the stomach, being all nice and cosy, where nobody can get you. You smart guy. But not smart enough!

Guess what!!! You were on candid camera!!! But don't you start liking your fame. We found where you have been hiding out and we're so going to get rid of you. Start counting your days dude.

I've had enough of you giving me problems of all kinds.

I sincerly hope to get rid of you soon and do not want to wish you all the best.

Safe travels back to where you came from,

Your unwanted host,

The Body