An ordinary day

Life is settling into a rhythm. I swim each morning – am up to ten laps. Then come back to my room, shower, water my plants, and order breakfast. I eat my boiled eggs and toast whilst reading the Indian Times. The paper has been running an extraordinary campaign. It’s called SAVE THE GIRL CHILD and it's all about the social consequences of prenatal testing for gender. Each day the paper prints advantages of girl children. Today’s headline is “Daughters make better crutches in old age”. Readers are then invited to SMS their ideas on the most fitting punishment for sex determination and female foeticide. The best response wins a “Save the Girl Child” t-shirt.

I then head off to the museum to photograph my work for the day. By now the heat is a searing 45 degrees. If necessary I go to the library which seems to be off limits to everyone. As I sign numerous ledgers and hand in my handbag, the many attendants begin switching on the fairly ineffectual fans and delivering a glass of water. I tell the librarians what I’m looking for, and wait for them to bring me the information. India is a great lesson in patience.

I studiously take notes as I sweat profusely in the heat. When I’ve finished, I hand in the books and head back to no. 33, my room in Shiv Niwas Palace. I stop at Palkhi Kahna, a kind of restaurant-coffee shop-bar on my way, where I drink lime and soda, and chat to Ambika the manager from Jodhpur. She has about four or five “boys” who work for her and every morning she gets one to climb the tree to shake the leaves and flowers so they don’t mess with her tables. Ambika yells at the “boys” if they don’t open the door quick enough for me. She’s probably the only social contact I have at the moment.

Then my writing begins…

So far I’ve managed to keep to schedule.

As evening comes, I go to the Sunset View restaurant and watch the lake change colour as the sun goes down behind the hills. The pink sky fills with screeching bats. Then as darkness comes, all is quiet. If I think of the bats as birds, it’s a nice way to end the day. I come back and watch as much BBC as I can bear, then read for a while and go to sleep. So that’s pretty much it at the moment, unless you want to hear about the bloody Battle of Haldighati where Pratap Singh took on the forces of the mighty Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great…