Oye Bubbly, Kuul Gahinga

Listening to Ravi Shankar album, a song called Tabla Solo in Shakhar Tal. It's nice along with the news channel on teevee mumbling in the background. Sort of incongruous, like my living here) Am I the mumbling news? or the tabla solo? .... pfft.

Well, the news is about a the drought. The water shortage. About a meningitis outbreak in Delhi. About there being not enough electicity. I look at the brown water coming from my faucet in this 'best of all' hotels and wonder if it is the pipes need dealt with? or is it that we are at the muddy bottom of the lake reservoir?

Downstairs you can walk from conversation to conversation if you are inclined. People eating mangoes and ice cream on the couch in the lobby, are watching others come and go while discussing the brown water. One having been here a week and coming from Los Angeles, Orange County, is aghast. How can the water not be clean in a four star hotel? should she get them to fix it? is it dangerous? Is it worse than the dirty CLEAR water?
Advice rains down.

"I would be on them like THAT.... 'They' need to replace ALL the pipes from here to the reservoir! 'They' don't care! 'They' could fix it if 'they' would, but 'they' don't, so 'WE' suffer."
The diatribe rambles on to people who want money from you and foreigners expecting a free ride back home.

One speaks of ecological concerns and how everyone uses plastic so freely, tossing it aside to kill animals and pollute the earth. It takes, she says, five hundred years for one plastic bag to dissolve. I notice a small black plastic bag lying near, tied shut. I wonder what it is and who left it? she says, "Oh, that is mine. I scoop the poop in it."
I tell her, "I see. ..'They' told me to walk my dog out back and leave the results there for cleaners to dispose of."
She says.. "well, my dog goes anywhere she wishes and I don't want to leave it for the children to step in."

I bobblehead sagely.

others contribute:
"I just use the bottled water."
"you can't BATHE in the bottled water."
"true, but soap kills the bacteria when you shower."
"yeah, but your hair? and what if it gets in your eyes?"
big shrug.
worried look.
laughter.
another person orders mangoes with butterscotch ice cream.

Outside the lake shrinks each day. Apparently the monsoon is late. Orange groves are being cut for firewood because the government won't let the farmers use electricity after a certain time in the day and apparently, they need to water at night. The oranges die, they cut them down for firewood to make some money.

We have aircon 24 hours a day. Some government buildings and businesses leave on all the lights and aircons day and night. Others have fans and shaded windows open to the air when they are in business. The old ways have advantages. So do the new ones. How do you mix the two, taking the best of both? Will anyone ever REALLY consider this and implement it?

The crew cleaning the new apartment had to be brought back three times. They do one thing for a long long while, ignoring all the others. They did not clean the 'maid's quarters' at all. They did not wash the dirt off of moldings or walls, but they polished the balcony rails, admonishing us to keep the windows always closed up there or the "birds will come in". Now that the big chunks are gone, dirtwise, there is the repairing to be seen to.

I went to check on prices of furniture. This is going to take some study. I've been told there are three prices. There is the price an Indian pays. There is the Maximum Retail Price, set by the ubitquitous "government". And there is the price you can get it for. The first is a mystery to me, the second is written on the item in places where the "middle class and expats" shop, and the third...I have to learn.

I wonder what will happen to all the people who only have access to water by going to the public wells and water faucets provided in parks and other areas. They will be the first to suffer and the last to feel relief. unless the rain comes.

There is a building built to house the people from slums. Lowcost housing. It is now full with laundry hanging over balconies. Yet, the slums are still full. Is it as predicted? DID they rent their new apartments and stay in the slums by choice, comfortable in the proximity of others breathing, and the earth itself?

The mumbling news drones about another blast in Baghdad.
"Religious" people intoning that God decrees their actions, while truly... following their own demons.