Moving Up, Monkey-gate & Miles apart …
We have mentioned our driver, Sajid, in earlier posts. Admittedly he is a less colourful character than the ever present Raju.
Marga and Raju’s interaction are the stuff of legends and if the creators of Madam & Eve (a very popular cartoon in SA) ever want to expand to India, then Madam & Raju have the makings of a super hit. (And within previous blogs are the potential script for the first month’s worth of cartoons).
As a huge fan of Madam & Eve I just couldn’t resist throwing in one of the cartoons in this blog:
Moving on up
The main purpose of the blog is to give an update on our driver Sajid, who seems to be making some progress and moving up in the world. He is a very pleasant person and a total “padvark” (road hog), which makes him the perfect driver here in India.
He and his family has moved to a new house on Saturday and now stays in a house with 2 rooms! A big improvement from the one-room (and no, not 1 bedroom, I really mean 1 room) house his family (of 5) has been living in.
Sajid’s old house (the whole house is basically in this picture):
The new house:
His new house is much closer to ours, cutting his commute from around 35 minutes to only 5 minutes.
Sajid is renting the house (as he did the previous one), but he has big plans for the future. Quite a while ago (before he became our driver), he got the opportunity to buy a small piece of land. This is about 55km outside of Hyderabad.
It was a very big decision and he is still paying his monthly installment for the property.
While my parents were here, he took us to see where his house would be one day.
This field will be subdivided into different plots and Sajid has purchased a patch of between 25 and 50 square meters. Sometime next year the subdivision will take place - around the same time as Sajid makes his final payment for the plot.
Then the long and difficult task will follow for him to save enough money to build a house for his family. Once this dream is achieved he will move to his new house with his family, but given that it is so far outside of Hyderabad, he will probably stay at his sister’s house during the work week (i.e. Monday to Saturday) and only be with his family on Sundays.
This dream will probably take many years still to realise and what might seem like a very harsh way to live for a “Westerner” would be like utopia for Sajid. He would own his own house, his family would be in a clean (non-polluted) environment and he would be living in the upper-end of the middle class.
People do the strangest things here in India
Our friend Byl has recently posted some really, really great stories about the funny things people do in India. It is a long blog, but it is really worth the read (especially the stories at the end). So I highly recommend this blog by Byl.
Monkey-gate
A number of months ago there was an incident in an Australia vs India cricket match, where Andrew Symonds accused Harbhajan Singh of calling him a monkey. Allegations of racism were made and it turned into an ugly affair. (It is known as “monkey-gate” here in India).
Harbhajan was cleared in the end because his team mates backed him up by saying that he spoke in Hindi to Symonds and was not calling him a monkey.
The matter keeps being resurrected by books - first one written by Gilchrist and now one by Symonds himself.
I discussed this with my Hindi teacher and it seems he (and most of India) are quite sure that Harbhajan did speak in Hindi. He basically said either “Teri maa ki …” or “Oye maa ki”, which both mean “Jou ma se ….” (”Your mother’s ….”).
The “…” weren’t uttered by Harbhajan - it hardly ever is when the insult is hurled here in India. Just like in Cape Town, where the phrase is thrown around from time to time, the rather nasty word originally included in the insult have been dropped.
It is very interesting how swearing has evolved exactly the same way in India as in Cape Town, thousands of kilometers apart!
Incidentally, this is a far greater insult in India than calling someone a monkey. (Which is why most people here believe that is what was actually said!)
Monkey-gate also seems to have created some marketing opportunities:
Here it is used to promote dal, a crucial part of most Indian meals.
I guess the moral of the story is not to confuse rudeness with racism … (And the Aussies themselves are known for offering a few choice words to batsmen)
Mushkil judai hai
Basically this means separation is difficult.
Marga and I are trying to manage our lives so that we can spend as much time together as possible next year, but the universe seems to be tugging us in separate directions. Marga has to return to Cape Town by January for her work, while mine is here in Hyderabad. The soonest that Marga+1 will be able to return to Hyderabad is towards the end of May 2009.
Bahut mushkil judai hai…. (Separation is very difficult)
Especially when there are so many things I will probably miss - e.g. baby’s kicks, pre-natal classes with Marga, and the whole roller coaster ride that goes with every visit to the doctor and every scan.
And poor Marga will feel like a single mother, having to attend doctor’s appointments, pre-natal classes by herself and doing the shopping for baby’s arrival solo…
And the baby will miss out on hearing and getting to know his father’s voice before his birth. (Lower voices are more easily heard by babies while they are waiting to be borne and bonding time for a father and child can start from before birth).
We hope that we can arrange a workable solution for next year.
Thanks from my side as well for all the well wishes. We are very excited about becoming parents, but just the arrangements for next year have pointed out that being a family is hard work!
Pir milenge
Theo Scheffler
November 12th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Theo’ie
Ek het ‘n oplossing: maak ‘n CD/tape waarop jy jou gunsteling liedjies vir jou kleinding sing. Tweede beste, maar dan kan die kleintjie darem op maat skop, en ek kan so nou en dan kom luister…
En sussie sal nooit alleen shop nie:)
Maar ons sal jou mis, en ek hoop julle kan ‘n beter plan beraam.
Sien julle binnekort
XXXX
skoonsus
November 13th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Thanks for the update guys, where are some pictures of the new mom to be??
November 17th, 2008 at 9:25 am
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November 21st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
RSA en IE is koning!