Yesterday was a delightfully indolent, admittedly self-indulgent day. Himmat and I went and did some essential shopping in Sunder Nagar – jewellery. Mock not. Presents for 2 new born baby girls.
Lunch at the Golf Club, where we bumped into Naina and Rashid, so we all had a big catch-up and a run through of our upcoming trip to Kaziranga in March - can’t wait. 2 days back in the city, and I am ready to head off to the jungle again.
Noni was there, plus friends from Shillong, and since it was pleasantly sunny, it felt like a normal Delhi winter’s day – which, after all the recent grey fog, is a real treat.
The remainder of the indolence was Book Club and dinner at Elizabeth’s.
And today’s indulgence, did I hear you ask ? Well, that would be Beating Retreat this evening, with Himmat, Eden and Lizzie.
This ceremony, which marks the end of India’s Republic Day celebrations, is certainly my favourite bit of pageantry of the year. It is a spectacular, quite moving - despite its militaristic overtones – and is always done so beautifully. The other day at the club, there was a discussion between Himmat, Eden and Christina as to whether it was Beating Retreat, Beating the Retreat, or Beating a Retreat, and after consulting trusty old Wklipedia I have a feeling that my husband might have won. Or not. They say Beating Retreat is also known as Beating the Retreat. So there you go.
Suffice it so say, that it is a lovely ceremony : by the way, we are only going to the rehearsal tonight, since the real McCoy is reserved for VIPs and probably VVIPs.
I have perused the press for the week when we were in Bheemeshwari, and if there was a leitmotiv running the the Delhi papers it was fog, fog and yet more fog. We clearly chose our fishing week with great skill and impeccable timing.
There was one teeny, very odd article in this morning’s papers, which caught my eye because it concerns Karnataka, where we were last week :
So no messing about there, then.
There was an aboslutely delightful article in the Deccan Herald, about elephants, which I kept just for the blog. Just as the Delhi papers were full of fog, the Mysore papers were full of articles about elephants, which often cause a lot of damage to crops :
I am sometimes tempted to include dottiness from all over the world, but then this would become an unmanageably huge mega-blog, but I think I can stretch my boundary and include this delicious bit of political gossip from our neighbours, Pakistan :
As we say up in my native Yorkshire, “There’s nowt so queer as folk.”
This sign, from the forest outside out fishing camp, made me smile.
On which note, I shall beat a hasty retreat and head off to watch the professionals do it.
Zardari got short shrift from the Court. Berlusconi gets away with murder. Which is first world and which third?