17/04/2026
Well, I’m not in India, I’m still in Kent! Having decided not to travel at the moment I’ve been enjoying the spring, the beautiful blossom, (my tulips got eaten by the deer!?) and have been spending quite a lot of time online with my Indian friends and suppliers. It’s a bit frustrating — I much prefer business face to face — but I just felt that now is not the time to travel — but boooo how I miss it — and all the gathering of stories!
Here is an Indian bus, “story of old” — since I seem to have accumulated so many — and I know how much you like my stories!
“Now I am sitting in the local bus, it is 10 o'clock in the evening and it is a three hour journey to Ajmer, the nearest big town to Pushkar. It is filthy and interesting!
It is costing me just £1.25 and it has taken me two hours to get my change from the conductor who does not seem to have lost face even though he promised me that this was a "non stop" bus and it seems to have stopped about 10 times here and there to collect more people and drop some off. Maybe this is going to be a four hour journey! It is an intimate experience, travelling on the local buses in India. Firstly, they are built for smaller people, with shorter legs so I am crammed in. Secondly, Indians think nothing of brushing up against you, lolling into you, falling asleep on you! I have had my glasses knocked off by a man with too much luggage. What is it about me and glasses and busses?! Sitting on an aisle seat I am next to a young girl in jeans who is keeping herself to herself — as most young girls do here. Next to her is a drunk bloke. He has been falling asleep and his head keeps lolling out of the window, much to my alarm, since traffic passes so close here. I do not want to be next to a decapitated drunk. So, I have been reaching across and pulling him back inside. He does not care. The three young blokes have found this sport amusing and have started to show a rather too enthusiastic interest in me. I have shunned them with a tongue click which is Hindi for no. We use it for geeing up a horse in Kent, but here it means no. I used to think this was extremely rude when I first came here, now I am adjusted! Sometimes I use it in Kent by mistake and people think I am extremely rude!
For a while there was an older larger lady in a blue sari and too much gold, just opposite me. She looked down her nose at me as if I were a fallen woman — someone she certainly could not afford to have any association with. I remained unbothered, unchaperoned, out late on a bus — how brazen of me! The young man in front of me had the most beautiful thick black hair, almost blue tinged it was so black and silky. He then spent the first two hours of the journey scratching and scratching it, just in the places where head lice like to lurk. I decided not to lean forward to rest my head — just incase! He has gone now and in his place is a farmer's wife, at least I think so, she and her husband got on in a real hurry with loads of big luggage which is now blocking the gangways. I think from the conductor's comments that it is bundles of crops. She is utterly beautiful, with a big gold ring in her nose and a mandala tattoo on her hand. Now all the ladies are clustered together near the conductor. The drunk man is asleep, and his window has been forced shut against his will by the blokes behind. All is well!”
