I don't like fans

Aug 30.
Delhi, India

[music – Oscar Peterson, Note by Note album]
[drink – ‘Inder Raj Rum squash special’ – Old Smuggler Indian rum, water, and ‘orange sqaush’, a nectar composed of sugar, water, and orange juice, in that order]

The Oscar Peterson is struggling to overcome the sound of the fan overhead. It’s behaving better than it was last night, when it cut out periodically, as if in collusion with the mosquitoes who crept in through the kitchen window. The room is pretty, and the capacity of my landlord to define reality through assertion is impressive. I shouldn’t need an AC because the hot season is almost over. I shouldn’t have any mosquitoes because they don’t come to the third floor. Fortunately he also has put a lot of care into my little apartment. The kitchen would be small by Manhattan standards, and so far has no electricity, or anything to use with electricity or gas. The bathroom is small but clean. It has the eccentricities of ‘conveniences’ over here. The sink drains through a tube onto the floor. It points into a hole in the wall, and from there I know not where it leads. The shower is a bucket on the floor, and the heater is OFF according to the giant red switch on the wall. The main room does have room for a bed, a couch, two chairs, two side tables, and a fridge. Take all your mental pictures of those items and multiply by about 0.5, and you’ll have an approximation of my furniture.

I’ve landed in a very nice part of Delhi. The houses are beautiful, set back from the road by walls and surrounded by trees and flowers of many different colours. Most importantly, there is no alley of mechanics shops. It is astounding now that I am here how much I took on faith. The window doesn’t look into someone else’s house, the house isn’t right beside the drainage ditch, the landlord truly wants guests. Regardless, I felt very timid in the market today. I was trying to buy batteries and bread, and glucose biscuits (for Shakti!) I couldn’t quite assert myself enough to find out what the bread cost, and I found it very hard to decide what kind of food I wanted. I ended up eating bread and jam for breakfast, and more for dinner. Maybe it would be better if my landlord weren’t so helpful, so I would buy my pulses and ghee myself. Maybe I’ll just do it myself and see what happens.

Tomorrow (today, really) I go into the office for the first time. We have a meeting with the CEO of our partner investor on Monday. On the plane over here, I tried to give myself permission to be competent and healthy and happy. That’s Ashoka terminology for, well, freeing yourself from all the constraints that no longer exist and you’ve ceased to struggle against, and all the barriers that you’ve given up resisting. But first, I’ll have to break a 500 Rs note and negotiate with a rickshaw driver.