Adventures of an anorak ....

My metamorphosis into an anorak continues ... took the long way to Shimla just so I could spend 5.5 hours on The Himalayan Queen, a narrow gauge railway covering 96km, 102 tunnels, 988 bridges including multi-storey viaducts, and 917 curves up to 48 degrees. Reaching 2075m, with gradients of 1 in 25, it was completed in 1903. Unfortunately the government is now building a new road below it, creating swathes of eroded mountain sides slipping away into the valley below, threatening to take houses, other roads and the rail line with it. The current solution is to spray patches of bare rock with concrete, and to position men with bags of tools at strategic points to patch things up along the way.

 

Economics ... what is it good for? Not much apparently.

In an effort to demonstrate a statistically significant negative correlation, with a p value less than 0.001, between the declining usefulness of economics as a social science and Mz Kitty's eye's glazing over, I spent 90 minutes in the company of economists last night.

This required first removing some confounding variables, notably random gents seemingly disturbed by states of singularity and wanting to know if they could have my mobile number to arrange a visit sometime soon. I appreciate that outliers can make the other dots in a series feel uncomfortable, or apparently get the wrong idea about the availability of the outlier for social outings, but I feel no need to be drawn into anyone else's line of best fit.

After some precision dispersal I found myself unfortunately regressing into a mental foetal position as speaker after speaker spoke about the state of statistics and economic measurement in India. Note that's not discussing the state of poverty in India, but rather how their ability to measure it has gone into decline since the original launch of the book, 'Poverty and Income Distribution in India', in 1974.

Detecting a fairly low level of standard deviation in the discussion, someone in the audience finally dared to ask how the eminent scholars (some of the world's finest, at Yale and MIT for example) might actually address poverty in India. The response from the MC was 'that's not the topic of discussion', and we returned to talking about how to measure it instead.

If you've got some of the finest economic minds in the business sitting on the podium surely they could have offered some thought on how to address poverty in India, or the world for that matter, especially now that it's over 40 years since the first publication of the book and in that time India has radically changed, culturally as well as economically, as a result of globalisation and neoliberalism.

To be fair, maybe I'm just too focused on my indeterminate ethnography with its pretty pictures and thematic analysis, underpinned by the certain belief that human beings cannot be reduced in totality to discrete variables, diced into quartiles and measured like so much daal. But I'm happy to work with statisticians and I even got a distinction in statistics in my Psych degree. I know my T-test from my Chi Square. And yes, I get that the underpinning data, government statistics, could be better, and statistical tools, and statisticians, need to be robust.

But dear economists, even with these caveats, in these days of re-writing the economic curriculum take a stand on what this thing called 'poverty' actually means for real people and the human implications of what your measurements are telling you!

I have no review of the actual book. I was going to buy it but by the end of the seminar my eyes had reached peak glaze and the only thing that appealed to me was the cover photo.

Running Away from Home

I can’t complain about a job that takes me to places like Hawaii and India, but combining it with running has its drawbacks. Once in training for an event it must be committed to, and in combination with a job that is also mobile it seems that I can no longer get away with one carry-on bag. Trainers and running gear must be packed along with water belt, gels, running watch, iPod and rechargers. In addition to the excess baggage, the jogger in transit also has to contend with conditions that may not always be ideal, requiring adjustments in order to mitigate any propensity to embarrassment.

In Jaipur, for example, there was a 400m running track around the hotel grounds that led nowhere (indicative perhaps of India's infrastructure). Heat and dust seeped into everything as attempts at a degree of modesty were also necessary; my baggiest shorts over knee length leggings is never going to be impressive. While I’ve always admired women who can still look gorgeous at the end of a marathon (like 'glamour' model Jordan, who I happened to run the Brighton Half with a few years back … well, not so much ‘with’ as a fair distance away from her bodyguard), I always end up looking like a stumpy, soggy mop at the best of times. To go beyond the bounds of the hotel grounds meant attracting more stares and the possibility of encounter with the ever-present stray dog against which no joggers' legs stand a chance. So a running machine became my best friend, in a one room gym facing the pool and lawns on which expensive tourists sunned themselves while pervy peacocks leered in through the window. Clocking up kilometres on a running machine is about as exciting as watching an odometer click over.

At the other end of the spectrum, Honolulu, I realized I had forgotten what space feels like after years of living in London, and this particular space is filled with smells of damp loam, Pacific salt, frangipani, wet neoprene, board wax, sun screen lotion, and sweat. An ambient soundtrack of mechanical growling was provided by US Air Force cargo planes taking off and landing, in tune with growling grey skies. It was embarrassing to have to confess to an Hawai'ian that I didn't know it was the rainy season, hence the amount of sweat (nor that the volcanoes were on another island). Just as well it's a reverse time zone to the UK. Wide awake at 5am meant I may as well get up, put on my running gear and get out for a long run while it was still cool. And no need to worry about being alone at that time. The streets and main roads along the coast were full of joggers and cyclists throwing themselves up Diamond Head before sunrise.

It is a sign of Hawai'i's status as a desirable retirement home that it was a mass of brown, soft, leathery flesh that I joined. Going at a slow pace, we pottered past a memorial service on the Honolulu promenade where the homeless waited for the crowds to arrive so they could begin their day's survival. Birdlife, cardinal red and pointy-headed, accompanied the route, while my angry toe became angrier in the heat, and all the time upwards towards the crest of the old volcano that marks too much of my childhood television. I had an uncontrollable urge to yell '5-0' or 'book 'em Danno' every time I ran by a police car. I ineptly attempted to find one dollar for the entrance fee to the Park by patting my pocketless outfit, but the ranger eventually lent it to me. It's worth the climb for the view and the admiring looks of Japanese tourists who jumped out of the way as I sweated past.

The theme of hills continued in San Francisco recently. San Fran joggers must be world champions at hill running with some streets sloping up to 31.5%. Running here is an exercise in masochistic calf work out. It is also a city marked by: 

1. cheeriness as fellow joggers acknowledge the loveliness of the day; 
2. elastic distances as the ocean moves beyond actual map coordinates (it’s those hills); 
3. clouds of marijuana at eight in the morning; 
4. homeless people camping in all available parks and crevices of this high tech, digital city.

That same mix of despair and optimism marked out what is now my favourite jogging track: Venice Beach. Another early start required to beat the prescient heat of a spring day, and along the beach the crowds started to gather for a collective paean to the outdoor life of California: volleyball and basketball courts, gymnastics pitches, muscle beach gym.

I wondered at first why Venice Beach was called a freak show, but then realised I'd mistakenly jogged to Santa Monica (turning right instead of left). Heading back along the promenade there was at some point a momentary crossing of an event horizon and then tumbling head-long into wonderland dodging every conceivable form of mobility: bicycles pimped with luminous wheels, skates and skate boards of all sizes and varieties propelled by human and dog, both wearing sunglasses, hoverboards, segways, other joggers, surfers, artists, musicians and the muscle bound. Past cafés, synagogues, medicinal marijuana, sunglasses, and knickers with slogans like ‘It’s not going to spank itself’ writ large across the arse. Down to the pier where the fishers try their luck in momentary respite, and then back into it again as noise and light and all the other shards of dysmorphia propelled my legs along the sandy boardwalk. Two hours of moving bliss.

Outside the cities, there have been many assorted hills, desert and deserted roads jogged along, skirting trailer parks with invisible dogs and people in search of a life off-grid. There was an aborted attempt to have a run in the high Sierra until I spotted the helpful signs warning of mountains lions’ taste for solo joggers. Running away from home may be occasionally inconvenient, even slightly mortifying at times, but it is always inevitably a slow engagement with the life of a place.   

My name is Mz Kitty, and I'm addicted to fabric ...

It's true ... I can't help myself. Whenever I travel I have to collect fabric. And the mother lode is H. P. Singh, Nehru Place, Delhi (closely followed by Okadaya department store in Tokyo, and Habu Textiles in New York if you want to sacrifice your home or first born child).

On one trip to India I brought fabric from travels in Japan and China to get stitched. That's seven dresses worth of fabric. After a trip to the pre-Diwali hand loom fair at Dilli Haat I had enough for seven more long kurthas with left overs. This trip H. P. Singh provided fabric for three pants, two shorts, and two skirts (and I only went in for some grey wool for a skirt).  Lajpat Nagar market rounded the debauchery out with two punjabi suits (enough for kurtha, pants and dupatta).

I have had several tailors now who inevitably disappoint in their inability to turn what I'm seeing in my head into an actual piece of wearable fashion. Mr Noor has been with me the longest and can generally get a kurtha together as long as I'm okay with Chinese collars. He never bats an eyelid even when I turn up with saris and bed spreads to be converted into kurthas. Only once have I seen him stutter as I placed before him a Keralan cotton dupatta, hand painted with a winding lotus.

Master ji: 'Lining madam?'
Mz Kitty: 'No Master ji'
Raised eyebrow. Master ji places his hand underneath the fabric to show its transparency.
Mz Kitty: 'I promise I will only wear it in Europe'.
A sigh; eyebrow lowered.

So concerned is he with my respectability that for sleeveless kurthas he makes little loops on the shoulders to attach my bra straps to so I don't disgrace myself with slippage of lingerie.

Trousers, shirts and dresses can be trickier. My first attempt at getting a halterneck backless dress made took three attempts. The first rendition came back stitched into a version of skirted overalls that if I'd worn without a shirt underneath (defeating somewhat the purpose of a backless dress) would have created an outfit Ann Summers could display in her front window. The second and third tries added patchwork strips till eventually it resembled the original image. The last batch of dresses all had to be sent back at least twice as my hips had expanded in the tailor's imagination to encompass an awful lot of child bearing.

But I think Delhi's tailors are finally rebelling and blacklisting me having worked out that it is an impossible task to make 'madam ji' happy. I had to ask four tailors in Khan Market before I found one who would take on a job of two capris and converting a kurtha into a skirt. But
then maybe a total ban is the only cure.

Step away from the kulfi!

Long has the Delhi consumer's capacity for craft melas held me in awe, particularly in the lead up to Diwali. There is nothing quite as frenetic as shopping at the famous open air markets like Dastkar and the Blind School's annual extravaganza. So many dupattas, so little time.

But I have finally discovered the secret ... kulfi. And not just any kulfi, but a kesar pista - think frozen condensed milk with saffron and pistachio. And in my case, along with the kulfi, have chai, mango sweets, date paan, more chai and a bottle of plum juice. On an empty stomach. Never have shiny things looked so shiny, silks looked so silky, colours looked so vibrant, and my bargaining been so ruthless as when the blood sugar levels are making for a screaming crescendo. Never have I been able to cover so much ground, leaping small children in a single bound to get to the last pashmina shawl at a bargain price.

Unfortunately the crash that came about 30 minutes later resulted in conversations that included sentences like: 'touch that kurtha again Aunty and lose a hand. It's MINE'.

Worse, after all the jostling, unfurling, trying on and taking off, reducing sales staff to bundles of quivering frustration, in the end I came away with nothing because my neurones were so close to bursting at the amount of choice that in a fit of ADHD they couldn't decide what they wanted.

The other unfortunate side effect was that I couldn't find my way out. As noted in other posts it is a bit embarrassing to be lost as a geographer and orienteer but sugar is clearly not good for the internal navigational systems. It took another hour of wandering with an increasing sense of hallucinogenic panic that the same dupattas were following me before I found the exit.

Luckily, just outside the entrance was now a line up of sweet potato sellers - my favourite Delhi street food and a lovely sign that winter is on the way. Sweet potato after kulfi, with a sprinkling of masala and splash of nimbu, is the equivalent of a spliff after crystal meth (so I'm told). As I sat on a wall with the street urchins, sharing our sweet potatoes in a twilight haze, the world stopped shimmering and calm descended along with the particulate matter of Delhi's traffic pollution.  

The gastronomic moral of this tale is that kulfi, while divine, should only be eaten on its own after a sturdy meal. Leave the chai, mango sweets, paan and plum juice for another day.

Swim Grid Grrrl, Swim

So ladies, here's your chance. Airtel are looking for Grid Girls for Delhi's Formula 1 race at the end of the month. You need to be 'confident, fit and glamourous'. There's an aspiration. You also have to take part in a reality programme where you will wear t-backs and hot pants, as well as swim suits and bikinis. But this is not just some beauty pageant, for although you have to share your hobbies and interests, and your height, bust, weight and waist measurements, for the compulsary swim suit round, according to Indian newspaper, First Post, contestants have to not just wear their cozzies but know how to swim.
 
Now, I confess that I do occassionally watch F1, but only because I want to see justice finally done and the Red Bull management acknowledge that Mark Webber is a better driver than Sebastian Vettel and that they were wrong to rob him of his championship hopes last year. And when I do watch it I have to also confess that I've never seen a pool anywhere near the grid. But I guess knowing how to swim could be handy should it suddenly flood in Delhi on the weekend of the race.

Contestants also need to be able to heft weights, at least the weight of any costumes they may wish to use 'to enhance their look', although usage of said costumes is, fortunately for fashion victims everywhere, subject to approval by the programme producer/channel.

One burden contestants don't have to carry is knowing whether her education qualifications and experience will be considered at the time of screening. The answer, according to the 'frequently asked questions' section of the website, is: 'No, contestants will be judged based on the judging parameters. Past achievements or educational qualifications will not be considered as a criterion for selection'. So if you are a mechanical engineer who could actually design an F1 car, forget about it, as long as you can swim that's all you need to worry your pretty little head about.