Rahasthan tour

The Morrises and the Whittinghams go touring

All praise is due to Pam for the tour with Bunty's travel co that she organised for us! We have a superb driver who is such a lovely chap, called Avtar. Since the last blog we've been touring and covering many miles, but in the comfort of a large four-wheel drive and on major roads which up here in the north are pretty good. I can only give a summary of our travels as I suspect other people's travelogues have limited appeal!

We started in Delhi, New Delhi in fact, visiting the extremely impressive Edwin Lutchens designed new city, with India Gate at its centre. Then we visited Hayuman's tomb. Hayuman was a Moghul ruler in the 16th century and the tomb was built by his son. We are awash now with info about the Moghul rulers- the goodies, the baddies, the drunkards, etc. This tomb is gorgeous and designed by a Persian architect, and it is said that the Taj was modelled on it a hundred years later. We also went to visit the newish and totally amazing Lotus Baha'ai temple and learned a lot about the Baha'ai and what they believe.

Next day took us to Agra- longish drive and a lovely modern hotel outside the city. In time for sunset we went with our city guide Raj, to see the Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jehan for his favorite wife Mumtaj, who died in her late 30s from an infection after delivering her 14th child! Shah Jehan made a promise to her on her death bed that he wouldn't marry again, but as our guide said, no need, he had 550 concubines! They only worked in that role from age around 13 to 18 then they were free to go if they wanted to... The next day we went to see Agra Fort where Shah J was imprisoned by his son at the end of his life. Avtar also took us to see how the descendents of the masons who decorated the Taj with Pietra Dura technique- it's just so beautiful!- to see how they work today. Nett result of course was that Andy and I purchased a plate and small coasters. Seeing the Taj was the most amazing experience, far more stunning and totally beautiful than I would ever have thought it would be. Tho there were many many visitors, it was well organised so that one's visit was not spoiled.

From Agra we went to Jaipur. Very pretty haveli heritage hotel. First trip of the day was to see the Amber Fort which is v stunning place, again, situated in Amber City on rocky hillside, so beautiful location. We went up to the fort on elephants- Andy reluctantly, and he didn't enjoy it one bit. It's an odd experience rolling from side to side slowly in a slightly see-sick motion. Ackbar built this fort- he was grandfather or maybe great grandfather of Shah Jehan. More lovely Moghul influences and Hindu decoration too,mixed together. That evening Avtar took us to see stone polishing and guess what! more purchasing- rubies by Pam and B and a ruby ring by me and Andy- lovely! We also looked around the City Palace and saw the fabulous Mal Mahal - water palace and the palace of the winds, just from outside. All of Jaipur central old city is pink-washed, hence it's called The Pink City.

Thence to Pushkar, the so-called 'holy city'. Holy my aunt Frances I said. Is by a holy lake and everyone comes to bathe in the waters at the Ghats. The small town high st is a very busy bazaar but remarkably we were not much hassled- so a peaceful break in that sense, but unfortunately not the traffic-free place we'd been promised as young men on motorbikes are everywhere.Just stayed overnight, then on to Udaipur, a very long day's drive.

En route we saw a very lovely old temple up in the mountains. Don't know name of the place, but again very peaceful and hassle-free, which begins to be very desirable after a while!

This is being written from Udaipur which is super! Another pretty haveli hotel, with the lovely painted walls, situated right on Lake Pichola, the largest lake of the 5 here. Just up the road is a German bakery. What a treat! You so can get fed up even with good Indian cuisine, when it is same old choices several times a day. This morning visited the vast and very beautiful City Palace. Have great views on to the lake and the lovely white summer palace in the middle of it. Boy did these maharanas live well! So much wealth, creating such lovely decorative buildings. Much history again involving fighting with the Moghuls and with the rulers of Jaipur who had intermaried with the Moghuls, fighting on horse-back and on elephants too. This is the centre for the miniature paintings which depict scenes from this history. We are NOT going to buy any of these! I am however just off to have a reflexology session and a manicure! Skies are blue and it's comparatively quiet and very very restful. We feel the need to take a breather and will be here 2 full days, 3 nights.

Blog 6 Last days, too much to do and, as ever, the tearful farewells

Blog 6 Last days, too much to do and, as ever, the tearful farewells

On the Tuesday before we left we managed with the help of Sekar and Matthew to organise to take all the elderly from our centre to visit the centre in Killalatur which is the most thriving one. We all went in the RUHSA big yellow school bus, that is the 8 elderly who were present at our centre that morning plus Matthew and the four of us. A regular old-folks outing then...since our ages are alarmingly similar to those of our elderly. I do have to say that much as folk scream with laughter at the sight of us on bikes bumping through the countryside out here and are inclined to call out ‘ Ta-ta, partee!’ ie ‘Grandpa Grandma!’ as we pass, nonetheless I do feel that we look much younger than our Indian counterparts. This will of course be a reflection of the hard life that they have lived with fairly poor nutrition and none of the welfare cushioning we post-war British baby boomers enjoyed.


Once at the Killalatur centre we found the elderly there to be most chipper and lively and welcoming. They showed the visitors their games and puzzles which they do at their centre with some enthusiasm. They got our folk playing with them too and they chatted to them about what goes on at their centre. Then they said they wanted to come next to visit us at Seetaramanpet! We told them about the way our elders mix with the children and how they enjoy doing that too. It was a great visit and we left feeling quite hopeful about how some of their liveliness of attitude might inspire the same in our group.


When we got back to our centre preparations were under way for the special meal in honour of Vinoth’s daughter. Vinoth is Mr Immanuel’s successor and he had offered to pay for the meal that our SHG prepared for the elders- and lunch that day specially for the children too. Some students from Bangalore undertook a brief study of how our elders interact with our children and had presented the results to us the previous week. Their findings were entirely positive. One thing an elder had said to them was that they would like sometimes to eat with the children. We decided to try this out for this special meal so the children sat in a circle with the elders, two between each elder. The meal had such a lovely family feeling to it and of course it means that the elderly help with the little ones rather than this being all the job of poor over-worked Sarida, our ayah.

While we were packing our faces with the lovely food we received a message to say Dr Rita would be hosting a party that night for all the doctors and we were invited. Since we knew we had to fit in a trip to see Balaji’s family before we went home, and to see Santi’s family too, and since as we know you cannot visit with people in this community without eating something with them, you may imagine how over-stretched we all were. Lucky not to fall off our bikes with over-eating!

At Santi’s house her younger daughter Veejaylakshmi was there to see us. She and her sister were the first two recipients of the One Candle fund bursary. Their sad story of hardship and how they would not be able to stay on in school because their father had died was the trigger for Pam Morris setting up the fund in the first place. The older sister is now qualified and working as a nurse and Veejaylackshmi has just gained a 1st class honours degree in computer studies from Chennai University. She was able to give us the wonderful news that she has just secured a job in Chennai which she will be starting very soon. She volunteered the idea that now that she would be working she would give some money to the fund to help another village child.


Our final day was spent in meetings with the accountant Sanjeevi and with Dr Rita. In the end these worked out well we think. Dr Rita has made clear her very strict way of doing things and we have understood how this will work in future. In her turn we think she has some understanding that not all of the ways we operate at our centre can be exactly the same as the other 4 centres for the elderly. She has okayed us developing the garden area which is a very exciting prospect which we hope will start soon. Our SHG use cheaper rice than the other centres do and have been working on a lower budget but also giving better vegetables too. We think that our staff and the SHG will be motivated to look after the garden well.

The rest of our last day was spent in farewells to our lovely staff and to the dear friends in Seetaramanpet. Before we left we were able to give the staff good news about the pay rise which Dr Rita has sanctioned. We plan also to employ one of the SHG women helpers to be a supervisor for the elderly, and Matthew and Sekar have promised to support her training so that hopefully the activities undertaken daily will be more like the liveliness we see at Killalalatur.

It does seem to get harder each time we say our goodbyes. We have become such very close friends with these people and sharing time with them is utterly unlike time spent anywhere else in our lives. For both sides, Indian and British, the rewards of our friendship are very special. Many tears then and blurry vision as we wobbled off with one last Tamil farewell to these dear people.

Blog 5 Last days at in KVKuppam.

Blog 5 Last days at in KVKuppam. The dread and inevitable trip to the hell-hole that is Vellore.

As is always our pattern when we are working with RUHSA on our project, the pace quickens to a fast trot as we near the end of our visit and we end up exhausted and weeping in heaps. And there is always the dread visit to Vellore for purchasing presents and other items needed for the projects. This happened with our lovely Rani this time as a guide plus Santi, one of the SHG (self help group) women who cook for the elderly. Our taxi driver was Mani, who we discovered to be the brother of the auto-rickshaw driver who died last week tragically young. Mani introduced us to his family and to the family of his brother, before we left. They live just a few doors up from Paul’s hotel where we eat most days. Mani was, as might be imagined, extremely sad and looked quite ill- he said he was not eating or sleeping.


Our trip was relatively successful but extremely exhausting. We were so grateful that on our return to the centre with our goodies- including lovely new mats for the children to sleep on and a pressure cooker and mixer for use in making the midday meal for the elders- the lovely teachers and ayah had saved us some food and sat us down sympathetically- two poor old ladies frazzled from a trip to town! The poem I wrote, below, expresses some of how the shopping spree felt and why we crawled home after the TLC from the kind staff- via a long walk to KVK and a hilarious trip in an over-crowded auto with some overweight Indian women- to a long lie down.

Yesterday we went to hell

Yesterday we went to hell
My friend and I
First circle, not in a handcart
But jarred over rutted roads
To Vellore then on a shopping spree
Arriving, of course, in the overhead
Beat of the heat of the sun
Merciless, in search of saris cooking pots and sweets
Thank god for our local guides
Holding our hands in the dust and the shuffle
Battle through traffic, squalor and noise
Blaring and glaring
Random road-works, stenches stinks
Too long in the high and headache
Bright-white sun-light
Feet in the filth, wrangling for fruit
Best price
Drip drop time stopped
Sweating in streams
Hot as hell’s first circle
We went to yesterday