Blog 21 Proud to be called ‘ Masala Grandmother’

I’m writing this from the comfort of my daughter’s computer in England, so hopefully no sudden cut-off of internet, and certainly no heat and crow racket and mozzie assaults, so no need of ‘Quaker who swears’ as husband has named me. Back to cold and sleet and grey in England and, as we had predicted, it’s already hard to imagine us over-heated and hiding in the shade at Mahabalipuram, on the coast where we spent the last two days before flying home.
During our last days in the village we keep busy to the end. We appoint Rani and Padmini as our teachers- two outstanding women in an impressive group. One is from Sitaramanpet and the other from Kamanchemanpet, which works out well, these being the two villages served by our playcentre. They had also chosen each other to work together during training and make an excellent pair, both being calm and yet enthusiastic. Because we have managed to evolve a sort of mixture language, part my limited Tamil, part English and part British sign language which I taught them, for use when Sekar is not there to interpet, Padmini describes me as ‘Masala grandmother’! On the next day, Thursday, we take names of children who wish to come to the centre. Only a small number have managed to bring birth certificates, as though they are required in India nowadays, many families seem not to have them. It looks as though we may start in a week’s time, once the fans are in place, the electricity joined up, an water available in a tap in the street, with around a dozen children. Seems the local balwadi teacher is already expressing complaints about us. She will be nervous that if her numbers go down, she will no longer get her money from the government. Sekar and Ganeshan will have to go and talk to her and calm her fears.

For lunch we finally make it to Balaji’s house. They have been inviting us repeatedly but we have had so many commitments all month. The meal they have prepared is a real feast and we know that this is a real compliment to us because this family is not at all well off, being dependent on weaving, mainly for BTC. It is frightening to think of the future for this weaving village, who have just begun to feel the benefits of being organised in Self Help Groups, and being associated with BTC, who have been delighted with the quality of their work. If the world economic downturn is alarming for us in Britain, how much more serious will it be for them?
We had decided to offer a small money present between the five of us to Balaji, as a way of thanking him for his tireless help to us in so many ways. I try to offer this to him, after our lovely meal, but the look on his face is pure horror, as he backs away from me. Without the language it is difficult to explain that we only want to thank him, but he makes very clear that he wouldn’t dream of accepting. He doesn’t have much English at all but he says ‘Only love, only love’ as he shakes his head at me. I feel that I have insulted him, but cannot really apologise for this. As we leave the house pretty much everyone is crying- certainly he and his father and mother are. It is so rare to encounter anywhere such good people and we feel so privileged to have been able to get to know them much more during this visit. I think all the tears are because we truly will miss each other.

The next difficult farewells are with Mr Immanuel, RUHSA administrator and chief fixer as far as we are concerned. I promise that some of us at least will be back to see him next year, and he in turn seems to be promising that he will take some time out to address his own health issues. I hope that Daleep’s strongly expressed concerns for him will make him realise that all of us, his old friends who love him, really do care about this.

We spend our last weekend in the Golden Sun hotel in Mahabalipuram, on the coast. Since we were last there in 1996 the town has become much more of a tourist place and is now full of the Kashmiri traders whom one sees in Goa and Kerala. Whilst eating our first non-Indian meal in a restaurant there we bump into George and Lee, whom we last saw in the guest house at BTC. They are about to fly home to Bristol and we chew over the whole experience with them. Never easily pinned down I’d say sums it up... This coast was hit by the tsunami in 2004 and we see that the fishermen’s boats have the name of a German charity written on them. A German woman, Karin, who is staying in the Golden Sun whilst working in Chennai, has been very moved to be thanked by some fishermen for saving their livelihoods. The charity also paid to have homes rebuilt for the fishermen. As Karin says, it is good to see the practical results of the donations which were made by so many countries in the wake of that horrific Boxing Day disaster.

I hide from the hot sun in the shade around the pool, trying to find a peaceful enough place away from the large influx of affluent Indians who are having a great time, noisily, away from Chennai for the weekend. Below is the poem I write, my last words for the blog. Apart from telling you the journey home is much improved by Pamela having acquired us an upgrade to World Traveller Plus ( Respect, Pam!) I’ll sign off. More to come from this blog I think, once I have given some thought to where we go next ( serious fund-raising to be done for one thing).