House/flat hunting in Bangalore is a real team task – you need a company minder plus a realtor, plus driver plus two or three people at each house/flat just to hang around as you look around – clearly a spectator sport second only to Cricket. When you get there basically all there is to see is lots of marble – and a few exposed electrical cables they are big on marble floors! But not marble bathrooms. Some of the places may be really quite nice when finished – but I am not sure that they have the same conception of finished as I do. Perhaps the problem needs to be reframed and these huge soulless marbled floored spaces could ( with a compressor and a few hours with a drill) be turned into a giant ‘air hockey’ table where you could use household objects as pucks and create your own domestic 2D Brownian motion effect. Maybe I spent too long in the sun yesterday or it the concept could well end up on the Turner prize shortlist next year probably as installation art as a continuous loop film.
A retention of some appreciation of the absurd is probably key to staying sane in Banglaore plus odd touches and glimpses just link you instantly to home. Example: the arts centre with potential that we visited a few days ago was liberally equipped with proggy mats, which also abounded in the houses of my extended family across rural Northumberland. For those unfamiliar with Northumberland dialect I suggest adding ‘Larn Yorsel Geordie’ to your reading list – example usage ‘Divnt drop your dottle on the proggy mat hinny’. Hindi lessons may beckon quite soon but as you can see I am already multi-lingual so that helps.
The other thing that helps is really good food – I have often said that white chocolate should be available on the NHS – but I may need to see if a regular visit to i-italia at the Park Hotel can be added to our local prescriptions.
Off for brekkie with ‘wor lass’, D
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