moved to greener pastures

I meant to upload a picture of the view from my new pad but this cheeky lad crept in, never mind he'll have to do ...just shut your eyes and imagine that he is actually a couple of trees.
Here I sit at my desk eagerly awaiting the guy from Airtel to come and sort me out with an Internet connection. A fair amount has happened since I last posted anything on the net. The whole of last week was dominated by the search for a flat to rent and it proved a mission barely possible. No one it seems is keen to rent for such a short space of time, two and a half months, can t really blame em as they have to pay half a month s rent to the property dealer and need to search for a new tenant all over again. But I was desperate and determined to move by the week end. My tiny hotel room in Parhaganj was doubling up as a make shift office with people coming and going and not even a chair or a table to work on. A number of events that followed in short succession were the final straw ...some poor soul clearly suffering from the last throws of TB spend the entire night coughing and convulsing just below my window and the following day some horrible little kid aimed a fire cracker at my head (he missed) I encountered a calf with three eyes and two faces and was unable to use my computer due to repetitive strain injury caused by bad posture due to lack of any adequate work space in my hotel room so I got on the phone and frantically called everyone I knew in Delhi and begged them to find me a home……
It is three days since I moved and I am over the moon, my view of shabby dilapidated and decaying buildings and in particular the one to my right, which contained the hideous generator has been replaced by the view of trees and sobriety. I am embarassed to say that I am living in a gated community.I did’ t even realise until after having moved, not sure why then again I lived seven years in Brixton and never noticed all the crack addicts or the dealing that was taking place. Sadly it seems like this type of set up is becoming more and more common place as the gap between the have s and the have not grows ever deeper. Every evening around 10 pm two men who obviously take themselves very seriously march up and down the streets with long sticks bashing them on the ground and blowing on whistles, not sure what that’s all about something to do with making their presence felt and flushing the thieves out (apparently this is an old British tradition left over from the days of the Raj), bloody weird if you ask me although it beats the old burglar alarm love.
As far as the campaign is going things are moving on steadily I’ve had plenty of advice from very good people, the problem being that most of it is conflicting so I have to rely on my intuition and better judgement and hope that I am making the right decisions. The politics here are hard for me to get my head round and it seems I have to exercise the utmost caution that the demo is not hijacked by some group and painted with a political brush by the media because then we would loose all credibility and the message would be lost and it will have have been a waste of time. Someone suggested to go for a really small rally with a very targeted crowd (hand picked respected and eminent people ) this may have more impact in the Indian media but not be so attractive to the powers that be and western media. My gut feeling is that we are trying to build a movement that grows year on year so we just have to take a risk and try and have a large demo, whilst exerting as much control over the media as possible. Just been invited to a karaoke night, the manager cannot comprehend that i am not roaring to go ........sure you understand.

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