Delhi

The air is thick like soup, the sky grey and people are burning broken up packing cases in the street to try to keep warm. Madan cafe is still here with a big smiling Bunty, helpful as ever. As soon as I arrived he phoned my friend and sent me to see her in her hotel, where a room was waiting for me. We are down the narrowest alleyway on the second floor. The hotel porter was surprised when I remonstrated with him about the footprint on the sheet, but he changed it for another sheet, marginally cleaner but with a hole in it. Oh well, we are only paying 350 rupees a night.


Last night we went to dinner with a very generous man who paid for the whole table. He is running a free hospital in Bihar for lepers and he told me that he had been involved with this hospital for forty years. Today he is helping a man from the carribean who's grandfather was stolen out of India as a slave. There are many of these x-slaves, who want to claim their Indian citizenship, but it is proving very difficult. It seems they need DNA tests.

I am going to try to go to Jaitapur by train. A lot of the trains are held up by strikes and protests.

A lot of friends in Delhi, some leaving tomorrow, some arriving today. A pity the air is so unbreathable.