Tailors

Anyone who has been to India will be familiar with the sight of little men (always men) sitting by the side of the street with sewing machines and will have been told that if you find the right person, they will whip up exquisite garments or copy your favourite trousers in a matter of minutes for peanuts.

I have never had a great deal of success with tailors. I lack the ability to explain what I want, the patience to go back for innumerable fittings and alterations and the will to haggle. In Thailand, I never found the fabric I wanted and resorted to buying cotton in England and taking it back to Thailand to get things made.

I had, for some time, been planning to go to Nehru Place, fabric centre of Delhi, purchase some linen and have some trousers made up. The months trickled past and a trip to England approached. Jigsaw beckoned. How much easier to buy trousers there and, I reasoned, I could then get them copied in India if I needed to. The shopping spree during my two month holiday in Europe resulted in (among many, many other things) three pairs of linen trousers and a pair of designer jeans which I think are too tight. All four pair of trousers were too long and as I was keen to start wearing them, I took them to an (Indian) tailor in London. The tailor pinned the trousers and then quoted me 15 pounds a pair to take them up. I declined.

So, back in India, I went to the local tailor in Jorbagh market who operates outside the convenience store. As he had no fitting room, he didn't seem to be very useful and proved even less so when he said he didn't do hemming in any event. I wasn't quite sure why but as I didn't think undressing and trying on trousers was altogether appropriate in the middle of the street, I didn't argue.

A friend recommended a tailor in Khan Market. At 11am, I arrived to find that it hadn't opened. I stood outside for about ten minutes until someone suggested I would find the tailor at the back entrance of the shop. I went in to the hole in the wall where a tailor was sitting at his Singer cross legged on the floor and the boss was attending to a suit.

"Could you hem some trousers for me please?" I asked, not unreasonably I thought.

"No, no hemming" the boss answered.

"What do you mean you don't hem trousers, you are a tailor?" I retorted, again, not unreasonably although somewhat irascibly.

"Why are you being so rude?" said boss man.

"Why won't you hem my trousers?" I asked.

"Not enough money".

"Listen, I am a foreigner. You could tell me it costs 100 rupees per pair and I would pay it".

"I do that for my clients for free".

"Well, I am willing to pay".

"No hemming".

"But I might have three suits for you to make tomorrow. How do you know I couldn't become a valuable client?"

"Do you have three suits?"

"That's not the point. I...." I trailed off. Clearly, I was getting nowhere. The Indians, famed for their entrepreneurial vision, apparently become totally blinkered when it comes to hemming.

Having failed to get a recommendation of a tailor who would hem in the market and who was also open, I returned home defeated. I told Laxmi of my woes and she said she would pin the trousers for me and get them taken up near her house. Two days later, she returned with four pairs of trousers, perfectly tailored. Cost? 20 rupees (25p) per pair. I don't think I can begin to extract a moral here.

Road Rage

I am someone for whom one of the great benefits of expat life is that I have a driver. While confident driving in London (perhaps wrongly), the thought of driving in Asia petrifies me.

In Thailand, Jamie drove at weekends once we mastered our routes and much of the stress of driving was relieved by the fact that everywhere has valet parking or huge underground carparks. The principal threat came from the corrupt traffic police who, sensing easy game, would regularly pull over foreigners and issue tickets on spurious reasons. A popular topic of conversation among expats was how much you could bargain the price of the tickets down.

In China, foreigners are not allowed to drive without obtaining a licence. This can be done the hard way by passing an excessively complicated driving test full of convoluted rules which are never actually observed; or the easy way by obtaining a fake licence or bribing an official to give you one. The insurance to drive as a foreigner, is, however, prohibitive and when we took pity on our driver and let him off at weekends, we took taxis which in Shanghai, are cheap and plentiful and whose drivers are, for the most part, very good at not fiddling the meter for foreigners. Even I mastered taxi Chinese and would happily jump into them, prompting Eliot to ask while waiting for a bus in London, why we didn't just take a taxi.

It is an often reported fact that nowhere in the world are there as many fatalities on the road as in India. It does not take more than a couple of outings on the road before you accept this as an article of faith and wonder why, in fact, the death tole is so low, especially as seatbelts are never worn and there are usually far too many people in each vehicle with several children bouncing around, unsecured in the front and back. I once saw a rickshaw taking 11 children to school (at most they are supposed to carry four people).

Jamie and I spend most of our journeys when Jamie is driving, trying to work out what the road rules are supposed to be. Nowhere is this more puzzling than when going over a roundabout. New Delhi, beautifully laid out by Edwin Lutyens, features a huge amount of roundabouts. It is probably twinned with Milton Keynes. One of our friends, frustrated by trying to do business in India has made a list of 'things India does well' to encourage him when he is feeling down. Top of the list is roundabouts. They are plentiful and always (in New Delhi at least) adorned with beautifully kept flowers and trees. Unfortunately, something the Indians do not do well is navigate them.

When do you have right of way on an Indian roundabout? Essentially, when you are in front. Do not give way, do not pass go (absolutely no chance of that if you do give way), do not collect £200. Side mirrors on vehicles seem to be there purely for decoration in much the same way as the stickers and models of gods and saints which adorn the taxis. Occasionally check your rear mirror but when push comes to shove literally, if you are a nose ahead, you are king of the road. Size no issue. Of course, there is an exception to every rule and it must be said that buses are a law unto themselves. Crammed with people, some more out than in, the buses pick up speed only when they are in danger of being passed by a larger vehicle and on corners which they take at maximum pace careless of the cyclists and rickshaws who are batted to the side like the flies the passengers are swatting.

On one extraordinary occasion, Jamie and I had taken to the road with the kids early in the morning. Delhi does not do early mornings. We were driving down a main road with no more than two other cars in sight. Suddenly, out of nowhere, one of the two cars started to weave violently across the road, and like a guided missile seeking out a fast moving small target, smashed into the other car and careered off the road. In an astonishing piece of good fortune he happened to find the only stretch of road in Delhi with a soft verge. Most roads are lined with concrete barriers, shops, cows and people but this time, the driver was lucky and he drew to a gentle halt in a ditch. We waited long enough to make sure everyone was alright but not long enough to find out what on earth had happened to make the driver lose control.

Yesterday we were driving home and Jamie suddenly hit the horn long and loud. I was just about to berate him for excessive use of horn when I did a double take. A rickshaw was driving straight at us going the wrong way up a dual carriageway. I have also seen a guy in a disabled cart (a cross between a bicycle and a wheelchair) going the wrong way up the road straight into oncoming traffic.

A further road hazard (more for them than for us) are the small children selling flowers or magazines or simply begging. They weave in and out of the traffic lights , sometimes performing break dancing type acrobatic routines, and mostly, manage to scamper out of the way when the lights change. I feel sure though that some of them never make it back to the kerb. Cows and stray dogs are also obstacles to be negotiated. If you are unlucky enough to encounter an elephant on a busy road, you get stuck for some time.

Everywhere you drive, there are road signs warning that "speed thrill but also kills". They are unheeded. Nowhere in the world have I had so many near misses. (and in fact, one prang ) Sharp intakes of breath accompany each swerve in front of the car by cheeky rickshaw drivers. Jamie drives along with his hand permanently on the horn in true Indian fashion on a one man mission to teach the Indians to drive. Thank goodness we have a driver.

Have the big rain

When we lived in Thailand, our driver who was a giant of a man,; gentle when sober but who would return from the weekends with black eyes and reeking of alcohol, did not speak much English. Every time there was a downpour, he would trot out one of his best sentences: "have the big rain", a remark which has entered into our family phrase book.

Returning to India from a holiday in Europe during which we experienced the coldest July day recorded in Hungary since records began and the hottest day in London this summer, we are now in the full throes of the monsoon.

My first thought is how on earth did Jamie and I persuade ourselves that backpacking around India during the monsoon was a good thing to do. In the hot season, the sun was burning but the skies were blue and it cooled down a little in the evenings. Now, you break a sweat just putting your head around the door. The trip from the house to the car is a death trap as you skate your way over the flooded marble (no drain) which has suddenly turned into the Delhi equivalent of the Somerset House ice rink.

The brooding clouds grow in intensity and the oppressive humidity rises accordingly until at last, it is nearly dark and then someone upstairs lets out the plug and the water pours down . It cascades onto the rooves and through the rooves; flooding our study; flooding our staircase and flooding the upstairs living room. Every day there is a new patch of mold, a new pool of water. Every day, the laundry smells of damp because it is not quite dry. With each downpour, the internet disconnects and the oven and cooker start conducting current and giving their users nasty electric shocks. The water tanks are filling with debris and the water is coming out yellow we now have yellow towels, sheets and bedding.

What this means in practical terms is that the army of useless labourers is back. Yesterday, six men perched under the house overhang as the rain apparently prevented them from doing anything. Only the plumber appears to have been active. Somehow, he managed to turn the water supply off and forget to turn it on again so we were without water today. Other than the rain that is.

Have the Big Rain.