Around the World in 80 Words - India

I'm rather besotted by Sahdandproud's new linky to write up a global destination in no more than 80 words. Given that I've spent the last two months trying to condense wit and wisdom into Twitter's 140-character quota, 80 words seem positively incontinent. I am worried, however, that my previous effort on winceyette in Weston-super-Mare may cause some to conclude that I do not lead a glamorous life. So this week I'm going exotic to show you that before parish and progeny tethered me, I had Been Places!

You smell the dawn in India. It wafts from the dried-dung fires that warm the street-dwellers; from the holy cows nosing the gutters; from the men defecating beneath walls. It’s light when the women trudge to the edge of town for more discreet necessity. And through the light come the school children, balancing round lunch tins. Men crouch on the kerb to be shaved. A buffalo drowses with a bird on its head. And the cacophony, dulled by nightfall, resumes. 

If you want to try globe-trotting in miniature and don't have a blog, feel free to use my comments box. All royalties to Sahdandproud. I dare you!

Comments

  1. Youknowwho29 January 2012 at 14:44

    I just love your writing MAM. The above stimulates every sense but not sure i want to go there now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Youknowwho29 January 2012 at 16:37

    Who??

    ReplyDelete
  3. Reluctant Housedad29 January 2012 at 17:17

    'You smell the dawn'. Perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Him Up North29 January 2012 at 21:58

    It's like you're there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @homedad29 January 2012 at 22:04

    I think I like the sound of Weston-super-Mare better!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1 February 2012 at 17:56

    The pungent smell of India - never got that far. Must have another go at this, but on a more local scale!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bibsey Mama7 March 2012 at 19:14

    Brilliant 80 words. India is a heady smelly mix. Magical in hindsight.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more