If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get Outta the Ganj

Well, so. Gosh. I mean, really.

After all my talking to myself that I would spare no expense and blah blah blah, I cheaped out and asked for a non-AC room. NON-AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM because the cost difference was half. As in $10 for Hotter than Hades, and $20 for You will not expire of Heat Stroke before Dawn. Because some part of my brain went "You want 700 rupees for a night when 700 rupees was an entire week's Hotel stay in Pushkar two months ago?"

The full power picture, did I mention how often "full power" gets used here? FULL POWER! and it means something between "I'm excessively virile with the life force" and "Yes, we have electricity" or I dunno, I haven't quite figured it all out yet.

AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE THE HEAT GOT TO ME: it's 37 degrees Celsius here today. Now. AT 9 p.m. AT NIGHT. That's fishing Full Power, if you want my opinion, which you clearly do or you wouldn't be reading. TOMORROW? TOMORROW? OH I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED - Sunday afternoon is predicted to climb to 41 degrees Celsius. Perhaps I'll have to go eat crow and ask for the AC room. I understand it tastes like chicken.

And in some funny twist of bizarro world, when I finally settled on the Bless Inn at Pahar Ganj, just down the road from the Imperial theatre, I turned on the TV, ordered Chai (I told you, Main pagal hun. I am crazy - though word for word the translation would be: I crazy is) and toast and watched Mansfield Park. They're having an Austen fest on the History Channel here and Monday night it's Northhanger Abbey! It's hard to watch Austen - all these characters with fireplaces in their rooms - when your ceiling fan is going so fast it feels like it might fly off the ceiling. And it's circulating air that makes you feel as though you're sitting in an oven. Make that a microwave, on high.

Tomorrow night I'm meeting some writers. I am so excited! I must tell you, I nearly did my usual Eufemia thing and let my sometime overwhelming shyness overtake me so that I would just come home and tell you all - "Well, it was fun, you should all go, don't be too friendly with shop clerks and Arjun's your uncle. You'll have a blast." The thing I missed the most in traveling sometimes was the sense of community with other writers, particularly wanting to know where they hung out, what they did here. Writers! Creative Comrades! Children of the Revolution!

Gene Fowler is quoted to have said "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." You tell 'em Mister Fowler!

Darn, I think I may have to leave the internet's cool atmosphere and head once more into the heat dear friends, once more.

And here I was going to tell you I would be blogging less in Delhi but it may be a matter of life-support.