On Hippie Beach

This time it's not rich kids playing radiohead on the beach. I thought at first the beautiful sounds were Celtic Folk based on the vocal style of the singer, also playing her 12 string guitar. But she spoke something which sounded like German to the drummer. The guess seemed to be Czech or possibly German, and suddenly I'm confused about vocal styles. It's also so narrow to think about one country, I have met so many part Irish Norwegians, and Fins who live in Hungary, English Israelis and so on.

I was also treated to an explanation of how the discovery of the Higgs Boson explains what people see when using Hallucinogens. Via a serious of curious analogies missing gravity is directly linked to visions of other dimensions, with the conclusion that science would advance much faster at CERN with the use of DMT and LSD.

The pains of the street sweeper

Some jobs in India are poor. I have seen people paid low wages to carry rocks on their head, for long hours, in the hot Indian sun. Not for some hidden commercial enterprise, but for government contractors building roads. Others, the most visible, are the street sweepers; who clean the street of its rubbish coating using small brushes. The sweepers often have to bend over with short tools, and their backs appear fixed at near 90 degrees. They work among the traffic, the dust which they kick up, and the pollution. The noise of vehicle horns must be damaging enough. You won't often see a mask, a fluorescent jacket or a long handled brush. The cost of labour is far lower than any of the mechanical sweepers that remove the weekend filth from English cities. I don't know how much they earn, nor how many hours they work, but my suspicion is that these conditions would not excite. This is a fabled torment: there is no progress as waste bins are few and rarely used.

The Conservative party have often stated how health and safety legislation and workers benefits are a drag on the UK economy. Unions provide pointless teabreaks, and workers should sell their rights which are too generous. I suggest any member of the conservative party work as an Indian street sweeper for a month and consider each of the following benefits:
H&S: No illness or injury through work, protective clothing
Minimum rest breaks
Minimum pay
Maximum hours
Sick pay
Pensions

For any other group of people I would suggest an even greater pain watching these labourers at work for a month, but I fear reduced efficiency for Tories

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is the traditional system of medicine in India, or as I like to call it, bullshit. Yes ignoring the placebo effect what can wearing different types of beads (at different costs) actually do for the body. If the herbal concoctions actually worked wouldnt these just be called 'medicine'. Ok I am not a total idiot, I know that the enormous cost of clinical testing is why many cosmetics and herbal remedies do keep their paramedical status. There has to be profit to drive clinical testing, and this requires protection and a large target market. Plants are regarded as a vast library of potentially useful molecules in medicine, so perhaps a herbal remedy could have some otherwise unrealised benefit, but then again it might also silently damage your kidneys. What guarantee do you have of the quality of a herbal remedy, and who makes it in their back room. Ok this is just pent up anger, the Indian tiger will be practically extinct in the wild within a few years and another traditional system of medicine (Chinese) is just one of the causes. Or perhaps this is redirected anger from Homeopathy, but I (or others that I restate) have finally solved this problem!

It's simple, we do nothing. A wonderful theory called survival of the fittest will take care of those who place their faith in homeopathy

I'm known in these parts

I sometimes fear I am slightly on the eccentric side, why else would so many people recognise Mr Josh some 2 or 3 months later. The laundry worker in Hyderabad, the hotel owner and my restaurant haunt in Krishnagiri. The hotel owner didn't seem too shocked at my walking around with a plastic bottle filled with leaves... as you do. Or leaving at 7am and returning 3 hours later completely covered in thick powdery dirt, why would that be memorable!

Union Demands

Theres been another 'all india strike', albeit with low participation (various unions have each wrangled their own deal). This time the demands, which seem unreasonable to many Indians, are not that unreasonable. They are primarily calling for a minimum wage and social security, mainly driven by the failure of wages to keep pace with high inflation, and even steeper hikes in food and fuel. The general unions (communist) are also possibly scared by the moves of the Indian government to open up the until now protected Indian economy to competition. It will be brutal, and the supermarkets could potentially render vast numbers of 'small business owners' redundant. So quoted because half of all Indians questioned will give their profession as businessman... really its sitting idle/ sleeping hoping to sell some goods at some point.

The demanded wage is Rs10,000 per month. This is roughly GBP 120 per month, and not an unreasonable since adjusted for present purchasing power (estimate 10 fold, though it varies, for petrol or vegetable oil the factor is only 2) it is not far off the minimum wage for full time work in the UK. The problem is this is a vast step from the present low wages (published) of 4000 rural or 6000 urban for basic shop keeper work.

India has a shortage of employment, and without a minimum wage competitive pressure is strongly downwards on all non-unionised staff. I'm not an economist and I can see this threatening one of Indias assets, that you can find someone willing to work for $1 per day. But this wage 'shurely' can't exist in any stable solution

Forever alone

India and China have one problem in common: infanticide or selective abortion of girl babies leading to a significant gender imbalance in poor areas. In India I have read that in the worst affected regions this has reached 800 girls to 1000 boys if selected by birth year. As recently reported by the BBC, China has a surplus of some 20 million men below the age of 30. In India at least, wealth is a factor, and without this rights to marriage would be somewhat limited (no option of marrying below). I'm trying to imagine the life of a man who knows there is a fair chance he will never marry, and in a conservative society this means never have a partner. Whilst I must have seen a happy life in poverty, it has never been pictured alone...

In the Chinese government's demonising of single women, I see fear...

Local people

Kundarapalli is a small town near Krishnagiri, it is a bit local. Three of the customers at the chai stall had with them a small goat on a leash, as you do.

South India

Back in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. I no longer feel like such an idiot. My auto driver pulled up next to another auto driver to have a natter... and then I realised he was talking in English. Signs are in English, I haven't been asked if I speak Hindi once. Though I had just about learned to count in Hindi, I'm guessing I will lose that now.

Someone in MP asked if I knew enough Hindi to get by, I said "Yes, Pani, Namak, Chaawal"

(Water, Salt, Rice)
Though actually the list of essentials in India should read: water, salt, rice, antibiotics