Church was another great bore, I had been invited to do some music at the Sunday School, but we went to the service because the Rev told us that he was going to give us a felicitation. Guess what? He didn't. We went to see him after lunch and he said he'd do it next week. I'm doing Sunday School next week. He can just fuck right off.
We told him what we had decided about the budget and I think he understood. It would appear that Kumar is earning Rs500 a month and is expected to buy all his own food! That's one dosai a day. The Rev just laughed and said, I know! when we said that it wasn't enough. Sometimes I just want to hit him.
At the moment I am waiting for C. and Kumar to come back with my dinner. The Rev is going to give us a stove so that we can cook our own veg. We bought a kettle and some tea (Chakra Gold) but the plug doesn't work. There are just some aspects of English life that we can't live without, ie real tea! There is another lad here, Rajesh the musician chap. I've given him a sheet of guitar chords and he is trying to learn them. He keeps asking me to work out and teach him bits of Tamil songs, which he then fails to learn. He speaks very little English, just odd words like Kumar so conversation is slight. I don't know why he doesn't just go, he can't be enjoying himself. Tori Amos is on the machine – I don't know what would have happened to me without music. Now that constant exposure has taught me to like some Tamil songs, our consistent playing of Western styles is less. But still important...
Arun didn't come to take us away tonight, which is why we're still here. Yet another example of Indian reliability...
I'm beginning to be able to recognise when Kumar has misunderstood us, and can work out what he thinks we've said.
Example: Ordering lunch we say to him:
Kumar turns to the waiter and babbles in Tamil. Oh no, I think and say to C. that I bet Kumar thinks we want two biryanis. Sure enough, the waiter finds someone lower ranking than him and asks for two biryanis. Oops! We have to be careful about what we say...