72. Potting the black

We played snooker last night.  None of your minor league pool - this was the real thing.  A low ceilinged  room, crammed with huge snooker tables, lit only by the low lights over each table, dark shadows surrounding us, people quietly concentrating on the serious business of snooker.  Its 35 years since I spent many happy hours in a house with a full sized snooker table, and last night it seemed that any talent I may have had had long deserted me.  But then I achieved an inspired  left handed shot and was hooked!  And I played the winning last shot of the game, potting the black, and it was sublime.

A gang of us went for a meal later and were rendered helpless with laughter at tales of our parents finding out - or not finding out - about the things we got up to.

A friend of one of our Indian volunteers joined us - he is here for the cricket - and I quizzed them on the Indian obsession with whiteness and they said that is how it is.  To the extent that manyfilm stars aren't Indian at all - maybe Brazillian.  And that people from the North, who are naturally whiter, consider themselves superior.  I also asked them about english-medium education and how it is that young, intelligent and motivated people who have endless degrees, and masters and goodness knows what other english qualifications manage to emerge barely able to write english.  Good Indian english-medium writing is good, if idiosyncratic to our english eyes, but good.  But this doesn't seem to be what is taught in the general education system.

In a way its all part of the fascination of this amazing country.  30 years ago, on an overnight train packed like sardines with people of every imaginable - and a few unimaginable - religions, castes, nationalities, backgrounds, status......................................in the morning, as the carriage awoke and people tried to find a space to stand, or sit if they were very lucky, and to make their way to the loo at the end of the carriage, somebody needed to pray.  He walked the length of the carriage to wash at the sink, then back to the middle where he put  his prayer mat on the floor in just the right position - at an angle across the gangway.  And he proceeded to pray. Everybody of course, was aiming for the loo.   And they edged peacefully past him, or waited to edge past him.  The chaos he caused was unbelievable.  And not one single person even looked askance at him.