I’ve just moved back to the Tarai after a period of absence, and am living in the same house I was based in last year. Re-adjusting to the heat is a bit of a challenge after several months in the hills.
When I first moved into the house, I inherited a giant, gecko shit-encrusted air cooling machine from the landlord. At first I had no idea what this thing was, having come from a country known for its temperate weather. It looked like a cross between a washing machine and the Large Hadron Collider. Perplexed, I just used it as a place to stack newspapers.
This is what my air cooling machine looks like. Sort of
Anyhow, I switched it on today, and have concluded that it’s just about the most counter-productive piece of equipment in the world. All it does is to blast the house with warm air that smells like wet socks and potatoes, make a roaring sound like a light aircraft taking off, and create a vortex in the middle of the living room into which interview notes rapidly disappear. Sitting in the same room as the air cooler made me think of those Bollywood song sequences where wind is blowing on the actors from no discernable source.
Anyway, field ko jindagi yestai ho. My life is not quite as glamorous as previous blog entries might have suggested, and air coolers are rubbish. Just as well that the fridge (which I am tempted to climb into) has a nice bottle of Everest beer waiting in it.
The Ajnabee 