Here on a workshop at the scottish High School which is a very odd school, set in an equally unusual satellite city of New Delhi.
Old Indian men in strange gurkah style silver and tartan outfits greet us each morning along with a horrible bagpipe chorus of something that was once Scots, and a rendition of torture the playing of Auld Lang Syne...that sounds like Old Lung Sighing ..on a keyboard by a solo player with a over reverb microphone...what is this place. It is like the underworld's version of Hogwarts. Ladies in saris usher us into hallowed halls that resound with the PA's tinny bursts of someone's idea of classic pop songs, so we can gather to be refreshed before we sit in over heated, or over chilled darkened rooms to learn about our subject ares.. it does seem a little ironic perhaps that we are being inculcated with the latest in holistic learning approaches while housed in an example of the worst learning environments, and being presented information that restricts our learning of it by the simple oversight that if we are teaching teachers how to teach then we should teach them this in the way we hope they will teach their own students, and recognize their needs and their differences...while I have no fault with the material and find the delivery fascinating I somehow expect more from IB than presentation techniques. But time poor and under resourced is the state of us all and if this information has to be gone through then we are lucky we have a dynamic and enjoyable presenter.
That aside what is there to do in Gurgaon..well when you have a crappy hotel room you can cross the road, in itself an adventure, I recommend not using the lights and just criss crossing between the cars, elements of danger like this can make a dull evening into a major achievement.
I like the Gallery mall, it is outside and is a miniature Cascais without the water front,but it has charm and two floors of stuff that is not high end or import or brand heavy. I found a brilliant nail spa and decided on a manicure. Dreadfully underdressed in simple linen pants and shawl I hid at the back while glittery ladies of heightened manes and incredible acrylic talons jostled gossip with instruction and handed out off the cuff insults to the customers. "Why's your name Sylvie?" one customer was asked and on admitting to not knowing was told off "Well you should aks your parents why they chose a name like that."
I was loving the manicure and got the fright of my life when my young male manicurist turned a switch on behind me that brought on the hands of hell from within the stuffing of my chair. I had not realized that a complimentary chair massage was part of the deal. Being pummeled by creaking metal fists covered only in thin leather is not my idea of a good time, so after everyone had settled down again and no longer disturbed by my shrieking I asked he flip the switch and return the claws of hell to their resting places.
The manicure itself was great, profesional and executed with precision, which for a boy of seventeen was a good effort of concentration and application. It cost, I worked out, just under three dollars.
Deciding I ought to have something to eat for later led me to a very clean kebab house, a chain of the North Indian style. A pantomime of wants and unavailabilities was conducted and I left with a lovely cloth bag containing silver wrapped things, which I unveiled to my delight back in my crappy hotel room. Brown competing with brown is the decor and I made the mistake of turning of the ceiling fan and spinning a year's worth of dirt over everything so it is brown on brown on brown with texture...so much for me being the positive being on the planet, Gurgaon is short hand for gorgon's lair and I am only writing this because my neighbors are chatting in the hallway and rather than lie in bad disgruntled I thought it would be better to get creatively bilious and make the most of the intrusion on my sleep to share my thoughts with my blog...
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