An enjoyable day off

When you have only one day a week off I must admit my instinct is to crawl into bed and stay there until Monday. Luckily my mouth worked before my brain did on Friday and I invited my friends Derek and his new fellow Arko to the flat for a visit to the temple and lunch… which I would cook.

So Sunday rolled around and I woke up late which was not a great start but luckily I had bought all of the vegetables and I started preparing them as soon as I woke up. I shelled ½ kilo of peas (matara), peeled potatoes (aloo) and was just about to start on the cauliflower (ghobi)when I saw something sprint behind the fridge to the battery. I did have to stop myself from leaving the room so I got on with the cauliflower which was horrid. I cut it up and it didn’t look very good to me and picked up the florets to put them in some water and I discover a leech on the chopping board, so I threw it away and the cauliflower too! Now I don’t mind leeches as long as they’re not on me and seeing something move very quickly in the flat when I didn’t know what it was did start my mind off and by the time that Derek and Arko arrived a cockroach the size of a cat was trying to invade the kitchen and 16 leeches were leaping from the cauliflower! Once they had calmed me down we decided to pop out for some refreshments and then go up to the roof terrace.

We spent a very lazy afternoon in the glorious sunshine playing cards, eating my food which actually wasn’t bad apart from the rotis (they were what can only be described as dreadful) and we also had a beer each – gasp! I tried to convince myself and my guests that I had caught the sun just for them to look at me slightly puzzled and half nod in agreement as I looked so pleased with myself!

Derek and Arko



Roof top view of Deoghar



It had been decided that we would go to the temple for evening prayer at around 7 pm so we left the flat and started the walk up to the temple.

The temple is amazing; I can’t even begin to describe it. I think it was the time of day that we went as the atmosphere is intoxicating. The main Shiva temple is located in the centre and next to the entrance is there is a large fire where the ashes are created. Walking around the temple is a precession of people all with incense, it’s not terribly polite as there is a lot of pushing and shoving and elbows but you get carried along until you can find a gap to fall into. Within the main temple there are cameras set up so you can see what’s going on inside – the only think I can liken to what was going on inside is a mosh pit. I must say I didn’t go in because it did look very intense and I didn’t fancy being coated in kerosene oil with lots of open flames about but Derek did and he confirmed it was well, crazy!

All in all it was a very enjoyable day and I am pleased to say that the ‘thing’ wasn’t a cockroach but a mouse. Now all I have to do is figure out how to entice the mouse out of the house!