Jan 17: I

Barshi, some village, Status Hotel, 8.22 AM
In the car from the trainstation I asked Kanaiya whether or not I should, in fact, shave. Som had hinted at this but I wanted to make sure. He confirmed that I should. We arrived in the Village at around 4 AM. After getting installed (and getting the impression that everyone was going to go to bed – which was logic, after the train ride we had just been on, and during which no one really slept (well) ), I decided to go out for a bit and enjoy the calm of a waking village with a cigarette in hand before going to sleepy land myself for a couple of hours.
Having finished my cigarette, however, I was confronted with Sandip who wanted to go for a walk. I did not refuse. I had slept relatively ok on the ride to Barshi, I didn’t really feel like sleeping and I thought it was a good opportunity to get to know my new colleague (he probably had the same reasoning, though he confessed not having slept a wink on the train).
We started walking in a random direction when Sandip, to my slight surprise, turned out to be a smoker too, so we had a cigarette. We walked for about an hour and a half, stopping twice for a Chai (the little chai stands on the side of this rather rural village were already open) & having another cigarette. The streets were surprisingly crowded (for it being that early), but that was rather normal according to Sandip, seeing that it was a rural village and the villagers generally woke up early to start working and make sanitary visits…
I saw several puppies & a few cows. Not to mention scores of dogs. Ah, the memories.
It was nice and cold there, which was accentuated by Kanaiya(ji) – his name, apparently is written like that, and not like I had been writing it on the blog so far; The “ji” is a suffix indicating respect for his age (slightly over 30) and seniority in the company – wearing a sweater and earmuffs. I found the temperature really quite pleasing as it reminded me of a typical Belgian summer’s eve.
I went to bed around 6 am. I couldn’t catch sleep, mind mauling through the past couple of days (including my rather hasty departure from Belgium). Which once again shows that time perception is subjective, seeing that I Did fall asleep within half an hours, considering that I was awoken at 6.30 am by Kanaiya’s alarm clock. I dozed a bit, decided to shave after all and had a South-Indian breakfast (dosa’s and chai).