Thursday, December 20

We woke at a normal time. Irma put the washing machine on at 7:30 and I woke up as she did it.

I had suffered a full-scale mosquito invasion in the night, and I woke up bitten all over.

We had breakfast and then Uday came at about 11:15 and drove us to the new Mall of Travancore. Bigger than Arabia and not as big as Itis, we walked around looking.

We stopped for cold drinks at the Muffin House where a model railway delivers all the orders to the tables.

I marvel at the giant Santa, and the jerry-built scaffolding that supports it. I notice that the scaffolding is mounted on thin metal frames with wheels; held there with rope not much thicker than string. I photograph Santa before he topples.

I will stop at the Oppo shop to look at the Oppo F9 Pro, a 300€ phone with the specs of a top-line Samsung or iPhone. It runs ColorOS, Oppo’s own fork of Android.

We will go to Hymart, the big supermarket in the mall, where one of the assistants will run up grinning to announce that she used to work at Divine Supermarket. We will find an in-house bakery and buy samosas.

In the evening we will watch Arnab Goswami on the Republic television channel, which he co-founded in 2017, and I will ponder how best to record this for viewing in Helsinki at a kulturmöte.

I will wonder whether he invented this form of television, a bit like Jerry Springer (a lot like Jerry Springer), or whether the format already existed in India when he began.

The format consists of a “discussion” in which everyone shouts at once at the same time. Tonight this will clomax with Arnab Goswami shouting “I am standing up, I am standing up now” over and over again, on top of everyone else, while actually slowly standing up.

Why? Go figure.