Friday, February 20

I have spent two and a half hours in the post office, going through the processes involved in sending a small stool (very small stool) and a painting to Finland. This included watching the Miracle Packing Man turn some random sheet of cardboard into an exactly sized, ultra-strong package containing a large painting. And then another one for the tiny stool.

This marked my third appearance with articles for Finland and the Miracle Packing Man acknowledged my with the particular hand motion used in Kerala. It involves holding your arm straight down but slightly away from your body, then moving the hand at the end up and down a couple of times.

On the way home I finally managed to take a photo of a woman riding side-saddle on a scooter. Very many women do this in Kerala. and it looks inherently unsafe to me. But then so does riding a horse side-saddle, so what do I know?

I should clarify by adding that I think riding side-saddle is dying out. I don’t think young women like Ali or Lekshmi would even think of doing it. I can, in fact, verify this to some extent because I have seen both Ali and Lekshmi jump on the back of scooters or motorbikes using exactly the same technique as young men.