my funny friend

i first came to india about 8 years ago i think but i can’t quite remember. two lovely friends persuaded me to come with them and have a break. after a few crazy days in days during which i can only describe as being in a state of culture shock we proceeded south of delhi to jaipur… the pink city. pink is one of my most favourite colours! a car arrived for our first day of sightseeing driven by a sparkly cheeky little man going by the name of nagar. part of me wants to cut a long story short but that not what this blogging lark is all about so i shall go on… nagar had forgotten to fill his car with petrol because he had been late for work so on the way to wherever we were going we had to make a stop at the petrol station… we had passed two petrol stations before we stopped to fill up. back in the car i asked nagar why we had done so and he stopped quickly in the middle of the road (very full of cars, vans cycles, cows and pigs), held my arm, reached into his pocket pulled out a piece of paper on which was a very childlike drawing of a house and a car with sunshine and animals and said in very proud broken english “mam… my dream… for my childrens” …”and” i said to him, “mam this petrol sation give coostomers lottery ticket… it is my dream” sitting in the car in the middle of the road we both laughed so hard tears streamed down our faces it was the beginning of my funny friendship!

sometimes you just have to believe!

i first met Pankaj when he was four years old, i was visiting a colony of homes whilst on holiday in India. Pankaj has quite a posh house compared to some, it has mud walls and a tin roof. I don’t think the colony was often visited by tourists, so many children came up to see this novelty! i said hello to everyone… Pankaj appeared from under the bed with his school book, signalled to me to sit down and proceeded to show me his work. he didn’t learn english at his school but he was really proud because he knew one, two and three in english. he made me sit until I had learnt my name and one two and three in hindi! I find it very difficult to decide which one of us has everything and which one of us has nothing in our relationship, but i do know that he is one clever boy – he saw an opportunity and grabbed it!
whats this got to do with flowers then?
well the sale of flowers, you can buy them in our fabulous boutique has supported pankaj through school, because he has worked so hard, last year we went to see his headmaster and agreed to transfer him to an english school. recently he told me in english he had achieved his first ever 1st class pass, so excited he dived under his mattress to find the certificate to show me… all i managed to do was burst into tears because he had told me in english, that totally confused him but luckily the international language of laughter got me out of that hole!