The end of the beginning!

Here is the retro gym at MGIMS...



So I visited Mahatma Gandhi's rural home, "Bapu Kuti", with Akshay. It was his idea, primarily so he could have the afternoon out of the wards! The whole place was representative of Gandhi's famously simple way of life; mud floors and walls, large open spaces for prayers, sparse furniture and few amenities. Profound statements galore!



We saw a ghost of Ghandi himself...



Afterwards we went for a cheapy bite to eat, cross legged, bare foot!



Unfortunately herbal coffee was just normal coffee, shame.



An interesting afternoon's discussion about Indian politics of the 19th and 20th century too. Then back to the wards.

The week ended pretty uneventfully. The days were fascinating, in the wards from morning til night, the odd hour in the library reading textbooks and the Times of India. Heaven! Evenings spent in the gym, eating dinner and watching movies with Akshay. Great times!

So come Saturday morning it was time to leave. Dr. Uday had arranged for me to attend a conference on Adolescent Pediatrics. I was introduced to a crowd to 400 or so screaming Indian children, and gave a little speech myself, talking the usual rubbish! I sat in on lectures about immunisation, HIV, premarital sex, cervical cancer, life skills and loads of other medical related topics. Pretty interesting.

Although the best part was meeting lots of new people. Dr. Uday introduced me to many many doctors from all over India, who were very kind, obliging and all gave me their cards! Here's the conference lecture hall.



So the two day conference ended yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, and I really wanted to see the famous new Bollywood movie "New York" which was, of course, in Hindi! I bought loads of popcorn and coke and we devoured that over the next couple of hours. It was the sweetest, most delicious popcorn I've ever eaten! I understood the film surprisingly well. It was interesting how much you can understand from expressions, and standard movie plots/techniques! There was some English, but irritatingly it was usually unimportant phrases irrelevant to the plot. Needless to say, Amol and Uday were on hand to translate for me.

After the cinema, we drove to Dominos, bought a huge meaty pizza and sat watching the Wimbledon final with a nice glass of scotch. The perfect end to a brilliant day! Not very Indian though...

This is a picture taken from the steps to the mall, down a busy street in Nagpur.



This morning I hit the local gym with Dr. Uday. The weights were a little light, but not too big a problem. The owners kept taking pictures of me lifting weights (presumably for some kind of mens health magazine...) asking me to hold steady. Easier said than done with 70lbs on the biceps!

So the plan for this afternoon is to have a look around some local hospitals, see the outpatients department at Uday's clinic and then have a game of snooker! Tomorrow, I'll be flying to Delhi to meet up with my chums from university. Very exciting indeed!

So this is nearly the end of a truly wonderful two weeks' solo travel. I'm now ready to go travelling up in the North, all our plans are pretty much made so now we just go and enjoy ourselves!