India - Day 19

Today was a rather busy day (by my current standards). At 10.30 I went to Nandita (one of Tom's neighbours, an older woman) only to find out that the driver had not arrived yet (so I managed to hear what was cussing in Hindi judging by the tone used). At about 11 we went shopping with her and Tom's other neighbour, Shiika (the one with the huge library). I managed to get quite a few souvenirs for both myself and some of my friends as well. When in the car, we also had interesting conversations with Nandita about charities and how to keep them going. Her main idea was that one has to always train ones own apprentice, and she cited Jesuites as very famous successful example of being able to keep things running for years on end, from one leader to another.

They left me at a souvenir shop (well.. an art shop, as it also had statues way too large to go in airplane luggage) I was approached by someone asking if I do acid and whether I would like to go to a rave. I declined, in case anyone is interested.

Me and Tom were then invited to Pat for pre-dinner drinks. We went with the scooter. I asked jokingly whether I could drive and he said sure, go ahead. We arrived in one piece, although I did manage to scare Tom considerably by my driving style. We drove past Sandhya on our way and when Tom asked me to pull over and I did, he looked visibly distressed.. and nervous laughter followed, from both of us.

Gabe was also invited, although he arrived a bit late. He had actually phoned me earlier to ask whether I would like to go out with him and a friend of his he had met a week ago. Sadly, that didnt work out because the friend had had a busy day and wanted to rest.

For dinner we went to this rather weird chinese-indian-european place. Portions were big, but prices were similar, being comparable to those found in above-average places in estonia. Tom said he was paying, however. During dinner it turned out that Pat had also had a rather crazy life, having stayed with headhunter tribes in South America and having had to watch a building she was supposed to be in be blown up in a terrorist attack, while being next door and recovering from a hangover.

The drive back on the scooter was similarly distressing to Tom, especially because I took all the turns at considerable speed and the last left turn was quite a close call because of that. When he got off, he said "You really are insane" and Im quite sure he did not mean it as a compliment, although he did admit that in here, being a bit crazy is quite useful for driving. Thankfully, the streets were rather empty today, as I do have to admit I did not plan on cutting things so close (it was actually a byproduct of me not being able to account for the extra weight of another person on the bike).

Also - I am reading Penrose at the moment and I, as a computer scientist with a small amount psychology background, do not agree with his ideas of conciousness, or, rather, think they are completely ludicrous and that he understands nothing of either what computers are capable of or how human mind works.