Gurgaon, India

I see this place as a land of bright evocative colour and spices. India is a treat for the senses and my experience there left me wanting more. Asia in itself is amazingly complex and different with its cuisines even within the countries themselves, and particular dishes and staples are specific to the different areas. In the South of India rice is mostly used whereas in the North of India bread is mostly used due to wheat being prominently grown in these parts.

India was, though I thought not possible, the hottest climate I had ever played in. It was the type of heat that makes you feel physically sick without doing anything. Running around was bad enough but stopping felt even worse, the heat would just burn, I was shivering from the heat. The heat was the toughest opponent out there and unfortunately I had had a cold the week before and I was still pretty clogged up which wasn’t helping my cause. Australia’s hot but India is in a whole new category. Ordinarily when it’s this scorching you’re hoping for a light wind to temporarily cool you down, not here, the wind was hot. But a few days in, you learn to cope. India in itself is a whole different experience. We were playing in Gurgaon, a rural town outside of Delhi. We were staying in Delhi and we took just under an hour car ride out to the courts each day. Driving in India was an experience in itself. We were given a driver who looked no older than sixteen years old. Without a whole lot of confidence in him he drove us out to the courts during peak hour traffic in Delhi. Because of the congestion it was apparently a common knowledge that during heavy traffic, one would have to drive on the wrong side of the road, into and mostly around (hopefully) opposing traffic. Now this was bad enough, putting complete trust in the horn that substituted use of mirrors, indicators and in some instances brakes. In actual fact, our car didn’t have side mirrors, so it could squeeze in between cars. This drive provoked quite a lot of tension for my mother, and the few days of rain that caused flooding in the street didn’t help our little road trips, if we got stuck I made it very clear I wasn’t getting out to push. I’ll tell you this though, every day we saw something new. From a man trying to get a monkey off his roof to men on their front porches smoking from a hookah. Cows roaming the highways and cars with no inclination to move them on, just driving around them, women with pre-marriage cloaks covering their faces balancing pots on their heads, not allowed to show their faces in public as unmarried women, donkeys pulling carts of grass onto the next town, women and children in the streets dancing to music. India was alive and we were fortunate to see these things that we wouldn’t have been able to see had we not been travelling to the country towns outside Delhi.

The tennis courts themselves were a rundown academy of sorts with a pool that no one would dare jump into, a dark murky green that either had never been cleaned or hadn’t been cleaned in a very long time. There was accommodation at the courts but only some of the rooms had air conditioners. The other rooms had fans that would only blow around hot air. Now the highlight for me during this trip to India was the food that was put on for the players to eat for breakfast lunch and dinner. The Breakfast I would eat if I had a match and needed something extra before I went to play, the lunch we ate everyday and the dinner we had back at our hotel in Delhi. The Lunch put on at the club was a buffet with six or seven different curries to choose from (I tried to pile on as many curries as would fit on the plate), there was yogurt to have with the curries, rice and fresh bread (chapatti) being made during lunch, so you could always be sure of a hot fresh one, or four. There were a lot of vegetarian curries (potatoes, beans and lentils). The black eyed bean curry was my favourite. There was always meat as well, mostly chicken, but never beef because cows in India are sacred. There was always a beautiful cheese curry as well that was in a triangular form with a red curry sauce which was my mum’s favourite. These curries were great for the first week, there was a great turnover as there were a lot of people eating and the food wasn’t hanging around. By halfway through the second week, people were leaving to go home and the food was being recycled to be used for the next day. It was at this point we cut our losses and stuck to two minute noodles just in case, but I haven’t tasted Indian food as good as this since I was in India. Some of the Indian girls at the tournament said that the cooking at the club was like home style cooking which they said was very good, so we were really lucky to get this type of food. The buffet lunch at the courts cost $2.50 per person.

India’s a great place which enlightens and opens your eyes. I saw the impoverished tents and tarpaulins set up amongst the litter, I saw shepherds all dressed in white except the turbans which were a burst of red. Other shepherds behind keeping sixty or so bulls and cows inline who ruled the road, some with necklaces around their horns, and extraordinarily, a shepherd at the back of the line with a new born calf around his neck, unable to walk by itself. India is something you never forget, though at times confronting, India is unique and such a special place. I cannot wait to go back, hopefully with my whole family and I would love to visit the small towns and regions, if just for the food!