#mindthegenderpaygap : mid year round up

The gender pay gap continues to dominate as a major news story for 2016 – here’s my latest round up of the global stories, issues and challenges.

I joked about it on April Fool’s Day, but apparently, it can be done – bravo to the University of Essex,  who said they were  “impatient for change” and have thus given their female academics a pay rise to bring their average salaries level with the men. Facebook also maintain that they’ve closed their gap, although this BBC piece suggests (rightly) that it’s only half of the issue.

However, it transpires that academia in general suffers a huge gender pay gap; a new (US) study shows female PhDs in the science and engineering fields make 31% less than their male peers one year after graduation, according to a new study in the American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings. When controlling for the fact that women tend to earn degrees in fields that pay less than those in which more men earn degrees, the observed gap dropped to 11 percent. And the gap disappeared when controlling for whether the women were married and had children.

In the UK,  the new living wage came into law in April 2016 – but what does life look like on £7.20 an hour?

“From today, the National Living Wage will give around 900,000 women and half a million men an immediate pay rise in their hourly earnings. By 2020 this translates to 1.9 million women and 1 million men directly seeing a rise in their pay. The gender pay gap at the 10th percentile of the earnings distribution – including those working part-time – is expected to fall from 5.6% currently to zero by the end of the decade. Over the next five years women earning the National Living Wage will see their pay rise by over a quarter and growing more than 1.5 times faster than the salary of an average worker.”

[Source: UK government website]

What emerged from four USA news items?  

• A new study found that women hold less than a third of “middle skill” jobs—which include roles like welders, mechanics, and IT support staff. Researchers say that if just 10% of the women with similar, but lower-paid gigs moved into these fields, it could double median female earnings;
• Top US women footballers filed a complaint for equal pay;
• And Fortune shared five things every woman needs to know before she renegotiates her salary. A new Glassdoor survey blew up the myth that men – unlike women- are great at asking for higher salaries, finding that more than half of all employees settle for their employer’s first offer. However, those women who do try to negotiate tend to be less successful, according to the survey, which found that 15% of men are able to talk their way into a higher paycheck, vs 4% of women;
• The gender wage gap is especially pronounced among highly educated men and women in white-collar jobs, an analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows. Women without a high-school diploma were paid 79% as much as male peers in 2014, whereas women with a bachelor’s degree or higher were paid 76% as much as male peers. This may be in part because white-collar jobs such as CEOs, doctors, and engineers reward working long hours and job hopping, two behaviours that can be tricky for working parents (ie, mothers). And as gap watchers already know, wage transparency, pay studies, and other one-off remedies won’t do much to fix the problem. What might? Cheaper childcare, more flexible workplaces, and increased parental leave (along with dads who are willing to take it).

I love a story which suggests that corporate diversity programmes can make a difference – and this report from the Harvard Business Review finds that women perceived as “high-potential” receive a pay premium, making even more than their male counterparts. There’s a catch, of course: that pay boost is far more likely to kick in if they work for a company with overarching diversity goals.

It’s not just about the UK  and the USA, though. A new survey shows that while India has a gender pay gap, it narrows when men and women are working at the same level. Men in India earn an average of nearly 19% more than women, but just 3.5% more if they work at the same level at the same firm.

Yet another new study looks at how becoming a mother affects the gender pay gap in different countries. Interestingly, having a child in Ireland puts a big dent in working mothers’ salaries, while it barely registers for mums in Italy, Spain and Belgium. This Irish op-ed piece really reflects the writer’s frustration with the current set up, doesn’t it?

It’s been interesting to watch actresses emerge as public advocates for pay equality and equal opportunities at work. True, their massive pay cheques make it difficult to feel too outraged on their behalf. Yet their celebrity may make their actions useful to working women with less clout. House of Cards star Robin Wright recently explained how she got the show’s producers to pay her as much as co-star Kevin Spacey.

“You better pay me or I’m going to go public,” Wright recalls saying. “And they did.”

The last time I wrote about the gender pay gap impacting pocket money,  my Facebook page was alive with comments saying it wasn’t so – but this latest survey suggests that, broadly speaking,  there is still a pocket money gap of 13%! What I still can’t wrap my head around is why – can parents please comment and shed some light?

Finally,  at the other end of the age spectrum, both the TUC and the New York Times report on the extent to which the gender  pay gap is impacting retirement; in the UK, women have barely half the pensions of men and the same is true in the USA – women are in far worse shape than their male counterparts when it comes to retirement. Because women make less over our lifetimes and thus have lower pensions, we are 80% more likely than men to be in poverty at age 65 and older.

This week, I’m watching: Mumbai High – the Musical

… and I urge you to do the same, if you’re at all interested in India, or education, or musicals, or how other people live; or even if none of those things float your boat but you’re at a loose end and can get access to the BBC iPlayer for the next month or so.

This one hour film,  recently shown on BBC4 as part of their wonderful India season (click on the “India” tag in the cloud to

(c) BBC

the right of this post on the main blog site for my previous posts about India) tells the story of five children from the Mumbai slum of Dharavi – their backgrounds, homes, families, hopes and dreams (Raj wants to be a doctor, Mary wants to play football with David Beckham). It’s shot using a standard documentary format but is also interspersed with Bollywood/Glee style musical numbers where the children and their teachers sing, in multiple languages, and dance.

I once wrote that India, my favourite country in the world,  finds a new way to uplift you and yet break your heart every day – and this beautiful, moving, funny, emotional film encapsulates that.

Do watch it if you can – and let me know if it speaks to you the way it speaks to me.

Here’s a clip of Iffat, aged 12, telling us how she can speak six languages and gets 100% in all her subjects at school:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p032h0d3

What’s on my mind?

Facebook are always exhorting us to share, with the question “what’s on your mind?”

So here,  in no particular order, is what’s on MY mind.

Thought for the day … is the concept of dressing for success only a female thing?

I’m currently doing some interim in-house corporate communications work around connecting the employee engagement and diversity agendas.  Part of this has entailed helping the company to set up a women’s network, which launched earlier this week (hence, no blogging).  At the same time,  we’re also working to plan some events for the rest of the year and debating what they may be and who best to involve.  One suggestion has been that we co-create an event with the community affairs and philanthropy team,  and perhaps do something together which will benefit a women’s group or charity.

Now obviously,  I love this idea and am looking forward to the meeting where we can discuss this a bit more.  Another suggestion has been that we do something around the concept of “Dressing for Success” and do something for or with the charity of that name … and that made me wonder if such a concept even exists for men?

DfS (who I think are fabulous and do great work,  by the way – I’m not having a pop) was “set up by women to help other women get a job and become financially independent”.  But in all my years in the corporate world,  I’ve never seen anything similar for men – have you?

Imagine it:

• a poster campaign in the lift and around the office
• – which asks men to donate their unwanted suits and ties.
• Men providing other men with interview advice

Is this because men don’t need this help,  don’t want it or some other reason?  Is the help in question perhaps provided more casually?

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Also on my mind … an article from last Sunday’s Observer, which has been circling around and around ever since I read it. Dr. Abhay Bang’s programme to reduce infant mortality in Maharashtra has achieved dazzling results but they –

“.. owe little to the orthodoxy of western medicine and everything to his team of neonatally trained rural women.”

Click here to read more.

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I went to hear Sonia Gandhi deliver the Commonwealth Lecture in central London a few weeks ago.  The theme of her talk (and of this year’s programme of Commonwealth activities) was “Women as Agents of Change”, which celebrates women whose work has made a positive difference to the lives of others and emphasises the message that, by investing in women and girls, we can accelerate social, economic and political progress around the world.  My big “wow” moment from the talk – which you can read here – was to learn that 60% of all women in the Commonwealth are in India.

* * * * *

And finally … when I was in Mumbai in December,  I met a very interesting man called Abhi Naha,  who is working, through his company Zone V,  to develop a mobile phone for use by the blind.  Abhi told me that over two thirds of the 415 million blind and partially sighted people in the world are women, which is why he is so passionate about empowering blind women through mobile phone technology.  Zone V‘s motto is:

“Imagine a world where lack of sight does not mean lack of vision”

– and Abhi certainly doesn’t lack vision,  in any sense of the word.  A few days ago,  he texted me and asked – “If you could have an ’empowerment button’ on your mobile phone for women in developing countries, what would you make it do?”

I replied:

“I’d use it to educate the 62 million girls around the world who don’t even get to go to primary school.”

How about you – what would YOUR empowerment button do?



“Feminism is the unfinished revolution …”

– declared Natasha Walter in The Guardian earlier this week,  in her column about the centenary of International Women’s Day. Meanwhile,  back in my spiritual home of India, Dr Elizabeth Menon‘s piece in The Hindu reminded us that equality for some is still very elusive.

For me,  IWD was all about spending the day at a university,  at which I spoke and chaired an event called “Breaking Glass”.  I heard about the glass ceiling as it exists within academia and learned,  not altogether surprisingly,  that the issues faced by female staff at universities (reasonably high numbers at entry level, falling away at a career mid point,  subsequent difficulties in progressing to the top tier) mirror almost exactly those faced by their sisters in the corporate world.

I used the centenary of IWD to structure my talk around the way in which the world has changed for women since 1911 and the key events and people who have made those changes come about.  My brief had been to “make it light”,  so I peppered my slides with a few key quotations – some of which I share now.

“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women …”

– Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State, 1997 – 2001

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what a feminist is.  I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

– Rebecca West, writer, 1913

“Well behaved women seldom make history …”

– Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, professor at Harvard University

“I wanted to work there because I wanted to become a writer. I was quickly assured that women didn’t become writers at Newsweek. It would never have crossed my mind to object … It was a given in those days that if you were a woman and you wanted to do certain things, you were going to have to be the exception to the rule.”

– Nora Ephron – writer, novelist, film director [on starting her career in 1962]

My favourite quotation,  which I didn’t use because I hadn’t then read the originating article,  comes from Mariella Frostrup in The Observer,  who,  in a blistering and truly excellent piece of journalism, reminded us that the struggle is far from over and that,  within the closed world of UK politics:

“… there are more blokes called Dave and Nick in government than there are women MPs. Women continue to hover at a steady 19% in the chamber, put off perhaps by a testosterone-fuelled climate where the last two prime ministers’ wives have given up high- flying careers to support their husbands or simply to satisfy the perceived demands of middle England.”

Check it out – one of the best and most impassioned articles on feminism you may read.

Cleo in Wonderland

Today is my last day in Goa; tomorrow I fly home via Mumbai,  after another month in this beautiful, heartbreaking, bewitching, chaotic, colourful, frustrating country.

It’s been a busy week, with a mixture of freelance writing, charity work for Educators’ Trust India and, unexpectedly,  a sidebar trip to Chennai.

Monday saw me spending the day working on the “Volunteer with Us” section of their website,  and hammering out the framework by which ETI can take on around 20 volunteers for the 2011/2012 tourist season.  We also identified 20 children who are in need of monthly sponsors and talked about how that model will work … feel free to email me if you’d like more details.

On Tuesday I went back to the slum with the Morning Light project and spent five hours there, washing the children, handing out samosas and being in charge of Operation Underwear.  Two Swedish supporters,  Jane and Bjorn,  donated a large shopping bag full of assorted pairs of differently sized knickers … so we had a system going whereby we washed the kids,  treated their hair for nits and they then lined up in order to receive a new pair of pants.

(Over which they then re-dressed themselves in their filthy old clothes.)

Jane also provided each child with a Mickey Mouse toothbrush,  so we had an “up and down, side to side, rinse and SPIT” teeth brushing lesson in the open air.

Two children were particularly affectionate this week; brother and sister,  they came running over as soon as they saw me and then attached themselves to me for the duration of my visit,  each one clinging to a hand. Diego translated for me and I learned that the lady with them,  whom I had assumed was their mum,  is in fact their nanni – they are the children of her son and she is raising them,  as their mother died a few years ago.  I was so sad to leave them – lots of hugs all round and they cried when we drove away.  I wonder if I’ll ever see them again?

On Wednesday I spent a long, dusty and above all HOT morning at Anjuna market;  until this trip,  it’s just been the place that I visit to shop and sightsee and take colourful photos,  but this time,  I spent the morning working with Diego on the ETI fund raising stall.  I gave out leaflets,  explained what we do (“we run schools for slum children” – how about that for an elevator pitch?) and took donations of clothes, toiletries, books and money.  Some very clear national divides emerged between the passersby: Indian tourists walked straight on,  Russians stopped to look and then barked “No!” or even,  charmingly, “F*ck off!” if you offered them a leaflet; Americans were friendly, interested but usually backpacking, so had very little money to offer but always managed around 100 rupees (c. £1.40) as a donation,  with an apology that it couldn’t be more; northern Europeans from places such as Germany and Scandinavia didn’t want to chat but always stuffed a generous donation into my collecting box before walking on.

Most of the money came from the British tourists,  who were uniformly friendly, positive, supportive and generous – it gladdened my heart to meet so many lovely people,  who gave so freely of their time and their possessions. I only did four hours there and was knackered at the end of it – and there’s poor Diego,  doing a 12 hour day week in, week out, every Wednesday.  What a star.

Thursday saw a complete gear change for me;  I cobbled together a vaguely “smart” outfit from things in my traveller’s wardrobe plus some borrowed shoes and flew to Chennai on the other side of India for a business meeting-cum-interview.  After three weeks in the universal melting pot of Goa,  it felt strange to be on a plane where I was the only woman aside from the staff and the only westerner – everyone else was a dark skinned business man with a laptop and a bushy moustache.  Upon arrival at Chennai airport, I saw a billboard welcoming the England cricket team and a sign saying “hello Thompson mr”  and was then whisked away to the Sheraton hotel,  courtesy of my hosts.

TV! Hot water! Room service! A vibrating massage chair … what a contrast to the start of my week.

My “Alice down the rabbit hole” feeling continued the next day,  when I managed to have an interview, meet the England cricket team (obtaining some autographs for my taxi driver Satish in the process – he is now “Top Man in Goa”, apparently), chat to the Sky Sports camera team and meet my friend Priya from Bangalore for lunch … before flying back to Goa to head up the ETI team in a pub quiz – which we won!

Yesterday I rested,  before going to a wedding in the evening.  I knew neither bride (Feliciana) or groom (Romeo)  but was invited as a guest through my friend Renee; her landlord is the bride’s uncle (or something). So Satish drove us through the twilight to a huge, open air wedding venue,  where we joined around 500 other people in celebrating their marriage. Fireworks, confetti, party poppers, spray string, fabulous food,  Bollywood dance moves and a free bar …

Today I’m blogging, packing,  saying goodbye to my friends (although quite a few people have already left for home;  this is the Big Exodus weekend) and then heading out to a concert by the ETI children – they’re performing some dance moves – like this – at a local restaurant and we’re hoping to raise a few more donations from it.

I’m leaving on a jet plane,  don’t know when I’ll be back again – but I hope it’s soon.

Guest post: On the healing power of love

This is a guest post by Dr. Dhiru Mistry, an Indian born British GP who took early retirement from the National Health Service in order to return to India and devote his life and his medical skills to helping the poor and dispossessed.

* * * * *

Namaste, as we say in India – it is a lovely greeting from the heart. The greeting has inner significance, let me just explain briefly.  By holding both hands in a prayer position and looking at the eyes of the person you are greeting, this means that with my five senses of perception, five organs of action and with my soul I greet you. It also means that I see God in you and I welcome you with that intention and purpose. This is much better than our western greeting of just saying hello or shaking hands.

Having read Cleo’s article on the work of Educators’ Trust India, I was very impressed. It carried the point home to the reader: that in India, we have a tremendous gap between the poor and the rich, and yet out there we still have noble people who want to make a difference.

Let’s get serious.  My mind boggles to see this extreme poverty, this obvious carelessness and selfishness which is quite apparent when we visit the slums. I have the deep feeling that in the 21^st century, this should not be allowed to exist – the obvious pain, the suffering born of  hunger and illness, no proper human being should allow this to happen. Well, it is happening, what are we doing? This world belongs to us all, not just the Goan, the Indians, the British but to us all, and our teaching from the great books says it all, that there should be no class based, creed based, religious based, colour based discrimination.  As humans, we  should be utterly ashamed of our apparent lack of love and concern for the needs of these poor, displaced people in our society.

At Educators’ Trust India, we are empowering these children through education and trying to give a few of them food and clothing, but this is a drop in the ocean.

Our Morning Light project,  where we provide a mobile health, education, sanitation and nutritional service to slum dwellers  is the best that I have ever undertaken.  I say this with experience – my voluntary missionary work and philanthropy in medical fields have taken me to various parts of the world – but this is the ONLY project in Goa where we are going to the poor, the destitute and displaced people.  These people are so poor, so illiterate, so hungry that they do not have the energy to know how to fight their corner.  India is boasting that they are a world power; I disagree,  as one cannot be rich by means of acquiring  gold or dollars, one gets richness when the hearts and mind and the physical health of all its citizens are fulfilled, without hunger, homelessness, illiteracy  or holding out of the hands for a few rupees.  It makes me not angry, but sad at the thought of such treatment in an open society as ours. Remember,  slavery is now forbidden, but in reality it still exists.

At Morning Light each week, our volunteers, all of whom come from wealthy Western backgrounds, see no difference in colour,  creed or race, they see all as one and the love flows. Everyone is engaged in various tasks – you will see them washing, bathing, shampooing the children hoping to get rid of their suffering due to head lice. These children just do not have the simple itching manifestation of head lice:  they have bleeding, scarring and intense itching – why? It is obvious they have been neglected.  You can also see our volunteers playing, cuddling with joy and affection at the same time as teaching some basics to the children.  I am engaged in treating the illness that comes alone, with the help of our nurse.  We may be doing basic treatments and they do not need somebody like me with extensive experience to deal with minor illnesses, but the point is that we care for them and it is done with unconditional Love.

Remember,  Love heals.

This requires patience, tolerance, fortitude, equanimity and fraternity – these will prove invaluable attributes in our pilgrimage to the souls of the poor and the needy. Remember, we need to be a flower which radiates charm and fragrance, whether it is for a poor child or a rich child.  As with all things good and noble, the project, as a mobile clinic bringing medical relief, feeding and education, empowering and educating the neglected Indians in the squalor of the slums, brings home the lesson that Love and Service are like the two wings of a bird.

Flight is not possible with just one wing alone.

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Educators’ Trust India now have a Justgiving page. Please click here to make a donation if you can – even a few pounds or dollars makes a huge difference to both these children’s lives and to the work carried out by Dhiru and his team. Thank you.

Sangeetha, part two

I’ve just persuaded Sangeetha to let me take her photograph – here she is, second from right, with her 11 year old daughter (with the plaits), a friend and the extremely photogenic Parras!

Sangeetha’s story

A few days ago,  I went over to see the Educators’ Trust team at the Leading Light school in order to update their website.  While I was there,  as is always the case,  I was interrupted frequently, including being asked to help  interview a lady called Sangeetha.  Ian,  the charity’s project manager,  was talking to her and it was obvious to me,  while I was sitting at the opposite end of the veranda, that she was very uncomfortable being on her own with a man,  and with a western man at that.  She kept looking over at me, as the only woman that she could see; Ian,  to his credit,  noticed this and asked me if I’d come over and sit with him and interview her, in order to make her more comfortable.

Sangeetha, it turns out,  is 28 years old and a married mother of three.  She is very small in stature, probably no taller than 5 foot,  very, very slim – she actually looks malnourished, in terms of her eyes and her cheekbones and her whole demeanour.  She’s also disabled  and she walks with a very pronounced limp. When she moved the folds of her sari to sit down, I saw that she had a withered foot and leg and I later discovered that she’d been born like that.

She speaks limited but reasonably clear English and so we talked freely as long as I spoke slowly.  She must have been born into quite a good family,  as she stayed in education up to the age of 18.  Given that school in Goa is only free until you’re 13,  that indicates, I think, some family resources behind her.  She was married at 18 and has 3 children,  the oldest of whom is 11, a girl; there are also sons of 9 and 5. She came to the attention of Diego and the ETI team when her 5 year old son, Parras (pictured above, in the blue shirt) came to the Leading Light school. She lives in the same village as the school, Canca and her other two children go to another school nearby via bus. As I mentioned before,  education here is “free” – in that the actual schooling is free, but then you have to pay for bus fares, uniforms, meals,  sometimes textbooks and so on.

Sangeetha is the sole wage earner for a family:  herself, her husband and the three children and she works as a cleaner for a local business,  where she earns 500 rupees per month.

That’s about £7.

I can’t even begin to imagine how they can survive on that – by way of a contrast, 500 RS is about the budget I give myself for my nightly evening meal.

Another useful comparison figure is that the “room boy” (Indian for “chamber maid”) at my hotel earns c. 3000 RS (£42) per month plus room and food – which makes it sound like quite a good job in comparison to Sangeetha’s role.

The reason that she is the sole wage earner is due to her husband being paralysed.   That in itself sounds tragic – but I also learned that her husband was a drug dealer and user and contracted HIV through the use of shared, dirty needles.  He subsequently had a paralytic stroke and so he is now at home, all day, paralysed,  whilst Sangeetha is forced to do what she can to earn a living.   She managed to get Parras into the ETI school and Sangeetha then approached Diego, the charity’s founder  and asked if there was any work for her at the school.  She pointed out that she’s smart,  she’s educated,  she went to school until she was 18,  she can speak some English and she’s a very fast learner.  And she promised that she would work very hard,  she would do anything at all that they needed her to do,  as long as they could pay her more than 500 RS per month – and would it also be possible for her other children to transfer from their schools and join this school?

Diego, who has a heart as big as the world,  asked us if we could chat to Sangeetha – which was where I came in.  So,  just sitting down with her,  this was what I heard – and we tried to find a way that was both possible and dignified for her to come and work here. She’s now paid 1000 RS per month and has started work as a “Classroom Assistant”;  she helps in the kitchen,  tidies the classroom,  helps to organise the children when we take them to the beach and so on.  One of the things that she told me was that she’s never been to the beach or seen the sea!  She was born and has grown up maybe 10 miles inland from this beautiful coastline and yet neither she nor her children have ever been there – so imagine what it’s going to be like when we take her family to the beach for the first time next week.

So that’s what’s in Sangeetha’s future;  what I think is particularly encouraging about her story is that it shows how the charity are starting to work with people from within the Goan community as well as with those who travel here from elsewhere.   One of the things that’s a constant in charity work here is the fact that some Goans are suspicious of and tend to have a dislike of NGOs who work with migrant communities.  They can think of the migrants that “… these problems are of their own making – if they stayed in their home state, they wouldn’t bring themselves and their problems into our beautiful state of Goa”.

But what we’re seeing now is that the charity has an infrastructure to support those people within Goa who also live in poverty.  Diego will never turn away a child in need,  especially if that child has parents who want their child to be educated. He’s not going to check where they’re from – he just sees a child in need and wants to help.

So, I think the fact that there will be “local” children in the schools may make a difference to the way in which the more affluent Goans start to perceive the charity.  Let’s hope so.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Goa

Namaste from Goa,  where I am back in residence at my usual guest house and writing this on the balcony of my room – this is my view – whilst making plans for how I’ll spend the next three weeks.

I arrived here on Saturday evening,  just in time to join the Educators’ Trust India team at a fund raising event at a local restaurant.  Some of the volunteers had taught the children a dance routine,  so they came into the restaurant and performed,  whilst we passed around the hat, sold raffle tickets and ran an auction,  with prizes such as a trip to the local monkey sanctuary or dinner for two at the restaurant.  In a moment of madness,  I bid for the chance to push Ian,  the on-site project manager into the swimming pool … he’s a big guy and it was extremely satisfying to shove him in for the price of c. £70 …

All in all,  we raised nearly £350,  which is enough to buy one of the key items on the charity’s wish list: a mobile water filter,  which they can take around to the various rural slums and use to provide fresh, clean water for the children and their families.  Drinking filthy water from polluted ponds and streams has had some truly horrific health consequences (a little girl I visited in the Panjim hospital last November has, I learned yesterday,  died of kidney failure due to bad water), so it’s great that the tourists’ generosity has led to the acquisition of something so tangible.

Later today, I’m going over to the Leading Light school in order to do some work on the website and to hand over my huge bag of gifts and donations from the UK.  Here’s some of what I brought – all in all, I arrived with 46 kgs of luggage,  of which about half  is for the charity. Again,  I’m grateful for the generosity of my friends and family back home: my mother has set up a monthly standing order for the charity and also gave me some money to buy the #1 item on the “we need it NOW” wish list – head lice lotion.  Another friend donated her Boots Advantage card points,  which I used to buy lots of bottles of hand sanitiser and Liz did loads of printing for me – small gestures but very much appreciated and they will make a world of difference to the children.  

While I’m here,  I want to interview some Goan women for Mother India and to spend some time at the Mother and Baby home and at the HIV clinic – my friends Jim and Moe have arranged for me to interview Sister Jessie,  the nun who runs it.

My taxi driver Satish has kindly invited me to his sister’s wedding next weekend,  so my dance card is filling up – and I will also make a flying visit to Palolem in south Goa (stick “Palolem beach Goa” into Google images and you’ll see why)  in order to catch up with my backpacking friend Natasha.

More next time,  when I can get online again …

By their advertising shall you know them –

– and this image is on billboards all over Mumbai at the moment. I was struck by the whiteness of the model’s skin (and of that of the baby) until I noticed that all models on all billboards are similarly pale – it’s obviously the desirable trend in the current Indian media.  The Indian cricket captain is presumably trousering a fat fee from Pepsi to pose with a stream of brown liquid pouring down his throat and even he looks paler than he does on TV. PhotoShop is our friend!

My interviews for Mother India have gone really well so far – there’s a small update about them over at the book site if you’re interested. And tomorrow I head to Goa to do some more interviews, scope out the book’s opening chapters and see my friends at Educators’ Trust India. They’re having a fund raiser at a local restaurant in the evening, featuring some of the children performing and dancing, which should be fun.