Membrane Separation Process

No, not the brain activity which occurs whenever I meet an Indian government official, rather the catchy little title of a new volume by Kaushik Nath. Membrane separation processes are largely rate-controlled separations which require analysis for complete understanding. Read that sentence again. Nope, me either, but that's what it says on the flyer.

So I know that Mr Nath has written this book because his publishers, Prentice Hall, have told me so; they've sent me a direct mail shot - my second piece of direct mail in as many days - and just in case the whole membrane separation is just going to be too messy for me, they've also advised me of another publication by Amiya K Jana. This one is called Chemical Process Modelling and Computer Simulation.

Now why I should be mailed details of two incredibly complex technical/scientific books is completely beyond me. This also, to the person who, nearly thirty years ago this summer, vowed never to read another science book in his life and completely gave up on Physics, a subject which he'd hated and which had been thrust upon him at school. Grade 4 CSE was what I achieved for my physics paper in the summer of 1979 and if there is anybody reading this who still remembers CSEs in British schools, they'll know what an apallingly low score that grade 4 was. It was a mark of some pride to me that I managed to get a grade 4, whilst a friend of mine who'd actually revised, achieved a grade two. I mean, you were awarded a grade four if you wrote your name on the examination paper; three if you spelt it correctly.

But I digress. What I mean to say is that Prentice Hall of India could probably not have targeted anybody less likely than me to buy either of these books, even though - in what I take to be a last desperate move to make Mr Nath's book sound appetising - the publisher says that "the book has a sufficient number of examples and exercises, thus making it student friendly." Hmm, nice try but I don't think so.

As I mentioned the other day, direct marketing, whilst not exactly in its infancy in India, still has a long, long way to go. Maybe they were just testing whether the address (largely spelt correctly) was a bona fide one; something that they would be able to adjudge correct or otherwise by the number of returned mailshots.

In any event, having received the mailshot, I dropped Prentice Hall a line. This is what I wrote:

Dear Sirs

As the completely non-technical and non scientific director of a technology company in Bangalore, I was fascinated to receive your direct mailshot advising me of the publication of Mr Nath’s latest work. Whilst I appreciate that the book is primarily aimed at undergraduates (because it says so on the flyer), I’m guessing that there must be some relevance to the work I’m currently doing or else you wouldn’t have mailed me, even though it’s been twenty three years since I graduated (and that in an Arts’ subject too).

I’m guessing that I probably need to go in at a slightly lower level – perhaps a little more membrane and a degree or two less separation – and certainly a book with lots of pictures; ideally some that I can colour in. Does it come with crayons?

You also sent me information on another book concerning chemical process modelling and computer simulation. I have a very similar title published last year called Chemical Process Muddling and Computer Stimulation, and I think your book probably re-works an old theme so I won’t be interested thanks. Nevertheless, do let me know about the Membrane Separation thingy.

Yours sincerely etc etc

Let's see if I get a response.

Originally published on Blogger on 23rd June 2008. I'm still waiting for a response.

Village idiots

Maybe it's because HSBC claims it's the world's "local bank" that it treats its customers like village idiots.

Yesterday I received a direct mailshot from the bank. India's not big on direct mail, largely I suspect, because nobody can ever find the bloody addresses. In the west we have postcodes. They do here too, but you also generally need to give somebody a landmark. So your address might read: Golden Enclave, 2nd Cross, 10th G Main, Government Layout 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560027 and then a little instruction: "opposite the water tower, just left of the bakery... no, no, not there Dumbo, I said left of the bakery..."

The mailshot ran:

Dear Cardholder

We at HSBC are committed towards building lasting relationships with our customers by offering them maximum value through our products and services.

We have noticed that there is a fee-related outstanding amount on your HSBC credit card. As you are a valued customer of HSBC, we have reversed the outstanding fees on your credit card as a one-time service gesture.

What's more you will get a 10% cash back if you spend more than Rs 1,000 on your HSBC credit card before 30 June 2008. The maximum cash back amount will be Rs 500.

However, should you choose not to use your credit card before 30 June 2008, your sanctioned card limit will be withdrawn in toto for security reasons.

In case you no longer have the above mentioned card, please complete the attached form and return it to us in the enclosed Business Reply Envelope to receive the credit card.

Yours sincerely

HSBC Card Products Division.

Well first of all, when I took the card out, there were no fees mentioned and as soon as a fee did appear I called the customer service department where somebody apologetically explained that there had been a mix-up and I wouldn't be charged anything. At that point in time, most of the charges were reversed but they've slowly been creeping up and I've just as steadfastly been ingnoring them. Mind you, HSBC in India is the same bank which charges you when you make a cash deposit.

As for building lasting relationships though, they would appear to only last for as long as the customer uses the card. The message here is, use it over the next fifteen days or we'll prevent you from using it at all.

Interesting too, that the enclosed form with all my details printed on it, encourages me to replace my card for one where "the first year annual fee... will be waived [BUT] normal annual fees will be charged from the 2nd year onwards."

Originally published on Blogger on 21st June 2008.

Afghanistan

Pretty depressing news from Afghanistan where the casualties seem to be mounting. When we were in England recently there was a lot of hand-wringing and "why-oh-whying" as the 100th British Armed Forces' death in that country was announced. Now I see the figure has risen to 106 and the name of the first female fatality has just been announced.

History tells us that we (the British that is), don't fare particularly well in Afghanistan, and I wonder how long it will be before the cries to bring the troops back home become louder. At the moment there's certainly an element of stiff upper lipism and hearty back-slapping cameraderie but that will all wear a bit thin as the casualties mount. As far as I know, all the casualties so far have been amongst professional soldiers. They're paid to do a job that can involve them in warfare and so death is an occupational hazard; they know that when they sign up, and what they're getting themselves into.

Nonetheless, each life lost is a tragedy for the soldier's family and friends; another name to go down in the annals of British history perhaps but another heavy sacrifice all the same. In time there'll be a medal as a keepsake, perhaps a certificate, a parade through the streets of London and then, a few years from now, appeals by British ex-service charities to help Britain's forgotten soldiers. If we're lucky we'll probably be treated to case histories of soldiers who've lost limbs and eyes and then gently asked to send in twenty pounds or take out a monthly standing order.

There's a horrid inevitability to Afghanistan and, much like Iraq, the longer we're there the more the British public will a) forget why we went in the first place and b) start shouting more loudly for an end to it all.

Indian newspapers barely mention either Iraq or Afghanistan, although the wife of a local politician who allegedly hanged herself in Delhi, has several pages in most newspapers for the third day running. Quite right too, the local population possibly thinks, Afghanistan and Iraq are none of India's business and we had quite enough of Kandahar and Kabul when Lord Roberts and his troops were galloping backwards and forwards in the late 1800s.

I keep an eye on what's happening via the BBC News website and thank goodness for the internet (and particularly the likes of the BBC and CNN) and the wider world it brings us. I must send them an e-mail though. There was nothing on their sites about the hanged MPs wife in Delhi.

Originally published on Blogger on 19th June 2008. The news from Afghanistan does not get any better and as of today, 169 British personnel have now been killed on operations there since 2001. 33 year old Major Sean Birchall (pictured) of the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, killed by an explosion on 19th June, is the latest fatality.

We don't need no educayshun

I've always been of the opinion that there are some very good schools in India. How else to explain those well-educated friends and colleagues of mine and those beautifully spoken little Pollyannas we met with our daughter in the park a while back?

But you know, looking at some of Bangalore's schools' websites and then reading comments on a business network about education in the city, those old feelings of despair start creeping back in.

One new school to the east of the city talks about, "building the curriculum around the child, rather than the other way around." Phrases like that worry me, and I have visions of Niharika spending all of her day whizzing down the playground slide, a book held loosely in one hand, while a teacher stands at the bottom shouting up, "Niharika dear, now if you'd just be so kind to turn to page 73 please...". It was that same woolly attitude to education that had my brother placed in a junior school class with children several years older than him and his fellow ankle-biters. The idea was that the older ones would pull the younger ones along with them but in practice, the strong older ones just got on with what they were doing (and probably resented the younger ones), whilst the weaker older students were pulled back by the juniors. That was Britain back in the 1960s but I'm quite dismayed to see such things being written in India forty years later.

The same school also talks of how it has "High treaded into the Garden City... to empower the young turks of Bangalore." As Charlie Brown would have said, "Good grief."

It doesn't get much better with some of the old, established schools in Bangalore. One of these consistently omits the definite article when describing the school and its admission procedures, and the page is also full of typographical errors. Now I know that this particular school does have a good reputation and has been churning out well-rounded little adults since the late 1800s but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on the standard of writing on its website.

For me though, as well as the actual curriculum (which, being an intransigent old buffer, I believe should be set firmly in stone), I place an extremely high degree of importance on how safe the schools are. Are there fire drills, fire escapes, first aid rooms, a staff nurse? I'm, expecting to be disappointed and to find that all class rooms have bars on the windows.

And finally, one last growl - for now - on the subject of education. A person may advise somebody of something but it is advice which that other person seeks. Come on parents, get it right, your children are depending on you.

Originally published on Blogger on 18th June 2008.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

Sometimes, you just know you're lining yourself up for a whole heap of trouble.

I generally avoid customer satisfaction surveys like the plague and on the odd occasion that I do complete one, I usually end up wishing I'd stuck to my guns and ignored the thing. The most recent example of this was when I returned to India from the UK and opened up an e-mail from the Premier Inn chain asking me to say how much (or how little) I'd enjoyed my stay at one of their hotels. I gave up when, several pages into the thing, the little bar at the bottom of the screen told me I was four per cent of the way through. So I stopped right there and just replied to their e-mail. "Good hotel" I wrote, "but you need to improve your customer satisfaction questionnaire, it's far too long."

India does a good line in surveys too. I asked one of our suppliers recently to undertake a compensation package re-structuring exercise for our employees. In plain English, there are so many tax dodges in India that I wanted to make sure we were all availing ourselves of as many as possible and so I called in the experts. Two presentations and a couple of meetings later, I think most of our staff are now keeping more money in their pockets and paying less to the Exchequer, so hoorah to that.

But of course, after the compensation restructuring exercise there was the inevitable, "How are we doing?" survey. I ignored the first e-mail, hoping it would go away, but when the reminder came through last week I quickly ticked the various boxes and sent it back. I only have two rules when it comes to these things. Rule number 1 - nobody (unless you happen to be a member of my immediate family or a Washington Redskins Cheerleader) ever gets a "5/5" or a "you're doing fantastically well" type rating. Rule number 2 - I don't believe in wasting time on these things so I'll flick quickly through them.

Having sent the form back I then received a follow-up e-mail which read:

"Thanks for participating in our Client Feedback Programme. We appreciate your inputs and would certainly work towards fortifying our existing relationship with you. For the same purpose, we wish to meet you in person and understand better the experiences and expectations which have so far determined your perception of our Organization. We therefore request you to confirm an appointment on 17th June, Tuesday at 1100 hours. However, if the recommended timings are not feasible, we would request you to suggest a more suitable time and date, in accordance with your convenience."

Now that communication may not seem odd to somebody schooled in India (and I mean that with no disrespect to either the writer or Indian-born and Indian-educated readers) but it certainly subscribes to the old rule, "never use one word when half a dozen will do".

In any event I responded that 11.30 this morning was fine and then, when the witching hour arrived, found myself presented with the answers to my survey (the ones that implied "could do better" anyway), and asked in so many words to explain myself. Hence the title of this blog entry, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" which refers to another Monty Python sketch.

I explained to the two girls who had been tasked with the unfortunate job of coming to see me that I hadn't expected to be interrogated, that I liked their company generally (which is why we still used them) but that it had been me and not their company who had initiated the meeting about compensation re-structure and hence the reason why I had ticked the box "disagree" against the line which asked "You don't wait for me to initiate everything, you anticipate."

I had also ticked the "disagree" box next to the line which read, "You make us feel as if we are important to you." Come on, we're talking about a business deal here. I don't need to feel important and it didn't cross my mind that I was supposed to feel important. I didn't, but it wouldn't stop me from using the company's services again because I think that the company is good at what it does. I told the two representatives as much and one of the girls closed the survey.

But some companies in India might like to think about just how they use their own customer satisfaction surveys and beware of either antagonising their otherwise amicably disposed clients, or at the very least, wasting their time. As I said at the beginning, sometimes you know you're just lining up trouble and not only has that survey cost me a meeting in the office, it's also caused me to sit down and write about it now.

Originally published on Blogger on 17th June 2008.

Walkies

There was an interesting story in yesterday's Times of India (India's most dreadful daily), which I'll transcribe here in full. It was interesting from a couple of angles: first because it showed, yet again, why the ToI is India's most dreadful newspaper, and second because it revealed just what people really think about Bangalore as a place to live.

"Marching for a cleaner city" ran the headline on Page 3, and then the body copy:

With the motto of creating a city free of garbage and pollution, members of [the] BTM Layout Welfare Association, along with XXX [company name witheld here, they've had enough free publicity already], a group of IT professionals, staged a march in BTM II Stage on Saturday.

Over 40 people participated in the march, calling on citizens to work towards a better Bangalore. They were joined by BTM Layout MLA [ie, local MP] Ramalinga Reddy, who flagged off the march, and cricketer Akil Balachandra. The march started on Saturday evening at [the] Ganesha temple, 27th Main, BTM 2nd Stage, and ended at [the] BTM Park.

The Times didn't go on to say whether the marchers had blocked roads, caused disturbances or been lathi charged by over-zealous policemen, so I'm assuming it was an altogether quieter affair. Chai and biscuits were possibly called upon, photos of the MLA and cricketer snapped on antique Kodaks for the neighbourhood newsletter, and then that gentle stroll to the park. I wonder if there was even a banner raised.

But apart from really showing what people think about maintaining cleanliness in the city I found it interesting that The Times hack used the phrase "over 40 people." I always think you have to be careful with the use of that word "over". Describing a crowd of, I would say, anything in excess of three thousand, I'd suggest it's perfectly reasonably to try and arrive at a close approximate figure by using the word "over". It becomes less convincing though, if the numbers are lower and particularly if they can be numbered in tens.

So, for example, the sentence "over seven million people attended a rally in Bangalore protesting their right to drop litter, discard industrial waste, spit, blow their noses into their hands, and urinate against walls" is perfectly acceptable because it gives a good idea of the size of the rally whilst not imposing the requirement on the journalist to arrive at a precise figure. On the other hand, use of the word "over' when used with a really small number, shows that that journalist must have counted participants in order to be confident enough to put the figure at less than, in this case, fifty but above forty. So why not state the exact figure then?

I may be going out on a limb here but I'd say that the figure for Saturday's protest was probably 42: 39 BTM Layout residents and IT professionals, one politician, one cricketer and a Times of India hack with an abacus.

Originally published on Blogger on 16th June 2008.

New bones for old

After Partition, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) declared many cemeteries in India and the newly formed East and West Pakistan, "unmaintainable". Men who had died in the service of their country were commemorated on appropriate CWGC-maintained memorials but the individual graves, often in civilian cemeteries, were left to the care of the local authorities.

British soldiers had been dying in India for centuries by the time the Imperial War Graves Commission (later CWGC) came into existence in 1919 and it is still possible to find old Victorian graves and memorials in civilian cemeteries in India. Bangalore has its fair share of these in the Agram Cemetery in Victoria Road (off limits to non-military personnel) and in the Protestant and Catholic cemeteries on Hosur Road. I've visited the Hosur Road cemeteries a number of times, and a few years ago took photographs of all the First World War graves I could find and then sent these to what is now the War Graves Photographic Project. Yesterday I re-visited The Protestant Cemetery Number 1 to try and locate the grave of Donald James, a soldier who had drowned in Bangalore in 1918. His grave was not one of those that I had photographed in 2005 and 2004 and so I went back to try and find him. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever find him.

The problem is that a lot of the old graves in Number 1 Cemetery are being demolished to make way for more recent internments. I don't know that any First World War graves have been disturbed so far but I wouldn't bet against it. Certainly, as you walk through the main gate, a lot of the old Victorian graves that lined the path on the right-hand side have made way for recent burials, whilst on the other side of the path, one tombstone is used a slab to wash dirty laundry.

It's tempting to throw up one's hands a la "Outraged of Tunbridge Wells" but I don't know, I suppose it's inevitable that space considerations mean that old graves have to make way for new ones. We don't exactly have a good record of preservation in the UK. My own great grandfather, who died as recently as 1942 and was buried in an East London cemetery, now either shares the space around him with a new housing estate or is, in all probability, part of the foundations himself.

Having said that, in Britain we are very careful about how we remember our war dead but I don't think that such considerations have made their way across the Arabian Sea. There were some very recent internments right next to some of the First World War graves in Hosur Road Number 1 and, as I've already said, I think I'd get short odds that they'd always remain untouched. As Emily Bronte wrote at the end of Wuthering Heights, "Unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”

Originally published on Blogger on 15th June 2008. Image borrowed from the Bangalore Walla's page on Hosur Road Cemetery No. 2.

That staring thing

We were always taught when we were younger, that staring at people was rude. Children being children though, we probably still gazed incredulously at the odd hairy mole or bulbous nose longer than we should have done. Good news then for today's British kids: staring in India is in.

Actually I'd sort of forgotten that people do stare, but I do recall, shortly after I moved to Bangalore, writing a piece called Two-headed man in which I asked rhetorically, why people stared so much at me. It seemed to me at times that I attracted so much attention that I wondered whether I actually did have two heads. I still remember one chap cycling towards me who fixed me with a stare and continued to do so even when he'd ridden past me; craning his neck around and almost falling off his bike. (Then again, at this very same point in time he might be writing a blog entry somewhere about how this tall, shaven-headed white man stared at him as he was cycling and even turned around to stare after he'd cycled past).

But people do stare in India and they make no bones about it, in the same way that a complete stranger will ask you how much you earn. Such matters of course are strictly taboo in Britain and one wonders, when so much else of British culture is still pervasive in the country, why some traits and mores have not stuck.

In any event I was reminded of this staring thing last night when some friends and I got talking to a group of students over from America. "Don't you find that people stare at you?" Asked one of the girls. I replied that yes, I did, but should have added that my staring audience (as a middle aged male) was probably a good deal different to hers. It reminded me of the old joke when two friends are discussing travel destinations.

"India's a fantastic country," says one of the chaps, "and the people are so hospitable. Why, they'll even offer to share their bed with you."
"Amazing," says the other chap, "that happened to you did it?"
"No," replies the first one, "but it happened to my sister."

Lychee economy

Niharika had her most exclusive pee to date when she was caught short in Knightsbridge. "Daddy, I want to dee" she said. Harvey Nicols was the closest store and I knew they'd have a loo because they have a restaurant and bar. So we rushed up to the fifth floor and while Shilpi was sorting out Niharika, I lounged about outside looking at the beautiful people, the pretentious people and the prices of fruit on the Harvey Nicks fruit counter.

If I'd felt so inclined I could have bought a kilogram of lychees for £12.95; or about RS 1040. Instead, I waited a few days, arrived back in Bangalore this morning on BA's cattle truck and bought just under a kg at Namdhari's for Rs 134. Even that's expensive. Last year, we were buying lychees for under Rs 100 and Shilpi used to pluck them from the trees when she was little.

But the price of lychees is as good a place as any to start when trying to come to terms with the differences in the standard of living between the affluent west and the developing east. Harvey Nicks of course, is an extreme, but even Sainsbury's was selling a single mango for far more than I'd paid for three kilograms a few days before.

We had a great time in England but it's not a place to be if you don't have money. Then again, India is certainly not a place I'd wish to be poor either (although a white man begging at traffic lights must surely have more novelty value, and therefore attract more income, than the usual ham actors and odd genuine hard-up case who you see in Indian cities).

Originally published on Blogger on 10th June after our return from a UK holiday. Lychees have gone up in price in the last year. I paid Rs 15o a couple of weeks back. That could mean that Harvey Nicks is now selling them for about £18 these days.

You're fired

There's another story in this morning's Bangalore Mirror about dowry harrassment. A husband, Mohamed Arif, who'd already received cash and a scooter along with his bride, (well, it makes a change from a toaster I suppose), was evidently still not content with his marriage deal. Ten months later and with the onset of hotter weather here in Bangalore, he decided to up his demands and request a ceiling fan as well. Exasperated, his bride Gulista, poured kerosene over herself, at which point Mohamed did what all reasonable men in his situation would do and set her alight. She's now in hospital with burns from the waist down.

The story highlights a number of issues. The first of course is dowry harrassment which is still a very real phenomenon in India. Bangalore Mirror notes that 2,237 cases were registered last year. I presume that's just in Bangalore but you can bet that in any event that that's just the tip of the iceberg and that the majority of cases go unreported. The second issue for me is the use of kerosene as the substance of choice for an exit from this life into whatever awaits us in the hereafter. I can't think of a much more painful way to die and yet it's commonplace to read that women (usually), douse themselves with kerosene and then set themselves alight.

I remember a few years ago when I was doing some work in Tamil Nadu. The shopkeepers in the particular town I was in, called a local bandh (I suppose we'd call it a strike or protest in the UK) because a proposed new road would take traffic away from the town and rob them of business. So they closed their shops for a day in protest and lost a day's business as a result. As far as I know, the road still went ahead.

They've not quite got the art of this protesting lark right in India. Petition the Road's Minister, lie down in front of a bulldozer, march, wave banners, lobby; but don't shoot yourself in the foot.

And for any immolator-wannabes out there who happen to stumble across this entry whilst looking for a cheap supplier of kerosene in Bangalore, for God's sake woman, think again. Buy the kerosene by all means, but tip it over your greedy husband instead and then light the match.

Originally published on Blogger on 16th May 2008.

Bicycle Repair Man

One of Niharika's so-called friends broke her bike the other week. Playing roughly he somehow managed to snap one of the brake levers. That's boys for you. Since then, I'd been trying to get hold of a replacement lever without lot of success. Bicycle repair shops locally either weren't interested or tried to flog me a lever which was completely the wrong size. In the end I went back to the shop where we got the bike from.

"Can you get me a replacement lever please?"
"Ah sir, but you will have to buy both levers."
"OK, not a problem, how soon can you get them?"
"Thursday."

Thursday came and went and "Monday" was the next answer. We couldn't make it on Monday but today I went in there expecting to be told that the shipment had sunk in the Arabian Sea or that there had been an unexpected run on those particular levers or that the manufacturer had been abducted by aliens. Old cynic that I am, I was wrong and there were two new levers tucked away in a draw for me; mine for two hundred rupees (which I have to say, seems way over-priced).

In the meantime, Niharika cycling blissfully unaware on one brake, the back wheel suddenly seized up completely whilst we were at the local park yesterday afternoon. I told Shilpi that I thought it was divine retribution as not more than five minutes before, Nihirika had been throwing a tantrum - and her arms - at a small boy who was trying to get on her bike. If it was, I'm glad the Almighty just decided to bugger her back wheel rather than send down a lightning bolt.

In any event, by this morning the bike fixing requirement had gone up from "replace right brake lever" to "replace right brake lever and rectify seized rear wheel." I could probably have coped with replacing the lever myself, even though I was never much of a dab hand with my own bike, but I baulked at the thought of investigating where the back wheel problem was.

The shop couldn't look at it until Tuesday and suggested a bicycle repair shop down the road. I stopped there but the owner wasn't interested and told me through a mouthful of half chewed tobacco that I should go on to Old Madras Road. This was just a little too far for me and so I decided to head back towards Cambridge Layout to Sahil's Bicycle Shop.

A little Muslim man appeared from nowhere, gave the bike a cursory glance and a couple of taps with a spanner and said to me, "a hundred rupees". Fair enough, I thought, and he set to work completely dismantling the back wheel, removing the spindle and all the old ball bearings which spilled out across the pavement. Then abruptly he stopped what he was doing, left everything where it was and marched across the road to where a roadside vendor was selling sugar cane juice. He drank one himself and then returned with three more: one for me and two for his colleagues in the shop. I thought at the time that I'd probably paid for those in any event and that local customers would have haggled the hundred rupees down to sixty or less. To be honest, I find all that haggling business too much and, unless the price is really steep, usually accept what the various vendors ask for. Shortly afterwards however, another customer did come up and there was a very heated exchange over twenty rupees before the customer accepted the original price that had been asked.

Niharika's bike was fixed in about fifteen minutes and I gave the chap Rs 120. I don't mind tipping for good service even if I had been over-charged in the first place, but in any event that's the equivalent of £1.50 in pounds sterling and an English bicycle repair man wouldn't even deign to pick his nose for that, let alone get out of bed.

Pictured above, Monty Python's original bicycle repair man (but I'll settle for the Indian version). Originally published on Blogger on 11th May 2008.

Pity poor Karnataka

They do things differently in Karnataka. Budding politicians, it seems, should concentrate less on smiling inanely and kissing babies, and more on their ability to "unleash terror and secure funds for the party." That at least is one of the conclusions drawn by Karnataka Election Watch (KEW) an NGO which has conducted a survey to find out the criminal background of candidates.

Karnataka goes to the polls today and the people of this south Indian state have the opportunity to choose their next crooked parliament. No less than forty seven political candidates have criminal convictions which, as appalling as that might seem, is still well down on the ninety one criminals fielded in the 2004 elections.

Back then, no single party ended up with a large enough majority to form a government and so we had an uneasy alliance between first the JD(S) and Congress parties and latterly the JD(S) and BJP. That all fell apart when, in a remarkable about-turn, the JD(S) refused to hand over power to the BJP. Poor old BJP stalwart BS Yeddyurappa, (see previous posts), was Chief Minister for just a week, and ever since then, central government has been ruling the state.

But now there is opportunity for change and the people of Karnataka can choose their next criminals. Each of the three main parties mentioned above have 10 or more ex felons on their books, and overall the list of crimes ranges from murder or attempted murder (eight candidates) to criminal intimidation and death threats, assault, grievous hurt, use of dangerous weapons, theft, cheating and forgery. There may even be a convicted shoplifter or two in there.

As Professor Trilochan Sastry of KEW noted in Bangalore Mirror mid week, "the overall quality of candidates leaves much to be desired."

Originally published on Blogger on 10th May 2008.

The camel and the tent

Shilpi tells the story of the nomad who is woken up in the middle of the night by his camel. "It's cold out here" says the camel (who is obviously one of those rare, talking camels), "do you mind if I just poke my nose inside the tent?" Five minutes later, his nose warming nicely, the camel pipes up again. "My ears are a bit nippy," he says, "mind if I put my head inside?" And so it goes on until the camel completely fills the tent and the nomad is pushed outside.

That's how it is driving in India, and I was thinking of this story and laughing to myself as I was edging out into traffic the other day. No quarter is either expected or given on the roads here. As long as you understand that, it's fine, and I gave up blowing a gasket a long while ago. I still curse at people of course but I actually find India quite a good antidote for road rage. You can pretty much do what you like and get away with it. Woe betide you though, if you have a scrape. It's not uncommon to read that a fatal accident has resulted in the "driver absconding." Too right. In such cases your options are limited. Remain at the scene and get beaten to death by an angry mob, or do a runner. I know what I'd choose.

This post was first published on Blogger on 24th April 2008. Image borrowed from Bolo Kids which also re-tells the tale above.

Zebra crazy

Those enthusiastic little devils in the Roads' Department must have been watching programmes on road safety. Either that, or a senior honcho has been abroad, seen the way pedestrians are treated overseas and decided to try and implement a bit of pedestrian courtesy in Bangalore. On the short, one kilometre stretch between the ESI hospital in Indiranagar and Namdhari's Fresh in Domlur, nine new zebra crossings have been painted on the roads. There's one outside Namdhari's, three at the next junction up, three more at the next junction and then a couple more close to ESI. Now, if only the drivers here recognised that pedestrians on crossings have the right of way...

Actually, I was thinking what a thankless task it is to be a traffic policeman. I've never been a particular fan of law and order in India because it is rotten with corruption. Nevertheless, I have to say that my dealings with the traffic police here have, to date, been reasonable. On the two occasions I've been pulled over, I have been in the wrong, once knowingly, the second, unwittingly. On the first occasion, rushing to see Mark in the NICU at Manipal Hospital, I turned right at a no right turn junction and was promptly pulled over by two policemen who had been waiting for drivers to do just that. Shilpi explained that we were in a hurry to get to the hospital and we were waved on with a smile. A couple of weeks ago, I turned right onto Cubbon Road and was again pulled over. I hadn't seen the sign, I didn't have my licence and, I had to pay a fine. The policeman who pulled me over was polite, pointed the sign out to me and asked for four hundred rupees as he was writing a ticket. He then shook my hand and gave me two hundred rupees change from a five hundred rupee note. The fact that he gave me the book copy of the ticket, would have thrown (my) top copy away and pocketed the money, is neither here nor there. I was probably one of very many transgressors during his shift and yet he was far from arrogant.

As I say, it's a thankless task standing in the hot sun all day and breathing in traffic fumes from Bangalore's choked roads. The cops get no thanks from the general public and yet they keep the city moving. Try taking them away during rush hour and see how well the city fares. It would grind to a complete halt.


Originally published on Blogger on 23rd April 2008.

Not with a whimper but a bang

I've lost my driver for a couple of weeks as he's gone off to Mangalore to get married. I've never had any complaints about either him or his driving but during his last ten seconds behind the wheel before he left, just as he was pulling into the side road by our office, he allegedly came close to hitting a woman who was crossing.

I looked out of the window to see Hegde sitting cowed in the car while two youths in their twenties - brothers obviously - were yelling at him from opposite directions, one through the passenger window and one through the driver's window. I rushed outside and it became clear straight away that the two youths were the woman's sons. She was standing near the car and seeing me, asked me if Hegde was my driver. I replied that he was. "Well he's not very good," she said, "he's half asleep and he nearly hit me." Hegde was looking very sheepish but then he's probably one of the mildest mannered people I know. "He's a good driver and he's not half asleep," I said to the woman. "I apologise on his behalf if he nearly hit you." (I might have added, "but this is India you know, the right of way belongs to whoever has the biggest vehicle.") Instead I leaned into the car, "Come on Hegde, just park up here and let's sort this out."

Even in such a short space of time, a small crowd had gathered, attracted no doubt by the two yobbos bellowing at the top of their voices. Hegde parked the car, and some of the people dispersed while newcomers wandered out of their offices or peered through the blinds to see what was going on. Once out of the vehicle - and obviously encouraged by Hegde's complete and total passivity - the two sons tried to egg him on. One of them pushed him - and got a push back from me - and then pushed him again, as I moved between them. I like my driver and frankly, even if he had been in the wrong, I would have taken his side. As it was, I was more concerned that he shouldn't get punched and end up on his wedding day with a beautiful shiner.

The mother had disappeared at this point in time and later she would tell me that she'd gone because I had come down and apologised. It's a pity she didn't drag off her her unruly brats as well but, making the most of shooting fish in a barrel, they continued with their tirade. I hung on until they had wandered off and then came back up to the office.

Blow me, I'd only been back for a couple of minutes when I looked out of the window and saw one of the brothers running back towards where Hegde had been. So down I rushed again to find out what was up this time. For reasons known only to himself, and not familiar with the term, "discretion is the better part of valour", Hegde had wandered over to his antagonisers' car and noted down the number plate on his hand. The brothers had seen this and now they were back in the fray, demanding why he'd noted down the number and asking him if he was going to arrange for rowdies to come round to their house.

The mother had reappeared at this stage and she was also joining in: "You want to file a police complaint? Come with me, I'll file one against you too" and "Why are you taking my number? Did you know it's illegal to take down somebody's car number?" Meanwhile, the two sons were screaming the odds and it was whilst all this was happening that we had a surreal moment. The mother abruptly halted her diatribe and, smiling, turned towards me. "Padma," she said, extending her hand. "Paul." I replied, "sorry to meet you under such circumstances." And then, rather than sipping wine or plucking a canape from a passing waiter, she went back to berating Hegde.

I took him upstairs to my office and told him to wash the number from his hand. Then, when everything had calmed down and the trio had departed, I took him downstairs, put him in the passenger seat of my car and drove him half way to his house. Then I returned to work.

Only later, much later, did I notice two small dents in my car door, presumably where the older of the two sons had thumped it while he was getting heated with my driver. It's not so noticeable, and as my mother would say, "a blind man would like to see it", but I know it's there and it's bugging me - not so much for the fact of the dent but that the yobbo son got away scot free when what he really needed was a good hiding. If he'd been in England he would have almost certainly been given one too.

Originally published on Blogger on 18th April 2008. And those two small dents still bug me. Image shows original nineteenth century Indian thugs.

Harry & Paul

The British do good comedy well. The other night I was trying to explain Harry Enfield's bigotted Oi! character to Shilpi and today I found him on You Tube. Here he is, telling Camilla Parker Bowles to behave herself.

I also - joy oh joy - stumbled across another series of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketches and was wetting myself at lunchtime, watching the posh scaffolders at work. There is a dearth of comedy on India TV channels and so having access to old classics via You Tube is a real godsend. Whether the two sketches I've linked to above would be appreciated by an Indian audience remains to be seen. Thankfully, I suppose, the characters that Paul and Harry are taking the rise out of here have never been seen on this continent by this particular blogger.

Originally published on Blogger on 17th April 2008.

I'd given a link to a Harry & Paul skit on the original post,but I see that it no longer exists on YouTube due to some user violation or the other. Spoilsports. Google them anyway, well worth a listen.

The Passing of Old Red

The new fridge turned up last night at something past nine and so Old Red has moved ten yards over the road. Having agreed the sale at two thousand rupees, our neighbours suddenly decided to give only eighteen hundred; arguing that the freezer compartment door was missing and that they'd have to pay two hundred rupees to transport it. Yes, but they knew that before, and besides, they're getting all the cockroaches for free. Cheapskates. In any event, I still have the manual for Old Red, which they're more than welcome to for Rs 200.

Originally published on Blogger on 10th April 2008.

Goodbye old fridge of mine

My old red fridge is on its way out. I bought it shortly after I arrived in India and whilst I was on my own, all it had to handle was milk, a few jars of pickles and the odd can of beer. Now, with six people in the house, it just can't cope.

The door to the ice box went long ago and so what was once a "frost-free" fridge, has been an arctic landscape for many months. In fact, it's a moot point whether there is more ice inside my freezer box than there is on the polar ice cap. Given the current state of global warning, I think my fridge just edges it.

On Monday, we dropped by to Pye Electronics in Indiranagar. I bought Old Red there and I think the microwave and washing machine also came from Pye. It's a good local electronics dealership - the Bangalore equivalent of a Curry's or Dixons - and it's always been my first choice. Being a holiday (Ugadi), the place was heaving, but we pretty soon settled on a larger Whirlpool fridge and placed an order. This is what the blurb for our new 45 deluxe says:

The new Whirlpool Professional range is a modern technological marvel with 6th Sense Technology Whiz that chills bottles quicker than others and is the fastest in making ice! Not just that, it is also an intelligent space manager, a master of innovation, a health & freshness specialist, a style icon that has a stately wide body design set off in premium finishes and designer handle with intricate floral designs – An Expert in the true sense.

Hmmm. I'm not sure that intricate floral designs on a fridge door handle would necessarily make me think that my fridge was an Expert, let alone an "expert in the true sense" (whatever that needless waffle means), but I'm sure looking forward to the 6th Sense Technology Whiz (with one zed) and only hope that that 6th Sense extends to evicting cockroaches. Old Red has been home to the blighters for a long while now and I can tell you, there's no greater unappetising sight than to open your fridge door and find a cockroach staring at you, even if its teeth are chattering.

It being Ugadi, we were promised a free gift with our purchase. I was given a heavy, gaudy watch similar to the ones that the wide boys sell on Brigade Road, and we were also told that a dessert set was ours for the taking. I followed the assistant down into the basement but the dessert sets had all been gobbled up and so I was given a bag instead. Not much use for my jelly and ice cream but I suppose I can take it with me next time I travel to England.

As an afterthought, I asked the salesman if he could arrange for my fridge to be taken away when the new one was delivered. He thought for a minute and then, after I'd showed him how big Old Red was, he said, "OK, between a thousand and fifteen hundred rupees." I still had my UK head on. "That's what you'll charge me to remove it?" I asked. "No," he said, "that's what we'll give you for it."

In the event, Shilpi has managed to sell it to our neighbours for two thousand rupees and they seem more than happy with it, even though there are cockroaches (all of them with shocking colds), no freezer door, a broken cooler box frame...

Delivery was promised yesterday but it didn't turn up and is now promised again for some time today before 9.30 at night. When Old Red was delivered, a wiry Indian carried it up four flights of stairs on his back. New 45 is about twice the size and probably twice the weight, plus we live on the ground floor these days. I'm not worried about how they'll manage to get the thing into the house because that should be easy enough. I am though pondering what to do with our inherited goldfish whose tank currently sits on top of Old Red. New 45 is just too darn tall and so a new fridge means a new home for the fish. Maybe I'll throw them in with Old Red and the neighbours can knock up a tasty curry. Now where did I put that goldfish masala?


Originally published on Blogger on 9th April 2008.

House-hunting in Bangalore

Whilst I was in England the other week, Shilpi visited a property trade fair at one of the five star hotels and did a great job in picking up seemingly every brochure that was there. We went through these and over the weekend, drove out to see some of the developments that are coming up.

Bangalore has mushroomed in the last four years and I only wish that I had had the foresight when I arrived, to buy property. In those days though, I wasn't really sure how long I'd be here and, in any event, was still paying a mortgage on a property in the UK. Now that that property has finally been sold and the part contents are drifting over the seas to me, we've decided to stop paying rent in Bangalore and pay a mortgage instead. Whether, being a foreigner, I can even get a mortgage, is another matter entirely, but on the assumption that everything in India is possible, we've started our property searching in and around Bangalore.

Four and a half years ago, a one-bedroomed studio apartment would have suited me down to the ground. These days, with a wife, two children and two maids, I'm looking for a four bedroomed place (ideally with a study as well) and they don't come cheap. We decided too, that a house was a better option than an apartment and so we'd been earmarking appropriate property developers. (And now is probably as good a time as any to describe the different property terminologies).

An apartment is what we in England used to call a flat before the American language barged in and made plain old boring flats in tower-blocks seem better than they were by labelling them apartments. There are not so many tower blocks in Bangalore, but nevertheless an apartment is going to be one of a number of living areas in a block of housing.

A house in Bangalore may be a single building comprising one or more floors or it might be a dwelling with separate dwellings above it. Technically, in Bangalore at least, we currently live in a house even though we have one family above us and another family on the second floor. House owners generally have more flexibility in that they have probably bought the land in the first place and therefore have liberty to build on it, what they want.

On that topic, the third type of property is what developers here in Bangalore term a villa. It's a house, generally with a sloping roof and generally set within a gated community (ie, you have controlled access to the development via a security controlled entrance and there are walls all around which protect you from the nasty real world). Villa owners normally have no flexibility in adding to or extending their property beacuse they have bought into the look and feel of that particular community.

On Saturday we travelled to Sarjapur to look at a villa in a gated community. The property was OK but at 1.6 crore rupees it was beyond our budget and also miles away from the Bangalore. It felt nice to be in the countryside again, but a two hour journey into my city centre office is not something I ever want to entertain. The following day we drove to Whitefield and looked at a development there. Again, the properties were beyond our budget and also terribly overlooked from all angles. As we drove away though we passed another gated community and persuaded the security guard to let us look around. The properties looked beautiful - more like a set from Desperate Housewives (or the Stepford Wives for that matter), rather than Bangalore. It was also pretty much deserted. We came away thinking that it would be worth a second look but by the end of the day, mulling the place over, we decided against it.

The thing is, at some point presumably, we're going to have to sell on whatever we buy and I just think it's going to be a good deal harder to sell a villa in a gated community miles away from the City Centre, than it is to sell an apartment in one of the established close-to-city-centre areas of the city. I know that the city is expanding and that there are business communities and technology parks springing up in different parts of the city but I still think that when it comes to renting or selling, something close to the hub is going to be a better investment.

We looked at some duplex apartments in Banaswadi yesterday - a whopping 2.6 crores each - but by this time had already pretty much decided that we were going to plump for something closer to home.

So that's the plan. We may not get exactly what we want but better to go down that route (to my mind) than opt for a villa miles from anywhere. Watch this space.

Originally published on Blogger on 8th April 2008.

Update. Hindsight's a wonderful thing. We came close to buying and even submitted papers, but to be honest, I was half-hearted about the whole thing and even then, there was talk about house prices coming down. Now of course, post global credit melt-down, we certainly did the wise thing by not buying. Interesting though, that a year ago I was referring to the Stepford Wives, long before we moved into Sriram Stepford ourselves.

Back in a pickle

I arrived back in Bangalore this morning after a short, eight and a half hour flight from Heathrow. You get so used to hugging the west coast of India and then nipping over Pakistan and various other countries ending in "azakstan" that you forget that there are other routes. Flying to Britain last week (nine and a half hours as opposed to the usual eleven), I noticed that our pilot took us over the northernmost shoreline of the Black Sea, instead of the southern shore as usual. Returning yesterday, BA flew in virtually a straight line from Heathrow to Bangalore on a path that was as close to "as the crow flies" as, well, crows fly. The shortened journey, plus an aisle seat on the bulkhead (and nobody sitting to my right) probably made this my best flight to India ever. As an added bonus, there was even a documentary on the birth of Heavy Metal which showed some vintage clips of Black Sabbath from the late 60s and early 70s.

I ate a traditional BA English breakfast (button mushrooms, sausage, bacon, scrambled egg and tomato) and, after we'd landed at Bangalore fifteen minutes early, collected my bag and made contact with the driver who'd come to meet me.

So all in all, a thoroughly smooth and uneventful journey from England to India. The English breakfast though, and the previous week's breakfast quota of bread and marmalade will soon be distant memories. After a short, hour's nap at home, Ibia served up my breakfast Bangalore style: a cup of tea, three rotis and a jar of pickle; as much to say, welcome back to India, you can forget all that soft western food, get some chili down your neck.

Originally published on Blogger on 2nd April 2008.

Thermal nighties needed

I'm back in Blighty again, an eleventh hour trip to complete the sale of my house in Essex. It all went ahead yesterday afternoon and so now, for the first time since 1993, I no longer own any property in Britain.

Arriving in England last Tuesday, the days since then have been taken up with packing up my belongings to send back to India and generally tidying things up. As part of this latter exercise, I took some bags of rubbish to the municipal tip on Thursday. Back in the old days you could go to the tip and chuck everything in the same bin - garden refuse, paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, timber. These days, you have to separate everything out. In addition to the afore-mentioned categories (all of which have separate skips), there are bins for fabrics, televisions, computers, washing machines and so on. Old engine oil has to be poured into a tub for old engine oil. There is one crusher which will accept all items not covered elsewhere, but woe betide you if you try to put something in there that doesn't belong. I managed to throw some polystyrene packing in there (why, oh why is there no polystyrene re-cycling bin?) but I was pulled up by the attendant when I attempted to throw cardboard in as well. ("That goes in cardboard, mate.")

In the end I had to pick through each of the bags and throw the contents into different bins, thus an exercise which would have taken five minutes in the old days, took half an hour this time. One of the refuse bags also split, spewing the contents across the floor of my hire car. As I picked through the rubbish, cursing the council for their obsessive green policies, I vowed that this would be my last trip to the municipal dump. Once I reached home I called up a commercial operator and arranged for a skip to be delivered onto my driveway the following morning. Sure enough, yesterday at 7am, the neighbours' early morning alarm call arrived with a huge crash, and into it - in a series of crescendos - went cardboard, paper, wood, metal, plastic, a TV stand, chair and two-seater sofa. The whole operation was over in less than half an hour; £130, thank you very much. How long though, before skips turn up neatly partitioned, and labelled: paper here, plastic here...

But it's been a good visit so far and I've met some old friends whom I've not seen for years. On Wednesday it was Gail, (friends since c1980, not seen for five years), and yesterday it was ex-brother-in-law day: Chandra (not seen for five years) and Barry (friends since school days, not seen for probably ten years or more). As for the weather in England, it's been miserable and wet for the most part but today it's bright and sunny so far and the clocks go forward tomorrow morning, a sure sign that better weather should be around the corner.

Originally published on Blogger on 29th March 2008

Get back to where you once belonged

I started listening to Heather Mills on the BBC News website this morning, talking to the Press after her she was awarded £24.3 million for being married to Sir Paul McCartney. Living abroad has its advantages in that you tend to avoid most of the sensationalist and celebrity gossip and slanging that assails you from all quarters in Britain. Nevertheless, as the old saying goes, "you can take the boy out of Britain but you can't take Britain out of the boy." That being the case, I couldn't resist reading what the judge had to say about the couple and then, in or a penny, in for a pound, I clicked on the video of Heather talking to the Press. Here's some of what she said:

"What I'd like to say, being a campaigning girl, is anybody wanting to go through a divorce, try your hardest, man or woman, to settle it immediately. But if you're in an impossible situation, which anybody listening will know that, you know, people don't see eye to eye, things get out of hand, you can be a litigant in person. It's not easy, but just make sure you do all your research..."

Sage words indeed, from a woman who, in the three or four minutes that I listened, made probably half a dozen attempts to ram home the fact that she's a campaigner for charity first and an ex-Beatle's-ex, second (although actually, she won't be ex until the decree nisi is announced a couple of months from now).

Listening to her talking, I recalled the evening many years ago in England, when I attended a charity dinner in London and had to sit through half an hour of Heather Mills banging on, not only about the cause she was espousing (fair enough, can't knock her for that) but also a lot of irrelevant and very personal rubbish about her early life. This was of course, long long before she met Sir Paul, but incredibly and despite - one would assume - her increased exposure to the press and celebrity/charity audiences at gala functions, she barely seems to have changed at all. The mind-numbing monotony of her monologue, delivered in flat Geordie tones, is still there, but now there's something else as well. Brent. David Brent that is, of The Office fame.

Originally published on Blogger on 19th March 2008.

Hives and rain

Malme is allergic to pork. We discovered this yesterday when she ate a pork sausage and her skin erupted. She'd told us she was allergic to beef, but it turns out that she is allergic to meat from any hoofed animal. So that means no goat or lamb either, and I suppose that camel, unicorn and centaur are also off the menu. It sounds a little unbelievable, but Shilpi didn't think that Malme would have ever seen a pork sausage before, hence her inadvertent blundering into cloven-food territory. She'd recovered by the afternoon and we went out and bought a clothes stand for the two girls and then left them at home with Niharika while we had a coffee nearby.

The weather's been muggy and overcast for the last few days and after a light shower on Friday night, the heavens opened yesterday in a way that the heavens only open in India. Even though the car was only ten yards from the coffee shop we would have been soaked before we'd ventured half that distance. So we kicked our heels where we were and after half an hour or so, when it had eased a bit, the security guard escorted Shilpi and Mark to the vehicle under another customer's umbrella. The rain thundered down for most of the evening and this morning Bangalore is sodden - a taste of things to come when the monsoons set in a couple of months from now.

Originally published on Blogger on 16th March 2008.

History repeating

The maids are settling in and we're finding out a little more about them. Ibia has five brothers and sisters and five step-brothers and step-sisters. I don't know where she features in that line-up but both her parents are now dead. Her cousin Malme (our other maid) has twelve brothers and sisters. At twenty, she's the second eldest; the youngest is one year and two months old.

Malme was telling Shilpi that education for her and her siblings has been patchy and rudimentary. She stayed in school until she was about fourteen but then, with little money to go round and never enough food in the house, she started work, joining her parents as a day labourer on construction sites and taking home about five hundred rupees a month. I spent six hundred rupees on beer last night - £7.50 in English money. What that means (apart from my slight hang-over), is that Malme was earning about twenty five rupees a day - thirty pence give or take. I've watched female day labourers on construction sites in Bangalore and it's bloomin' hard work. From morning to night they ferry earth, debris or cement in metal panniers which they carry on their heads. Little wonder then that Malme looks as tough as old boots. I wouldn't put money on it but she could probably beat me in an arm-wrestling contest.

When Shilpi was relating these tales to me this morning I thought again of my maternal grandmother, Emily Whellams. I've written about her and her family on Whellams, another of my websites. Nan-nan, as we called her, had five sisters and brothers and seven half-sisters and brothers, (there would have been eight but Ernest Whellams died in October 1899 when he was a day old and by the end of that year his mother was also dead). The eighteen and a bit age difference between Malme and her youngest sibling also has echoes in my grandmother's family.

When Aunt Doll was born in 1917, the youngest of 13 Whellams children, her oldest brother Charlie was 37 years old, a successful builder and with a growing family of his own. By the time Aunt Doll was five years old, Charlie was already a grandfather. Nan-nan's schooling was patchy too, and the story that's been handed down in my family is that the children would take it in turns to go to school. If it was your turn to wear the shoes, you went to school. If your brother or sister had the shoes, you stayed at home. In India, seeing children walking barefoot to a government-run school is commonplace.

Nevertheless, social ills aside (he said, lightly), our maids' experience with children is already reaping rewards as far as Mark and Niharika are concerned. They're used to picking up children, keeping them occupied, running after them. As for Niharika, she is in her element with two new aunties who engage her, talk to her and sing her songs in Garo. She's already learnt to count to ten in Garo and pretty soon I suppose, she'll be jabberring back to Malme and Ibia in their local language.In the meantime I need to organise some proper beds for the two girls and I think bunk beds are going to the best option. The house is suddenly filling up and pretty soon it's going to fill even more.

In a couple of months from now, my house contents from the UK will be transported across the Indian Ocean and I'll be re-united with my books, music collection and the personal knick-knacks which have largely kept pace with me during various moves and traumas over the past twenty odd years. And to think I arrived in India with just a suitcase and a laptop.

Originally published on Blogger on 15th March 2008. The image, borrowed from Victorian Web, shows a London slum in Market Court, Kensington in the late 1860s.

Make your own tea

Our new maids have arrived. Ibia and the other one, were busying themselves in the kitchen when I got back home yesterday evening. They are both from the state of Assam, rather than Meghalaya (which was part of Assam until it was carved out as a new state in 1974) and are first cousins. One is a Sangma (like Shilpi), whilst the other is a Momin. Prinsicca was a Marak. All of these names are very familiar to me and if you follow the Garo Labour Companies link, you'll see that the First World War memorial in Tura is liberally carved with the names of Sangma, Marak and Momin labourers from the Indian Labour Corps who died for their King Emperor and Country. See also the grave of Abing Sangma at St Riquier British Cemetery, France (above).

I was up early this morning to drop Alex and Prinsicca at the airport. Their flight left at six and so I dropped them at just after four. On the way back, I stopped at The Royal Orchid Hotel for a coffee but by four thirty I was back home. I'd hardly arrived when the maids emerged from their room ready for a day's work. As I said, I tend not to get involved with the domestic arrangements, but having tried briefly to sleep, I decided to give it up as a bad job and get up once and for all.

"Can you make me some tea please?" I asked number two maid as I was stuffing clothes into the washing machine. "Char, chai", I added, hoping for some recognition. "I don't know" came the response. So there you have it, the first attempts at communication (apart from introductions yesterday) have failed miserably and I'm left wondering whether the "don't know" referred to "don't know how to make tea" (which I'd be very surprised at, particularly as Assam is to tea what Newcastle is - or was - to coal), or whether the "don't know" means, "I don't know what the hell you're wittering on about." In any event, for the first time in a long while I made my own tea this morning. I must have a word with my wife later on.

Originally published on Blogger on 14th March 2008.

Farewell Prinscicca

After nearly two years and five months with us, our maid leaves for Meghalaya tomorrow morning. I suppose she's looking forward to going home again although it's always difficult to know exactly what Prinsicca feels, even when you ask her a direct question. Her shyness and her basic English have always combined to leave me completely flummoxed when I've given her an instruction or tried to engage her in conversation. Asked whether she is looking forward to going back home, she just smiles, bites her lip and turns away. I take that to mean, "Of course I am, you moron. Anything's got to be better than skivvying after you and your messy brats."

But then again, what sort of life she'll go back to do, and what she'll do once she's back in the lush greenery of the Garo Hills, I have no idea. If she stays at home with her family she'll probably end up doing (unpaid), pretty much what she's been doing since she arrived in Bangalore: cooking, cleaning and chasing after children (she has six younger brothers and sisters). She has said that she's going to study which is a pleasant turnaround as she'd dropped out of school when she came to work for us. We'll miss her of course, but Niharika, who was only three months old when Prinsicca arrived (five months in the photo above), will miss her most of all.

My brother-in-law is accompanying Prinsicca to Meghalaya and, having taken three days on a train to get here, she'll be returning by plane. Their flight leaves at 6am tomorrow morning and by 11am they'll be in Guwahati. Then it's a five hour jeep ride to Tura. All being well, they should reach home just as the mists are descending from the hills.

As for Niharika, she'll have some new faces to get used to. As I type this, two replacement maids are pulling up at Bangalore's main railway station. I understand that they have come from the Assam side of the Garo Hills but I have no idea of their names, ages and backgrounds. All will become clear in due course and in any event, I leave Shilpi to handle all such maid-servant arrangements. If I get involved I usually end up either confusing the issue or saying the wrong thing. I'll stick to the game plan that's worked well with Prinsicca - keep contact minimal, be civil and ask one of them to make me a cup of tea in the morning.

Originally published on Blogger on 13th March 2008.

Ticket to England

If only buying airline tickets to England was where it ended. As a Brit, there are some things you take for granted, like travelling to other countries for instance. India makes it a little difficult for Britons wanting to come back to their old colony but then that's only to be expected I suppose, and at least the various Foreigners' Registration Offices throughout the country give unpleasant semi-retired policemen the chance to pad their retirement funds with back-handers. But generally, if you have a British passport and have not, for a century or so, ruled over the people of the land you intend to visit, travelling is a breeze. And it's because England's green and pleasant lands always seem greener and pleasanter to people from abroad (and have done for many many years for that matter), that it's now becoming increasingly difficult to get into the place if you're not a native.

I booked our airline tickets a while back: two adults, one infant and one baby (who doesn't actually qualify for a seat but might get slung into a British Airways bassinet if he's lucky). And over the last three weeks or so, I've been filling out the visa application forms for Shilpi and the two children. Why are they going? Who are they seeing? Are there any relatives? Actually, the forms are pretty straightforward but you do wonder why questions like, "have you ever engaged in terrorist activities?" and "Do you intend to engage in terrorist activities whilst you're in Britain" are actually included on the form. Do you think anybody would actually put their mark in the Yes box? Imagine, the 9/11 terrorists thwarted in their dastardly plot because when they applied for their Amercian visas they accidentally ticked the wrong box. Well I suppose they have to ask the question but then again, one can always change one's mind at a later date.

In any event, I filled the forms, included names and addresses of relatives in England, attached my parents' passport copies, a copy of my marriage certificate, six months of Indian bank statements, my recent UK bank statement, three photos of Shilpi, Mark and Niharika and receipts to show that I'd paid the Rs 5050 fee for each six month tourist visa (one hundred and eighty pounds for three visas - nice work if you can get it).

VFS Group handle the UK visa application process in India and I booked an appointment on-line for Monday at 2pm. We found the place easily enough and after an initial panic because the fee counter would only take cash (nearby cash point not working, next closest one a good ten minute hike away, two year old daughter being carried saying, "daddy, I want to do wee wee"), we waited to be called.

Now, UK visa forms are very comprehensive and I'd comprehensively filled each one, even adding a helpful summary on the final, additional information page along the lines of, "to recap, I am applying for a tourist visa so that I can accompany my British-born, British citizen husband / father to the UK where I will be holidaying with him and my children / mother / sibling."

Nevertheless, that still did not prevent the girl handling our case from asking me for my passport. Thankfully I'd brought it with me. "Do you have a copy of it?" She asked. "No", I said. "Well you'll have to go to a print shop and get a copy then." I looked at her. "Are you telling me, that in this entire building you don't have a photocopier? I brought everything that was required on the visa form. Where does it say that I need to bring my passport?" She called an office boy and a few minutes later he came back with the photocopies. But she was not happy with the photograph of Mark (because he was looking slightly to one side) and so we had to get another photo taken in a booth there. I also had to hand-write a scrappy letter saying that I supported my wife and children's application (well I would, wouldn't I). Finally, having coughed up a further 500 rupees for courier charges (plus 200 for the photo of Mark) Shilpi had her eyes scanned and her fingerprints taken and we were out of the building.

The process should now take around a week. The passports and applications are sent to Chennai where they'll be assessed and all being well, given a green light. If there are any queries we may have to attend an interview in Chennai but I think that's unlikely. Once the passports and visas come back to us, all we'll then have to do is go out and buy thick sweaters and raincoats. We are travelling to the UK in June, after all.

Originally published on Blogger on 12th March 2008.

Bad Music Night

Boney M played the Palace Grounds in Bangalore on Saturday evening, proving yet again that this is the city where C-list artistes can still eke out an existence.

If the European live music scene is the equivalent of, let's say, "Mama Mia" or "Miss Saigon" on the West End stage, then Bangalore's live music scene is Little and Large on Great Yarmouth Pier - on a windswept night in February. If European live music is lobster thermidore, then Bangalore's music scene is a plate of whelks. You get the occasional lobster in Bangalore, (Aerosmith for instance) but even then they're generally a little past their best and either on a farewell or best of tour.

I disliked Boney M's music in the Seventies and as far as I'm concerned it hasn't matured with age. And yet very many people in Bangalore obviously like the music a lot; how else to explain the fact that their hits are still played regularly in many of the pubs here. Whilst the clubs of Europe and North Amercia are belting out the latest Hip Hop and Rap, in Bangalore it's Ra Ra Rasputin.

And it doesn't seem to matter either than Boney M is not the Boney M of Ma Baker and Brown Girl in the Ring. Gone (presumably into retirement), is the lithe and energetic front-man with the big Afro, and the three skinny girls have morphed into one, somewhat larger, original band member, and two newcomers.

The concert, by all accounts, went down a storm and an incredible 20,000 people actually turned up. I was given two tickets on Friday night and spent a good deal of Saturday morning trying to get rid of them. In the end they went into the bin.

Megadeth and Machine Head are here this Friday - better than Boney M by a long shot but not exactly the new kids on the block either. Then again, if these old stagers anxious to resurrect their careers or profit from back catalogue sales didn't come to Bangalore, I'd have nothing to moan about would I?

Originally published on Blogger on 10th March 2008

Yats!

I took Niharika to Nandhini Palace on 100 Feet Road the other day. My wife had prepared veg dishes for our evening meal but I fancied some meat as well. I took Niharika for a walk to the cash point and then, on the spur of the moment, headed off the few extra hundred yards to Nandhini.

It was early, around 6.45pm, and so there were no customers in the restaurant. I ordered a couple of chicken dishes and then sat in the waiting area for the food to arrive. In the distance I could see some of the waiters chatting, and Niharika was amusing herself by looking out of the window.

All of a sudden, a large grey rat shot out from under a table and ran towards me. My reaction was instantaneous. I lifted my feet up and shouted to nobody in particular, "bloody hell, it's a rat." The rat, obviously understanding English, turned around and scurried back under the table. Nobody else saw it but I certainly didn't imagine it. "It's a yat" said Niharika. (She's two and a half and can't pronounce the letter R yet; something I'm assisting her with by teaching her the tongue-twister, "yound the yugged yock the yagged yascal yan.")

I spent part of this afternoon filling in rat-holes in our garden. We've had the rat extermination people around in the past but they didn't solve the problem. Today's exercise might keep them at bay for a day or two but they'll be back before long. Meanwhile, Niharika told her teachers at playschool that she likes eating cockroaches. To my knowledge she's never had one in her mouth but if she fancied a snack she wouldn't have to go far in the house to find one.

I think my mother in particular, can't understand why I would want to live in India. Relaying stories of yats in yestauyants and our fish man sharpening his knife on the nulla wall, do nothing to convince her that this is a country she ever wants to visit. I'm pretty easy with it really. Yats and yoaches are part of daily life, hygiene often isn't as important here as it is in other countries, but over a billion people seem to do just fine.

Originally published on Blogger on 1st March 2008.

The image comes from 10 Animals You Don't Want to Wake Up Next To and is too good not to use on a post. I referred to this sky-diving naked mole rat on my India-aaagh post, Snakes Alive! (Past tense) - yesterday.

For sausage and Empire

I bought some bacon sausages last weekend which were very tasty indeed. I'd been looking for our normal Keel's pork sausages but New Frosty's in Indiranagar had run out, and the bacon variety proved to be a very fine substitute. So yesterday, we decided to repeat the exercise and hopped into the car for the short ten minute drive to Frosty's. This week we were out of luck altogether; not a bacon or pork sausage to be found, just chicken sausages. So I drove down to Spencer's on 80 Feet Road. Spencer's is one of a number of new supermarket chains springing up in the city. When I first arrived in the city there was Fab Mall and Food World and Namdhari's for green vegetables and imported foodstuffs. Spencer's combines the best of both worlds: a pretty good green grocery section, some nice meats and fish and also a few imported cheeses, Heinz baked beans and some of the other every day products that you'd find in a Sainsbury's or Tesco's but which are like hen's teeth in India.

It was ten past nine by the time I got to Spencer's and the floors were still being swept. "Are you open?" I asked one of the assistants. "Yes sir" came the reply. So I walked up to the meat counter which was devoid not only of meat but also all human activity. I went back to the girl I'd spoken to earlier. "Is there anybody on the meat counter?" I asked. "Sorry, sir, the meat counter doesn't open until ten."

So my sausage quest ended there. On the way back home though, I did pick up some nice strawberries (thirty rupees a punnet), some bananas and a kilo of grapes. You can't beat the fruit in India. It didn't quite replace grilled sausage, but Niharika quite happily tucked into strawberries and grapes while her mum and I had fried egg and bacon instead.

Later in the evening I popped over to The Hard Rock Cafe with my brother-in-law. Neither of us had eaten and so when we were tipped out at about eleven thirty, we decided to nip up to The Empire in Shivajinagar and get a takeaway.

The Empire is one of the few eateries in Bangalore which stays open until late. There are a number of branches in the city and the ones on Church Street and in Shivajinagar are my usual haunts. When we got there last night the place was heaving, not that it mattered because we had no intention of getting out of the car. The routine is, drive up to the restaurant, nab a waiter who's loitering outside and then double or triple park the car whilst he gets your food. You can park fifty or a hundred yards down the street but he'll still find you. We ordered two chicken kebabs, two dal fry and four parota. Less than ten minutes later he was at the car with our food, total bill, Rs 262, which is about three pounds forty. I gave him Rs 300 and he was more than happy.

Then we set off for Indirinagar. Alex was driving and he knows the routine in Bangalore and also where the cops wait to nab drink drivers. He'd had a couple of beers but he certainly wouldn't have been over the limit. Nevertheless, he popped a spearmint chewing gum into his mouth and, sure enough, five minutes later, we were being pulled over by a policeman in Ulsoor.

"Have you been drinking?" asked the policeman.
"No sir," said Alex, "just Red Bull."
"Let me smell your breath," said the policeman, leaning into the car.

Alex breathed into the cop's face and we were waved on. So that's how they breathalyse in Bangalore. Had the cop's nose been a little more sensitive, or had he smelt a rat, Alex could have expected a court summons and a fine of probably a thousand rupees. It wouldn't have come to that though of course; a couple of hundred rupees slipped to Mr Plod would have seen the whole issue settled then and there.

Originally published on Blogger on 24th February 2008.

Eve-teasing

I'd like to meet the person who coined the phrase "eve-teasing" and shake him warmly by the throat. The British get blamed for a lot of the ills in India but this absurd term has got "made in India" stamped all over it. "Eve teasing" means verbally sexually harassing a woman and you can see how the phrase evolved. A committee of worthies must have sat around a table, prevaricated for several days and after lots of "ai-oh"ing, decided that any term with the word "sexual" in it was definitely a no-no. This is, after all, the country where Bollywood actresses can writhe seductively under a shower (fully clothed of course) but never kiss their hero. In the end, out committee decided that, as the first woman, Eve should be the representative of all women and that any affront to her modesty (good, safe term that one), should be regarded as teasing. And so eve-teasing was born and our committee members toddled off safely to their beds, secure in the knowledge that no matter how ribald or offensive an action could get, it would always be referred to as simply, "eve-teasing", with all the harmless playfulness that the word, "teasing" implies. What bollocks.

But there you go, eve-teasing it is and eve-teasing it will probably remain. I suppose the male equivalent would be Adam-baiting or Adam-jibing but if it does exist, I've never heard it expressed. "Eve-teasing" though, is such a dreadful phrase and one which can't fail to make any English speaking foreigner sit up and say, "what the f...". From whatever angle you look at it, it's both corny and offensive. And yet now, even Rediff has got onto the eve-teasing band-waggon and launched an advertising campaign to "tackle the menace". As the Rediff article says, "according to a survey, a woman is sexually harassed every 51 minutes and molested every 21 minutes." And pretty fed up of it she must be too, even if those figures do look a little tame by western standards.

Eve-teasing is a menace of course. Eve does not like to be teased, and if those nasty boys continue to make fun of her she will stamp her feet and cwy and cwy and cwy. Grow up India, for goodness sake.

Of shots and shirts

Life can take some strange turns at times. Way back in the late 1970s and early 80s, I used to read a weekly music paper called Sounds. Geoff Barton wrote most of the words and Ross Halfin took the pictures.

I bumped into Ross when Aerosmith were in Bangalore last June. I didn't know it was him at the time, although I did recognise that he was the same person who'd been up on the stage taking pictures of the group the previous night. Since that time I've dipped in and out of his diary which he publishes on his website. To be honest, I quite envy his globe-trotting lifestyle (although I'm sure he gets fed up with it) and I enjoy his blunt and often tongue-in-cheek writing style.

The other day he was fuming about a Pete Townshend shot which had been appropriated by somebody else and altered. No longer can you see a black and white Pete Townshend, just the outline part filled with a union jack. I think the image actually looks quite good but Ross's point was that it was his photo and nobody else had the right to either tamper with it or make money from it. He posted a copy of the original photo and the union jack version next to his diary piece.

When I saw the image I immediately recognised it as the same one on a t-shirt (above) which I had bought from Bossini in Bangalore a few months ago. I'm guessing - now that I know the history of the photo - that the union jack version was in turn ripped-off by Bossini who have also taken The Who logo and changed it to read The Sound. In any event, I dropped Ross a line to let him know, and he published it on his website yesterday. You can read the whole sordid tale - and see the original image - by going to Ross Halfin's diary entries for 10th February.

Originally published on Blogger on 14th February 2008.

The law of averages

I booked my Scorpio in for its first service last week and then had the nice people at Mahindra calling me up yesterday to gauge my satisfaction levels. I was given the name of the lead service engineer and asked if there were any issues with the service. Nope, there were none. I was then asked if I could give a rating between one and ten to five questions which would follow shortly. The girl explained that a rating of one was equivalent to poor, ten was the equivalent of excellent and eight the equivalent of average.

Hold it right there. Eight, the equivalent of average? Shouldn't that be five? Apparently not. I gave each of the five questions a rating of eight and was then informed by the customer care representative that as eight equalled average, would I like to suggest any improvements. I said I didn't.

But it did get me wondering what, in Mahindra's book, the numbers between one and eight represent, and indeed what standard tricky old number nine holds good for. Let me make some suggestions here.

Two = also-ran
Three = fair
Four = borderline
Five = middling (an easy one, that)
Six = could do better
Seven = passable

And now I have to be careful because I need to find appropriate middle ground between average, (shooting straight up the charts to this week's number eight position) and excellent, rooted there at the number one spot. "Good" doesn't quite cut it because then where would you put "very good"? And "great", whilst better than "good" still falls well short of "excellent."

The problem is, that a superlative does not exist in the English language which falls smack bang between average and excellent. That being the case I've decided that number nine must stand for "Scorp-tastic" and that when it comes to the phone review of my six month service I'm going to make things difficult and throw in some decimal points.

Originally published on Blogger on 12th February 2008.

Yakshemash!

I was reminded today of the trailer for Borat - Cultural leanings of America.... Towards the beginning, Borat is seen in his car waving to an adoring crowd. Only as the camera pans away do you realise that the vehicle is being dragged through his village by a horse.

This morning on my way into work we were stopped in our tracks by a road sweeper which was partially blocking our way. Common in the west, they're still a bit of a novelty in India; at least I don't recall seeing that many in the time that I've been here. It may be that the driver of the vehicle this morning didn't know how to operate the brushes correctly, or perhaps the brush that is meant to run alongside the kerb (in those odd pockets of thoroughfare where there is actually a kerb), wasn't working. In any event, walking in front of the mechanical road sweeper was one of the good old fashioned non mechanical versions; one of the green-jacketed varieties who normally insist on having their palms greased with a few rupees if you ever want them to do the job they've already been paid to do, and clean up the muck in front of your house. She was bent over, sweeping the papers and leaves away from the kerb, into the path of the mechanical version which followed her at a snail's pace. Talk about life imitating art.

Originally published on Blogger on 7th February 2008.

Nailed to the desk

Indian companies can demand a lot of their employees. For a start, if you're working normal office hours, the standard is usually 9am to 6pm and often six days a week rather than five. This being India of course, it would be rare to see a full complement of staff at their desks by 9am, but then a lot will also stay until 8pm or later.

It's also expected of course that if a project or piece of work is approaching a deadline, that people will stay behind to complete it. These days, with so much business going overseas to Europe and America, that can mean a lot of very unsocial hours, something that many western clients at best don't appreciate and at worst take for granted. My brother-in-law, contracted to work for a large American antivirus software company has just seen a drastic change in his hours. As a portion of the company's European business has been re-routed from India to Israel, he now finds himself working American hours: starting work at around 7pm and finishing at 3am in the morning. He'll get used to that of course, thousands of youngsters in Bangalore already work those graveyard shifts, and at the end of their shift they'll probably have team briefings or management training sessions which are extra unpaid hours tacked on to the end of their working days.

And don't think either that it's particularly easy to say goodbye to your employer. In England we'd hand in our notice and usually expect a reference from our employer. In India, nothing of the sort. Here, you "hand in your papers" and request a "relieving letter" which is a To Whom It May Concern type missive which states how long you've worked for the company and what you've done. It also confirms that your employment has ended. Indian companies can and do refuse to give employees relieving letters. Just last week I interviewed a chap who told me that his company would refuse to give him a relieving letter because they have a lot of work on at the moment. That's not a problem for me, as far as I'm concerned a relieving letter is just another piece of unnecessary red tape. As long as he can provide a reference we'll hire him anyway. Nevertheless, despite his company's attempts to force him to stay, my new employee remains loyal and has asked for one month's grace in order to complete some urgent projects.

And that's the other thing about employees in India - or at least those I've come across in the four years I've been here - they're generally jolly decent folk. And I can honestly say that I've never worked anywhere where people have exhibited such loyalty to their companies and gone about their work - even when hard-pressed - in such an uncomplaining manner.

Originally published on Blogger on 6th February 2008.

Unhealth food

I'm still getting accustomed to being back in India and at the same time trying to pinpoint what it was about England that made the place seem so lifeless. Part of it, I'm sure, had to do with the lack of street vendors, auto rickshaws and inconsiderate road users. To be fair, Chelmsford High Street, on one of the days that I was in the town, had set up a mini market where specialist traders were selling niche products like speciality sausages and cheese. There was even a stall, run by an Indian, selling various kinds of samosas. The owner though, poor chap, looked thoroughly miserable, and was huddled up behind his counter in an anorak and woolly cap, not making a very good job at all of engaging his one customer (also Indian), in pleasant conversation. I considered going up to him and asking him how much his samosas were. We pay five rupees each here, but not before the vendor, who comes around to our office with a huge container stuffed full of savouries, has thrust his thumb into the pastry in order to accommodate chopped onions and chili sauce. I guess that the Chelmsford man's samosas would have cost me more than about six pence each and so I didn't bother going up to him to make him feel even more miserable than he already was. I'll bet also, that he has had to pass stringent food hygiene tests and he probably isn't even allowed to touch one of his samosas, let alone stick his thumb through it, without putting on a pair of polythene gloves first.

We're also lucky in our office that we have daily visits from a peanut vendor. OK, so I did see the chap having a leak up against a wall the other day, just after he'd picked up five rupees' worth of nuts and tipped them into a paper cone for me, but as my mother used to say - and her mother before her - you have to eat a ton of dirt before you die. In any event, germs not withstanding, his peanuts are generally piping hot and extremely tasty. And when he makes enough of a profit from his one, two and five rupee cones, so rumour has it, he's going to splash out (no pun intended) and buy himself a new tyre for his front wheel.

Originally published on Blogger on 3rd February 2008. Image above borrowed from Webshots.

Ruddy Britannia

As a snap-shot of health-obsessed Britain today, you need look no further than terminal four at Heathrow airport. I passed through there yesterday on my way back to Bangalore, and whilst I was certainly not looking to pick holes in my country, the absurdity of it all cannot go unreported.

Having checked in early and with time to kill, I stopped at Pret a Manger for a bite to eat. Here they sell "dolphin-friendly tuna" sandwiches which, so the label says, apart from featuring said dolphin-friendly fish, also boast mayo, cucumber and salad leaves. What are salad leaves? Surely they mean lettuce leaves don't they? Or you can buy an "all day breakfast" sandwich and eat it with a clear conscience as the eggs are free range. The mozzarella pack goes one step further still. Here, the label tells you that the food has been, "lovingly handmade in Pret today." Sure it has, just as Monty Python's frog in the crunchy frog chocolate was"lightly killed" before being garnished with lark's vomit.

I opted for the BLT (presumably the pigs skipped happily to the abbertoir trotter in trotter, although the label didn't state as much), and then continued around some of the shops. Should you feel the urge, it's now possible to get a haircut at Hair Pod. It costs £3.50 for a beard trim and £11 for a men's or ladies' cut and finish; pretty reasonable really and the audience queuing at gates 1-5 is thrown in for free. Next to Hair Pod is a health boutique where you can book an instant massage if the stress of all that hair cutting has been too much.

On the plane, the health kick continued. The dessert accompanying my lunch was called "Rachel's organic divine rice", a dish which has what looks like a kite mark from the Soil Association, having achieved the required organic standard. Where the "divine" part of the dish comes in though, I have absolutely no idea. Presumably "divine" is used in the less literal sense as tasting heavenly, rather than actually having been made or touched by angels. Nevertheless, "Rachel's organic divine rice" is a little bit of a mouthful. Wouldn't "Rachel's orgasmic rice" have conveyed the same meaning?

Just for the hell of it, saddo that I am, I read the ingredients on the back and then brought home the empty pot so that I could write about it now. My dish contained: pasteurised organic milk (3% fat), organic rice (9%), organic sugar, organic cream (6%), pasteurised organic egg, and salt. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that the salt wasn't organic but I didn't let that spoil my enjoyment. I just closed my eyes and imagined I was eating Ambrosia rice pudding

A medal for the boy

When Niharika was born I bought her gold bangles. I'm not a huge fan of children draped in heavy jewellery but as I was in India, buying her some finely crafted gold seemed like the right thing to do. Now that her brother has come along, I've bought him an old silver medal.

It's not any old silver medal, mind. This one was originally worn by a colour sergeant in the 1/8th Regiment of Foot, later the King's Liverpool Regiment. He was born in Ireland and joined the British army in 1846, probably sailing for India shortly afterwards. He was certainly here in 1857 and fought during the Indian Mutiny (known here as the First Indian War of Independence. Maybe, but at the time it was most definitely a mutiny). He was present when Delhi was re-captured and also at the Relief of Lucknow. Mark now has his Indian Mutiny Medal with two bars, bought for a tidy but probably not unrealistic sum from a reputable British dealer. We won't see the medal in India. It can languish in Britain until Mark is old enough to decide what he wants to do with it himself.

And just as I felt that gold bangles were appropriate for Niharika, I feel that a medal awarded for a campaign fought by British troops in India exactly 150 years before Mark's birth is a fitting keepsake for him. And in my eyes, after all he's been through, he certainly deserves a medal.

The medal on this page is not Mark's. His shows DELHI instead of LUCKNOW. Image copyright of North East Medals.

Originally published on Blogger on 19th January 2008.

England in my long johns

I'm back in Blighty for a few days and today is really quite pleasant; cooler than Bangalore of course but not fiendishly cold, and the sun is trying to shine through the grey clouds. Each time I return to England I think how much the country has changed. That probably has more to do with the infrequency of my visits (three times in four and a half years) rather than dramatic changes to the daily lives of Britons.

But it's an odd sensation returning to the town that I grew up in and feeling very much a stranger in it. More of the old character buildings have gone or will be demolished soon, and new developments have either sprung up or are lying in wait. The western side of the town, always a bit of a problem area, seems caught between two stools: a brand new development that's been empty for a year or more and the old Victorian cinema which is now nothing more than a patch of waste ground.

Much the same could be said of Bangalore of course. I'm too recently arrived in the city to remember what used to be where the Bangalore Central shopping centre is now, but I gather that at one stage there was a typical old colonial bungalow there. There are still a few private residences on MG Road, but most have fallen to the developers' swords and the others will go in due course I expect.

I suppose it's all in the name of progress, and that tomorrow's generation - Niharika and Mark in India, and my nephew and nieces in Britain - will jog along quite happily and not be at all bothered about the lack of heritage buildings or sense of the past. Why should they be when they can probably recall old images on the internet.

Even more disturbing to this returning wanderer however, is the sanitisation of Britain that has grabbed society by the throat and is slowly but surely throttling it. On entering the park close to where my parents live, you are now greeted by a sign which reads, West Park Healthy Walk and shows you exactly where you need to go in order to get your health kick. As I continued, a woman wearing flourescent reflective bands and a helmet was approaching me on her bike. Why she felt the need to wear reflective bands on a beautifully sunny afternoon I have no idea. The helmet too, seemed superflous, and yet I suppose that if a disorientated hedgehog had happened to stroll in front of her, she might have had to brake sharply and could have skidded on a damp leaf.

Robinson's fish 'n' chip shop, once the purveyor of the finest fish and chips in Chelmsford, now has a huge sign in the window advertising healthy fillings for rolls. There's a salad bar inside just in case today's customers fancy rabbit food with their cod instead of a pickled egg or gherkin. As for the pubs, forget about having a drink and a smoke in front of a roaring fire. Smoking is now banned in public places and roaring fires will probably soon be black-listed because of environmentally harmful emissions. You can see why people are cossetted but it seems to me that British society is becoming increasingly sterile and boring. I never thought I'd say it, but walking along the ordered streets of Essex, with their proper road marketings and correct signage, I actually miss the chaos and unpredictability of Bangalore.

Originally published on Blogger on 24th January 2008.

Escape from Manipal Hospital

Mark's out. He's smiling and so are we. After 24 days, 20 hours and 54 minutes in Manipal Hospital, we left today at twenty to three in the afternoon. And I suppose that as there was so much drama accompanying his entry into the hospital, it was only fitting that there should be drama when he left.

On their rounds this morning, doctors told Shilpi that we could discharge Mark. She phoned me almost immediately and I was at the hospital by just gone eleven. Mark's file though, was nowhere to be seen. I asked the administrator on the 6th floor reception where it was. "It's with the sister. She's just completng it now." (For some reason, nurses at Manipal tend to be called sisters even if they're not. I'm not very clued up on nursing ranks but I should imagine that a British nursing sister would get quite uppity if her junior went around calling herself sister). I returned to Mark's room and then, ten minutes later, went back to see how the nurse/sister was doing. "There's a code missing on one of the lines," she said, "We'll find out what it is and then send the file downstairs to billing."

I went to the canteen outside and had a good south Indian meal for a few rupees. On my way back I called in at the Billing department. "Sorry sir, we have not received the file."

Back on the sixth floor, the sisters, nurses, doctor and receptionist had not found the code. "We're calling Dr Sameera" said the administrator, "please be seated for five minutes." I know an Indian five minutes by now, and so I told Shilpi what was happening and then went back to the nurses. " Have you managed to get hold of Dr Sameera?" I asked? "We're sending the file downstairs to NICU now" one of them said. This boy is taking it." "Is he taking it directly," I asked, "or doing a tour of the hospital first?"

I followed him down to the second floor and then waited while the Nepali doctor looked at the file for ten minutes. She then re-appeared. "Please take a seat," she said, "we need to bring another file." So I waited another quarter of an hour until the second file appeared, and then another five minutes after that. The doctor handed the file to the messenger and while I was exchanging last minute pleasantries with her, he disappeared. "He's gone to the sixth floor or to billing?" I asked. "To the sixth floor,' she said, "there's no need for you to worry."

I climbed the eight flights to the sixth floor but the messenger had not arrived with the file and so I went back in to see Shilpi and Mark. When I came out ten minutes later I asked the nurse if the file had arrived. "Yes," she said. "I've sent it down to billing."

So I walked down to the ground floor again and spoke to the same girl I'd spoke to earlier. She reached for a print-out and then picked up the phone. Five minutes later she turned to me. "I'm sorry sir, we have not received the file."

And it was precisely at that point, at around two thirty in the afternoon, that the red mist started to rise. I called Shilpi. "We're checking out," I said. "They haven't got the file and we've been here long enough. Are you ready?" By the time I got back into Room 605 they were all pretty much ready. Mark was asleep, wrapped in a blanket, Niharika was jumping up and down, Shilpi was looking worried and our maid was staring into space.

With hindsight, I think we could probably have made it had we not looked so darned conspicuous and had we not had to wait for another five minutes for the lift to arrive. We ambled out of the ward with no trouble at all but we were caught when a security guard approached us just as we were getting into the lift. "Please come back sir, you need to pay the bill and to get your discharge slip." I gave him a hard Paddington stare. "I'm not coming back," I said. "I have been waiting here for three hours now. We're going."

By the time we got to the ground floor, the guard who'd spoken to me up on the 6th was already there and radioing ahead to somebody else. To be fair, most escaping prisoners would have made good their exits whereas we came down from the 6th to the ground floor, stopping at every floor in between. Our guard on the 6th, could probably have stopped for a coffee on his way down.

As we headed out from the lifts to the main exit, we were joined by more guards. Remember the OJ Simpson chase scene just prior to his arrest for the murder of his ex wife and her lover? It was a little like that but without the flashing lights and helicopters. Every step we took it seemed that one more guard joined in behind us. "Please come back sir," said our 6th floor guard. "No." I said. I called our driver and the five of us stood on the steps of the Manipal Hospital while we waited for him to turn up. Just as I was getting Shilpi and Niharika into the car, admin on the 6th floor called. "Can you please come to the 6th floor as we need to take care of your discharge." "You come to me," I said. "I'm on the ground floor now. I've been up and down to the 6th floor all day and I'm not coming back. If you want me to sign something, you bring it down to me."

By now, with everybody in the car and ready to go, three or four security guards were standing in front preventing the car from moving. "Why are you blocking my car?" I asked, "I'm paying the bill, not them."

To cut a long - and probably boring and predictable - story short, two senior administrators appeared on the scene at about the same time as the fifteenth guard, and before you could say Vikram Srinivasan Ramachandran, I was at the billing counter to collect my final bill and discharge slip. As the cashiers were preparing the bill, the less senior of the two administrators was standing at my side and helpfully tut-tutting; badgering them with, "come on" and "hurry up" and "why is it taking you so long?" while the senior man was saying to me, "I'm sorry sir, I'll report this, this really shouldn't happen."

"It happens all the time," I said, "this is India" and then, in a classic pot and kettle moment, "you don't need to make a fuss."

I settled the bill and walked out, shaking hands with the 6th floor guard (who looked relieved) and the senior administrator (who also looked relieved). I winked at Shilpi and we drove off. Of course, I had no intention of leaving the hospital without settling the bill and even had we managed to get out without being apprehended, I would have returned at a later point to settle up. Unfortunately though, sometimes in India you have to make a fuss otherwise people just take their own sweet time. As it is, we have still left the hospital without a discharge summary. This has absolutely nothing to do with my tantrums, rather due to today being a harvest festival holiday in southern India and no doctors being available to write the report.

Originally published on Blogger on 15th January 2008.

I noticed, when we were back at Manipal Hospital for Tauran's birth last April, the rooms now have notices pinned up which state that the check-out process can take three hours or more and that patients and their attenders are kindly requested to be patient. I like to think that in some small way, my attempted escape, was responsible for this move. The picture was taken some weeks after we were back at home.

In praise of an auto-free Bangalore

It's one of those rare days in Bangalore when the roads, if still not exactly a pleasure to drive on, are at least a good deal less congested than usual. The auto rickshaw drivers are on strike.

The licensed (and unlicensed) bandits are striking because they want an increase in their minimum fare. A basic 2km ride or less in the city currently costs 12 rupees. Depending on which union you speak to, the drivers are pushing for either a 15 or 20 rupee minimum; both of these rises of course, well above the rate of inflation.

I've had a love/hate relationship with auto drivers ever since I settled in Bangalore. I think the first Hindi phrase I learnt here was, sub auto-rickshaw wallah chor hai, which means all auto rickshaw drivers are thieves. It didn't do me much good because the common language here is Kannada rather than Hindi, but I did have the satisfaction of using it to startling effect on one occasion. Although I've referred to them above as bandits, the majority of drivers are decent. A lot will try their luck, but then you can't blame them for trying to take a supposedly affluent whitey for a financial ride as well as a bumpy uncomfortable one. I pretty soon made sure that I knew the routes within the small area of the city that I travelled in and throwing in the odd word of Hindi never seemed to do me any harm unless the driver assumed I knew enough of the language to then try and strike up a conversation. At which point I'd then have to throw up my hands and say, "sorry, I don't understand what you're saying." But I relied on autos for four years and to be honest, if it hadn't been for my wife imploring me to invest in a car, (rightly as it turned out - but then we should know that women are always right, even if we hate to admit it), I'd still be standing at the side of a road trying to flag autos down.

But it's surprising how de-congested the city looks today, and how easy it was to nip home at lunchtime; a journey that would normally take me twenty minutes but which today took me half that time.

And as so often seems to be the case in India, when the affronted party strikes, it seems to be that same party which suffers. The drivers are keeping their three-wheeler coffins off the road between 6am and 6pm and whilst they're losing money, everybody else has more road to fight over. And I wouldn't wonder too, if the accident toll is also a little lower in the city today. Auto drivers are notorious for stopping bang in front of you without any indication whatsoever. One minute you can be happily trundling behind one and the next minute, it's suddenly stopped to pick somebody up. You do develop a sixth sense when driving and a rickshaw that is driving slowly tends often to do the unexpected (or the expected, if you have that sixth sense).

If I were in Government (and there must be a Minister and numerous underlings in a department entitled Ministry for Thieving Rickshaw Drivers, or similiar), I'd be tempted to say, "OK, that worked, let's keep them off the road and just commission more buses instead." Then again, I'd also ban motorbikes and lorries, oh, and foreign cars, bicycles, ox carts, pony and traps... Come to think of it, I'd probably just allow Scorpios and buses on Bangalore's roads.

Of course, a rickshaw ban will never happen but who knows, with Tata's announcement yesterday of a car for one lakh, demand for their services may eventually wane. My wife phoned the Tata dealership this morning only to be informed that production of the new Nano will not start until September. For that price though, you can walk into a dealership and put a Nano on your credit card and I would have done that today if the cars had been available. As I said to somebody in the office yesterday, I could put it in the back of my Scorpio in case of an emergency.

Originally published on Blogger on 11th January 2008.

Softies

The British public is going soft. I've just watched a BBC report - complete with CCTV footage - which showed a man in the north east of England avoiding police by driving on the payment. He also played chicken with a double-decker bus, cutting in at the last minute whilst travelling at a good 27mph. He was sentenced to 13 months in jail. "It's completely horrendous, I mean it's so dangerous," said Mr Profoundly-Shocked, of Hull, "you could kill people the way that man was driving. It's absolutely out of order completely." He continued, "It's as simple as that, it's a killer. A motor car is a lethal weapon; it's like a gun. If it's driven properly it's fine, if it's not driven properly then I'm afraid it kills people." Ah, exactly like a gun in that case.

The footage, which really doesn't look that horrendous at all, shows two policemen doing a pretty good impression of the skittle children in one of Noddy's adventures, whilst the driver makes a nicely executed getaway along a tree-lined path completely devoid of not only pensioners, and babies in prams, but (cascading policemen excepted) people in general. Based on this evidence alone, a 13 month sentence looks a little harsh.

Yesterday, on my way back from lunch, I had to move aside on the footpath I was on to let several motorbikes through. Nothing wrong with that of course, when the road is blocked - as I have written before - the footpath is fair game. You'd never get cars driving on pavements in India though; they're far too narrow. The one I was on yesterday was probably three feet wide but on Bangalore's main shopping roads such as MG Road and Brigade Road, they can narrow down to a couple of feet. In Commercial Street you can forget pavements altogether.

Having been a driver now for nearly three months, I also find myself having far less sympathy for pedestrians. I'd make an exception about driving on a pavement but really, the way some people exhibit so little care for themselves, they deserve all they get. I think that most people assume that a vehicle will always stop for them and that therefore they can cross the road looking the wrong way, or they can stand in the middle of a slip road whilst they talk on the phone, or they can suddenly vault over a central divider into oncoming traffic. Send them to Hull I say, let them see what life on the mean streets of England is all about. They wouldn't be so cocky there, I can assure you.

Originally published on Blogger on 8th January 2008.

Manmohan Singh comes to Bangalore

I know she may be a bit young, but I still believe that my two year old daughter should know who's in charge of the country. We play a game most evenings where I sit with her on my lap and go through the newspapers. "Can you see..." I begin, "... a man wearing a red shirt?" And of course, she spots the man quite easily, and points to him. "And can you see, a yellow car?" It goes on.

A little while back I decided to vary it a bit and throw in a few adjectives and names. So for the photo of a policeman on a bicycle, I'd ask Niharika. "Can you see a lazy, fat, corrupt, scheming policeman riding a bicycle?" Bang on. She got it. "And can you see the British High Commissioner to India?" He was the only man on the page and so she got that as well. Having edged into politics I tried Manmohan Singh who appeared on the next page. "Can you see the Indian Prime Minister? I'll give you a clue, he's wearing a funny blue hat." She over-looked the also rans not wearing "hats" and finally settled on a file photo of the PM wearing his trademark blue turban. "Well done I said, that's the Indian Prime Minister."

And now she spots him quite easily. In fact she'll point him out on television and in the newspapers with no trouble at all. She even spotted him yesterday at the Oberoi Hotel on MG Road.

We'd been at the hospital in the morning and then I'd come back home leaving my wife there with Mark. When I phoned her at around one o'clock she sounded quite down and fed-up and so I suggested that we should go to the Oberoi for brunch. We'd booked a table there for Christmas Day but with all the drama surrounding Mark's birth, we pretty much cancelled Christmas, Oberoi lunch included. So yesterday was a nice break. Luckily, a table was found for us and we sat down to the usual beautifully prepared food. There was even mince tart on the dessert menu and having asked a waiter if he could bring me some cream to go with it, I was in my element.

Afterwards, waddling back towards reception with Niharika in my arms, she suddenly exclaimed and pointed, "Indian Prime Minister is coming!" There, straight ahead of me and walking towards us was a Sikh gentleman, a good deal younger than Manmohan Singh perhaps, but wearing pretty much the same colour turban. I'll post another entry on this blog when she calls out, "Watch out daddy, lazy, fat, corrupt scheming policeman lathe charging you."

Caricature by John Cox, taken from the website Cox and Forkum

Originally published on Blogger on 7th January 2008.

Don't urine here

Unfortunately, for a lot of Indian men an expanse of wall triggers the same reaction that a tree triggers in a dog. I've rarely felt the urge to unzip in public and on the odd occasions that I have done so, it's usually been after a heavy drinking session in London followed by a 45 minute journey into Essex on a train with no toilets. Even then, I was usually careful to find a tree or waste ground that was not overlooked; a task that would often involve a further five or ten minute delay for my tortured bladder.

In the UK, I suppose we are fortunate that you can always count on a cafes, pubs and some of the larger shops to have toilets, not to mention the public conveniences maintained by civic authorities. I admit that I may be a little out of touch with current potty-training trends in Britain, but when we were growing up we were also taught that relieving yourself in public was very much a last (and shameful) resort and that if you did have to take that extreme measure you should be as furtive about it as possible, (hence my occasional frantic searches much later in life, for an all-concealing tree or bush after late night drinking sessions in London).

In India though, it often seems to me that men wait until they leave their homes to relieve themselves. How else to explain the rows of individuals brazenly standing or crouching beside a wall on a busy street? The French adopt that same laisse faire attitude about public urination, but then if you've ever seen a French municipal toilet, you'll understand why that is. The same is probably true of India. Taking Bangalore as an example, there are some publicly maintained toilets but far too few for a population of over seven million. And in any event, why bother to queue up and pay at a smelly toilet when you can point for free at a smelly wall?

And it is precisely to deter men from soiling their walls that some property owners take the ingenious step of decorating their walls with religious icons. I took these pictures on New Year's Day just off 12th Main in Indiranagar. What you have here, so the owner hopes, are images to deter bladders of all faiths. A Christian would not dare (so the owner reasons), to defile a wall on which Christ is depicted. Neither would a Hindu defile a wall displaying Hindu gods. And so what this montage displays is religious icons and symbols covering Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. I don't know whether the ploy works, but when I was standing taking photos I didn't notice any unpleasant odours.

I find the deterrent quite quaint but I do wonder whether men who couldn't care less about exposing in public, would care much more about defacing a religious image or whether indeed, already committed, they might pause for a minute and shuffle along a couple of steps to spray the representation of somebody else's faith.

As for the atheists, don't even go there.

Originally published on Blogger on 3rd January 2008.

A nod to posterity

When Niharika was born, I was very careful to record everything that happened and to save little mementos to give to her later. And so I transcribed all the text messages we received at the time she was born, and put aside little objects that I felt had some significance. Although she doesn't know it yet, Niharika has a lot of baby junk coming her way when she's older: the clip that was fastened to the remaining piece of umbelical cord, champagne bottle labels (and the bill for those bottles from The Leela Palace), a Moet cork with a coin stuck in the top, the patient attender and visitor passes from the Manipal Hospital, a copy of The Times of India (poor kid) that was published on the day she was born, the label around her ankle that reads, "baby of Shilpi".

I wanted to do exactly the same for Mark but despite my best efforts so far, the circumstances of his birth and subsequent sojourn in ICU have worked against me.

I have transcribed all the relevant text messages to and fro since the time he was born, and I have saved a copy of The Asian Age both for the 21st December (the day he was born) and the 22nd (so that he'll one day be able to see what else happened on his birthday). But the champagne remains on ice until he comes home, while his "baby of Shilpi" tag and tummy button clip have long since been discarded by nurses who couldn't possibly imagine that something so ordinary could have even the slightest sentimental attachment. I hope that Mark feels the same when he's older. Being a bloke, he may well do, (although this particular bloke holds store by such trivia).

Maybe it's because I've done a lot of family history research in my time that I think preserving snapshots in time is important. One day, who knows, when Mark's great great grandchildren are poring over a brittle Asian Age published in the year of our Lord 2007, their mother will say to them, "and if I'm not mistaken, your great great auntie Niharika, great great grandad's sister, had the tag that was put on her leg just after she was born. I don't know what happened to the one that was given to her brother. It must have got lost over the years."

Back to the present day and Mark appears to have made some progress. We're keeping our fingers crossed of course, and praying that there won't be a relapse but his breathing seems to have improved. He was taken off the ventilator and put on a CPAP machine. It's still assisted ventilation for him but it's not as assisted. The tube that had been inserted into his side after his right lung collapsed has also been removed, and his jaundice is improving too.

The photo shows his seven o'clock (evening) feed: 32 ml of milk delivered straight to the stomach with only the aid of a tube and gravity. I asked the nurse if she could arrange to liquidise food for Niharika and feed her the same way, but she just stared at me blankly.


Originally published on Blogger on 30th December 2007.

Sam old sung

When we were growing up, it always seemed that something would pack up at Christmas. Sometimes it would be the car, at other times it would be the washing machine or the tumble-drier. My parents would groan, both because of the inconvenience and of course the unbudgeted costs. It gives me no pleasure to report that I have obviously brought this old English tradition to India.

My washing machine packed up this morning and so I called the Samsung service centre in Bangalore. Here's my rough transcription of the calls that followed.

Samsung: Good morning, how may I assist you?
Me: Good morning, I am calling from Indiranagar. I have a Samsung washing machine that has packed up. On the washing machine display I am getting the error message E9.
Samsung: You are calling from [recites first address line correctly]
Me: Yes, correct
Samsung: [then recites second, third and fourth address lines correctly, pausing between each for affirmation]
Me: Correct
Samsung: And am I speaking to Mr Paul?
Me: Yes, you are.
Samsung: And is your telephone number [recites number correctly]
Me: Yes it is, you're doing very well.
Samsung: And you also have the telephone number [recites second number correctly]
Me: Yes, correct, well done, hundred per cent correct so far.
Samsung: What seems to be the problem?
Me: I am getting the error message E9 on my washing machine.
Samsung: It's not spinning.
Me: I don't know, it just says E9.
Samsung: And is it front-loading or top-loading?
Me: Front loading
Samsung: Do you remember where you bought it?
Me: It was from Pye Electronics on 100ft Road
Samsung: Is it under warranty?
Me: No, I shouldn't think so, I've had it for over three years.
Samsung: Would you like an estimate for the repair?
Me: No thanks, just a repair man would be fine.
Samsung: Please note down the complaint number....
Me: OK
Samsung: Thank you sir, an enigneer will be with you today.
Me: Really? Thanks very much.
Samsung: Thank you for calling Samsung, have a nice day.

At three thirty, I called again.

Samsung: Good afternoon, how may I assist you?
Me: Can I give you a complaint number?
Samsung: Please go ahead
Me: [I went ahead but the service assistant finished the last three numbers for me]
Samsung: You are living at [first line of address repeated correctly]
Me: Yes, that's correct.
Samsung: Which is in...
Me: Yes, yes. You don't need to repeat the whole address.
Samsung: And you are calling from...
Me: Yes, I know you have all my details. All I want to know is will a service engineer be coming today to look at my washing machine?
Samsung: Would you like an estimate for the repair?
Me: No thanks, all I want to know is whether a service engineer will be coming today.
Samsung: A service engineer will be with you tomorrow sir.
Me: Well can you please tell me why, when I rang this morning, the person I spoke to said that the engineer would be coming today?
Samsung: I apologize sir, the engineer will be coming tomorrow.
Me: That's OK, and you don't need to apologise because it's not your fault. All I want to know is why the person I spoke to this morning said an engineer would be coming today and now you tell me he'll be coming tomorrow?
Samsung: I apologize sir, the engineer will be coming tomorrow.
Me: Look. It's not a difficult question, in fact it's a very simple one. Why would one person tell me the engineer is coming today and then another one tell me he's coming tomorrow?
Samsung: He'll be coming tomorrow sir. He'll call you before he reaches.

I never did get the answer to my question, but hopefully my second call has been logged and the machine will be fixed tomorrow... or the day after.

Originally published on Blogger on 28th December 2007

Mark Sangma Nixon – welcome to the world

On 21st December at 17.29, three weeks ahead of schedule, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. There has been a lot of drama since that time, some of which I may publish here. But for the time being, this is simply a short entry to welcome my son into the world and to wish him good health and happiness always. He already has plenty of love.

Originally published on Blogger on 26th December 2007.

I followed this post with quite a few subsequent bulletins on Mark's time in hospital, most of which I'm not going to re-publish here. He was finally discharged on 15th January 2008 after three and a half weeks in intensive care. I am pleased to say that he is a beautiful healthy boy who shows no signs of his early trauma apart from a scar on his chest where a tube was inserted after his lung collapsed on 23rd December. But it was an incredibly stressful time for the family and I'm not going to re-live that again now.