Our wishing well….

January 16, 2016January 16, 2016 SFLeave a comment

we do wish you well but it’s actually a wishing WALL…

It’s a great example of what fun we have at Mysore BnB and how it sometimes feels like a big international family.

This latest project started from a photograph

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Andrew Murren, one of our wonderful previous guests, posted this photo on facebook. It’s from Japan and called Ema. Found in Shinto Temples, visitors buy a plaque, write a wish and hang it on the wall. Well, we thought it was pretty cool.

So we discussed it with various guests who also liked it.

We all thought it would be good to create our very own. I recruited Suresh from Sri Muruli Fine Arts to make some wooden shapes as a bit of an experiment. They are the guys who I reckon are amongst the best wood inlay and marquetry artists in Mysore. Here’s two of the team at work.

So check it out, below.

Ok, there isn’t very much so far… but that’s the point, it will build up over-time and become its own work of art…. you are invited to make a wish or statement or just design a plaque and hang it on our wall. It’s launched by a lovely family of artists from New Zealand. Admittedly they have set a rather high standard with beautiful plaques and other recent guests with a similar artistic bent have risen to the challenge. But it’s not about great art, it’s about making a wish or a statement, if you want to make it art, then that’s fantastic, an added extra. But what’s really important is that we invite all those taking part to buy the plaque and all the money goes to the Asha Kirana Charitable Trust and their wonderful work with people in Mysore who are HIV+ and with AIDS.

what’s in a name? part 2

January 16, 2016March 14, 2016 SFLeave a comment

So what to do next?

remembering that our eventual aim is to get Manjula a passport, but let’s build up to the big tasks and start with something more straightforward

a simple first challenge was to get a PAN card for Manjula. You get a PAN card when you register to pay taxes. Country needs people to pay taxes so you’d expect it to be relatively easy. Well it, sort of, is and I’ve got one (as has the company), so it can’t be that difficult, can it?

pics of ID cards have been removed

This would be important as would be to learn from the process of obtaining it, we’d need to get Manjula’s various ID’s in line (rather like ducks) and the card itself would be a valuable addition to helping create a formal identity suited to the modern age 😉 yeh, right! what are we waiting for?

So the man to manage the process would be Ganesh, my very able accountant. He copes with my idiosyncratic accounting practices, so is nothing, if not flexible and adaptable.

But of course, the balloon (ie me, do check our business card) is ‘the fixer’ or is it gopher?

First stage is to get her three forms of ID that show her photo, name, Date of Birth and address… now let me just find them out…….

what’s in a name?

December 24, 2015December 24, 2015 SFLeave a comment

some of you may remember the story (earlier in this blog) or shared in our conversations over dinner, in Mysore, about Manjula getting her voting card.

P1030815 — indelible ink on Manjula’s thumb. Evidence that she has voted.

She declared that her life was half over before she managed to vote. Well that set me on a journey to help sort out her various ID cards, in a sense to legitimise Manjula in the eyes of the state! This is still a very informal society, at least in some respects, so many people don’t have a birth certificate, know of their actual birthdate and maybe even just have one name. It is, of course, very important to get these things sorted especially if you want to do any formal business or even travel abroad. So this was to become one of our major projects. I immediately I realised there were all sorts of problems….

Projects

December 5, 2015December 5, 2015 SF1 Comment

we’ve had a few. The latest might be a bit of a challenge.

Vasanth has been a great help in so many of them: whether large or small. He fondly remembers the horse riding period, the riding boots fiasco, finding new ways to experiences India but, I must say, our projects do seem to have got a wee bit bigger: moving to India in itself, is of course, no small P1030419 challenge. This, in turn has led to renting a house, furnishing it partly from the lovely things at Ritz Hotel, creating the cycle tours, registering the business, finding the drivers, herding the cats (aka drivers), spending money on lovely art and working out how to haggle so as not to always pay too much foreigner tax, getting a visa every few years… to mention just a few of the different examples of being tossed out of our comfort zones, into the wild unknown. But I wonder if the latest one is a stretch too far….

Do I really have to declare that I’m not an idiot? and if I do and she subsequently finds that I am, is that grounds for divorce?

Holidays in India

November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 SF2 Comments

In India, until recently, holidays were visits to one’s family or for religious pilgrimages. Some might say… not much of a holiday! But as with everything in India, it’s changing.

A sign of these times is the growth of the middle classes and the idea of holidays as ‘leisure’. Take the Kerala Backwaters as an example: ten years ago the vast majority of those hiring the converted rice barges for an overnight trip would be white tourists from abroad, nowadays the majority are middle-class Indians.

Manjula is a good example. She’s travelled a fair amount in India: Calcutta, lived in Mumbai, even out of the country to Nepal but it always related to visiting family, work or worship. Her first leisure holiday was only recently to Kannur Beach.

On holiday, she was like a young girl, almost shrieking (in her quieter, slightly reserved, dignified way) like a young child at the first experience of the waves tickling her toes.

P1030011 We stayed with Rosi at Kannur Beach House with a good friend Frances and her daughter Alex. Many of our guests at Mysore Bed and Breakfast also stayed there.

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P1020987 — Retail Therapy? actually buying sheets for the bed and breakfast

It’s been quite difficult to get Manjula to take a holiday but once she’d ‘bit the bullet’ and had a great time, within just a few weeks, we’re on the overnight train (first class, I’ll have you know) to Hampi.

I think her family thinks she’s won the the lottery, maybe she has!

We stayed at what is jokingly referred to as Israel, the more traveller/backpacker orientated place on the other side of the river from Hampi. Our recommendations include eating at Mango Tree and visiting Sagar for a breakfast or snack. Most of the accommodation across the river is much of a muchness but ‘Top Secret” has great food and wonderful views back over to Hampi.

We’ll post our and guest recommendations on our main web site at http://www.Manjulasmysore.in

Well, we both had a wonderful time and so there is no doubt that the holidays will continue, let’s see where our adventures take us!

P1030109 — Hopefully not falling into the Paddy field water again, as this muppet did in Hampi!

I’m so happy ….

June 11, 2015June 11, 2015 SF2 Comments

I’ve just returned from walking Lucy, the dog. Manjula the light of my life, my muse, catalyst and creator who is at the heart of my happiness here is away at the moment. She’s on a brief holiday visiting her mother. What a gap I’ve become so used to her being here to greet me when I return home… with her warm smile and little jokes. Yesterday, before leaving, she declared that there was a cockroach in my bed… ha ha… I went there, only to find she’d changed the bed. Her jokes maybe come from hanging around with guy from Yorkshire for over five years! Poor her..

You may have already come to know her, if you’re among the over 1,000 guests that have visited here at Mysore Bed and Breakfast. If so, you’ll know exactly what Im talking about in my ham fisted way. Many of you have assumed that we were more than partners in the business sense and I can reveal, its true. For some time now- Ive known that I love and cherish her dearly.

So there it is ….. announced to the world. Manjula is the love of my life.

I’ll use this record of our life here in Mysore to introduce more of this wonderful woman wherever possible using her own words.

Stephen

Street Art

GalleryMay 30, 2015May 30, 2015 SFLeave a comment

Yesterday, I met a group of young people, here in Mysore, with whom I was well impressed. They are event managers, designers and artists. Our wide ranging discussions also covered ‘Street Art’ and that reminded me of a project I’d set up with my youngest son Oliver and a group of his friends. Oliver had […]

so, what’s it all about?

April 15, 2015May 15, 2015 SFLeave a comment

Me and MyCycle is our story. Manjula who manages the Mysore Bed and Breakfast and myself, Stephen from the UK who set up the BnB and MYCycle Tours. So it’s about what we do and the wonderfully diverse people that visit us in our life in this wonderful, unpredictable madness that is India.

Admittedly this sometime blog has a slow burning fuse. Maybe if you stick with it you’ll appreciate its value.. You’ll find the beginnings here of some of why and how it all started and as it grows we’ll share something of our experiences of life in India. Personally I reckon the real gem will be Manjula’s own story. Her life here in Mysore and elsewhere in India, her take on what’s happening in contemporary India and those who come into our lives. Who knows where it might lead but I promise it will be an entertaining read.

So Manjula’s own story will appear later in the year and I’ll announce it via Facebook and Twitter.

So, in the meantime, please continue to read the entries in meandmycycle.com for some of the background or see our Mysore BnB entry on Trip Advisor to find out something of our visitors and what they do here.

How scandalous, the Prince has an opinion!

April 5, 2015May 15, 2015 SFLeave a comment

I’m a fan of the UK Guardian newspaper. I understand they have recently been successful in gaining court approval for the release of the famous spider memos. These are hand written memos sent by the Prince of Wales (son of the Queen) to serving government ministers.

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.

Yes I understand….. he’s supposed to be impartial in his constitutional role assuming he ever gets to be King. But eh what’s the big deal? To me there’s no problem. Ok I admit to a bias. I’ve met the Prince and indeed I have a copy of one of his memos. (It’s the very one that led to me organising Prince’s Seeing Is Believing visits of business executives to India.) I also probably agree with a fair amount of his published opinions.

It’s part of the rich mix, the joshing and jostling, the bishing and bashing of democracy and frankly we need all the help we can get to halt the extremism of the current government.

So I say good on him.

Seeing is Believing.

May 23, 2014March 7, 2023 SFLeave a comment

“yes Steve. But what have your brought us to a construction site? There are so many in London, why have we travelled all the way to Mumbai to visit a site?”

Nevertheless we continued our study tour, they were being tongue-in-cheek but there was a serious question behind this, you don’t waste Company Director’s time!!! The senior executives from a range of multinationals in the UK were led by Ian Smith, MD of the UK part of Oracle Corporation. They saw the wooden scaffolding, the women carrying building waste on their heads, the shanty living conditions of the ‘out-of-state’ itinerant workers. All very different from the safety conscious sites in London but still they didn’t get it.

Then we walked into a dilapidated building in the corner of the site….and the light bulbs began to switch on…

they began to get it.

They saw that the construction worker’s children were being cared for and educated in the safety of a nicely decorated, clean and comforting environment. The NGO Mobile Creches’ staff were doing wonders. They saw the tremendous service and heard from the workers. Of course, many if not most other construction sites did not have these sort of facilities. In those cases children would be often left to roam the site where their parents lived and worked. This was together with the inherent risks and likelihood they would become child labourers. That was the crux of the matter.

more light bulbs went on, it had worked like a charm.

The executives begin to realise why I’d organised for them to come here. They all had suppliers or subsidiaries or their own companies that had construction sites here in India. They, their colleagues and their customers back in the UK would not want to be associated with sites that put children in dangerous situations nor helped provide a safe supportive caring educational environment. So we’d highlighted a potential problem, a serious business risk and an area where they needed to check their current polices and practices. Here was an opportunity to be socially responsible that also served the business and of course we’d also given them a ready made solution, it was one of those win win situations, a no brainer.

That’s how the Prince’s Seeing is Believing works

The executives were on the first event organised outside Europe, in 2006 in Mumbai The Prince’s Seeing is Believing events had been tremendously successful in the UK for over 20 years

It was also featured in article in Ethical Corporation…..

http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content/csr-india-seeing-believing

After a series of similar visits helping bring corporately responsibility alive and to show its relevance to even the most disconnected business, the delegates were to join executives from around India for one of the first sustainability conferences held in India in partnership with the Bombay Chamber of Commerce at the Taj. The following week the team were to deliver a series of interactive workshops to show small business here in Mumbai how being a responsible business wasn’t just about community partnerships and that it also related to all aspects of business behaviour and the big clincher was, it would help the business survive, grow and thrive….

I’d organised the whole thing jointly with Malcolm Lane the Corporate Affairs Director from TCS in London,(an inspiring man and more of him later) with an amazing team from from TCS in India, Bombay Chamber of Commerce, colleagues from Business in the Community and Impact International in the UK and the series of NGOs we highlighted on the event.

The executives would go back and report on what they’d seen and how they as a company were planning to act to demonstrate their own credentials as a responsible business to HRH the Prince of Wale, all very neat, when it works…

Ok so back to the Prince and Vandana (sorry Vandana, I feel we’re first name terms as you’ve had so much influence on my life.) My first visit ten years ago to India, I fell in love with the place and on my return to the Uk was on the look out for anyway to get me back ….. I’d go out for an annual holiday each winter but there was something more….Vanadana’s article and the Prince’s memo to my CEO led to me organising these events in India

me, I subsequently went on to help organize more of these events here in india and then an innovation to help design leadership programs that provided valuable experiential learning experiences through short collaborations with community based NGOs here in India.

thank you to the team Malcolm, Peter, Jo, Simon, Vandana (from BCC and now HSBC), Prema (from BCC then to Vodafone) ( the business executives who came, particularly Ian and of course the others… HRH the Prince of Wales and Vandana Shiva for helping me get so connected to India