It’s Election time

May 7, 2018 SFLeave a comment

Spot the differences with your elections!

The local paper has news about politicians bribing locals to vote for them. Police/army checkpoints are in the look out for large amounts of money, as in the first news item. Alternatively offering chickens!

But it’s a secret vote so voters can accept bribes, maybe from more than one party and vote for whoever they want! 😉

A common practice is to show images of politicians alongside projects they claim to have initiated. During election campaigns they have to be covered as seen here at a shop for selling generic drugs at cut price. An initiative of the Modi Government.

So what difference does it make?

Ganesh

May 5, 2018May 5, 2018 SFLeave a comment

A Ganesh for Norbert.

Norbert and I were on a cycle tour and came across a wood carver I’d not found before. Norbert quickly decided to order one which, once completed was parcelled and sent for him to enjoy back in Germany.

a wedding ceremony

April 13, 2018April 13, 2018 SF2 Comments

a ceremony but where?

you already know, there was only one place to choose for our wedding and the formalities themselves were completed at the registry office 🙂

no it wasn’t in a glitzy bhavan with hall for reception (means a totally different thing out here – its the photo opportunity and gift giving session with the newlyweds seated on thrones on a stage) and another hall to feed hundreds, nor a band, althoug that would have been nice

instead, we decided on Srirangaptnam island, of course …… my favourite place. As you may have seen already we chose a tree in a field

once we decorated the tree… all sounds a bit pagan 😉

we made final personal preparations at Satish’s house…

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there were around twenty guests: local friends and members of our team,

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Vasanth’s family (V was ill), Satish (project manager) and his family, Rakesh (mr energy), Lokesh, Babu, Vidya ( a good friend who transcribed Manjula’s recordings) Heechang and her friend and family (husband Justin was away picking Henna), Asha, my yoga teacher, her family and Suresh, (who arrived fashionably late so aren’t n this photo) and the friends from the UK: Mike and Sue, Tom and Amy. We’re sorry to say that Tanu, Vasanth and Vinay were indisposed with a heavy bug so they just had to watch the royal wedding ceremony on the TV (I’m joking, OK) and not together!

the ceremony itself

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we and the children used a traditional Mysorean Tonga (horse drawn taxi) to our next stop

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followed by lunch

and finally …. tea and cakes at Satish’s house

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here’s a link to the full set off photos of the wedding ceremony and here for the meal

Despicable

April 12, 2018 SFLeave a comment

Who makes monsters?

We do, partly, through acceptance, encouragement and reinforcement

It’s also actually how we make nice people.

It’s the process of

Clarifying and confirming what is and isn’t acceptable that helps creates and forms patterns of behaviour that is our culture(S). Evidence of this might be reflected in the whole organisation or society, community or just one of its sub sets.

So what’s brought this on?

Men in India who rape and/or murder because they can.

It’s an expression of power over others, reflects a degraded system, where there are few societal or personal restraints with limited accountability and recourse.

I wouldn’t want to colour a whole nation and it’s culture from individual incidents. After all I love this place and it’s people because it’s so open, friendly, easy-going, accepting contradiction, paradox and incredible diversity BUT there are limits.

This must however be seen, and highlighted as completely unacceptable. If we don’t, we’re also monsters.

We should hang our heads in shame.

Those in power whether politicians, police, whoever they, have a heavy responsibility to ensure their words, actions, inactions do not encourage or condone or create the monsters in our midst. Unfortunately the increase in these actions is also a consequence of political movements.

Here’s a link to the story

Well I never….

April 9, 2018 SF2 Comments

My favourite ‘hotel’ which is an Udupi (meaning pure veg) restaurant cum cafe (without accommodation) is Indra Paras. Just opposite the market it’s been a long term favourite of locals, domestic tourists, and Firangi (foreigners). Great food. Slightly hectic at times.

Well I never. Hang on a minute. What is this?

One of my regular snacks. Sev Dahi Potato puri with a refreshing fresh lime soda, plain (no sugar or salt) but horror of horrors.

There’s a straw!

For the past two seasons we’ve tried to reduce our use of plastic straws wherever we can. Last year we sold bamboo straws for a local charity this year I carry stainless steel straws on the mycycle tours. (Yes, and clean them each eve.)

Well at first I was very disappointed but then discovered they were actually paper ….. wonderful

The very first I’ve seen in Mysore.

Well done boss!

it had to happen

April 7, 2018April 6, 2018 SF4 Comments

so in planning for this project aka getting married, I didn’t use a broker, check her horoscopes, or caste, ask her mum (Dad’s dead), expect her to pay for the happening, confirm her status and job, check the flatness of her foot, ponder on her mum’s occupation, I did find out a lot about her, was impressed with her surviving a difficult childhood, her fortitude and stamina throughout life, her flexibility and adaptability in managing and thriving through uncertain and unexpected situations, her compassion and care after such an astonishing series of difficulties throughout her life, things that I couldn’t have even begun to guess about… I did fall in love with her as a person, her humour, her compassion, her beauty both inside an out, her thought for others. her active seeking to help others out, her tolerance of the stupidity of some around her, i hesitated for years as I was concerned that she was in a vulnerable position as employee, an ethical challenge of the first order, but eventually we did come together and i wonder now what did she check out about me…

its been a bit weird as we’re open about our situation with all our guests at Mysore bed and breakfast, many of whom have now become good friends, our establised friends here and abroad knew of our relationship but we have chosen to be discreet here in our own immediate locality and have kept our relationship a secret from her family. Not because of the cross cultural India/British aspects, they’re more easily overcome but because the neighbours, well they might frown upon it because our different societal positions (she’s from a poor background) and because if her family knew we’d never hear the end of it not least, with the constant requests for handouts.

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so this was back home immediately after the ‘registry’ office. A few days later a wonderful team came together to create a most memorable event most unlike anything that the majority of indians would accept as a wedding, but for us it was perfect.

Caring

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 SFLeave a comment

Just a week ago today…

Kamala arrives for the night shift. The system here assumes that someone will stay with you all day to be there for all non-nursing care roles. Whatever that means!

I’ve been at the hospital all day and will return in the morning.

We’re being a bit posh with private room (good decision) which includes a bed for the ‘carer.’ As you can see below.

It reminds me of thirty years ago. I was the manager of services for Disabled people for a UK council: Kirklees. We had a group visiting Greece as one of those exchange visits (up the EU!). One of the disabled people needed to go into hospital and all our available professional carers were required to cover all the non nursing care. The other disabled people had to be supported by other members (non of them being care staff!) of the group. Two of us decided to hire a car and together with another member of the group who needed our support as he had significant care needs (help for bathing, getting in and out of bed, going to the toilet, getting around in his wheelchair.) It was all new to us but an incredibly valuable experience to see things from our colleagues and the disabled persons’ perspective).

Well we don’t have to do all those things For Manj but similarly we have to have someone at hospital all the time. The other similarity is I’ve swopped roles now with Manjula as I’ve had guests at the BnB while the boss was in the hospital.

It’s helped me realise how much Manjula does.

Now she’s back home there’s the whole new experience of being ‘the maid’…. do this, do that, bring the tv downstairs, reorganise the ground floor, cooking (any suggestions gratefully received), set up the machinery and mask her up (much more complex than the one in the pic) for the night then get up to get it off her! …. more and more 😉

Its quite a new valuable experience.

Manjula’s

April 5, 2018 SF4 Comments

Its been a very difficult few months for Manjula culminating in a week in hospital and most of that in intensive care. The immediate infection has been eliminated but her chronic condition, her chest complaint is COPD and it will not go away. We have to be vigilant about possible infections and work out what implications this has for her and our life style.

She’s such a hero, deals with new and challenging things, like BnB guests 😉 her illnesses and that awkward man from Yorkshire with gentle gusto, her usual happy go lucky energy, incredible fortitude and all whilst creating an open, friendly wonderful home.

That will not change.

She’s’s supposed to be resting now and spending time on her oxygen machine but she’s hanging out the back door supervising the guys cleaning out our sump tank!

Manjula wishes me to thank you for all you kind thoughts and insisted that I bring you up to date with her current situation. She sends her radiant smile to you….

Update

April 3, 2018 SFLeave a comment

We’re nowhere near back to normal. Fact is, I’ve yet to find normal in India. Maybe it’s one of those contradictory statements I like which reflects that it’s ‘organised differently’ hereabouts… or my fave ‘consistently inconsistent’ it’s abnormally normal…

Anyway, enough of my rambles. We have four lovely guests at breakfast this morning. Two newbies from Switzerland and two from UK who are going for gold resident status. It being their fourth visit all adding up to a few weeks.

Manjula had a good sleep and with the help of her technology has good oxygen levels this morning. Great stuff, Manj

Settling in…

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018 SFLeave a comment

We’ve set up Manjula in the NQAR (not-quite-a-room) we use it for children, grand parents, Liz and Tibetan Buddhist nun from Oregon. (Get your head around that one) sorry Ani

We’re getting into a bit of a routine. Eight tabs after breakfast alone, sixteen in a full day, not to mention syrup and the tss tss. Nightmare getting the drugs today. pharmacists had no stock of a v important one. Mask and ventilator overnight , oxygen concentrator during day (hip new oxygen bar to be opened next week in Garage).