What’s

November 16, 2018November 20, 2018 SFLeave a comment

What’s up in India?

The mobile phone is having a profound effect.

I decided to observe drivers for a few moments on the main road near our home.

Ok it wasn’t quite as jammed as this. 🙃 but even I was surprised to see the majority, yes over 50% of drivers, mostly in cars but also on two wheelers …. actually on the phone! Stuck to their ear, jammed up the crash helmet, jabbing in messages. It’s astonishing, young and old, they’re all at it.

Maybe it’s the same around the world. I don’t know.

It represents a modern day challenge….How to keep up with technological change, whilst recognising what’s appropriate and acceptable behaviour and what isn’t. We all know that our education doesn’t necessarily equip us very well for daily living. It’s nowhere more apparent than how we respond to and behave with technology. On a day to day basis we can all think of our own examples…. dangerous multi-tasking as when driving. Allowing a phone call to interrupt a conversation. Walking blindly head down texting.

You know, there are many.

It’s also true with litter. In the past in India, chai might be provided in a terracotta cup and then thrown down. Not a problem if it’s mud returning to mud but a completely different matter with plastic.

Well another example is what’s app messages. My yoga teacher put me on a what’s app group ostensibly to let me know when a class was cancelled. Well I got more than I bargained for!

In two days there were more than fifty photos, messages, quotes and videos. ALL of it unsolicited and non of it relevent.

Now I don’t want to be churlish and it’s important for me to connect with people in my adopted country. But all this garbage is filling my photo app, I can get by…..but..there is a sinister side.

Revealed in this article from the Guardian

Society here relies on the spoken word and people connections, there is less recognition of private space and people tend to accept what others say uncritically. That’s the crux of the problem with what’s app.

Filling up my phone with garbage is one thing but leading to death and mayhem, (Like this) that needs serious action.

Unbelievable

November 12, 2018 SFLeave a comment

You may find this hard to believe. We often joke about safety issues in India.

Just look at these photos. What do you think they are?

Picture one

Picture two

Picture three

Picture one is of a lamp post in Mysore. See the man walking by. The card, poster thing attached to the post is at about his head height.

Picture two is a close up of the same post. Look between the two photos, the white cable shows that it’s above the card/poster. It’s difficult to tell but just above and to the right of the white cable are two bits of wire. Now look at picture three.

Picture three, this is also on a lamp post and much lower down, inside the box thing are two red cables.

Any idea what all these cables are for?

In a morning on my way to yoga a guy drives up on his two wheeler and disconnects the two wires that you see in pictures one and two. There’s usually a spark. It switches off the street lights.

Yes, you’ve got it! The way to switch on and off the street lights at dusk and dawn are two wires hanging from one of the lamp posts. The first is way above head height but easily reachable when sitting on a bike, the other is reachable from just walking past.

Now that’s what I call f**king dangerous.

A Mysore Day….

October 24, 2018 SFLeave a comment

First stop. Diagnostic centre. These places are all over Mysore. You’ll see patients traipsing around the city with files and bags full of results. Doctors having sent them to their ‘preferred’ centre so the get their backhander. But not here at Kannan, the first established here in Mysore they have a fair and transparent policy of No commissions. Lakshman the head doc has been especially helpful to Manj and I.

Well I deposited my blood and urine samples with the instructions to go have breakfast and come back to repeat the process in two hours.

For Idli, (twenty rupees for two servings, that’s 4 Idlis) at reputedly one of the best joints in Mysore opposite Wellington Lodge (why’s it called that? Find out on a cycle tour…. sooo blatant! Says mythical Ed)

Number Three, chai, eight rupees.

4 shopping therapy, yes I can even get enjoyment from buying a replacement squirty water gun for the toilet. Know what it’s for? This photo is between Ashoka Road and Gandhi Square of the hardware capital of Mysore 🙃

5 next one of my fave places, old trad juice shop for sasparilla soda.

6 hotel Indra Paras for sweets!

And just to proof there’s often action here and we don’t have to wait for the big annual Dasara event which only finished last week…. a great procession brought the centre to a chaotic standstill as opposed to the usual

chaotic movement….

And finally the diagnostic centre to take the piss as they want more blood. Results back at the end of the day. Cost is very reasonable at 2200 rs. That is however almost ten times the supposed minimum daily wage.

India and Italy

October 22, 2018October 22, 2018 SFLeave a comment

India and Italia

Unexpected connections…..

It’s a little light relief..

India and Italia, begins with I and ends in A

Some of the best Veggie food in the world…, India and Italy.

What seems like chaos on the roads, Italy and India.

Do you get the Drift? It’s uncanny really. I’ll continue…..

Corrupt politicians, India and Italy.

Politicians in Jail, India and Italy.

Politicians who should be in jail.

The need to bribe public servants to just do their job,

The highest concentration of wood inlay artists in the world. India (Mysore) and next is a village in

Italy…

Sexist society, well OK thats everywhere.

male dominated, Patriarchal society, Italia and India.

except at home Where the big boss is mamma (Italy) and amma (India) , who serves their little ones, fusses and feeds their children until well into their teens and sometimes beyond

The family and it’s extensions are pretty big in both countries and children, particularly boys, are worshipped,

so, Extended family, children focussed, India Italy.

People who squeeze children’s cheeks, India Italy.

Spoilt boys who become little Princes, India and Italy.

And what’s all that about not getting round to things until the last minute, if at all, ever? Maybe Manana was not from Spain after all…..

there are some bits which are not so easy to be light hearted about…

Preoccupation with skin colour between north… light and south, dark.. (southerners, work in the fields, of course!)

And that’s playing safe, without getting into the politics

And who’s responsible for these uncanny links…. I wonder?

Connections

October 17, 2018 SFLeave a comment

Remember that song?

The this bone connected to the that bone. Well it’s connections and especially medical or body ones that are the subject of today’s missive.

We’re visiting the umpteenth medical centre.

Manjula has been losing weight having gone from a Telly Tubby (Ok I exaggerate) to being thin as a rake at 35 kg in just a few months.

so very worrying.

Well her usual doc tested liver, kidney, thyroid all ok so he’s sent us to Dr Darla who tested and found her deficient in vitamin D.

Well we hope that’s it and the treatment works.

The connection?

Since being ill earlier this year and as a result she’s been home based hence there’s been a lack of sunlight. One problem, response, leads to another, a vicious circle of happenings let alone connected bones.

It occurs to me (and I’ve checked it’s OK with the Maharani) that as we’ve had so many friends ask about her health it’s about time we brought you up to date, so watch this space.

It’s big

October 17, 2018 SFLeave a comment

it’s the first day of the biggest event in our calendar. A great opportunity to show the marvels of Mysore. It’s late in the afternoon , yes peak travel time.

and so they decide to block half the road to lay tarmac and patch the road as part of the preparation for the big event.

Presumably they didn’t know when the event was happening and there was only a year to plan.

Strike!

October 10, 2018 SFLeave a comment

The Pourakarmikas who clean our streets and collect our rubbish are gradually coming back to work. They’ve been on a strike related to conditions of employment (promised contracts not having materialised) and pay.

Their timing has been spot on as the big event of the year in Mysore starts today. We can’t have litter filled streets now can we? Well some might wonder if we’ve been able to tell any difference in the ordinarily messy streets. Well we have. It’s been even messier. It’s one of the many things that visitors just can’t get. How come people just dump their rubbish in the streets. We’ll return to that subject.

Reading and walking

October 7, 2018 SFLeave a comment

“One misses some quality …. could perhaps be called ‘natural good manners’ yet that won’t do, for it implies that the Baltis are I’ll-mannered. What I am trying to express is something more negativeand elusive: perhaps simply a basic insensitivity to others, bred by the Baltis’ exceptionally arduous struggle to survive, which can leave little over for the development of any social relationships not biologically or economically essential” from the book I’m reading: Where the Indus is Young-a winter in Baltistan by Dervla Murphy.

So how might this relate to life in Mysore?