Its a question often asked by guests at Mysore Bed and Breakfast. Top Ten answers
I loved the wild west and its stories from an early age. India seems to be just like the wild west.
True or False?
True, I did used to watch the westerns, with my Dad, on the TV from an early age and really got into it.
True, India in some ways is a bit anarchistic (to put it mildly) so can seem a bit of a free for all as in the old west, without the guns (mostly) but it is of course …..
FALSE, its not the reason I moved to India.
STOP PRESS
Here’s further evidence of a young interest in the Wild West and that it runs in the family
Cary has been my key supporter and lifeline to help set up here in Mysore. Whether its renting the house seven years ago, ‘owning’ my scooter and motorbike, crazy adventures to investigate raising sheep or looking at land to buy, a listening ear for my frustrations, to help me understand this wonderful crazy country, introducing me to the ‘club’, early morning swims and being a part of his lovely family.
We originally met horse riding together (well he can ride and I can just hang on) with the Mounted Police. (yes the Mysore riding school was with the mounted police). I can’t find any photos of the cowboys!
Cary has been a real friend. It just wouldn’t have been possible without his help and support.
Cary, is rightfully proud of his heritage as a Coorgy. He and his wife Ganga, originate from Coorg or Kodagu and they have a son Gagan and daughter Sunaina It is a distinctive and separate community or race of people who live in the western Ghats a few hours west from Mysore. They have a traditional dress and culture, are known for being tall, proud and dependable, many join the army and they know how to live (and party!!). Cary is an active businessman and farmer but the pub he ran, where I used to hang out is no more. Probably better for my belly!
He lives close by here in Siddarthanager.
So thank you Cary on the anniversary of me being here SEVEN years!
well the shortage of cash is now beginning to affect me.
I jokingly refer to Indian being consistently inconsistent and don’t misunderstand me, I love the people and the place but sometimes it just takes the biscuit! and can be sooooo annoying.
I didn’t have enough money to buy train tickets this morning. So I ended up with a single instead of a return.
I’d also taken the scooter for a service.
Would they accept a card or cheque?
Not at either the Post office or the scooter main dealer. So I go to the nearest Bank (branch of Canara, my personal bank) massive scrum around the bank door. No chance. Next, the five ATMs in the vicinity, all not working. So I get the motorbike out to go to the city and visit the bank branch to cash a cheque for 12,000 Rupees (its around 140 devalued pounds after Biscuit (aka Brexit)). That’s my max allowance now for the week. Then back to the Post Office to get my return ticket. The clerk has my form, from the first trip to the Post Office in front of her, on the desk (its required to show what ticket you want). There are all the details of the return part of the journey on the same form, she uses that form to complete the details into the computer.
“Sorry sir can’t take the details from this form” where it listed all the details of the train, its name, number, our names, ages, address, out and return dates and times, preferred class and berth, starting station, getting on station, getting off station. “You need to complete a new form”.
Its at this point I begin to lose it!
later, back home…..
what next?
Half the money has now gone. I suddenly have the realisation that at this rate we’ll not have enough cash to go on holiday next week. That’s why I bought the bloody train tickets.
half a rant
at the bank I asked for my pass book to be brought up to date but have to call back as recent entries are not in the book, is there are a problem? Sorry sir each update (printing of deposits and withdrawals in the book) can only have twenty entries per day/visit. So I have to go back to the bank tomorrow for another printing session to see the other deposit/withdrawal entries. What!? Really?
Farrell’s dodgy factoid and questioning.
I seriously wonder what would have happened if the UK Govt had unilaterally deleted ALL the five and twenty pound notes in circulation overnight and then severely restricted how many of the replacement notes each person could withdraw so they just didn’t have enough cash! Would we have been so accepting and tolerant?
Yesterday a guest managed to cash 2,000 Rs of old money at my bank and had indelible ink marked on his finger nail so that he couldn’t go to another bank to exchange more. Mad!?
I’d called at the shopping mall and parked the Enfield (aka CE) just outside on a grotty verge near to some street food stalls. I couldn’t have been much more than twenty minutes, time to grab a snack and Nutella stuff for the children for tomorrow’s pancake breakfast. (the Maple syrup fresh from Canada will NOT be opened).
I’m trying to write this at the dining table and Manjula has just brought tea and biscuits. I’m on a fitness and not-eating-crap period and she knows it. She’s trying to entice me with the biscuits. Now she’s got one half in her mouth and waving it in my direction. She’s a minx!
back to the nonsense of today….
On finishing shopping and returning outside, it all looked odd and I felt seriously uncomfortable. The verge was completely empty and there was no bike to be seen. Sugar! I also couldn’t find my keys…… nicked? God knows!
It’s then I saw the Tiger.
Its a pick up truck operated by the Police that goes around the city lifting illegally parked two wheelers. The policeman and I didn’t really understand each other but if they had it, it was at the Transport Police depot on my way home. So I trudged off……. waaaay!
She was there!
You can see her peeking out from the corner of the police station, with my red helmet still on her seat.
What a relief, she hadn’t been stolen!
So I turned up with my documents. They knew nothing about the keys. so actually its quite a relief that the Police picked it up, otherwise someone might have found the keys and nicked it!
Things work out in the end, or so we need to tell ourselves in dealing with the OTHER big issue in our lives, at the moment.
I paid my fine of 200 Rs and an additional 100 Rs charge to pay for the Tiger, picking up and transporting it. So that’s no big deal. but hang on a minute. The minimum pay which many people don’t even get is 200 Rs per day. So it has cost quite a lot of money to someone with little. To them its the equivalent of a day and a half’s pay!
But then again they probably wouldn’t have been an idiot and got the bike picked up in the first place! 🙂
So why am I telling you all about this? Maybe it’s distraction therapy…. eh and guess what happened when I got back to the bike…….
It was not an unusual type of telephone enquiry for a room at the BnB. An Indian woman travelling with her ten-year-old son required a room for the following day and for a total of four nights.
We did have a room so I offered to send details to her email address so she would know what to expect. It’s our usual practice. She explained that she would be unable to read the email [1] but she’d seen us on the net so knew what to expect. She followed up by sending a text with her name, she was a Doctor [2]
the empty bedroom
Next morning I received a phone call from her with some urgency and concern. Could I recommend the best hospital in Mysore? She’d had an accident in her car and her son was injured. They were in a country area, quite a way from Mysore. She’d dealt with his immediate needs and where they now were didn’t have the facilities to treat her son’s condition. It sounded more serious than I first thought. They would need to transfer to Mysore. I recommended the Columbia Asia Hospital.
Beyond that, it was unclear, it seemed like she was now separated from her car, it was I assumed, badly damaged.
Of course, I was shocked and concerned and willing to help wherever I could.
A little later she telephoned again. She had contacted the Mysore hospital and was making arrangements for the transfer. It was all a little hurried and she was understandably panicky and not always making a lot of sense. [3] Someone had kindly covered the bill but she needed some help, to pay him back. Her money, cards etc were left in the car or taken by someone. Her mother was to call me from North India to explain things.
Her Mum was understandably concerned and was planning to get down here from Assam. That would be no easy task. She’d been unable to pay the guy who had helped out by paying the bills, could I help?
There was a bank strike where she was and didn’t have all the details of his branch (the IFSC No) so it wasn’t possible to do a transfer via the internet. It could, however, be paid into a branch of his bank. Of course, I’d be willing to help, she’d transfer 1 lakh to my account and from it I’d pay 40,000 Rs [4] cash into this guy’s account and the rest would be available for her daughter to use for the hospital bills etc here in Mysore. All I had to do was send my bank details, for some reason she couldn’t retrieve them via my suggestion of an Email [5] so I’d send them via text/sms. Not a problem.
Her daughter calls to give me an update. She’s so apologetic for putting me through this and having to ask for my help. She’s contacted Doctor xx in Columbia Asia and they need to get her son there to see the neurologist. Getting the money quickly is critical, so they can get away.
This was clearly a middle-class professional family with exceptionally good English but one of the problems, beyond the obvious concern for her son, was not knowing the local language and being in a relatively rural area.
I receive a text from Mum, as sent from her bank [6], the cash had been transferred.
Mum calls again. The money has left her bank but it might take a couple of hours to reach my bank.
I reflect. It’s no problem for me to sort out, I’m always happy to help wherever I can, I have cash here or money in the Bank, I don’t have to wait for it to come through, I can zip over there on the scooter in no time at all.
This is all quite urgent.
Hang on a minute, though.
I have a niggling doubt.
Is this a con? I don’t want to think it is and I most definitely don’t want to let them down if it’s legitimate. They are in a potentially difficult and maybe life threatening situation.
I think it’s important that we do help people, particularly if they are in distress. It’s only human and to me an important value.
But, there were a few aspects that didn’t ring true (I’ve numbered some of them above) and if it was a scam, it was clever and sophisticated or am I just gullible? I discussed it with Chris and Eliza who are staying at the BnB. Initially, I still felt it was likely to be legitimate but the more I thought about it, the more the doubts grew.
I easily found the missing Bank (IFSC) reference number and texted to pass it on and suggested that the Mum could send the money direct to his account. If she sent me her bank details I could send back what wasn’t required here in Mysore. I was calling her bluff!
It’s now the evening and its all gone quiet. Thankfully I held off and my doubts were confirmed. There’s been no further contact and the money hasn’t appeared in the bank.
At this distance, it might seem to you that it should have been obvious. It wasn’t then but to me it does seem so now. In many ways, it was cleverly done. But the fraudsters must get results otherwise they wouldn’t try it on.
So there it is, it takes all sorts and I think it is a sad thing.
I sometimes think that Vasanth, who I first met ten years ago and now co-ordinates our transport, used to dread my return trips to Mysore. I’d often arrive with an idea for a new project. One such project was my interest in horse riding. It actually lasted a few trips. We searched far and wide for opportunities for me to go horse riding. Vasanth was convinced we’d get nowhere. I was beginning to believe him. He found tourist horse riding trips in Srirangaptnam, nope not my ‘cup of tea’, we even visited the stables at the horse race course. Nothing! I was sure, there had to be something.
Then one day, we had one of those typical India experiences. I was leaning over a garden wall admiring a small traditional Mysore house. The lady came out and we got chatting. I complemented her on the house and garden, as you would, and happened to mention our search for horse riding.
” Oh” she said,”you should go meet my father, he’ll be able to help.” He was an officer in the Mounted Police. Well, sharpish we headed down there and tentatively entered the grand horse-shoe-shaped archway entrance and result! our project was a complete success.
it works out that the Riding School of Mysore was with the mounted police. I kid you not! After a meet with the Commandant I became a visiting member.
It worked like this:
if you wanted a ride that morning, a member would go to the horse exercising and practice fields before 6am
It would still be dark but one could hear the movement of men and horses, with snorts and neighs…. As the darkness was broken by sun rise and any mist began to lift, there were up to 50 men and horses lined up on parade. The officer on duty would check all his men were in line and in horsey attention, then ride and report to the commandant, who by now had arrived and was smartly facing his men. The officer reported on who was and wasn’t there and the plans for the day.
Impressive!
Once the ritual of being ‘on parade’ was completed Commandant Shetty would turn to whoever had arrived from the ‘Riding School’ and after a short ‘how are you?’ informal sort of conversation, would call over sufficient men to give up their horses for the members of the ‘School’ waiting there.
It was absolutely amazing. Who would have believed it possible to go borrow mounted police and horses to go riding in a morning. If just one person had turned up, more often than not, you’d do left to your own devices to ride your horse alone in one of the fields. Otherwise a policeman might lead you in an improvised lesson.
I subsequently discovered that many locals learned to ride in exactly this way.
One of the many unique ways of life in the city I would later adopt and move to.
I was reminded of all this on reading this article about …..
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 […]
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.
“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…..
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
She was there!
the equivalent of a day and a half’s pay!
Me and MYCycle 