Chennai's Words to Live by

One of Chennai's lovely quirks of public space are these series of inspirational and motivational wall slogans in several areas of the city. This sequence is from along GN Chetty Road in Chennai as you approach Gemini Flyover and is one of the longest stretches.

I find the concept of putting such words so dramatically in the public space fascinating. Because clearly some of the phrases are more inspirational in nature while others may be said to be more prescriptive. Some are clearly moral, some feel-good Some are deft, others clumsy. Clearly they are well meaning and honest-intentioned. But they are also windows into the belief systems of the government who drafted them and the society at large.

Clearly society here has a tendency towards such statements, visible by the profusion of rhyming traffic safety signs, the “thought for the day” daily added to the white board in our office, and perhaps epitomized best by the common use of the phrase, “do the needful” in business, government, legal and journalistic contexts. Chennai and Indian society at large seems to be happy throwing these phrases at each other in a belief they improve social cohesion and are listened to by otherwise “anti-social elements.” And clearly there is an entrenched hierarchy of class and caste that may play into how those in power see their role.

Personally, I've never liked pat, packaged answers to life's ills – platitudes that are in fact meaningless or at least prosaic – given as advice to every situation. Yet some are undoubtedly distillations of age-old wisdom, ones young people sometimes struggle to accept in their quest for self-discovery. And some are just good, healthy reminders to make a better world. What does a government's preference for such phrases mirror its view as parent and moral leader of its people? Is that a good thing? Does it reflect an underlying belief in a hierarchy that invokes the passing on of your godly wisdom on the ignorant masses?

Yet, reading the sequence I am also forced to think on whether my finding many of them cheesy platitudes is a reflection of a North American jadedness of something seen as old-fashioned and reserved for the dogmatic or the neo-spiritual feel-good, and not something serious people and serious governments say in public. But are we right in thinking so? Am I?

How much does the decision to promote such moral advice stem from an underlying patronizing attitude of the leadership and how much of it is at heart simple old-fashioned, but still-relevant sentimentality towards better living? What is the difference between believing simple messages are still effective versus them being simplistic and patronizing? Does it reflect a leadership’s sense of righteous beneficiation to those below or instead the government’s socialist ideology and the local valuation of service?

And of course what is the value of printing them with care along a busy road people will surely drive by and ignore as they compete with the thousands of images, slogans and jarring colours of a city buried under its advertising and encroachments on public space. At least with the long, continuous stretch, it is trying and one of the cleanest stretches of wall in the city.

Very much thoughts in progress I wanted to share. And some nice advice to pass on at the same time.

You can see the full 21-photo sequence of slogans on my Flickr site at: www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/sets/72157622529327072/

But they did miss my favourite one of all: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

What are your favourites we should petition Chennai to add?

Thanksgiving and trying times

It is grey and dripping outside, like I feel. Or I don't know what I feel. The world is crazy this week and we struggle for normalcy and meaning.

Bombay is under fire, on fire. We refresh our browsers compulsively, glued to the up-to-the-minute reports on the attacks of Shining India's most shining city. 195 dead when the shooting stopped and no more sense for 3 days of watching, reading and talking about it.

Chennai is under water. Chennai's skies are not falling, but are leaking all the tears of Bombay this week, drowning our streets and homes in a rising tide of sewage-tinged stagnation, unhealthy and floating with everything that littered the streets the days before. Traffic grinds to a sputtering halt, harshly represented by the dozens of stranded motorcyclists pushing their choked and flooded bikes through water past their knees. Offices close and we closet inside, not wanting to wade out.


Bangkok is under protest, both airports closed. We've been following it closely, for our own selfish reasons, and I've got my fingers crossed it will simmer down and the airport re-opens before our upcoming Christmas plans.

The world seems in chaos, panicked. We ignore the financial crisis back home in North America and its echoes here for more immediate issues and needs. Everyone has their stories. Friends miss their flight stuck in traffic and waste deep water seeping into the car for 4 hours trying to get to the airport. Commuters literally see people swimming - swimming! - outside their car, making batter time than they are. The whole southern suburbs are completely submerged. People are sick. I've got a cough that won't seem to fully go away. Worried phone calls flood in and swirl like the rain: are we in Bombay? Are we all accounted for? Are the Thai airports going to be open for Christmas? Our laundry just won't dry. The auto prices have jacked 100%, assuming you can get one at all. The power's out and now what do we do. Oh good, there, it's back.

It all is enough to paralyze and hide under the covers. And for a day or 2, we mostly do.

But then we carry on. We wade to the store to get much needed groceries. We mix cocktails of numbness, fatalism and stubbornness, and go to dinner at hotel chains the world witnessed on fire this week. Foregners were targets in Bombay. But we are not in Bombay. We need to live too. And then we turn even those off for a few precious hours and sit down as friends for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner - turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce (the trickiest to get), the works. We celebrate cherished friends leaving and new ones arriving. We laugh and drink foreign liquor we've squirreled away from duty-free runs. We eat home-made pumpkin pie even though our stomachs are already full of turkey and our blood already 1/4 gravy.

And we find our own magic moments in the situation. We wade home through rivers that were once streets at the peaceful and haze-softened midnight hours. We dance on the rooftop in the deluge. We call our loved ones on the phone or Skype and write lots of letters and posts. We hold tightly to each other. We watch bad movies, which will always be wonderfully, consistently kitch no matter how the world spins. We make a meal, 7 people in the kitchen, and it's damn good. We shrink the world to the personal, the viceral, the understandable.

And the world spins. Today Chennai is safe and not under threat. It is drying out and coming back to life. Bombay is finally quiet, able to grieve and rebuild. Thailand gets worse, but rumours are whispered of it being over by the King's birthday on the 5th. And me, my days are largely unaffected. The office re-open tomorrow, friends come and go in a maddening cycle and I don't know what I feel. I feel inspired and lonely both. Not sure if any of the week's events heightens that or just uncovers.

Where the $!&?# am I?

Please hold and an operator will be with you shortly... You have been placed in priority sequence and this blog will be updated sooner if you stay on the line rather than hanging up and dialing again...

So yeah, blogging kind of fell off just a wee bit. Can't believe it has been 10 months since I posted. Can’t believe my last post was on Pirates! My God! What have I been doing?

My apologies for anyone still reading this. I do mean to get back to it.

What happened? Why the breakdown in writing? Can’t say really. It just happened. A ton has been going on with work, life, love and everything. I’ve been travelling. I’ve been back to Canada for Christmas and and a new visa. I’ve had drama and have settled into a good space. I’ve quit my job because it was going nowhere and my boss was crazy. I found another one, one I really love. I've said goodbye to friends and met new ones. I’ve had many, many winding, squirrelly lines of thought. And I’ve been writing a novel’s worth. Just not online. Somehow the posts and pieces just never seem to get completed, perhaps symptom of my scattered thoughts and others don’t make sense to post out of order, showing a life in flux. And my slowed as I spend more time on photography and an increasingly crazy schedule at work. But that doesn’t really explain it. So no reason; time just went by and then more and more of it.

But the very quick update so you know what I'm doing: I'm still in Chennai, with a different NGO. After getting a new visa home in Canada after Christmas, I 've been working now for 6 months. Crazy how time has gone by. I'm here open-ended and have moved back more settled than year. It feels good to not be so much in flux for a while, to have a better sense of what I'll be doing 6 months from now. I've got a flat and can walk to work which has really increased my quality of life. I sometimes miss the fun of the commute by auto, but then I remember 45 minutes in polluted traffic and daily negotiations getting home and don't miss it quite so much. I've a good group of friends.

So I'm over here for a while and have lots more stories to tell. I promise to get back to writing soon. Since I'm in India, let's say, "2 minutes!"

Cheers & I love ya!
McKay

Life in Chennai #20: Jumbled Thoughts & Experiences

I am not sleeping well. My room is stuffy and thick, the heat of the afternoon still trapped in its walls, the fan just swirling warmth onto my face. I get up and do a pooja of sorts on my bed, vigorously shaking droplets of poured water out of my cupped hand onto my sheets, floor and pillow and lie back down. Momentarily cooled, I drift back to troubled dreams and sweat once more.

But I have so many thoughts jumbled and swirling in my head that I cannot sleep.

Crowded bus rides through humid air. I love that. Not having a plan. The friendliness and helpfulness of Indians. Feeling the local expert. Laughing at how far off that is. Girls. New friends and old. Reconnections. Walking darkened streets. Quitting my job for good reasons. The excitement, fear, relief and anxiety of that decision. The poetry of my friends, in person and in print. The joys of Indian food, but also of Domino’s pizza. A bar called Pirates. India beats Pakistan in the Twenty20 match. The annoyance 2 nights of power outages in the last 4. Being seriously sleep deprived. Dancing. Monsoon thunderstorms. Fitting in. The smiles and laughs of bright-eyed children. Never taking enough pictures. New ideas. Home? Home. Girls. Unexpected changes. People I care for. Frustrated tears. Giving up. Trying again. Yoga and Swimming and Motorcycles (not at the same time). Ganesh Jayanthi in clay and blinking neon. The Mylapore Temple. Hare Krishnas. Having 6 missed calls on a Saturday evening. Meeting friends randomly in the street. Beginnings. Endings. Transitions. Possibilities.

Sidebar #4: More Random Thoughts from TV

Justifying my laziness, my descriptions of life here in India would not be complete without a post on what I watch and catch on TV. Like anywhere, there are good programs and bad and plenty of commercials. Personally, I mostly watch movies and the Dicovery Channel.

Here are some random things that have occured to me in those deadened hours.


Movies:

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The old grunt-and-shoot action movie Predator produced a remarkable 2 State Governors: Jesse Ventura for Minnesota and Arnold Schwarzenegger for California. I'd say that must be a record if there was any rational reason to regularly count and compare how many futures Governors have appeared in any action movies in the first place. Makes you wonder what poor dialogue, flimsy plots and pyrotechnics has in common with politics doesn’t it...

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Catching part of the 1995 movie Johnny Mnemonic (only worthy because it is based on stories by the excellent future-noir writer William Gibson), I had to laugh at how dated its projection of future technology was already. Johnny is special because he can store a whopping 80GB in his brain as a secret courier. 80 gigs? Wow. Today you can get the same storage in an ipod for a few hundred bucks. I certainly hope my brain hold more than Johnny’s, or my ipod. Just goes to show though how fast technology can outpace fiction.

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I thought it was funny that they play Shakespeare in Love here with subtitles for the English accents. No joke. I didn’t pay attention though to see if they were the same. They aren’t always, although I’d hope those on TV would be better than most. Most of the ones on the pirated DVDs that dominate the video scene here are so bad to as to be funny. Watching the first 5 minutes of The Last King of Scotland without sound but with subtitles and I could not figure out what was going on. They were not even close.


Discovery Channel Programs:

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What is it about Discovery Channel programs that suck you in?

Tonight I was watching a program about the big cats of Africa. Did you know that when a lioness is in heat, in order to get pregnant she may have to mate 100s of times (and not always with the same male) and will mate twice an hour for up to 4 days. Often several females of the pride will go into heat at the same time with the alpha male mating with all of them until he tires and one of the lower males gets a chance. Social little kitties. And we joke about rabbits! (likely because it is less a good idea to poke fun at lions) But being slightly serious, the program also estimates that each lion will mate 3000 times for each cub that will survive its first year. Beyond our technology (and opposable thumbs), it is certain that our much superior ability to procreate (and again, we make fun of rabbits...yeah Kettle...) is at least as important a factor in our dominance of this planet.

I don’t know why the lion was ever considered the king of beasts though. The tiger is way bigger, meaner and tougher.

But whatever the lion’s position on the savannah and the tiger in the jungle, cheetah cubs are definitely the cutest – fuzzy furballs with big eyes and all the curiosity of domestic kittens. Cheetahs are amazing creatures to watch running, so fast and sleek and efficient. The adolescent cubs though, like all young, are far less agile and funny to see learning to stalk.

Now, the leopard however is smaller than the lion and slower than the cheetah, but is the most adaptable of the three. It will eat most anything from beetles to antelope far larger than itself. It will live in any climate across Asia from the savannah to the jungle to the snowy mountains, is excellent climber and doesn’t mind water. I think if I was a cat then I’d definitely be a leopard.

Now wasn’t that interesting and educational!

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I caught a program today about base jumping from the top of Angel Falls. Oh my God, so cool. Sorry mom and dad, but I have to say I’d love to do that if I got the chance.

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I caught a cooking program the other day where a UK chef was showing us the wonders of Indian cuisine and this week focusing on Tamil and South Indian regional dishes. It was great fun to see Chennai in the backdrop (as an aside, it is actually quite easy to pick out the major Indian metropolises on TV due to architectural styles and even more so, the colour scheme of the auto rickshaws. As one program coverage switched its stock background shots, I could easily differentiate Chennai from Bangalore from Delhi based on the ricks).

He did a great job showing how simple much of the cuisine is to cook and which wonderfully colourful spices form the core of all Tamil cooking (especially turmeric, chilli & curry leaves). He kept calling the city Madras though, which is a bit colonial considering the city is now named Chennai and most people use the new name.

But then he explained the venerable, but simple masala dosa and showed his total lack of local savvy. He goes to Saravanna Bhavan, a popular and recommended chain and then proceeds to explain how you break off chunks of the crispy dosa, spoon some masala onto the piece and eat it like a taco or brochetta...using both hands! I really wanted to reach into the TV and slap him. Anywhere in India, one of the most basic and first rules everyone learns is that you only eat with your right hand. No using your left hand. No using both to cup the dosa. Just no OK.


Commercials:

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I've written some about this before, but again for the record: 1 in 4 commercials on all channels are for age and beauty products. Ponds, Olay, Dove and a dozen others local and international compete to make you believe you are ugly, unsuccessful and un-marriable unless you improve your skin and hair using their products. Age spots, glow, shine, smoothness, miracles and above all lightening all get pushed with campaigns tailored to hit every fear, insecurity and societal weakness. It’s disgusting and a plague on ourselves. And India’s caught the virus as firmly as any country.

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Indian car commercials are even more outrageous in the romantic driving image than North American ones. Wide, empty highways, smooth roads, fast speeds. Here in India? Where? Trying to sell these images and roads as anything realistic in India is a seriously tall tale.

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Based on the image they are trying to project and strong brand message of “High performance. Delivered”, Tiger Woods for Accenture has got to be the most ideally suited spokes-person I’ve ever seen. He just oozes clearly recognizable brand on his own that conveys hard work, perseverance, detail and reinvention as the source of excellence. Of reaching the top then starting again. And of course Accenture wants to convey that exact message that even the top companies need to retool, reinvent and research-based insight. “Having the right information. Making the right decision. Looking for ways to improve.” One of the cleanest current brand images I can think of. And what is remarkable is that it is for consulting services that are not easily differentiable and far tougher to package than a product. Tiger Woods is bar none the best sports hero to come out since Michael Jordan. Wonder how long it is before he starts doing movies with Looney Toons too.

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McDonalds on the other hand though has a terrible current set of commercials here and ones that I can only assume are culturally tuned only to India. Their tag line is “call for happiness” somehow trying to connect their brand of food with euphoric giddiness and exuberance, that if you call for McD’s delivery, your life and arguments with your girlfriend will be solved. I have yet to see such an over-the-top image. I mean come on! No legal substance possibly can be believed to make such a turn-around in your evening. Indians are not ignorant consumers, but perhaps they find it funny-stupid not just stupid. Maybe McD’s just got snowed by the ad people. I don’t know, but it is not even annoying, just embarrassing. Making it even worse, their call number is 66-000-666. Not such a good number I figure for the Christian population, particularly when you’re going for associations with happiness.

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You know when commercials are forced to say a “conditions apply” statement and say it really fast and in one breath at the end of the commercial, like “closed course, professional driver. If you’re a dumb ass and try this you cannot sue us” or one they use seem to have to use here, “mutual funds are subject to market risk. Read the offer statement closely”?

Yeah, well you should hear them do that in Tamil. Holy shit can they get those statements out quickly!

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And that’s entirely enough TV for one article...

Culture #11: The Wine Shop Revisited

See my earlier post on learning the value of things at the wine shop the hard way. Here is an update on a recent purchase.

I am buying 2 Kingfisher beer. I give him Rs 500.

He gives me Rs 270 back. I look at it briefly, call him back over and point out it isn’t enough change.

He tells me the price is Rs 220.

Of course 500 minus 220 is not actually 270, but I let that one go and focus on the bigger problem: that the beers are in fact only Rs 60 each so the price is only Rs 120.

He nods OK, OK. Takes the money and remakes change.

This time he gives me back Rs 290 with a smile. We're getting closer, but still short.

I patiently do the math for him one more time: 60 Rupee (pointing at one), 60 Rupee (at the other). 120 Rupee vilai. Rs 380 michapanam kudunga Boss ("change please give") I say smiling, but firmly, looking at him . We’re both pretending it is simply a mistake of math.

He takes the money one more time, does some fancy money swapping at his till box and proffers Rs 380 this time. Finally!

So an updated warning: you really have to keep your eye on what you should get back because in the speed of the exchange, the busy counter and their hope you don't know the cost, they will definitely screw you. But they’re not usually bothered if you call them on it. Funny guys.

Life in Chennai # 19: Massages Good and Bad

The vast industry of hair salons, products and marketing is the reverse here in Chennai than in North America in that it is all geared predominantly for men rather than women. Supply and demand of course. Here boys and men coif their hair, spent hours in the salon, strut about town with dramatic moustaches and, ala 1950’s Hollywood, carry combs in their back pocket. Women on the other hand wear their hair long and straight and held back pretty much as is. So 180 degrees to the trends at home. So here there are hundreds of men’s salons (or saloons as they are variously signed, I’m unsure if this is a purposeful marketing ploy or merely a poor spelling), but my female expat friends consistently complain about the inability to get a decent haircut (and risk of trying).

This of course is mostly all wasted on me given my current (and unfortunately permanent) hair style of clipped short, but on the plus, it does mean finding a place is convenient. I’ve become a regular at one just around the corner from me and I usually drop in on my way home. They don’t speak a whole lot of English, but the demands of what I want are pretty simple so we have sorted it all out.

So in I go the other day, sitting down for my usual cut using the clippers with a 1 guard. At most places, the hair cut comes with a 20 minute “relaxation” head massage. I typically skip this to for getting home to dinner a little sooner, but today I decided to give it a go.

And it was...interesting... I really like having my head and face massaged. But I can’t say this was so much a massage as more a vigorous beating. I can’t say it was particularly relaxing either. My guy appeared to be new to the salon (saloon?) and it at first seemed they were just letting him go and do his own thing on me and see what he did. But I later revised his skill level or at least my appraisal of his musical background when he kept excellent rhythm drumming my head in sync to the music video playing on the TV down the row. Realising this made me have to stifle a giggle, which may have just encouraged him. Oh dear. His technique in the end was probably quite good for what it was. It just wasn’t the kind of “relaxing” head massage I was expecting and it left my scalp feeling if not sore, certainly very invigorated.

So I suppose I need to revise my statement and qualify it as I usually like my head and face massaged.

So my massage goes on for quite a while, far longer than 20 minutes. No one bothers to stop him I suppose and I don’t have a watch on. I do actually feel more uplifted and relaxed at the end, but I question how much that has to do with the massage, how much is the aromatic oil he’s used, how much is because I found the whole experience humorous and how much is simply because sitting, closing your eyes and doing nothing for 20 minutes is calming in its own right. I tend to think the actual massage was the least contributor of the four! But whatever, I suppose the results speak for themselves...

For the grand finale of the massage though, he strapped this giant, clunky metal motor thing to the back of his hand. It looked like some oversized ray gun out of a cheesy ancient sci-fi flick. It looked serious bizarre and like a good, heavy weapon in case of a fight, like if the other guy pulls out brass knuckles, you just smile and put this bad boy on and watch his eyes go wide! He turns it on and magic: it turns his head into a vibrator. Killer idea and this, I have to report, is relaxing and very nice on the scalp, face and ears. I’ll keep things PG and will let you make your own obvious leap of imagination to other uses for such an item. If it wasn’t so bulky and didn’t appear to draw enough power to dim the lights for half a block, it would make next year’s Christmas gift craze for sure. I can’t imagine it is that good for the user long term (carpal tunnel syndrome anyone?), but this at least met the promised muscle relaxant. Just glad he didn’t cuff me with his gauntleted backhand for laughing again... :-)

This is not my first experience with notable massages here in Asia though...

Being in India, one cannot go without trying a proper Ayurvedic massage. Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient system practiced here in India. Part of “alternative medicine” from the perspective of the West, it has proved effective when done properly and is very scientific and systematic in its approach. Like most traditional medicines, it focuses on holistic health and cures over targeted and kill-the-bad-bugs Western style. But proper health care aside, it has entered mainstream and mass marketing most fluidly as a questionably effective subset: massage and essential oils – things easily packaged and sold and most importantly things easiest to pretend expertise and credentials of. So proper Ayurvedic clinics are common enough, but everyone and their brother is adding “Ayurvedic” treatments to their spas, soaps, room fresheners, skin creams and you know the drill. It fits bang on into the world’s current obsession with herbal and essential oil additions to everything (many of which probably do have valid therapeutic effects, just not in the uncontrolled or miniscule doses that are in most of the products hawking them). If Ayurveda has not hit North America yet, don’t worry, it will, guaranteed, certainly on the west coast.

Anyway, back to my story, when I was in Mahabilapuram some months back, an area with a lot of tourist influence, I figured my back and neck were tight and I should try ones of the Ayurvedic massages that was being advertised up and down the street. So I made an appointment and later that day found myself on a table, literally drenched in aromatic oils and absolutely naked being worked on by a Keralan guy who claimed extensive credentials. No bothered by Western modesty, many Asian massages are done completely without clothes. Good thing I’m not shy about such things as I had not had warning going in.

Now maybe I’ve got too vivid an imagination or maybe I’m just too into touch (and am mildly ticklish besides), but I find full-body massage – and doubly worse here being oiled and naked – as entirely too much stimulation to ever fully relax. I mean come on! I may not be turned on by this mildly homoerotic fantasy, but seriously how does anyone handle these things without having to concentrate on igloos and icebergs?

Oh well, the massage goes well enough after a spell. I stop alternating between wanting to squirm and giggling at myself for it and the work on my tight shoulders and neck did what I had hoped to ease tension from bad ergonomics at work and too little exercise. I don’t have any background or prior experience in Ayurveda so I can’t vouch for its authenticity or whether it did anything more than a regular massage, but for a good deep massage, it was worth the paltry cash outlay. After, he gives me a bucket of mud stuff to get all the oil off with and a place to shower and I leave feeling slightly like I should want a cigarette or something. ;-)

A couple months later I get another massage, this time at the fancy spa in my 5-star hotel in Udaipur, with the usual little towel and a pretty Filipino masseuse, and I decide that I am just not wired for the full body massage thing as a relaxation tool. Just too much for me. The only exception maybe being Thai massages because in my experience there is just no way to feel sexy once you are doused in tiger balm and the slight woman has tied you into a pretzel and dug into deep muscles you didn’t know existed.

And that, I’m sure, is far more information than you needed to know about me, but I figured it was worth sharing for the story! ;-)

Life in Chennai # 18: Sleep well, eat well

You just have to laugh. Good thing I can generally sleep through anything.

I happen to live a couple buildings down from a temple. OK, rewind that. In Chennai, that is like saying you live a couple buildings down from a Starbucks on the West Coast (if you can throw a rock in Vancouver and not hit a coffee shop, a sushi joint and a yoga studio, then you’re inside). Here, as a function of the diverse and personalized nature of Hindu worship and a simple matter of population, there are temples pretty much every few blocks, from tiny roadside shrines to sky-reaching monuments.

So, anyway, the good-sized temple I live beside started marking an auspicious time and started doing pooja (worship of the Deities of the Hindu religion). At 4am. Over the loudspeaker. 5 days ago. From 4am to 10pm, solid. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think they skipped parts of Monday for some reason, although maybe I just stopped noticing. Which is remarkable, because we’re talking loud. But break or my imagination, they were back at it again this morning for day #5, (although with a later 6am start). So hearing and experiencing what their pooja is cool and I have absolute respect for the varied Hindu traditions, but to be perfectly frank, I am not sure why it has to be done over the loudspeaker where I cannot turn it off. I assume everyone at the temple can hear just fine (although maybe not anymore), but over the speakers, it projects like they are piping the broadcast directly into my flat. And of course not being a morning person myself, I cannot fathom why anyone or any god would require anything at 4am. It is simply wrong, wrong, wrong! Not better black and white you’ll ever get out of me! ;-)

Truly, I wish I could share it with you though! My parents caught a piece over the phone the other night, but it is hard to convey with words. It is actually louder inside than out on the street, maybe some weird acoustic thing. I tried making a recording on my camera’s video mode, but it didn’t do it justice. But to give you an idea, it is like waking up on the couch with the TV on super loud because you fell asleep watching it drunk. Or for those who perhaps that example doesn’t resonate, it is like going about your day with a really loud stereo going, always. We actually had to shout over breakfast!

Ahh, India. The first morning, being unexpected, it was a bit annoying, but mostly, I find it just another amusing example of the hundreds of little things you just cannot take for granted here. On the plus side though, I was a real keener getting to work early on Friday. I wish I understood more of what was going on. My housemates and close colleague at work all coincidentally being Christian, they haven’t been much help and what little they’ve explained I’ll withhold so as to not make myself even more ignorant than I already am. Actually, now knowing a little Tamil, I expected to understand more of what was being said, but it was either too esoteric or most likely just too garbled by the low quality amplification. There have been sections of leading prayer and reciting verse, sections of rhythmic chanting and many sections of various kinds of music (no hip hop though unless I missed that set while at work on Friday). I’m not a super fan of traditional carnatic music, it takes a certain appreciation, but much of it was nice; some I noted would have been great with a nice funky base line. I liked the drum sets though. I suppose I shouldn’t really call them sets – it isn’t like they were down there with a DJ spinning (of course I shouldn’t assume…) – but the term works so bear with me.

As I started with, thank God I can sleep with pretty much anything going on. But one side effect was that I had some seriously fucked up dreams as my brain tried to incorporate the external stimulus, especially the chanting segments. I wish I could remember them better, but they always fade, just leaving that slightly disturbing residue of memory that my brain had been just mixing things that ought not be mixed, like coming in to find your 6-year old trying to bake cookies for the first time (does anyone else remember that horrid game show “just like Mom” that was on when we were growing up?).

Of course living with noise and inconveniences is a common adaptation for the most of us who now live in cities and apartment buildings the world over. Chennai is no different in this respect than Chicago or Calgary or Copenhagen. Perhaps garbage trucks bang bins (surely on purpose) in the back alley at 5:30am, maybe trucks grind gears along the nearby thoroughfare, or you have one of those neighbours (I’ve been one of those neighbours) who’s stereo base pounds through the walls 24-7. Dogs bark all night at whatever dumb-ass things dogs bark at, police sirens carry for miles and some jerk’s car alarm is going off, again, but we all somehow get along with the babble of cooking, shrieking and different tastes in music and TV programs carrying through the walls.

Here is no different, although of course we’ve got our own unique quirks. The newspaper wallah and a host of others I cannot identify by their distorted cries carries through the windows as soon as the sun is up. Traffic here produces a wider range of racket with the constant cacophony of beeps, squeaks and horns. The custom (requirement?) here is to have an audible reversing sound on your vehicle, which is usually some blaring, repetitive ring-tone like song. Everyone has ring-tones. But on the plus side, almost no one has car alarms, so major score on that one; the reversing sounds, which I despise, only last a minute (or 2 depending on the ability of the parker and the sketchiness of the space they are attempting). There are different urban bird and animal sounds, but not any more of them and nothing exotic. No monkeys or anything cool, although the peacocks made quite a raucous when I was staying in Jaipur last month. But all in all, I actually live on a quieter street than I have in times past: the concrete walls are much more soundproof than Western construction and I usually sleep with the overhead fan which does a good job in dulling most into its white noise.

Actually, being woken up repeatedly at early hours to singing and chanting reminds me (other than residence at University, of course) of a funny story of living in Vancouver during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. I was living with my girlfriend at the time just a couple blocks from a major downtown intersection, high up on the 15th floor. The World Cup was in Korea and Japan that year and games therefore were at crazy hours of the night Vancouver time. And every day for 2 weeks straight we were woken up at 4, maybe 5 in the morning to the sound of some group or other having an impromptu parade down Robson Street cheering and honking and waving their flags wildly. The honking would start and I’d blearily get up and lean my head out the window above the bed. “Who won?” she’d ask sleepily. “Italy, I think”; “Brazil today”; “Korea again” (they did particularly well that year and have a sizable population in the city). It didn’t matter who won – such is the diversity of the city – every morning without fail the nationals and supporters of the winner would suddenly sweep out from wherever they were managing to watch the game at that hour and parade down the street. It was like it was choreographed. On the plus side, we kept up on the standings. It is a fond and fun memory, no less in the telling. Such is city life, in all its randomness and bother. So I suppose I can be easy on the temple.

But there are other funny noises to deal with this week. We’ve got a cricket holed up in our kitchen and he’s been going solid for a couple hours now. I’ve gone in there to see if I can find him, to tell him, “sorry little guy, but I can pretty much guarantee there are no girl crickets living in our kitchen. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I appreciate your commitment and all to being the coolest, suavist, cricket in the yard, but man to man: they aren’t coming dude. Give it up.” Of course I couldn’t find the bugger so he’s still there. I hope he finds a way out. We had one living there for a couple weeks back in January and never could find where he was hiding.

Bugs and creatures are another thing you mostly have to get used to here in India. I suppose it is the climate as well as the fact that we’re rarely living in a sealed environment (our apartment actually has an open-air window to a central shaft running down the middle of the building, a peculiar, but common design element here so all the apartments are open to each other, though grated, and to the outside). So things find their way in pretty regularly and many just decide to stay and set up shop. I’m generally unfazed by it, although I do admit I jumped and shrieked like a kid trying to capture a giant cockroach that flew into my room one night. I know they are more scared of me and can’t do me any harm, but it is all their fast skittering and flying about! Leslie thought it all very funny, but she’s about as resilient as anyone I’ve met with this stuff. You get used to all sorts of things though and very few of the bugs are actually a bother (except mosquitoes of course).

We’ve got geckos. They’re cute. I talk to them. We have a new little one scurrying around that I sometimes surprise when I come out to go to the bathroom. I try to shoe him out of my room, but figure he is fine living under the fridge if he wants. Not like we can do anything about it anyway. They just wander in and out. And I figure they eat bugs so points to them.

We go through phases of having ant problems in the place, again coming in from the outside. They are mini ones, very common here. I don’t mind them except when they occasionally get into my dinner left out on the table. I don’t figure they’ll harm me though. You have to compromise some. Several of us living here have concurred on there being an ant quota. So if I open my dinner and there’s, say, less than 5 ants checking it out, fair game; above that it gets dicey. On the other hand though, there is no “5-second rule” for dropped food here. With nasty microbes and general grime here, if it hits the floor, it’s DOA.

And that’s the basics of shared living here. It isn’t the most pristine place I’ve lived long term and it isn’t the quietest, but it isn’t the sketchiest or loudest either. At university our decrepit place had mice and millipedes and at one place or another I’ve had the excitement of having a squirrel or bird or bat make its way inside and freak out (my cat particularly enjoyed having the bird around…and around and around). I’ve lived near a fire station with neighbours who had a rock band, the one living there being the drummer. And unlike good friends of mine, I haven’t had bed bugs or fleas. Everyone’s got their horror stories.

So give a cheery hello to whatever critters share your space with you while you eat your cornflakes and give your shared wall, floor or ceiling a couple good bangs just for a chummy “nice to know ya” to your neighbours. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

What are the posts?

I'm exited! I'm heading up to Rajasthan for 5 days to see my family who has just arrived in India (this time my father and step-mother), and I am joining them up North tonight. Way too short, but I couldn’t get any more time off work and they couldn’t make it down to Chennai, so it is a lot of flying in a short period, 4 hops, but worth it to see them. They’re in Delhi now. Hope they’re liking it and are getting over any jetlag.

But in the mean time, where have my blogs gone? I've been delinquent in posting this last month. Sorry folks, I just can’t seem to get my blog entries finished and up these days. Lots of ideas, musing and stories, but it is a combination of time and energy constraints.

So while you wait, what is going on with me these days? Well, for starters I am a month in on taking daily Tamil lessons. I’ve got a lot I want to write about all that, but the short version is that this is making for happy for several reasons. First, I am simply really liking the challenge and feeling of learning a language again. I feel smart and empowered. This leads to reason 2: I have long harboured a belief that I am not good at languages and didn’t like the experience. Thirdly, and also importantly, I am excited for the window into the Tamil culture and the improved opportunity to interact with people here.

But the lessons, an extra hour and a half a day after work, are burning me out a little. By the time I get home, eat dinner and clear my head from actively thinking about Tamil, it is time for bed. With work being busier again, little time for writing.

Actually, it isn’t so much that I don’t have time at all for writing, it is more that this newer schedule is highlight weaknesses in my writing style: I write my blog entries best when I can sit down in the moment, when the idea, rant or glee at something strikes me and get it out. And I need the energy to write buoyantly. If I don’t I have trouble getting entries finished. I have more than a dozen posts partially written and a dozen more notes of ideas I wanted to write about. I’ve got trips and weekends away to share and tons of stories from Nepal I’ve got written in my journal to transcribe. But busy and tired, I never seem to get them done, polished or to my liking.

Anyway, enough on that. Suffice to say more posts in the works. You’ll just have to be patient for a bit.

What else is going on, well, as those who note my status updates on Facebook know, I’ve managed to get out trekking last weekend in a wilderness area north of the city. No great mountains scaled or anything, but it was a great exploratory foray to the area and even better the area has climbing potential if I can get a rope and a second harness for a partner. I’m excited to try that out. I’m slowly, slowly building a new social circle here, meeting new people from all sorts of random angles (even through this blog, cool enough), connections and events.

So I’m out for a bit, but promise to clean up some of my half-done entries…before I think of more things I want to share, jot down or capture… ;-)

Life in Chennai #17: Why We Have Bars

The strangest, oddest fucking thing happened to me last night. It was surreal. I’m still shaking my head about it, trying to resolve the details.

So it’s 3am and I’m sleeping. I’m not sleeping that soundly actually. I was up late reading, my brain is still spinning and I can’t seem to get comfortable. So I’m rolling a lot. But I’m mostly asleep listening to the washing patter of rain through the nearby trees. Every once in a while it is punctuated by a snap and thud as the ripe mangos in the tree outside my window get heavy with water, break and fall heavily and satisfyingly to the pavement below. Occasionally a squirrel makes a racket, a vehicle passes along a nearby street, or a truck honks its horn, at who this time of night God only knows.

With all that, I am a little surprised I heard it. Perhaps it was simply the closeness or perhaps it was just a sound that was distinctly out of place, our brains adapted through the eons to pick out discrepancies in the background. Whatever the reason, the odd soft, scrape and knock stirred me.

You know when you’re in a sleepy state, your mind not quite awake and you’re not sure if you’re really awake. That was me. And even fuzzier without my glasses or contacts in.

But I swear I thought I saw a large dark shadow drift down out of sight outside my window. Now that is a very odd thing to see. I wasn’t sure I saw it. There was no sound, just movement of dark in front of the city-warmed night sky and building across the yard. Sleepy as I was, I was having trouble processing what I thought I saw. I thought, “monkey?” but it was too large to be a monkey. Bird? It didn’t move like a bird. It kind of just looked like it sunk. It had human size, but I’m on the 3rd floor (that’s 4 storeys off the ground for those in North America. India counts the ground floor always as 0). And last I recalled, although admittedly I was quite tired and still very fuzzy, people didn’t sink silently and smoothly through the air.

Truth be told, I’m a little fuzzy about all that as I was not fully awake. I was starting to wonder if I had picked up a half-dream from having watched part of “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and an episode of “Heroes” earlier than night. That combo will fuck up your dreams if anything does.

But something still wasn’t right. You know the feeling. Humans are very, very good at picking up subtle queues, even when you can’t put your finger on it. The dark swath shadow of the curtain bunched to the side of my window kept my eye. It didn’t move right as a curtain does and I was thinking it was too big. Don’t ask me how I decided this at 3am. But then it moved and resolved into a man-shape.

Holy shit. There was a man outside my barred, but open window four storeys up at 3am! I can’t say the adrenaline hit me and I leaped to action. I think it was the silence of it all. There was no sound other than the rain. But I swiftly got out of bed and moved to the window as the man slipped silently and smoothly up over the deep overhang and to the roof just above. I gave a quick yell, but didn’t run out of the flat to catch them coming down the stairs. I’m in India, I don’t know how many people are up there and I don’t have any sort of weapon I can grab before they’d be down and gone. Simply not a good idea. Let them go. They didn’t harm me.

But mostly, I stood there because I didn’t feel any fear since they weren’t going to get through the bars on the window and without that fear (and it being 3am), there wasn’t really anger either. Just puzzlement. I stood at the window trying to sort out what I had seen and how it had worked, thinking, “What the Fuck. Did I really just see that?”

How the Hell did he get there and move around so quietly? He was obviously making some noise that woke me. But the roof overhang is at least 2 feet from the wall, the open window panes form a narrow outward barrier to reaching through the bars. And funnily enough I actually have personal experience of how slippery the walls and ledges are from the grime and dirt – and that’s when it is dry, let alone tonight when it is pouring rain. Being a climber, I know how hard it is to pull oneself up over a ledge or even up a rope, let alone quietly and in the rain. I didn’t see a rope hanging. What is this guy, Spiderman, Batman or some sort of circus freak? He moved so smoothly and quietly. I was left with respect for his acrobatics and boldness for what he had to know was a low and uncertain payoff, just whatever was in reach.

I can’t be certain, by a long stretch, whether the first shadow I saw was a second man who dropped down or if it was just one guy who dropped below my window panes and back up to the wall beside them where I finally made him. If there was a rope, I didn’t see it although without my glasses, expert witness I am not. Was there someone hauling him up from the roof? Or did he climb like the geckos that sometimes look at me curiously from the ceiling?

To be honest, so completely odd, even for India, that it was, I’m not sure I would have been sure I saw it at all except that he left his reaching device stuck through the window bars and leaning up on my desk. So I had physical proof of the short affair, but it still left me to sort out puzzle of the unlikelihood of the events.

What he had been doing was trying to steal the stuff from my pockets that I drop messily on my desk – cell phone, ipod, wallet, keys, coins, pen. I don’t know of course what, if anything, he could make out in the dark was there versus how much he was just hoping. He was reaching through with a strip of plastic. It was one of those flat wall panels meant to hide wires and the like – about 1 inch wide, ridges forming a wide “C” along the sides to give it some rigidity. Considering my presumed sophistication of his Spiderman routine, I kind of thought he would use something more specialized to grab things, but who knows. I suppose if you could get the strip under the cell phone, you could tilt it up and slide it smoothly down between the side ridges. And I suppose you could hook it in the fold of the wallet and lift it out too. But all that presents a degree of dexterity and smoothness not anticipated by a person clinging outside a window and trying not to make any noise. It was obviously the nearby soft scraping of the plastic against my desk that was the out of place sound that pinged my sleeping brain.

My next line of questioning was whether I had been targeted as a foreigner who presumably has more value lying around. It is possible as I’ve never been good with closing the curtains. Maybe someone saw from across the next building. But one has to be careful assuming you’re special in India with a billion people and when so much happens at random. Perhaps they just saw me reading tonight. Perhaps it was totally random. Who knows.

As to how they got to the roof, well, that part I know: the watchman, as nearly all watchmen uselessly do, sleeps like the dead all night and the roof is open from the stairwell. I’ve come home several times late on a Saturday night and had to jump the chained gate, tromp past the sleeping watchmen and up the stairs. I’ve no doubt a group of would-be petty thieves could wander in and out dragging furniture and the elephants from their escaped circus and no one would notice. Ah well, such is the way of things here: all watchmen of all buildings seem to sleep so there is no use firing him.

So the whole affair of 2 minutes and then several more questioning the sanity of the universe was over. Nothing taken. A stupid plastic strip as a souvenir. A little bothered because of how close someone had been, only 10 feet or so, but no risk to my person and I was not particularly shaken. What does one do, but go back to bed. Just a weird, surreal story that I had to share or risk starting to wonder if I was crazy.

I’ve always lamented and questioned the bars on the windows and balconies and double locks and deadbolts on all the doors. I hate feeling like a prisoner and not being able to lean out. I haven’t heard of Chennai having a particular petty theft problem, not like Vancouver where having your car or even your apartment broken into has become almost not worth commenting on. And I’ve always thought, come on, 3rd floor? What are they going to do, drop down with a rope and come through the windows? Yeah, that is what they are going to do. There is always one more surprise living here.

So that I now see is why we have bars on our windows. Utter madness, but there it is.

Life in Chennai #16: Rain, rain, come again

We’ve been having rain. Actual water falling from the sky (that isn’t coming from a bucket off someone’s balcony). I’m excited.

Now my friends in Vancouver, who are en masse reporting giddiness on their Facebook profiles for their current sunny spell, are surely dumbstruck and sputtering about such a comment. It is raining. And you’re happy about it? Yup.

It isn’t so weird really. We haven’t had much rain yet this calendar year. I certainly have had no complaints that the weather forecast nearly every day has been sunny and lovely, but the rain, beyond just being a nice change of pace, does bring some benefit.

First of all and most importantly, it has knocked the temperature down 10 degrees from a month ago, which is positively wonderful. As I reported, I was getting used to the heat, but the ability of sleeping without a fan and its constant white noise, with a nice cool breeze through the window and rhythmic patter of rain on the trees and roof is a rare luxury. I’ve had to start sleeping with a top sheet again, which is novel.

So after a bit of a dig, I’ve pulled my rain shell from my pack, gone back to closed-toed shoes for the week and enjoyed being wet from the outside for once.

Of course with the rain, comes puddles, giant, street-spanning puddles and traffic is slowed and jostled even more than usual. I didn’t miss that from last year’s monsoon season. With less street space, especially along the pedestrian sides, walking the streets to lunch and elsewhere becomes a fresh new extreme sport again. I didn’t really miss that either although I’m more steely about rubbing shoulders with moving traffic since Nov.

The only real negative is that the mosquitoes are also back with all the lovely new standing water to breed in, but they're still small and slow-moving so are easy to kill so far. I guess I’ll have to go back to using the plug-in repellent.

Mostly we’ve been having the occasional afternoon thunderstorms, but this week a big system moved in and stuck and we’ve actually had rain all day and night, quite rare for here where most parts of South Asia are used to getting their rain in short, drenching buckets. My colleagues all commented on its unusualness. So it’s all about a change of scenery. For Vancouver, it is much deserved sun after a long, wet winter, but for us, a little water from the sky is a nice cool break, as long as it doesn’t last more than a week!

So rain, rain, go away and come again another day. :-)

Life in Chennai #15: The New Helmet Law

So Chennai finally decided to make wearing a helmet mandatory for all 2-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters). No, they weren’t before. Sorry mom and dad. On the plus side, traffic rarely goes more than 30 km an hour during the day. But despite a public disinterest, a court order prompted the government to finally decide to make it mandatory in the name of public safety. June 1, last Friday, was the enforcement date (for the major urban centres, with the rest of the State July 1). It gives a fascinating and telling picture of how politics works here.

Here is how it went.

Pre-law helmet use: maybe 5%.
All last week suddenly roadside stands and wallahs stocking tall pyramids of boxed helmets appear everywhere. They do a killer business. My colleague told me helmets run from Rs 500 to Rs 1500 for proper ones, but although some premiums appeared that week most were kept reasonable by intense competition. Like anything else in India, a need was created and entrepreneurs filled it immediately from who know what supply chain. Apparently and unsurprisingly, the ones sold on the street, the North American equivalent of being sold out of the back of a van, are not up to standards and are of no use in an accident, but rather only to comply with the law and can be hand for under Rs 500.

So we haven’t even started the law yet and this doesn’t seem like it is having the intending effect...


Thursday, May 31, 1 day before: helmet use still 5%
No one seems to be warming up, practicing for the big day. They gave people a pretty good amount of time to get ready from the Feb 22 law passing, but everyone just waited to the last moment and then complained. I wonder how this is all going to go tomorrow. The local paper reports a mix of malaise and malign against the new law coming into force tomorrow.


Friday, June 1: helmet use 95%
Amazingly, out of closets, cupboards or just under their shirt everyone suddenly has a helmet on. If you don’t you’re getting in trouble.

Police are out in force on nearly every corner handing out tickets to those who were foolish to forget. Apparently fines are Rs 300 with a receipt and Rs 100 without. Ah yes... Without the receipt, you pay less and the policeman pockets it. This is very normal and I question if they even bother paying their traffic police for the “tips” they make. However on a day like this, without a receipt you are just going to get stopped again 2 blocks down and then again and again. With low-end helmets costing not much more than a ticket and policemen saving for their kids’ college and dowry funds, there is a strong financial reason to follow the law.

Typical of how these sorts of decisions are made and implemented here, the politicians decided that it was a good idea, set a date and that was that. They’re going with the stick approach, sorry Bugs Bunny. On June 1, if you don’t have a helmet, you get fined, simple as that.

So tough love, but at least it works, or so you would think: they’ve just successfully got everyone to buy, carry and wear their helmets.

But wait, this is India – things don’t go smooth like that, even when instigated in such a heavy-handed way. Nothing in India can ever be called simple and inertia reigns supreme.


Saturday, June 2: helmet use steady at 95%
Police still out in force. The government congratulates itself in the local papers.


Sunday, June 3: government flip-flops
Despite their law being by court order, the government panders to popular discontent and issues a decree for police to not “harass 2-wheeler riders” for not wearing helmets. So it is still mandatory, but not enforceable, sort of? Brilliant.


Monday, June 4: helmet use maybe 70%
It’s only been 3 days and already the enthusiasm has waned. I’m seeing more and more people driving without helmets. Without the enforcement, the stick, and with the politicians waffling things are sliding back downhill quickly and people are back to doing what they can get away with. I think the only reason that the rates are not dropping off faster is that with all the confusion, some people have yet to hear what the situation is. And of course police can still selectively target people as they do with every other law, to pocket the fee.

Admittedly, I partially understand why people prefer not to wear one: they are hot and uncomfortable and you suddenly need one for all 6 family members you cart around on your bike. According to one article, surveys of Indian drivers also cite, “discomfort, fear of hair-loss, headache, neck pain, and some other reasons,” as why they don’t wear one. So many reasons why the drivers don’t want it, some perhaps fair, some ridiculous, but I’m still stuck on why the government gung-ho has fizzled so quickly. I’m quizzing my colleague to try to understand how the various levels of government relate and how laws are getting passed and upheld.

But it goes on...


Tuesday, June 5: helmet use 50% and falling
Backpedal, backpedal...

So apparently, after weathering petitions and a court challenge that upheld the new law, suddenly the politicians had a change of heart, decided they wanted to be the men of the people and on Tuesday revoked the law for women and children. Yes, that is correct, women and children are now exempt again from having to wear helmets while driving. Now, there are some given reasons: for women including the effects on the important cultural practice of putting flowers in hair and excessive sweatiness in the helmet; for children, a concern with the weight of the helmet on their developing necks. All fine and good, sort of, but no crash helmets for women and children? Really?

And more over, if these are such needed exemptions, how did no one think of this just a teeny bit earlier... like last Thursday before everyone had to go out and buy one?

This is one of those things that I’ve learned enough to get that it happens, see some how it happens, but not yet enough to understand the underlying why it happens.


Friday, June 7: helmet use back to 5%
So after a brief excitement period of doing something, it appears the whole deal has simply been forgotten and everything gone back to normal. Oh, helmets still have officially changed from optional to mandatory for men – laws can be changed – but chalk up another example of failing to change cultural practices and of politicians choosing to be popular rather than any sort of leader. But this isn’t simply an Indian inertia thing. Who would ever expect to change people’s practices with so little effort? In order to get Canadians to wear bicycle helmets took years of sustained and multi-pronged effort. Yeah, “sustained” and “multi-pronged” don’t exactly come to mind here.

It reminds me of the auto rickshaw rate enforcement and their fizzled attempts to enforce meter use back in March. Yeah, like where did that all go? It was heralded as such a big deal, the government congratulating themselves all over the papers. But I’ve still only ever used a meter twice and was shocked both times. Oh, the papers would report 15 autos this day with licences revoked for not having running meters or a hundred that day fined for not having the new fare rates programmed in, but it is a feel-good promotion for the government. On the street nothing has changed with the 100,000 auto drivers in the city. You absorb the same through the media news about plans and actions of slum clearance, environmental improvement or following traffic rules – talk is made, money is spent, paper is set a-flying, but a day, a week, a month later, very little changes. You can’t really expect things to change overnight of course, so the sanest solution, true everywhere, is to mostly ignore the politicians making names for themselves and be patient; real change takes longer to take root.


Why do things happen this way? “It’s India”, said with a shrug, the equivalent of the French “c’est la vie”. That is the answer to most questions of “why?” we encounter here. It comes up all the time. To attempt a fuller answer usually doesn’t make it any clearer without a much deeper understanding of their complex socio-political history, of which I am certainly not qualified.

So, a week of excitement, confusion and field-days for the cops and the newspapers and everyone now has a nice shiny new helmet in their closet. Beyond that, not sure what we’ve accomplished: another law on the books that isn’t enforced effectively or consistently, another chance for politicians to play the heroes of the people and a week for me to confusingly quiz my colleague at lunch over WTF is going on today?

Sometimes, much of the time I think, India is like watching TV on fast forward and 8 channels on picture-in-picture. *Shrug* It’s India...

Life in Chennai #14: Beating the Heat Part 2 - Adapting

Friends and family have all been asking me how I am doing with the heat, with the summer and the answer, very truthfully and surprisingly, is, “I’m doing fine with it”. I’m glad it’s summer, happy it is here and enjoying the days, not pining for cooler climes or a change of season. And that surprises me as much as anyone.

I’ve got a few close friends here and talking this past weekend, we all noticed the same thing: somewhere along the way, we’ve actually gotten used to the heat. Oh, the days it hits 44 degrees C are not days you feel particularly motivated to go for a jog or run errands around town all afternoon, but they’re not days we wish we were dead either. We’ve found tricks and tactics (like in my last post) to deal, but it goes beyond that. We’re actually physically and mentally adapting to the new range.

It is weird to notice that and funny too. This past weekend was cooler than it’s been, lovely and pleasant, nice at night. We were happy and giddy over the comfort and freedom and spent lots of time outside…it was 38 degrees. We’ve completely adjusted our range of what is normal, what is nice, what is hot and what is cool. I first really noticed we had adapted when I caught myself using “only” to describe anything under 40 degrees and not meaning it in jest. Similarly, you stop noticing being sweaty and sticky. You stop describing it as “gross” and, really, just stop describing it at all. You get along with it psychologically so that you do not feeling trapped inside or unable to live life.

I seem to be physically adapting also. The first week back from Nepal was definitely like getting smacked by a truck and I definitely felt my body struggling with the heat and worried about the months of summer left. Sweaty and damp, I didn’t sleep well those first few nights. But that seems to have gone away and I feel fine now, normal. I’m actually sweating less and being bothered less than when I first arrived in India despite it now being much hotter. I’ve even kept my beard and find it OK, maybe because the short hair aids evaporation? Beats me, but it isn’t any more itchy, annoying or damp than the rest of me. I am feeling OK without a/c at home and even no longer feel the need to turn on the fans all the time (although I am thankful we have a/c at work as without any airflow and catching the mid-day sun, the office is truly unbearable without some form of cooling). I am really jazzed about this, all the more because I wasn’t sure how I would do. I do well in the cold – my body generates a lot of heat – but was never as good with wilting heat, so this is a new trick for me.

A year ago, I would have described 38 degrees as killer hot and dreaded a day out in it and today I find it pleasantly cool and a nice respite. I now have a high of 44 degrees in my spread of acceptable temperatures I know I can handle. How cool is that? It is really amazing what you can get used to and how you can redefine your range of comfort.

Life in Chennai #13: Beating the Heat

When I discovered that it was now impossible to get cold or even room-temperature water out of the taps (even the “cold” tap only gives very warm water) I realised that India’s summer, is an entirely unique animal. With temperatures rising weekly well into the 40’s, the summer heat, like everything in India, is not something to be fought and overcome; instead you adapt yourself to it, surrender to it.

Which makes the title actually a bit of a misnomer: because, in truth, there is no way to actually beat the heat in Chennai. It is like the Star Trek Borg: Resistance is Futile. Even the refrigerators have given up and are claiming rights under the Geneva Convention. The only option is to adjust to it and find a way to learn to love it, or at least grin and bear it. And failing, that, make light of it all, ‘cause it ain’t gonna change.

It is a bunch of little changes, new rules of life you have to get used to, that make it funny. Like for example having now to plan to get chocolate – you can no longer just pick one up any ol’ where. If you want to get a chocolate bar to eat at home, you now have to arrange to get it from a store within a few blocks of your house or else it will literally melt into a puddle before you get home and you really have to buy it from a proper supermarket with a/c to even get one that is still solid enough to eat without a straw at all. It is accepting new inconveniences like that the power goes out twice as often these days and that you can really no longer get or buy anything “cold”. The best refrigerators can do is “cool” and with the frequent power cuts, you cannot rely on even that (a major consideration for buying anything perishable). So your chocolate is goo, your juice warm and your shower hot. I don’t even want to talk about ice cream…

So with these funny little things in mind, I’ve been pulling together a list of how to adapt, how you have to adapt to the summer heat in India. Enjoy!

• Have 3 showers a day. Enjoy your free hot water. I haven’t used the water heater since I’ve been back and don’t expect to for months. On the down side, after a day of work, sweaty and grimy, a solar-heated hot shower isn’t exactly what you were looking for, but that’s just the way it is.


• Be one with the fishes. The hardest I think to get used to, but the most important to mentally deal with, is that you are wet and dripping with sweat all the time. Day, night, at work, at home. It is truly amazing how much water can come out of your skin with so little work. You’re never dry. I’m about to grow gills. Hopefully it’ll help. I’ll report back.


• Walk slower. I understand fully now why people move slower in the tropics.
  Drink lots of water. Lots and lots and lots of water. My God! I can’t believe how much water I’m drinking. We’re thirsty all the time, putting back glasses like we’re doing shots.


• The IV drip backpack. That is the perfect solution to the water and salt intake challenge – just carry around your own personal, portable IV plugged into your arm. This is my grand idea, admittedly potentially born of fever, but I’m convinced it could make me millions on the convenience factor!


• Get well acquainted with your pharmacist. Talcum powder, prickly heat, fungal cream, rashes, antiseptic ointment, skin care, and things you never had or needed before become everyday occurrences.


• Dance in the afternoon thunderstorms.


• Get used to living your entire indoor life under a fan. Sleep under it, eat under it, work under it; it becomes your little column of relative comfort. What is really funny is that I finally understand what paperweights and all those stupid corporate desk objects are actually for and finally find them useful. Everyone at out office needs 3 or 4 or risks losing any paper you inadvertently set down to a jumble throughout the room.


• Half the expiry date. I don’t care if the milk says “best before” a month from now. Expect that it has been un-refrigerated without power at some point and play it safe. Buy fresh and finish everything in your fridge within the week. It is actually a healthier lifestyle anyway.


• Wear as little as possible. This is where the Indian custom of modesty and working in an office gets in the way, but at least you can sleep naked.
  Be thankful they don’t report the humidex “with the humidity, it actually feels like…” here. It feels like soup, that is what it feels like. Hot mulligatawny soup. ;-)


• Be pre-emptive about your body getting worn down. Understand that living and processing is taking more energy than before so minimize how much you stress it. It means being more careful again, considering avoiding street food, juice vendors, tap water and snacks from the wallahs again because the chance of them making you sick is just so much higher these days. I hate this one. I’ve never been good with my own advice and still break this regularly, if perhaps not quite with as much abandon as before.


• Accept that no matter what you do, you will get sick at some point. It doesn’t matter if you have an iron gut, super immune system or take acidophilus. You are not Superman. The bugs here are stronger and come in so many nice varieties. So accept your mortality.


• Sit up straight. Seats make your back sticky and wet.


• Remember that people pay a lot of money at gyms and spas for thing you experience by just going outside. Steam bath, sauna, hot rocks...you name it. I’ll even buy you a cucumber from the stall down the street to wear on your eyes.
  As it is said in the movie Dogma, “No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air.” I hate a/c, but it is a very necessary evil.


• Go on vacation. This is why the British and Moghuls before them built the hill stations. They were onto something. Join the masses of anyone who has the means to get their ass up some elevation. Sadly, I had accomplished this for April, but stupidly came back. Damn do-gooding... ;-)


• Pray for the cooling monsoon rains to come. Oh, that’s right. Tamil Nadu doesn’t get the summer monsoons. It’ll stay hot through Aug. Oh well. For everyone else in the country, monsoon just started in Kerala. Enjoy the cool…and the floods. Whoever said you could win?

But in all seriousness, know that everyone goes through it with you. Everyone looks a little wilted on those really hot days, everyone crowds around the fans at the restaurant, everyone is damp. So stop whining and learn to love it, or at least laugh at how many silly situations this presents.

For those others that have or are living here, post your tips and your own observations of the silly ridiculous things you have to do to deal. ;-)

Life in Chennai #12: Mango Season

I am in Heaven. The fruit season has changed once again and it is now mango season. Mmmnn, mangos.

Part of the streetscape here is fruit carts lining the roads with whatever is in season. First it was sweet, mini bananas on every corner. You can still get them, but their best days are past. In March it was watermelons, plump green piles and red wedges suddenly everywhere. Sadly, those have passed too, but now,in fully compensation, it is the yellow, green and red-tinge of mangos that colour the carts and shop displays.

I love mangos and am eating as much as I can – so good and so much better than anything you can get in North America. I am also discovering the many types of mangos. There is actually a mango tree just outside my window. I am conspiring on how to get through the bars and reach out far enough to grab some. There is actually a jackfruit tree down the street. I had never seen jackfruit actually on the tree before. They really are giant fruits. I wonder when their season is?

Yum!

Travelling #10: Homecoming to Chennai

I’m home. And sweating.

It is 38 degrees and 95% humidity. I think with the population of 7 million sweating, we must be pushing it up to 100. I shouldn’t whine though. Actually, outside, with a breeze, it isn’t too bad in the shade if you’re stationary. But I’m at work and the power is out, so no a/c, no fans and no breeze, where I’m sweating just thinking (with an obvious solution therefore presented). Ah India, welcoming me home! A week ago I was standing above 6000m with a bitingly dry wind at -15 and now here I am at sea level, 95% humidity and pushing 40 degrees. Quite the change.

I realise that I have slowly lost some of my adaptations and resistances while away. I am finding it will be a few days before that slight fraying of nerves at the constant chaos and bump of bodies goes away. But I smile at the remembered charms I always liked. I missed the bumblebee-coloured rickshaws and I missed my masala dosa. I missed good Indian chai as the touristy places in Thamel in Kathmandu were hit and miss with it (I blame the indiscriminating tourists). I missed my housemates and our lovely maid, who was apparently quite upset Monday morning when she discovered I hadn’t arrived on Sunday as planned and worried I was lost (so nice!). I missed the wallahs everywhere and I missed the lushness of Chennai – say what you will about its grime and dirtiness, it is at least a very green city with palm trees and flowering plants everywhere. I sit eagerly staring out of the auto on the way to work soaking it all back in.

So it is back to India for another 6 months and back to re-start my project. It has been nice to be off travelling and trekking and meeting people (and I promise to get more stories up on that soon), but it is also exciting to be getting back to work and back to doing what I’ve set my career as doing. I’m excited to restart the learning curve 2.0 and to start Tamil lessons (supposed to have been arranged while I was away, fingers crossed). After 6 months, who knows – my visa lets me stay here until mid-October when I may be doing this all again... We’ll see.

Travelling # 9: Ah, India, I Love Ya…

The waiter has just convinced me to have a second beer. Apparently they just got in a new batch of “chilled” bottles. That is enough to sway me from my requested coffee under the logic that the coffee can still be had after. Although I don’t really intend on to drink it fast enough to take advantage of its refrigerated state, a cold beer sounds nice. “Cold” is a relative term because in India, nothing is every really refrigerated to the state of cold. It really is only possible to get something mildly cool. So I drink my mildly cool beer and rapidly melting ice cream. I’m treating myself.

It has been a long day and it’s not over yet. It is 2am Sunday night (and 28 degrees outside) and I’m at the Delhi Airport 24h restaurant hanging out because it gives me something to do other than doze unsuccessfully in the transit lounge. I’ve got until 4am before I change to the domestic terminal and start to check-in with my new ticket reservation. As there was not one at the airport, it did not make sense to get and pay for a hotel room for less than 4 hours of sleep so I am stuck practicing my patience.

My flight was delayed from landing because of “weather and air traffic” at Delhi International for long enough that we had to divert to an alternate airport and refuel before rejoining the queue. So we landed 4h late and I missed my connection to Chennai. Not being another that night, here I am stuck until morning. Maybe it was because the new Airbus A380, the new Super-Jumbo, had landed touring the airport, but that would be a rather ironic. I think the airport was just behind because it gets that way.

I’m not down 5 minutes when I know unmistakeably I’m back in India. India is unlike anywhere else and it reminds you of that from the moment you land. Whether it is the pushing and hurrying to get through any line or off the plane to the colourful accents and friendly smiles whiling doing so, India immediately welcomes me back with all her charms. We get off the plane to heat a good 15 degrees hotter than when I got on. On the tram from the plane a man obliviously stands close enough to me to be a blanket despite there being a large space in front of him. I smile to myself: lack of personal space – check! Standing in line at customs a different man crams up so close behind me he could rest his chin on my shoulder: do not queue except by sheer force – check!

I track down the Air Sahara desk and start the laborious process and negotiation to get put on another flight. It is not that they are unhelpful or unwilling per se to get me a new ticket, it is more that unless I force them, their goal is to avoid the hassle and not to do anything. Indian bureaucracy is amazing at giving the air of being really, really busy and making you feel like you are asking the world when you are only asking what is normal. Sometimes you’ll get that “tisk” suffering-style air, often they’ll happily and cheerfully help you do something, anything else other than get what you want, but in either case, they through years of training and upbringing, make it as difficult as possible. Thankfully I got the cheery types.

The first guy usefully concludes after I explain my situation and showing him my ticket, “you missed your flight.” Yes. I know this. That is why I’m here. I need a new flight I explain. Hmmn, he ponders, giving the impression I’ve asked him something odd he is not qualified for (which is ridiculous, this being the “Help and Reservation” desk).

There is a short diversion where they helpfully almost get me to go to the domestic terminal (and hence become someone else’s problem) and I have to come back. They use the other classic tactic of suddenly creating a “hurry, hurry” rush where they indicate that if I get to the domestic terminal quickly, something miraculous might happen. I nearly fall for it, but come to my senses before getting a taxi there (Rs 100) when I ask if there are actually any flights tonight I should be hurrying for (No).

Eventually, and still very nicely, between 3 of them, they start to help. I’m asked to wait and my practiced, Indian-honed patience is put back to the test. I can do this. I’ve already survived 5 months and the visa process. These things happen, flights get delayed all the time everywhere, but these guys make it as painfully slow a process as possible.

3 hours later (4 since I landed), I’ve got a new reservation, but still no ticket. Apparently the computers were down for a while and they had to call Mumbai to arrange it. They can’t print a ticket, but assure me I can get one at the domestic counter when I arrive. I’m dubious, but this is the best I can do and they are closing as it is midnight. So I’ve got 4 hours to kill. Yeah for the 24h restaurant instead of the lounge.

Up in the restaurant, I pull of my shoes (the flip flops were the lighter to pack) and settle into a reasonably comfortable seat-couch with my ipod and snacks: little joys of coffee, 2 beers, lamb curry, French fries and ice cream.

4am I catch the shuttle to the domestic. I get bumped through 4 windows and 2 airlines (my original flights were on Air Sahara, but my new one is on Jet Airways, apparently now the same company) before finding myself in front of a senior man who’s name I’ve got written on my well-marked up e-ticket paper who apparently can endorse my ticket. I was getting nervous with all the passing of the buck (and hate being that buck), but despite a fair bit of travel from one side of the airport to the other, it hasn’t taken that long (they were at least efficient at passing the buck…). The man, with a long queue in front of him endorses it with a minimal of story and I apparently can now check in with this. OK. I’ll try it. But my luck holds and I don’t have much trouble at the desk and with a boarding pass in hand, I nearly run to the security before someone changes their mind. The Indian way of doing things, with a hierarchical ultimate decision-maker rather than any sort of efficient and transparent system, always leaves you uncertain, but does eventually work if you’re persistent, friendly and persistent…

One of the bizarre thing about South Asian airports is the security checks – they are both annoyingly numerous and worrying inconsistent. First you have to submit your bag through an x-ray machine to even get into the airport and an assault-rifle armed security guard sternly inspects your ticket. None of the staff appear to be monitoring the x-ray machine closely or have time to spot much before they are through, but benefit of the doubt I suppose. They then tie or wrap or sticker your luggage indicating that it has been scanned. The idea is that you now cannot open it without ruining the marking, but this only works for normal suitcases. Bags, backpacks and odd-shaped parcels with their multiple openings totally blow this measure. My trekking partner Harsh for example went the whole trek with the “security scanned” wrapping on his backpack without it doing any measurable inconvenience to him loading and unloading its contents. Oh well.

You next go through the normal security screen except they don’t seem to use the metal scanners they’ve got, rather manually wanding every passenger. At the Kathmandu airport they open and inspect everyone’s carry-on baggage manually despite having x-rayed it (now twice). So what was the point of the x-ray? He pulls everything out of my backpack and shoves it back making me thankful I didn’t bring back any fragile gifts. They stamp the sticker on your bag to say they have been scanned. This is checked several times. Then the Kathmandu airport outdoes it all when at the stairway to the plane, the airline now repeats the scanning and bag inspecting process. Where do they think we all came from? We only just got through the security into the small waiting lounge! I shudder to think the security is that lax that they need to inspect everyone again so soon. But inspect they do and again my bag, like everyone’s is dug through and emptied. At least at every checkpoint I get a compliment on my hat, racking up another 7 between Kathmandu and Chennai. Such is travel these days. Gotta smile. At least the meals were decent, so there’s one up over the Canadian carriers.

Homeward bound, albeit a little slower than hoped, but I make it. India ho!

Travelling #5: Leaving for Nepal

I've got my backpack on full of hiking gear, a long sleeve layer on against the chill of the airplane aircon and my Tibetan cowboy hat, all foreign items to my daily life: my gear has sat unpacked under my bed, I haven't worn long-sleeves against the cold since I arrive in India. So I feel a bit odd with it all. But good weird, because it means I'm moving.

Goodbye sticky Chennai. Nepal here I come!

People seem to really like my cowboy hat. Both security check personnel in Chennai and my connection in Delhi specifically ask me about it and where I got it, saying they like it. A fellow traveller strikes up a conversation from it as it apparently looks like it is from Australia. Funny! I should wear it more often except it is far too hot to wear in south India.

It is super early. I was up at 4am and hadn't slept well, but the Chennai airport is quite small and pretty painless to get through. I nap on the plane.

Killing my stop-over in Delhi over lunch, my last meal in India is Subway. I feel a little about it, like such a lazy foreigner, but after 5 months nearly completely healthy, I actually came down with a stomach bug of some sort on the weekend and am feeling pretty tender, my appetite is gone and strong tasting food makes me feel somewhat ill. So simple, comforting food is the order of the day unfortunately. It doesn't really matter of course as I'm not exactly picky, I barely eat 1 western-style meal a month, if that and of course airport food of any nationality will be universally poor and unauthentic (although the dim sum at the Hong Kong airport restaurant was surprisingly excellent). And of course, I'm coming back, so it isn't a last meal really.

But it funny what little guilts strike you. You can feel not Christian enough, not Jewish or Hindu enough, you can feel not Indian or not Canadian enough, not patriotic, loyal or pious enough. For some reason, sometimes I worry about not being integrated enough, giving enough, hard core enough. Plight of the development worker I suppose. Most of us will fall prey to guilt over meeting some imagined or real standard or other I suppose in our work, personal and community lives. So there you go, eating Subway in India, even once in a blue moon is mine. Of course it also stems from a deep pleasure in eating diverse and interesting, rich foods such that I am disappointed when I miss an opportunity.

The exception to my non-Western food rule though is bakery. Travelling to Pondicherry with my mom and sister I rediscovered the joys of good croissants and buns filled with yummy stuff and really good breads. There are several in Chennai too so I think I will have to add a bakery run to my weekly schedule. No guilt for tasty things.

The food thoughts, stomach tenderness and exploration continues through my first few days in Kathmandu. I eat Nepalese momos on rooftop patios. Most the restaurants serve the eclectic mix familiar to backpackers the world over - global favorites of pizza, European soups, Chinese noodles, "sizzlers", pepper steaks, chicken cordon bleu, the Indian standards of butter chicken, tikka and tandoori. You can get muesli for breakfast nearly anywhere in the world despite no one I've ever met eating it at home. They have some good bakery here too. I'm totally on a bakery kick. I drink a lot of Nepalese (milk, masala) chai and banana lassis.

The tourist district of Thamel in Kathmandu has a strong familiarity to it: its twisting maze of streets cramped with signs and advertising stretching up 3 stories, the wall-to-wall traveler-oriented shops, the global "fusion" cuisine restaurants, competing music every dozen feet and of course all the kitch. It suggests a half-dozen other major backpacker meccas worldwide where travelers linger, socialize and put down temporary roots rather than just pass through. And as such has evolved that peculiar, foreign-yet-familiar mix of shops and services: craft and curios stalls and shops that spill out onto every street, clothing shops that are not representative of any original culture, but more the global "backpacker chic" and hawkers and touts trying to strike up conversations with "just look Sir". Restaurants that cater to global cuisine and always seem to sell muesli, sit shoulder with nightclubs, moneychangers, CD shops and Internet cafes. Bicycle rickshaws and taxis slowly weave the narrow, clogged streets hoping for custom (it is actually much faster to walk given the crowds). With a few differences, it could be Khao San Rd in Bangkok or much of Goa to name just two other stops. But its familiarity and pace is comforting and enjoyable right now as I too linger on my way through.

What have I been doing? Not much actually: wandering the narrow streets, dodging the bike rickshaws, soaking in the atmosphere, reading on rooftops, drinking lots of Nepalese chai. I've spend a morning standing in line at the Indian Consulate - getting a visa requires 2 all-morning waits, one to drop off the telex, another to pick it up and submit the visa, then a shorter, 3rd visit that afternoon to pick it up. I go back tomorrow. At least I'll know most of the line to chat with, half the line from Tues meeting back again to collect. I've spend a couple afternoons getting plans laid for my trek and mountaineering excursion. I haven't been inspired really visit the sites of Kathmandu. I should, but have been really enjoying the slow pace and a chance to consider "ambitious" plans to be buying route maps and browsing for trinkets to bring back to my housemates in between a long lunch and lazy dinner.

Funny enough, my cowboy hat is going over well here too. Here is a pic from when I was in Tibet. I just spent 15 minutes chatting with an Indian expat shop-owner on the street about what we each are doing here after he asked to try on my hat to see how it looked with his jeans and boots (good look actually, I recommended he request a hat from any guide friends heading to Lhasa). It gives the hawkers one more way to get me to stop and talk to them (about their wares), but I'm happier being distinctive and enjoying random conversations at the cost of a little more bother.

So welcome to Kathmandu, if you spot me in my cowboy hat on the patio, join me for a beer or a chai...

Where am I?

Alright folks, sorry for the delay in postings, but I've put my project into holding mode and have packed off for a week visit from my family, showing them around the Chennai area, and then for a month vacation in Nepal to renew my visa.

So greetings from Kathmandu!

I've escaped the building sticky Chennaiyan heat and have leaped to cooler climes and higher altitude. I suspect though that stilling on my ass in thick, sea-level Chennai won't help my trekking here, but under the principle of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I hold dimly to the prospect that dealing with the traffic pollution has increased my lung capacity. ;-)

I promise to post some more stuff about my adventures here as I can and will eventually post a whole pile of pics on my flickr account of impossibly high mountains.

Cheers and have a good April!