As I sit in front of the laptop with the blank space within the blogger frame staring back at me, I'm driven to try and grab onto the million images and thoughts flashing through the brain as I attempt to put some form and order to the kaleidoscope of experience that each day here is. What to include? What to leave out? How to order and interpret it? I could write book chapters on the wearing of the mundu (and the times that I have effectively walked out of mine, once in the street as I recalled last week and again last night, fortunately as I walked in the door of the apartment, much to Ajith's amusement), on the complete lack of order in the traffic (with everyone trying to get into and out of the same spaces at the same time, the pecking order of bus, 4WD, larger car, smaller car, auto, motorbike, pushbike, pedestrian notwithstanding), and on the contrasting sense of relative peace and calm that characterises my walks in the park. With the enormity of this task now pervading my consciousness, I begin where I left off on Friday night, before the power outage finally took all my laptop battery power).
I realise on reflection that the list I left on Friday night is fairly complete, if sparse, and so I add only a few more points, more for the sake of clarification:
After only a passing nod with Soolaimon on Thursday's walk (he was busy doing his "lung filling" exercises), I was confronted on Friday by a veritable cast of thousands (including Omar, Mohammad), introduced by Soolaimon (I got the correct spelling for his name this morning when I finally presented him with my business card and he proffered his in return; I promptly lost his card from my back pocket when I was paying for the dosas). Soolaimon (Solomon) joked that he was "father" to my Daoud (David), his own biblical reference when in our discussion we noted we are all "children of the book".
A common theme to emerge from conversations, whether with Soolaimon, our retired protestant minister, or our Sikh friend Amarjit (whose store I visited yesterday, see below) is that much more could be done in Kochi (and Kerala and India more generally) if it weren't for the corruption of government at all levels, as reflected in the poor quality of the infrastructure. For example, there were many more walkers in the park, so they all said, before the park was dug up to run an oil pumping and refuelling line to and from the harbour. The park is now dirty and, indeed, "dug up" (as earlier photos show). The work has been going for a year and there appears to be no end in sight. Other work being done in the park as part of a beautification programs suffers from the continuing construction work and, in any event, is itself shoddy (as loose slabs and mortar filling is pointed to, by way of further example).
I noted that Thursday's walk was more ennervating than energising, as a result of the strength sapping humidity. Friday's walk and yesterday's perambulation were less so, with higher cloud cover and the occasional whispers of wind contributing to the natural cooling processes. Today started off like Thursday, but with a fairly consistent light wind, it was an interesting mix until about half way through my three laps of the park, when it began to rain, moving fairly quickly from intermittent drops to heavy drizzle (light rain?). I learned this morning the difference between the heavy monsoons (from June to August) and the light monsoons (from September to November). I think the two are defined by how quickly one is drenched to the bone - with the heavy monsoons, this can happen within one hundred metres; while it rained consistently this morning, I still had patches of dry t-shirt under my arms by the time I arrived back at the apartment.
I wrote earlier about my classification of the different types of walkers one meets on the circuit. On Thursday, I met the archetype of the "determined avoider" - walking in opposite directions on my three laps, we passed each other six times; six times he was eyes down and "I know you're there but I'm not looking!" I continue meet up with examples of the other types fortunately - the gang around Soolaimon, for example, are very much enthusiastic greeters - and for them and their smiles, I am grateful.
Things are happening in the KIBS sphere of influence (we have moved to cement our name as the Kochi International Business School and have won approval from the ERNET organisation for registration of the kibs.ac.in and kibs.edu.in domains, which will place us very firmly in the correct domain context for our institution, program offerings and research aspirations. We have all the joys and jitters of a start-up organisation, especially in terms of the multiskill requirements, driven by the "broadbanding" of job responsibilities. Yesterday, I got to be branding expert, sign writer, graphic designer, corporate strategist, IT guy and CD burner, often all at the same time. We're sorting out our web design, hosting and general marketing strategy at the same time as the building work is taking place (I hope they don't ask me to live up to my name as "foundation dean" and start digging :-); the photos on my facebook site show an interesting interpretation of what passes for Occupational Health and Safety regulation here in Kochi, so I'm not interested in climbing on the load bearing pillars either). It poured rain on Friday afternoon but because the next part of the first floor slab has to be poured on Sunday, the boys worked through it without complaint. Yesterday they were very close to all the necessary steel reinforcement being in place (all individually wired, rather than being brought in by crane - this is a very low tech approach to building and construction).
We're looking at a kind of "pilot testing" of our promotion program and so it looks like I'm off to Mumbai and Pune when I come back from Phoenix in November - we're seeing if we can coordinate our web site, advertising, travel and presentation/meeting itineraries on a small scale before we do the big push in the January to April period. All the advertising by the business schools and IIMs at the moment is focussed on the CAT (Common Admission Test) to be held on 18 November (it is held only once per year for the following academic year, beginning in June). The advantage of the GMAT, of course, is that it can be done at any time during the year. I hope this also means that, once the other schools have exhausted their advertising budgets, our own advertising will take place in a relatively uncluttered context.
I wore the mundu to work on Friday and again yesterday - it was too hot to do otherwise and it is certainly much cooler than wearing trousers. Having been tutored by Able in the proper "dressing" of the mundu, I haven't had too much trouble keeping it on, whether getting up after sitting down for extended periods or getting in and out of the auto or cars. I can do a passable imitation of hooking it up above my knees for walking (and, of course, keeping it out of the mud on the rainy days), but I also have to be conscious of being seen to be the Dean (as Raju would put it), so I guess I will wear it less often than I would prefer.
At the same time, my continuing diet of chappathi, with a variety of vegetarian sauces continues to make a contribution to the weight loss stakes (not to mention my blood sugar, which has been consistently under 5.0 for the last three weeks) but I have to confess that I'm naughty with tapioca chips and straws, and Cadbury's Fruit and Nut chocolate from time to time. Have only had a couple of glasses of wine, once, in the last several weeks (at the Grand Hotel at dinner with Freeda and Ajith last Sunday evening). As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I bought a bottle of Grovers cabernet shiraz about a week and a half ago, but it's still sitting on the shelf in the kitchen waiting to be opened.
Last night on the way home from the office, Ajith and I dropped in to visit Mr Amarjit Singh of JK Enterprises in his Banerjee Road store to keep a promise I had made to him earlier in the day when we were walking in the park. Mr Singh was a most gracious host, giving us a tour of the store and then offering us tea and biscuits, as he showed us the photo of him and Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister of India and a relative, but he doesn't tell that too much to people because he doesn't want a long line of petitioners taking up his time). It turns out that we (KIBS) bought our board table at Mr Singh's RoomScapes store, so unbeknowns to me, we already had a relationship!
Jill asked me what I was doing for cooking here and my answer to her probably bears repeating:
Cooking is shared between the Imperial Restaurant (across the road), Gokul (much better food, but a 25 minute round trip walk away) and Fry's (nearby the School for lunch). Breakfast costs 12 rupees (plain dosa) or 15 rupees (masala dosa); lunch is 38 rupees (veg masala and 3 chappathi) or 54 rupees (veg biryani and 1 litre bottle of water); dinner varies between a mixture of chilli gobi, gobi masala, veg curry, with chappathi, roti or naan (60 to 100 rupees). Noting the 35 rupees to the Oz dollar exchange rate, I don't think I need worry about cooking for a bit :-)
That being said, neither the Imperial's owner nor his son, Prajid, were to be seen this morning and so I had to negotiate with one of his non-English speaking colleagues. Given my sodden appearance from the rainy walk, the lads were hesitant but I was confident that this would be a straightforward "Masala dosa parcel, please". So far so good, but now the boys had a problem - no masala for the dosa (we worked this out in a series of words equally unintelligible to each other - mine in English, his in Malayalam). We resolved the matter straightforwardly though by my simply requiring two plain dosas, which I greedily devoured on returning to the apartment.
Ajith just dropped in with a friend of his who is looking to do business in Kochi (I was sitting here in mundu, Scotsman style, when they arrived, not anticipating seeing him until 4.30pm (an hour later) when he is coming to pick me up for church. It is a good example of the difference in the sense of what is "privacy" between Australia and India - it didn't occur to Ajith that he might call before he came over; they were nearby and he wanted to introduce me to his friend. I really like Ajith, especially his quiet graciousness and his wonderful, dry, understated sense of humour. As we struggled through the traffic on MG Road last night, Ajith explained that the crush was the same every Saturday night, as people tried to get to the movie theatre for the latest release. Last night the movie was "Chocolate". Next week, Ajith said, the movie would be "Eclair"! Spurred on by my chuckling response, he listed the next four weeks' movies as Dessert, Coffee, Tea, and Sandwiches (not everyone's "cup of tea", but those who know me would be nodding at my enjoyment of Ajith's punniness).
Now it's time to get ready for church.
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