Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport may be the most decayed airport in India.  The fleet of ancient Hindustan Ambassador taxis in Kolkata may be the most desperate vehicles on earth.  And the  Rajuhar road may have more potholes than any other road still called "New", but I was sure glad to be back in Kolkata last week.

Morning fog and football stadium in Kolkata

I had some problems with my flight up, but as they were entirely caused by my own ineptness I will not go into the details.  The perogative joy of owning this blog.

Departure Gate at Hyderabad Airport, since this post is about Kolkata I will have to tell that story later.

I arrived a few hours late at the office.   Since I was last there a year ago the size of the team there has grown substantially.   Most of the people in Kolkata are people that I was not involved in hiring, and I have not had a chance to work with most of them.  They are all talented and energetic and I will now how some opportunities to work with them in the near future.

It was a quick visit, just enough time for a one-on-one meeting with each of the people there, a team meeting and a thank you lunch at a great place called "Plates of Fame".   I had misunderstood and thought the name was "Plates of Flame", either name is appropriate.  It was excellent Thai food.   The lunch started off with a bowl of soup that gave many a cough, runny nose and watery eyes.  I was happy to not be the only person suffering with food that was too spicy.   After that they started bringout samples of various Thai food.   They would bring a slightly larger plate and more food.   Finally they brought a large white plate.   I said to Arnab "Wow, desert will be the largest portion".  He pointed out that this plate was for the main course.   Sometimes you just have to summon all your inner willpower and keep eating. 
 


I also partially fullfilled a promise to Arnab.   Back in 2004 when I first found out I was going to India I spent countless evenings with Arnab exploring all sorts of possible travel destinations and learning essential wisdom about travel in India.   All he asked was that I buy him dinner at a good restaurant on Park Street in Kolkata if we were ever there at the same time.   As Arnab is on vacation in India this month, I was able to finally pay up.   We had an excellent meal at a great place called Peter Cat  (I had the cello kebab, best kebab I have ever had).   My 24 hour a day work schedule interupted our late night discussion, so we plotted a second dinner next year when he is back in town.

After 3 years of planning, we finally made it to Park Street.

While it was good to return home to Chennai, I am already planning my next trip to Kolkata...January 10.

Sarah came home from school on Thursday and told about how the driver had to stop the car and carry a small puppy off the road so that it wouldn't get run over.   You could hear the worry dripping from every word.

I told her that if she could find the puppy she could adopt it and nurse it back to health.

Yes, you read that right, I suggested she hunt down a skinny puppy and bring it home.

When I heard the story I thought it had happened some distance away.    In fact, Sarah and Abby returned with said puppy in a few minutes. 

Sarah did a really good job of feeding and caring for this little dog.   It was so malnourished and sick that it could hardly move.     After a while it was cautiously exploring the yard.

Over the weekend Sarah moved the dog to the roof terrace.  On Monday she went up to check on it before school.   As she was holding the dog in her arms she noticed a squad of ticks jumping off the dog onto her arm.   That marked the end of this happy, warm fuzzy story of animal love and rescue.

After Mom confirmed that she hadn't been bitten, Sarah wrapped the dog in an old towel and ran down the street, Abby running after.    They set the dog down in an empty lot and ran home fast.  

Sarah sobbed all the way to school.   I didn't ask if it was the sadness of losing the dog or of the close encounter with the ticks.

A friend of Amy's brought over the DVD on a Sunday afternoon, back in May, maybe April.  I don't recall the title, it could have been "The Secret" or "The Power".  It claimed that there was a secret energy in the universe that you tap into by vocalizing your desires.  The film claimed that all great people knew of this, Da Vinci, Newton, Churchill etc.  Gain this ability and you could achieve anything, just like Churchill.

I thought it a bunch of rubbish and left in the middle to surf the web.  As that day was Sunday I repeated a frequent wish: "I wish NPR (National Public Radio in the US) would publish a podcast of the Selected Shorts program.".  Perhaps inspired by "The Secret" I added "And have the first program contain a reading by Alec Baldwin. 

Selected Shorts is an weekly program where actors read short stories.  Years ago when I lived in Utah it was broadcast on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I would pinch baby Ian during church, making him cry so I had an excuse to go sit in the car and listen.  When I moved to Arizona 10 years ago the NPR station didn't carry the program.

In October I checked the NPR podcast list and noticed they had added Selected Shorts. The first episode I downloaded was a reading by Alec Baldwin.

That podcast and a handful of others are my link to my previous ease of life in suburban America. I imagine that every expat has something that they keep close to remind them of where they came from, or remind them that someday they will go back.  A family we know eats American food almost every meal.  Others keep a jeans and T-shirt attire, shunning the local salwars and sarees.

I am pecking out this post out on my Blackberry as I fly to Kolkata. My iPod is playing this weeks Selected Shorts, "The Initiation" By Joseph Conrad.  Sanity intact.

Shawn

UPDATE: Thanks to Gabe for pointing out that the name is "The Secret"

There is an old Zen story:  A man is chased through the jungle by a tiger.   He climbs over the edge of a cliff and hangs on to a vine, just out of reach of the tiger.   He looks down and sees another tiger below him.   Two rats start to eat away the vine he is hanging from.   He looks around and sees a ripe strawberry growing just within reach.   He eats the strawberry. . .how sweet it tastes.

I am home from work today, Amy is more sick than I have ever seen her.   She has a bad case of stomach flu.  Max has the same and Sarah has a fever.   Joshua got a sprained ankle at school last week and has a hard time getting around.

The rains are back and I noticed this morning that dozens of purple flowers have bloomed in the empty lot next to us.  A sweet garden, right outside our window.

Found an interesting video on YouTube.

Crossing the roads is like that.   I have done it a number of times holding Max or Abby or a bunch of bags.  Not fun, but no other way to get across.

I upgraded my mobile phone on Friday to a new model (Motorola SLVR L9) that supports GPRS data connections.  This provides us with Internet access at home.   It works at speeds comparable to the modem connections I thought were slow 15 years ago.  But it is a connection.    Hopefully this will allow me to post more than I have been.   It will be a couple more months until BSNL (the government phone company) gets us setup with a high speed connection.

I have received some feedback that you would like me to post more about what is going on with Amy and the kids.   I will post more, especially about Abby and Max, since they can't form a coherent objection to my posts.  As for Joshua and Sarah, I defer to the old adage that "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all".  In short, they are not too happy here.   Especially Sarah.   I am truly realizing how much of her 11 year old outlook is based on friends, especially some very good friends she left back in Arizona.   From her perspective I have taken her away from everything important and taken her to a place that has absolutely nothing to offer her.  She is not interested in adventure or cultural experiences and does not appreciate the lessons in gratitude and service we are hoping for.   For Sarah, and to a bit lesser extent Joshua, India is nothing more than a bad experience that can't end soon enough.

Amy and I are trying really hard on our new tactic of making it seem more like home.   We are trying to make home more enjoyable and give them more positive experiences.  This means we are not pushing them to try Indian food or other experiences.  We just want them to be comfortable at home and school.   We know that this is a prerequisite to appreciating India and/or enjoying the experience.  

We did foresee this as a risk, and some of you may wonder how I could be oblivious to this being the biggest problem we would encounter.  Truth is I did think this would be our biggest problem.   I thought we would be over it by now.   We are each in our own way trying to make our way through this.   I know that each of the kids will look back and appreciate their time here.  For some it may be many years from now.   Even for me the career risks and opportunities are far from certain.   I have no promise of any promotion or advance as a result of this, I expect the benefits to be ammortized over the rest of my career, hoping for opportunities opening up somewhere in the future as a result of this.   I really hope the kids will look back on this episode of their lives and say "I really hated it at first, but I am really glad we did it." 

I know that I have many supporters who will read this and want to help make it better.   I appreciate your willingness to go to great effort on our behalf.   I am not writing this as an appeal for help, just a desire to share the various challenges and experiences of our time in India.

Thanks,

Shawn

One final note.   Some have requested our mailing address, it is:

No. 11 Sea Cliff Conclave
III Drive
Akkarai, ECR, Chennai 600 119
INDIA

My email is shawnswaner AT gmail dot com

It has been a while since I posted.   I spent a long week in the US, working in Los Angeles.   My last afternoon there was spent frantically filling my suitcases with things that are impossible to get in India.   7 bricks of Tillamook, wet-wipes, a new charger for my cordless drill and saw (to replace the one I fried by accidently plugging it into a 220v outlet), soup, weather strip, caulking and a multi-meter.

That was 8 days ago.  While I was away Amy and the kids were suffering through the latest round of Murphy's Law nightmare.   We have been here for about 75 days and it seems there have been 75 disasters or problems to deal with.   The latest happened on Friday as I was leaving the US.   The city power (called "EB Power", EB stands for Electrical Board) failed.   The generator was turned on and major problems ensued.   One third of the house went dark.   Equipment in the rest of the house started going up in smoke.   Over the next 72 hours the casualty list would total the following:

• Washing Machine - Dead.
• Microwave - Dead
• Power Cord/Brick for Josh's laptop - Dead
• Amy's Printer - Dead
• Speakers for my PC - Dead
• Fan in Josh's bathroom - Dead

 A number of lights also died.   Most of the items listed above were destroyed when we plugged them in not realizing there was a problem.   On Sunday night the lights in some parts of the house were dim, barely on.  In other parts the lights were brighter then they ever had been, the ceiling fans spinning madly as if they were about to tear themselves out of their sockets.

Sometime during the night we smelled the smoke of burning electrical wires and everything went dark.  At the time we were on generator power, the EB power had failed sometime before.   The next morning i called the landlord and was very emphatic that these problems needed to be fixed immediately or we would be leaving, regardless of the terms of the lease.   I wasn't angry or rude, but Josh remarked after that I "gave Reginald the beatdown".   It worked.  The next day a group of electicians showed up.  In addition to the normal losers who would show up without tools, stand around scratching themselves then leave, he sent a guy who was obviously "the man".   He had a box full of tools, carefully checked out each part of the electrical system, then gathered the rest around and issued instructions.   They pulled out and replaced meters of wires inside the walls, and meticulously tested each circuit.

At one point there was an argument outside the front door.  I went out and asked for a translation (which is one of the more futile requests to make in this country.  All you get is a very short synopsis that is mostly a suggestion from the translator to what you should say in response).   In short, the 2 electricians from the generator company were leaving, saying that the generator was working fine.   The main electrician was saying that it wasn't.   At that time we were on generator power.  I had bought a multi-meter while in the US.  I turned around and plugged it into the outlet by the front door.

It should read 220 volts.   The generator electricians don't understand much english, but the seemed to understand "Don't go, fix generator", or they could read the obvious anger on the faces of me and the master electrician.

Some hours later we had the generator fixed.  The problem is that 2 of the 3 circuits were getting crossed in the house, creating 330volts on some circuits and 65-100 volts on others.   Both conditions are very bad for electronics.    The generator had a similar problem in that one of the circuits wasn't properly grounded.

For good measure the EB sent out three men to redo the connection from our house wiring to the power pole on the street.   They were explaining how they would have to come back later in the week when the EB power went out.   They had a short conversation and decided that since the power was out they could do the work now.    I asked one of them how they knew the power wouldn't come back on.   He replied that he didn't think it would, but "that would be bad".

The EB man climbed the pole barefoot with a stick in is mouth.  Tied to the stick was a rope that he tied around the pole so that he could stand on the stick.   He then wrapped the rest of the rope around the pole and around his waist, leaning back to tension the line.

He then disconnected the wires connecting our house to each of the three circuits and replaced them by wrapping them with new aluminum wires, the wires were only new in this use, the other EB man stripped a scrap of wire to recycle the aluminum wire.  

That was 5 days ago.  Since all this activity the electricity has worked flawlessly.   Hopefully we are past that hurdle and ready for the inevitable next problem.  We have been without a washing machine for a week, that is the next goal, to get the repair man out to have a look at it.   We are running out of clean clothes....