Jan 31st: The Taj Mahal

Guess what I had for breakfast - a donut, a real one with sugar. Its a pretty western oriented hotel so there is the full of continental breakfasts and I give in and have one. I do have an Indian breakfast as well. I give the sausage bacon and egg a miss as well as i'll be able to have that any time I want when I go back. One other dish they have is a "Scottish Chicken Stew". I didn't know we had them, let alone they were for breakfast, so definitely dodge that.

I'm meeting my driver at 10.00 to go for a days sight seeing. It also includes a free local guide as well which will be good.

We meet up and go to the Taj Mahal. With Local knowledge we go to the south entrance as it is never as busy as the east or west entrances. It is closed on Fridays as well, thank goodness I cam today I would have been gutted to not get in.

What a place, it is like a fairytale it really is. You walk through the entrance and then go through another gatehouse before you can see it. You can start to see bits of it as you approach the second gate but you can't see it all before you go though.

I literally got goosebumps when I saw it. The work, detail and materials that went into it are unbelievable.

What you see when you get through the gatehouse.

I took over 100 pictures of it as you can't help yourself. How they built it so perfectly and precisely over 400 years ago defies belief. They thought of every detail, such as the four corner towers, they lean slightly outwards. The reason why is that if there were an earthquake the and the towers fell they would likely fall away from the main building.

You can go right inside and see where the King and queen are buried, you are no longer allowed down into the crypt but can walk around the entire building.

At the back is the holy river, it is where many Muslims ashes are scattered. The Taj Mahal was built mainly by Muslims from Iran. So the first thing they build was a huge Mosque to pray in and then built the Taj Mahal and then a building that is identical to the Mosque but was used as a guest house.

The Taj Mahal and the Mosque beside it.A view of the Taj Mahal from inside the guest house.

Having a guide was great as he was able to explain many of the details that would pass you by if you did not know them. If you are ever lucky enough to visit then get a guide I would recommend it.

At the back, the north side, the king started to build another Taj Mahal, this one was to be in black.

However, the King's son imprissoned the King to stop it from happening as it would bankrupt them. The king lived in the Agra Fort for the last eight years of his life. It was not a jail he still had splendid apartments.

My gudes, Ali, showed me how the showers worked in the apartments.

We spend over an hour there just walking around and hearing about the story. You just can't stop taking pictures though.

After that we went to Agra fort, it is massive and most of it is till used by the Indian Army so you can only access a small part of it. It has two moats around it, a dry one and a wet one. Thy dry one would have had many tigers in it and the wet one would have had crocodiles in it. Thankfully both are now empty. Many people, prisoners and criminals mostly would be hung at the castle and end up in one of the moats afterwards.

It was never successfully breached as far as my guide knew. The only way in was through the front door and it was long and thin and you would have boiling oil poured on you if you went that way.

After driving round and seeing all the sights that I wanted to we went for lunch. Now I had a small worry at lunch as I had read a story, in the Lonely Planet, of a food poisoning scam in Agra that happened. The restaurants would slip something in your food and you would need a doctors help. Your meducal insurance would then be heavily billed for it. Hopefully I'll be ok.

After all of that I have come back to the hotel and am relaxing in my room. I've found a channel showing the football. I've watched the Man City game and I am now watching the Arsenal game.

I may even have a beer later.

I am so glad I got to see the Taj Mahal.

I'm going back to delhi tomorrow morning and then back to Madurai for my last few days.

TTFN.

Jan 30th: Travel Hell

I spend a bit of time in the office in the morning saying goodbye to people and then head of to the airport. A delay at the airport as I have to wait for a pair of glasses to take back to Vasanth from Diljo.

I also go to see Diljo and Manju's house and spend a bit of time there which is very nice. I'm over fed again. Its nice to see how the chaos of the city is actually lived in. It is amazing how noisy the streets are but once you get off them then the peace and quiet can be found. I've been getting a good few cooking tips from Manju so look out when I get back.



And then the travel hell starts to kick in. The flight is delayed for an hour or so but eventually takes off. The airline is called kingfisher, yes the same people who make the beer :-). Now would you travel on Tennants airline? They are all very new planes and have screens in the seats. One thing that you can do is watch a channel that is linked to a camera that is pointing out of the front osf the plane. Very cool, thankfully didn't see any birds :-)

When we land I've got to do a quick dash to the train station, I ended up sharing a taxi with an Australian lady as we both were at the prepaid taxi counter at the same time. This is a very good system as you pay for the taxi before ever getting in. Otherwise there is a pretty good chance of been giving a far more interesting and costly route around the city.

We get to the station about 20 minutes before the train leaves. This is where the chaos starts. There has been very bad fog in Delhi that has severely disrupted the trains, so much so that the train to Agra from yesterday has not left yet and todays has been canceled.

Oh hell, a very helpful man tells me that I need to go to the tourist office and they will help sort me out, another prepaid taxi.

I get to the office just befre they close. There are other trains but they are full. Damn, what about flights, nope they are all gone. So.... I end up renting a car for a couple of days to go to Agra.

Its not as dangerous as it sounds, the car comes with a driver.

Diljo I didn't tell you this when we spoke on the phone as I didn't want to worry you but I have made it safe and sound.

So we are diving to Agra, its 220 km. and after 2 hours we have done 25 of them, rushour in Delhi is pretty slow. We eventually get out of the city and drive up. We stop for a snack at a resteraunt about half way up. I just have a samosa as I'm just not sure about the place.

At about midnight we get to the hotel, its very nice. I've got a bag ful of dirty laundry that they will wash for a reasonable rate so I hand it all in. As long as I get it back before I leave.

I get it all before breakfast.

So I'm here in Agra and going to see the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort. Can't wait.

Jan 29th: Eye Test

So what should you do if you are in an eye hospital for four weeks? Answer, get your eyes tested of course.

I wanted to see what it was like as a patient. It took a few minutes to persuade the MLOP's that I was serious and they had to treat me the same as every body else. So I paid my 100 rupees and sat down.

I think I was immediatly placed at the top of the queue as I was called before everyone else which I felt a bit bad about. Most of the tests went well until the Glaucoma one, my eye pressure is fine but they wanted to dilate my pupils to get a better look at my retina, gulp. So I was referred to the specialist and she explained that there was nothing to worry about but it might be something to get checked out at alater date. I didn't get dilated as it would have rendered me pretty much useless for the rest of the day (no change I hear you shout).

We had our big presentation today to Dr. Aravind so all the heads of department had to present, along with the hospital administrator and other department heads. This was an important meeting so I assigned people to be timekeepers and recorders while I was going to be the facilitator. We got through it all in 55 minutes and everyone seemed pretty happy. Noone, myslef included, believed that we managed to get through it all so well as it had the potential to still be running. Lots of approval of what we have been trying to do.

I did notice that the doctors hold a certain sense of fear or respect of Dr. Aravind as they were all very formal looking in the white coats which I had not seen when they were meeting with me. No respect I tell you.

I got an email from Sandra from Adopt A business today saying that the Financial Times had run an article on Adopt a business you can check it out at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/738f4548-ed57-11dd-88f3-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

It was my last night in Lucknow so we went out for dinner, my treat. We went back to the same restaurant and had probably my best ever Indian meal. We had a chicken dish that was a take on a Chinese dish, some fish tikka which was amazing. Aloo Gobi Mattar (potatoes, cauliflour and peas) and a Paneer (cheese) dish. Served with lots of butter nan. Yup, the weight is just falling off me, ha ha.

We rounded it off with a mutton biryani. I made a bit of a startling discovery at this point. I had had a few mutton curries so far in India and I had enjoyed every one of them. We were eating it and I was enjoying the mutton chop that I was chewing away on when I asked about the age that you called Lamb lamb and sheep mutton in India. Lots of confused looks.

"Surely you know that a young sheep is called a lamb and after a certain age it is now called
mutton" I said.

"Why are you talking about sheep" they said.

"Coz I'm eating mutton, which everyone knows is an old sheep" I replied.

"Maybe in you country pal" they said (general gist I'm paraphrasing). "Everyone in India would know that mutton is GOAT!!).

Oh....... hmmm...

Now, I've got a big mouthful of one of the three billy goat's in my mouth at this point. All of a sudden I thought that my so far success in the food stakes was going to be undone. It definitely
gave me a bit of a fright for a second. I think it was because I found out about it mid mouthfull.

I've eaten plenty of strange things in my life, sea urchin, zebra etc. Even an old fashioned Pizza supper in Glasgow, which if you know how they used to make them you will understand.

The goat is very good, I thought it tasted a little different though.

I'm traveling up to Agra Tomorrow which I'm really looking forward to.

TTFN

Jan 28th: Lucknow

Today was one of our first presentations to the whole hospital, or as many as we could get together, it was to introduce the first topic to the group on better approach to meetings and decision making in meetings. I feel it was very well received but the famous 'Indian Head Wobble' is very confusing for a westerner, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Some questions were asked which is a good sign and several people asked for the materials afterwards.

It is very entertaining to interact with the nurses they are all very young and giggle terribly whenever I say anything, I think they remember how much pain I was in on the chili fiasco. They generally start working for Aravind hospitals when they are 17. They leave their homes, often in villages and move to Madurai for the first year to be trained. After that there are a further two years of training before they are fully qualified. Taking the girls that young is hard for the girls but it allows them to be better educated and have a career. If they were to stay at home, for the most part, they would have to be working and would unlikely receive no further education.

They have an awful lot to do with the success of the hospital, without the nurses (or MLOP's as they are called) the surgeons would not be able to be as productive as they are.

It is funny being addressed as Sir all the time, either good morning or afternoon. I think that I would like to carry this on when I get home. Do you hear that ladies, ha ha.

A birthday celebration was had at the end of the presentation, actually looking back that explains why everyone came they knew that they had to listen to me but were promised cake afterwards hmm.

My phone needed to be topped up again so an excuse for another adventure in a phone shop. Its a pay as you go phone so I thought that you would be able to buy a scratch card from anywhere and use it. You can but only in the state that you bought the phone in. So thats like buying a phone in Scotland but not being able to recharge it in England. You have to get to an easy charge center. Thankfully Diljo and Kanagaraj came with me so were able to sort it out.

We went out for dinner at night, myself, Diljo, Kanageraj and Biswajit. We went to a hotel that had a really good restaraunt and had a bit of a boys time. Some pictures for you.

I had a couple of beers tonight, their Lager is really really good and pretty strong, up to eight % in a 650 ml bottle!! There is Kingfisher and Howards 5000 (I think it was) but they were really good so I go to bed a little fuzzy for the first time in a few weeks.

On the way there I finally saw a traffic accident. In fact I was in one. We were turning into the hotel, our indicator was on and we had started to turn. All of a sudden a bit of a thump as someone on a moped decided that he could do an Indiana Jones through the quickly shrinking gap on our lefthand side. THUNK. There was no way that he was going to make it. Thankfully the speeds are generally pretty slow so no major harm done but he was well pissed off.

I see that the traffic on the web site has calmed down to real values. So it looks like the culprit has got bored of messing with my head.

TTFN

Jan 27th: I will walk five hundred miles.

I'm alive and well and clearly have a pretty string constitution!!! The MurrAlfie scale has been shelved at the moment and is growing dust by the day.

I went out for a meal by myself and to do a little exploring tonight. I don't have a key for the guesthouse so between the Caretakers passable English and my non existent Hindi I think the arrangement was that I should stay out until 10. although it may have been something else.

Anyway off I set and walked up to what appeared to be one of the main streets. Now Lucknow is huge the population could be larger than Scotland by quite a margin so I wasn't going to make much of a dent on it. I walked for about an hour and a half dodged some cars, bikes and the usual traffic. I then needed to cross the road. This was not going to be easy as it was non stop and going pretty fast.

After what seemed a while I was beginning to think I was stuck until a cow came to my rescue. Now I don't know if it was watching my plight but it literally walked up beside me and then started to cross the road. I crossed beside it safe as no one will hit a cow in India. At the other side of the road we went our separate ways. So if you are ever planning a trip to India pack a cow suit in your bag or bring an inflatable one for emergency road crossing help.

I went to a different restaurant for dinner. When I sat down I noticed that I had missed a call from Diljo. I think everyone was worried that I would get lost. No problems there though as I had committed every turn so to memory.

I ordered my meal, and the waiter tried to talk me out of it as it was going to be too spicy for me. Bring it on!!! I think they tamed it down for me though as it was really quite mild. Unless I've turned into a curry monster.

In the Lucknow hospital I have noticed the the general food is much spicier than what I have been getting in Madurai. I am eating in the doctors and nurses canteen so it is standard Indian food which is good to see. It is all very good but I've reversed back to using a spoon as its taking too long to eat with my fingers.

While I was out walking I went into the Sony shop to see how the prices compared to the UK. They ended up pretty much the same for flat screen tv's.

I got back to the guest house pretty tired as I had as long a walk back as I had taken out.

Its now Tuesday and I have lots of work to do before Thursday for out big presentation.

So I worked on the spread sheet for a while to make sure all the numbers add up.

Did I mention that I have got two pigeons living inside the AC unit in the window? What a racket.!!

TTFN.

Jan 26th: my first day in Lucknow.

Hello everyone, I have made it safely to Lucknow. don't have any reliable access to the internet at the guest house so I have been lapse in keeping the blog updates. Sorry about that but I'm back on track.

In Lucknow many of the public own guns, which is a little alarming, as we have been shown so many pictures over the last few years of gun-toting ne-er do wells from Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other places. On my first morning walk to work all of a sudden I bumped into someone with a gun that desperate Dan would have been happy with. Just about brought on a toilet trauma there and then. We traveled up through Lucknow to the office. Lucknow is a huge mix of old and new. Parts are as high tech as anywhere. Other parts look like a film set for a jungle scene out of a jungle movie or a Disneyland set with these beautiful old buildings that have now been overtaken by vines and general wear and tear.

The purpose of this visit is to work at one of the Managed Eye Hospital in Lucknow. A managed hospital is one that is funded by a family or business, in this case it is the Indira Gandhi family. Indira Gandhi was the Indian Prime Minster who was assassinated in 1984. I can't believe that's how long ago it was as I remember it. It is a much newer hospital and has only been open for 8 months.

One of the things that we are doing is to finalize the tracking work that we are trying to implement. I had a kind of brainwave that we could add a little IBM Rational look and feel to the data adding some symbols used to denote status in some of our projects. I thought that we could use a high level traffic light view, green for good,yellow for ok, red for bad. Turns this is not a good choice. Using traffic lights in a country with little or no road rules is not one of the best suggestions I've ever come up with :-)

While experimenting with the spreadsheets I started dusting down my excel scripting techniques to make traffic lights appear, change color etc. Geeky as anything but there
you go. It ended up being harder to explain what I had done than to implement so we made a pretty logical switch to use some charts.

Onto to food now, I've been telling everyone here that the food has not been as spicy as I thought it would. At lunch I got my comeuppance. I was given a salad with a rather ominous raw
chili on it. Oh hell, took a bite out of the end. OK that wasn't too bad, in fact that was fine. Took a slightly larger bite and got to where the seeds were. For about 10 seconds I was basking in my glory as an accomplished chilli eater. All of a sudden , HOLY MOTHER OF JUDAS PRIEST $$%%^^&%£"!!! what the monkey flicker is happening. My mouth has melted my lips no longer feel like my own, I've gone a very pink colour and I've started to cry. Nightmare. This is all much to the hilarity of my colleagues and the nurses and staff. It takes about half an hour for my mouth to calm down.

In the afternoon we plan out meetings with all the doctors to work with for the rest of the week. Its very enjoyable to meet everyone and to see the people that are curing everyone. My mouth is still sore though.

At night we went out with Diljo and his wife Manju and Kanagaraj. I broke all the healthy stay safe eating eating in India rules that night. Why the hell not I was still happy at surviving the chili at lunchtime. I was drinking tap water, eating food from the street vendors, eating spicy curries. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The restaurant's menu was the best menu I've seen in a while the headings were pretty much a translation of pigeon English. Titles such as 'Nice Starters' followed by 'Chinese' starters. Not sure what you do when you want a nice Chinese starter? There were then titles which was supposed to say something like Restaurant favorites perhaps but had been translated into "Millions choosing". I should have taken pictures as they were brilliant.

Another very good meal though but I've kind of drawn a line in the sand, if I don't get ill now someone is going to have to poison me. My proposed weight loss has taken a hammering which is only very slightly disappointing.

I fall asleep wondering if I'm to pay for my nights excesses.

TTFN

Service interruption

Sorry Folks struggling with connectivity at the mo, check back in by Friday at the latest and I'll have an update.

Jan 25th: Terrorist and Lucknow

So we get off the train and are immediately set upon by an enterprising taxi driver. He made a bee-line for me but was intercepted by Diljo. Now Diljo doesn't speak the right language for this far north so he is a bit of a tourist as well. The taxi driver wants 650R to go from the station to the airport. Thats about a tenner, slightly under. We eventually ditch him and get a meter taxi to take us. Ends up at 235R so a massive saving.

In the taxi I get a much better view of Indian poverty around the station, its pretty depressing people whose home is literally a few cardboard boxes at the side of the road. No real options exist for these people as far as I can see.

We get to the airport and check in there is heightened security as tomorrow is Republic day but it all passes without incident and we go to find out flight that will take us to Delhi.

I had a breakfast combination that I never imagined anywhere, a can of Mountain Dew (for any American friends out there) and a couple of Samosas, fantastic. While I was sitting eating them I looked at the TV. Pakistani Terrorists killed today in Delhi. Uh oh, nightmare, the trip suddenly takes a decided turn for the sinister. I ponder for a few minutes, do I tell Lesley, do I turnaround and go back to Madurai. They stopped a car with a couple of guys in there the car had grenades, guns, explosives the lot. Woohoo. I decide to get on the flight as they caught the bad guys so life must go on. Watched Indiana Jones on the flight made me think of Stuart all the time so was quite funny.

When we get to Delhi we have to transfer terminal, we walk out straight into an army jeep with commandos or whatever. The jeep even has a roof mounted machine gun. Beside the jeep is a bunker surrounded by sandbags and a machine gun sticking out the top. I wanted to take a couple of pictures but Diljo suggested it might not be well received.

Get the flight to Lucknow and get off, its much cooler and foggy. Just like home, except for about a million mosquitoes who saw the opportunity to taste some fresh blood.

Lucknow is much more developed a city than Madurai, a very grand building is being built by the current prime minister to honor some historical figures. She is also slipping in a big statue of herself. Naughty.

I get to the the guesthouse which is a rented apartment, its huge, only me there and the care taker Aravind. I get a very good chicken curry and Nan Bread for dinner and watch tennis for a couple of hours. There is no internet at the guest house which is a bit of a bummer as I'm been becoming a bit of an addict to Party Poker on facebook. I'm a high roller these days having won myself up from 1000 facebook dollars to 117,000. If only it were real.

Crashed out after a while, it is much quieter here than Madurai. So its a much more restful sleep.

Into work tomorrow to see how its all going to shape out.

Jan 24: Travelling to Lucknow.

It's a short post today but covering a long journey.

I went to collect my shirts today see earlier post either the 16th or 17th.

Now I was a bit nervous as what do you do if it hasn't worked out, the answer not much really. I walked into the tailors and he recognized me straight away and hd all my shirts up. We took a look at one and it looks fine so I'm pretty relieved. I paid my 770 rupees for seven shirts to get made and set off.

Well almost anyway I had forgotten that I had left two shirts as a template so after I got them I went back to the guesthouse and packed for the trip.

I figured out the minimum I could take, which worked out to be the maximum I could fit into the bag coincidence or what :-)

We set off to the train station and passed through whole parts of Madurai that I had not seen, it was ll much newer than the bits I had been exploring up till now.

The train station was pretty busy with all sorts of people running, sleeping selling and buying. I bought some water and a bag of biscuits in case I got starving on the train. I don't think there was a buffet car, if there was it wasn't obvious.

We were in a sleeper carriage with air conditioning which was good. It wasn't really warm enough for air conditioning but as Diljo pointed out it does keep the carriage fresher.

on the sleeper

The way the carriages are laid out is to maximise people in the space so there are two benches that face each other and across a small isle two seats tat face each other. At bedtime the base of the benches fold down, the back of the benched fold up and another bed lowers from the ceiling. A similar thing happens to the two seats as well. What you end up with is three triple decker beds all separated from the bed above ro the roof by a couple of feet each.

Thankfully I had a bottom bunk which was good as I can't help feel I'm on borrowed time in terms of delhi belly showing up. Surely I'm not going to escap that am I.

Once the train got going and the ticket inspector came round and seem to put everybody in a different seat than we were assigned we set off.

Now I had brough my torch which was good as it took me a while to get to sleep, so I used it to . I was so sure that I would be kept awake by snoring and general mayhem that I found I was listening for every noise I could. After I relaised that it was no where near as bad as I thought it was going to be I soon started to doze off.

At some point I woke up and needed to use the facility. Couldn't find my torch and it was pitch black. I also didn't know where I would be able to hold on for fear of grabbing a foot/head or something else.

This is where my new Indian phone came int a class of its own. Its got a built in torch, how cool is that. About a million times cooler than my c**pberry.

Got to the toilet and gagged a little. Not the cleanest or freshest place I'd ever been, I'll leave it at that. Did my business and went to flush. couldn't find the lever and then relaised that you probably don't need one is the toilet is literally a hole in the floor to the track below. So using the facility in the staion is a definite no no.

Managed to find my bed and crashed out again. When I woke next it was morning and we were getting close to delhi. Time to get up and start the next day.

Noticed that the doors were open even though the train was moving along. Diljo explained that this happens all the time but you have to be careful. People fall out all the time.

Anyway I have done my first train ride. Managed much better than I though.

TTFN.

Jan 23rd: All set for Lucknow

Work wise I spent the whole day getting everything ready for our workshops that we are going to be running in Lucknow and making sure the travel is going to be ok.

I'm doing an overnight train tomorrow from Madurai to Chennai, then catching a flight to Delhi then another flight to Luknow so its about 21 hours traveling within the one country.

Did you know that there is a time zone between north and south India? Yes north and south. Its five minutes, so I presume somewhere we will pass over the five minute barrier. Unless of course my good colleagues over here are having a competition to see what they can get me to believe.

I will be in Lucknow for five days before traveling back. On the way back I am getting to stay in Agra for a couple of nights which will be amazing as I'll get to visit the Taj Mahal and the Agra fort so expect lots of photos from there.

It will be a lot cooler in the north about 8 or 9 degrees bringing it down to a frigid 24 or 25. Diljo asked if I had brough any winter clothes with me. I think I'll be ok with what I have. I'll still be roasting.

The train ride promises to be an adventure so that will be interesting. I'm trying to figure out what I need in my pockets and stuff to be ok throughout the night.

I won't have internet access as easy up there so I may go quite for a day or two as I travel and get to an internet cafe or something.

Talk to you all later.

Jan 22nd: I just had a beer.

Hold the phone...

All this talk about vegetarian and no alcohol was a lot of hog wash. I went out for dinner tonight with three of the people at Aravind that I have been working closely with.

From left to right Mr. Diljo, Mr Vasanth and Mr Gnana. Vasanth in the middle has just become engaged so we had something to celebrate.

The four of us went on the one rickshaw which was good, I've seen some rickshaws with many more than four. Vasanth is a much better negotiator than me at all this stuff so he was in charge as the white guy will definately pay more than the local.

We sat down and were going to order drinks so I ordered first and went for a Lassi not wanting to order beer. After a brief discussion I was assured that having beer was ok I quickly cancelled said Lassi and ordered a Kingfisher Strong. Best beer I've had in a while.

So we spent most of the night talking about the differences between a wester wedding and an Indian one. I tried to get them to commit to a stag night but they weren't convinced.

The food was very good but I'm still surviving it wasn't spicy. This is going to be remedied in the next couple of days.

I'm beginning to think I'll be putting in weight at this rate with curry's every day, mixed in with some beer now. Especially last night, fish curry, lamb curry, chicken biryani and lots of good veg options.

The deserts were good as well.

More updates on food to follow once I get a real spicy number.

TTFN

Jan 21st: Eye Surgery

So I went to see eye surgery today. I was more than a little nervous of fainting or something and had warned Dr. Aravind that this might be the case. When I got into the OR there was a chair set out for me to watch from if I wanted.

Its very much a quick affair I was there for 30 minutes and saw six operations, all cataract. I didn't stand and watch over his shoulder, it was on a big screen so you see everything in very close detail.

It was amazing seeing how quick you could open the eye up get the old lens out and put a new one in. It was made to look that easy that you could almost think to yourself that you could do it. Then you remember that they eye you are looking at is magnified up to about 2 feet across rather than the inch or so.

The freaky bit is the fact that the patients are all awake, I would not be feeling very comfortable lying there I tell you.

Now the wester skeptical medical folk out there will be up in arms and no doubt about to make some comments about the numbers of surgeries and room cleaning that should happen (you know who you are). Aravind hospitals have published research about the infection area that needs to be taken care of in order to minimize the whole surgery so its very clean and very fast.

That was the big news of the day. Other than that it was more work prepping for Lucknow.

TTFN

Jan 20th: A random shopping trip.

Had a very entertaining visit to the shops today. My Indian cell phone is running out of credit so I went out to buy more for it. According to the manual it was dead easy and I could go to any number of locations and buy a top up card.

Well, thats not the way it worked out, the first place I went to the guys there couldn't speak english very well and my Tamil is still a bit ropey I know that a lakh is 100,000 and a Crore is 10,000,000 but thats about all and thats an awful lot of credit for the phone so I didn't use them.

The gist I was getting at some shops seemed to be that because I got the phone in Bangalore which is in Karnataka that I couldn't recharge it here. One shop was very keen to sell me a Tamil Nadu (the state that Madurai is in) Sim card but I could see that by the end of the trip I'd have about half a dozen sim cards from various states.

Surely I could buy a scratch card and charge the phone the way that vodafone told me I could. I eventually found a shop that sold the scratch cards but for some reason they didn't want to sell me them they had a much better way, or thats what they told me.

The better way was that one of them pulled out a phone and started texting to somewhere that sent a text to me that put credit on my phone. That seemed fine as credit was getting on the phone. It was taking ages though which I coudn't figure out until it became obvious that this was to give me time to see if there was anything else in the shop that I might like to buy.

Talk about an eclectic shop you name it they would have something to do with it there and would no doubt sell it to you an a special rate for a visitor.

While the phone was getting credited we started having a conversation about where I was from and other personal stuff. I was warned that in India its not uncommon to be asked what we would consider to be too personal to ask someone that was merely buying phone credits.

After my grilling they started looking concerned and talking to each other about my arms, it took a while but they were asking me about scars that I had all aver my arms. So we were lost again until a gentleman from the back of the shop came to translate. It turned out they thought my freckles were scars from some terrible injury I must have had, very funny.

Seeing how a small shop in India operates is entertaining. The shop wasn't much bigger than about four meters square. At first I thought that it was very busy as it was full but these were the shopkeepers and various hangers on. I was the only one in there who was buying anything.

Now the interpreter suddenly made know that he had an agenda that he was wanting to talk to me about and started pulling out pictures. It turns out his son had attempted a world record by naming all the countries and describing their neighbors. He had all sorts of certificates and proof. His son is only four.

The Guinness book of records told him they would consider it for inclusion. However he wants to get it onto wikipedia as well and wanted me to do it. So I'm waiting for him to track me down with all the stuff and I'll be adding that in when we get back to Scotland. Or as some of you know my wife has a slight addiction to wikipedia and google so maybe she will do it.

Eventually got back to the guest house and was going upstairs when I heard a shout up saying Mr. Paul tomorrow you go and watch surgery. Oh heck. So thats what tomorrow will be all about.

TTFN

p.s. Sitting happily at level 1 on the MurrAlfie scale. :-)

Jan 19th: More details on the work that I am doing

Thought I 'd explain a little more of what I am doing here as most of the blog is reflective on how I'm surviving, and to be honest, I'm surviving very well. The worst that has happened is that I went for a walk and got a blister on both heels, that and when I started the walk I went out of the gate of the guest house and all but tripped over a cow that was sleeping in front of the gate.

I don't think I'll get used to seeing cows standing in the middle of the road with no regard for the cars, buses, motorcycles, bikes, rickshaws and people that meander around on the road. I've become very nonchalant about crossing the roads as people expect there to be all sorts of obstacles to deal with so one white guy isn't going to add any more to the confusion.

Anyway back to work, we have a really clear picture of what we want to do now with the hospitals.
Essentially we want to achieve three main things.

1. Identify and publish a set of core values that Aravind and Aravind managed hospitals agree to use as a basis for guiding the climate of the organization. Many of these are in place already but what we are trying to do is to instill them into the culture of Aravind.
   
2. Every hospital has a target every year of operations that they have to achieve. What we want to do is to set up a three layered view of the goal by department. Here is an example, a hospital has to do 20,000 surgeries in a year. Now some departments in the hospital have an amazingly accurate way of dealing with the number or part of the number that is assigned to them. They first produce a strategy presentation that gives the goals and describes the approach that they are going to use. They then produce a very detailed plan for the year that describes what events need to happen every month in order for them to make their commitment. Lastly they have a weekly tracking call where they capture what they have done against their plan. So at any point in time they know exactly where they are and what they need to be doing in order to meet the commitments. Its incredible really. I can think of a few sales managers in IBM that would see this and salivate as the accuracy is incredible.
3. Lastly while Aravind is a hugely productive hospital when it comes to surgery, patient care and most of the areas around surgery the planned growth is going to stretch it in ways it may not be able to cope with. What we are doing is defining some basic competencies or processes that the hospitals can follow or refer to. This should help them operate the human or business side of the organisation more productively. I have borrowed heavily from work done in IBM to define the basic competencies that we try and follow ourselves.

I've been speaking to a few people in the organisation so far and its great. You have the madness of the streets in india where there is total chaos and then you walk into the hospital and its like the old Mr Ben stories you seem to be transported away to a different place.

I had a good chat with the head of IT about how they can set more goals and strcuture to what they are doing. However I also noticed that its all microsoft development running on HP. So there is clearly an IBM sales opp there somewhere.

So thats the plan I suddenly feel that I've got an awful lot to do all of a sudden. Hopefully this will help some of you understand what I'm doing over here a bit better.

TTFN.

Jan 18: Who messed with my stats, and a day off.

Ok so we are currently sitting at 20083 hits. Hmm I'm suspicious. Very suspicious and when I look at the stats 19990 are coming from Linux!! I am beginning to think that perhaps someone might be using Rational Performance Tester to generate a hefty load and get my hopes up. I know who you are or might be, come on fess up.

Anyway, I didn't put anything in yesterday sorry about that. I had some computer problems and couldn't get on the net. I'll make up for it today.

I've been reading your feedback, Vince good one, I'll not say anything if I go and watch surgery. Actually I think that will be easy I'll be lying on the floor needing smelling salts waiting to come round after fainting.

Alfie, point taken. Ok 1 is everything normal and happy up to 10 where everything has gone into complete meltdown and no doubt accompanied by this. I shall refer to it as the MurrAlfie scale.


So today 1 for most of the day with showers coming in later. Oh hold on thats the weater forecast we'll leave it at one shall we.

Speaking of weather another glorious day in Madurai and the forecast for the next few days is from min 17 to max 31 every day accompanied by a big fat sun shine. Just think Peter its over 60 degrees warmer where I am than where you are, ouch.

Anyway on with the story.

I had a day off today and thought I'd have a lie in. I forgot though I didn't tell the sister that runs the guest house that I wasn't coming for breakfast. At 8.10 there was a knock on the door to see if I was ok. I said I was but I didn't fancy anything was that ok. No it wasn't and I was told to get down for breakfast. That'll be me up then.

You know what I'd like for breakfast? A bowl of frosties with really cold milk. We are just not used to getting spicy food to eat first thing in the morning.

I wanted to see the major sites in Madurai today, I saw the Meenakshi temple which was great but there are some other things to see here as well so I set off to the Ghandi museum. It was here in Madurai that Ghandi started to wear only the loin cloth out of sympathy to the untouchables (no not the film). The untouchables were the lowest class in india with no hope and no realistic chance of changing that.

I got to the museum at 12.45 and it closed for lunch at 1.00 so I wasn't sure what to do. Next thing I know there is a little old fellow beside me saying that he can take me round the markets in his rickshaw and come back in an hour or so to see the museum. Cool sounds like a plan, only thing was it was a pedal powered rickshaw not a motorised one.

Did I say that he was little, I'm telling you if I had been at 5 on the MurrAlfie scale I could have blown him away but he was insitant so off we set. He worked his socks off and was very pleasant, we couldn't speak a lot to each other but I know has has three children, 9, 13 and 19. And he knows I have two and he said some blessings for them.

Here is the view from the backseat of the rickshaw.

We went to the flower market and the rice market first of all which was very interesting the flowers are used at the various temples and shops so it was quite a busy place. No real tourists to speak of, Madurai is not on the popular western tourist trails of India so you really don't see a lot of westerners around.


After the flowers we walked round to see the rice market which seemed to be a sorting station more than a market as rice was being unloaded checked and put into sacks again. The checking was all done by hand. One of the steps is to throw the rice in the air to get rid of everything that is too light as it will blow or float away. The guys do this all day for hours at a time.


It is still in the hust at that point and is then scooped up into huge sacks that get stored. You have never imagined as much rice being manually looked after in your life.

After we left here we went to see the Mariamman Teppakkulam Tank it is the site for the Teppam float festival that might be on while I am here as they have been filling the tank for a while now. When its empty its used by local boys to play cricket in.


When we got there the poor driver told me that he had to go and fix his rickshaw he had a puncture, either that or I had buckled the wheels of it. I promised him that I would stay and wait for him so I took a couple pictures of the tank and the palace in the middle. It was pretty hot so I corssed the road to buy a snack and get some water form a little roadside stall.

Now I am just not doing well with quick monetary calculations here the exchange rate is about 70 rupees to the pound. When I got my water and my Samosa he charged me 16 Rupees, I was crossing back to wait and mumbling to myself about paying 3.00 for water. Don't know where I got that from as it was closer to 25p for a liter of Aquafina and the freshest Samosa you have had. So you can see there might be a bit of a markup on the prices we pay for water.

As I was waiting I was descended upon by loads of kids all wanting to chat and know my name and where I was from. One little toe rag ran off with my pen so you need to be careful what you let them look at.

You have never met more enthusiastic happy children they were aged from 1 to 13 and smiled all the time. They wanted to get their pictures taken and learn what they could from you. I don' think they had ever heard of Scotland before so they kept saying America, England or somewhere else.



My rickshaw drive came back and we went back to the Museum. The museum tells the story of India, the colonization of India and the horror her people suffered at the hands of the English. We watch news today about wars and atrocities that are occurring today well I'm sad to say they have been occurring as long as man has been running around. Britain has more than its fair share of dark moments in history to be ashamed of and India is certainly one of them.

How Gandhi was able to unite a country and set in place the means to liberate it using non violent protest is an amazing story. One part of the way the story is told that stuck out is that the English are blamed for everything but a lot of drawings and early photographs show people in kilts. I can't believe the English were trying to make the Scots look guilty.

After the museum I paid the driver as I wanted to walk for a bit. He tried to insist thatit wasn't a problem but after a while I managed to get the point across.

I was hungry by now so it was time to pick a place to eat. I found one that looked good and thought I'd give it a go. Couldn't make head or tail of the menu so it was clearly a place that doesn't get many westerners. I ordered mineral (bottled) water and Paneer Masala as I know I'm pronouncing it ok. What I couldn't remember is that I needed to ask what to have with it.

Eventually the water brought me out a couple of things to pick chapatti and something else it might be called a parotta but I'm not sure any way nodded and got both. It was lovey and came in at a whopping 85 Ruppees.

After that back to the guest house where I met an AMerican lady who is here to teach a kind of dance / yoga to people at the hospital. I'm not sure what its all about but we wnet out for dinner as she was a little nervous about going out by herself.

I had chicken curry for dinner, it was not as good as the chicken curry at the guest house though. I think it was made too mild for my feeble western palette.

Anyway that what I got up to today. Back at work tomorrow.

TTFN.

16th Jan: Work and Shopping

So when you go to the shops what do you take....

Well today I took, a torch, mosquito repellent, toilet roll, a map and sterile handwash. I went on a journey to find a tailor to make me some shirts. this was based on a recommendation by Michael Johnson who was here last year that you could get good quality shirts here made for a very reasonable price.

Do you know what the tailor charges to make a shirt? 110 rupees that is £1.60 for someone to spend an hour or so making a quality shirt. Can't believe it so I went to another shop and bought some material. I'll go back to the tailors with the material and drop them off. A few days later hey presto new set of shirts for work. Fantastic.

The ride from the tailors to the textiles shop was the scariest yet in a rickshaw. It was hilarious, we hit a couple of motorcycles, missed a bus by some miracle. I thought I was going to lose a kneecap at one point as well.

What I have noticed today on the rickshaws are the comedy horns that they all have. In Madurai it is all the old fashioned horns that you squeeze the rubber ball to make the noise. I think they are all unique so when there is a swarm of rickshaws its funny as anything.

The only noise I didn't here from the horns was a clowns aarroogahh followed by doors falling off. I did see the closest thing to road rage today between a rickshaw and a car. The poor rickshaw had run out of petrol or broken down and the driver was pushing his vehicle along when a car drove into him. The driver in the car start shouting, very peculiar.

On another note did you notice I have put a counter at the bottom of the blog, how cool is that? The only thing is that when I'm not on the blog site I'm wondering if the numbers have gone up. If I look at the site and the numbers are up I'm elated if it remains the same I'm gutted.

Follow the link check site stats and you can get lots of fancy graphs generated so I've become addicted to the stats site now. Its good though as at least I know now that some of you are reading this and not just sending the odd email encouraging me to waste time typing for my own pleasure.

The worry I had about all the coconut seems to be OK. The food in the guest house is really pretty good, however after a bit of toilet time this morning It did look a bit like what I was having for breakfast.

When we came here we were told to only drink bottled water which I thought I was doing but I caught the cook today filling up our water from the sink. Now given that I have had no effects so far I think I'm going to be OK but it just goes to show you that you have to be careful.

As for work today I met Dr. Aravind the hospital is not named after him, Aravind is a very popular name in India. He is a very cool guy, hugely passionate about what he is doing and very appreciative of the help that he is able to get from Adopt a Business. We were having a discussion about the fact that there can be great pleasure from doing something that is literally changing lives for the better. I told him that you don't tend to feel that way from selling software but he made me feel good as he said that without the help from IBM Aravind will not be able to grow the way that the need to get to 1,000,000 surgeries. So I'm playing my part in that hopefully.

What they are wanting help from IBM for is that to get to or exceed the goal they have set themselves they can't just do it with the 10 hospitals that they either own or are managing just now. They need to get up to dozens of hospitals, and they need a framework in place for people and leaders to thrive in as the culture, vision and beliefs are as important as the numbers themselves.

Its made me realize that IBM have over the years developed a very sophisticated toolset for enabling performance and leadership to be cultivated in the workplace.

Its Saturday tomorrow and I'm working, damn this six day week. Hopefully on Sunday I will do some more sightseeing I will maybe go a little further afield. I have to go and pick a place to eat at least as the cook does not work on the Sunday.

Have a good weekend everybody.

15th Jan: Pongal day two

Just when you thought it was all over Pongal day two kicked off.

So to re-establish the facts here Pongal is many things. It is the festival, which is three days long, it is also a food made from rice, banana, coconut milk, raisins and sugar cane. Pretty good really. ts kind of like a sweet stodgy porridge, I managed to eat a couple of small bowls of it. The bowls were cool, they are molded from the leafs of the banana tree. We also had some fresh coconuts as well. Hence the pictures of me eating and drinking coconuts below. This may be a bit of a test for the stomach as a coconut holds a hell of a lot of coconut milk and flesh.

The celebration of the second day of Pongal is to bless the animals that helped you in the harvest as well as animals that have provided for you during the year. So the cows get painted and decorated then blessed for the harvest. Then they get to eat Pongal, none of them were particularly keen on it it has to be said so force feeding seemed to be the rule.

A decorated cow

Said cow enjoying his feast.

The event took place at another part of the Aravind complex this time at their Aurolab facility. This is a manufacturing facility where they make lenses used for cataract surgery. It is an ultramodern fully sterile manufacturing complex that allows Aravind to dramatically reduce their costs. Making their own lenses and other medical supplies brings the cost of the lenses down from 100 US to around 20 US for a basic cataract procedure. It also acts a very good revenue stream for Aravind as well which helps to fund other projects.

Cataract surgery is where the money is, its pretty straightforward and has a very high success rate. The fact that it is the most common surgery required seems to be a bit of an added bonus.

As I said before the facility is very new and high tech with very well manicured surroundings set in an 80 acre plot. You don't have to go to far out of the plot to hit a total slum, I've not taken any pictures of them yet as it feels a little ghoulish to do so. People are living in total poverty with very rudimentary facilities if at all. There is always a water truck on the go somewhere to take water to parts of the city that don't have a running supply or a well. All this right beside a facility that would not look out of place in any modern business park in the west.

The lake at the Aurolab plant.

The same is the case in the city itself, we were driving to Aurolab and passed an absolutely gorgeous house. It was massive and would be a designer home if it were in the UK, it was sandwiched between to shacks made from bamboo poles and palm leaves.

The advice I was given about these types of situations by my hosts is that not all the problems can be solved and you have to live with it as there is nothing that you can do about it. It is strange though seeing all the litter lying in the streams and rivers that people use to wash in.

Another big thing of note that I did today was to ride a motorbike, tah dah. What a fool, but I didn't want to appear rude to the person that had offered to give me a lift home from work at lunchtime. This is where IBM HR and Sandra from adopt a business will be banging their heads on the tables. I know you said not to but whats a guy to do.

It was great if only I had a horn I'd have been laughing. Made it back safe and sound although from the hospital to the guest house is not far and it is in comparatively quite roads. There is no way I would do it in Bangalore or other parts of the city. These were proper roads, tarmac, lines and even traffic lights. Although I think that I was the only one that saw the traffic lights!! The procedure for many junctions is to get as far into the junction as possible as quickly as possible before you have to stop and then take it from there. You will have almost total gridlock in the junction with everyone stuck and happily tooting away at each other.

I'll finish on a slightly sad note. Nortel filed for section 11 bankruptcy protection today so times are not good there. Hopefully it can be sorted out as many of you reading this will know that lots of us have fond memories of the company.

Until tomorrow then. I think I may go out and find a meat restaurant tomorrow night as I fancy a curry with some more substance. Probably get my first dose of interesting times if I do though.

TTFN.

Just tried to put a video bit to the blog but its too big to upload from here but I might give it ago if I can get somewhere with decent bandwidth.

14th Jan: Pongal and a first for me in over 20 years.

Short one tonight folks.

Went to Pongal today it was hectic and full of people, however that may have been any day here for all I know.

The big news is that I had two cups of tea today. I was in a shop getting cajoled into buying something and they gave me Saffron and Honey tea. Very nice so who knows where that will lead me.

I explored the the Meenakshi temple today. It would have been fantastic to look at but literally they have got the painters in... So I couldn't see much of it. I did get blessed by an elephant though, it hit me on the head for good luck. It then demanded money from me so not sure who got the best blessing. Here are a couple of pictures for your enjoyment.

Some views of the covered towers. The scaffolding is all bamboo and the covering is weaved palm vines. This happens every 15 years so I told him we had the same trouble with the fourth rail bridge in scotland although its not quite as important a religious shrine.

Here is the blessing elephant, not sure if its the photo but I don't remember him wearing a wig?

The whole place will be painted in a simlar way to the ceiling here. Its too bad that it wasn't finished as it will be spectacular when its all done. Many Hindu's will make a pilgrimage to Madurai in April when it will be all unmasked.

A shrine inside the temple.

13th Jan: First day at the office

Ok I'll start by saying that I've been a warning that my grammar is not good enough so I'll try and do better today.

I went to Aravind today and was formally introduced to various doctors and administration staff. I also learned all about what the Aravind hospital is trying to do so I'm going to share that with you as its a very interesting story.

There are 12 Million blind people in India which is just under 30% of the global number of blind people in the world. This means that there are more blind people in India than in any other country.

Of that 12 Million 10 million could be cured by either simple Cataract Surgery or through obtaining a pair of spectacles. Many others could be cured through other techniques as well but it is the cataract problem that is so frustrating as it is the most common problem and a simple operation can permanently fix it.

In 1976 Dr. G. Venkataswamy started to realise that the government alone cannot fix this problem of curing blindness for the country's poor so he set about trying to help.

He started an 11 bed eye care clinic to supplement the work being done by the government. Dr V as he is known by many throughout the world followed the spiritual teachings of Sri Aurobindo and a quote from him that sums up Dr V's driving force is:

"If work is approached from a spiritual perspective, then it becomes divine work. If in your actions, you allow the divine force to flow through you, you will accomplish things far greater than you might have imagined."

The guiding values for Aravind are:

• Compassion/Dignity
  
• Equity
• Transparency
• Sharing

This translated into equal eye care for all regardless of income. Which means that those who want or can pay will receive better pre and post op care but everyone will receive the same level of surgical care.

When a patient arrives they decide if they are paying or not. For every paying patient two further free patients are effectively paid for as well. This fits in well with the much of the spirituality of India.

Aravind has grown massivley since 1976 they now have five hospitals with 4000 beds between them. This translates into 6000 outpatients per day. 4-5 outreach camps a week. An outreach camp is essentially where they take the pre op assement capability on the road to rural areas to give people tests. If they need surgery they put them on a bus and bring them to one of the hospitals, feed them, perform the surgery then take them back to the community.

850 - 1000 surgeries are performed every day accross the hospitals. which makes it the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world.

The goal for Aravind is to get to 1,000,000 surgerries a year by 2015. In order to do that they are rolling out more Aravind Eye Hospitals. They have starting to roll out Aravind Managed Eye Care Services which are managed hospitals that are initially funded by partners. A Partner could be a wealthy family or a business but they are all needed if they are to reach the 1,000,000 mark. There are four AMECS so far one in Lucknow that I will be visiting at some point.

Dr V. was able to perform from 10-13 cataract surgeries an hour by operating a two be system. How this works is that when the first patient is being operated on the second one is in the other bed being prepared and then the surgeon switches to the other bed and goes again.

I am going to be allowed to watch the surgery in a couple of days which will be interesting I hope that I don't faint :-)

I also got a full tour of the paying hospital and the teaching part of the hospital to see how patients are processed and new staff are brought on line. There are also many doctors from around the world that come here to learn as well as lecture. I spoke to a doctor today from London that was so impressed by what they are able achieve here.

After all that I felt totally impressed and looked at my own job and thought about what it contributes to humanity and caring for other people. the answer seems to be not much, sorry IBM but selling software to banks is not up there with restoring sight to the poor of the world, so I hope I can have the conviction when I get home to do something about it.

After dinner tonight I went out to try and get a cheap mobile phone. Now the advice that I was given was to take a rickshaw to the temple then go to the department store near there. Guess what, I left the guest house turned left and kept walking, passed all the rickshaws and into the darkness.

It got darker and darker but no less busy with noise, people and all the other things that mill about on the streets but I eventually realised that I had no idea where I was or where the temple was. At that point even the few rickshaws that I saw were not stopping anymore, it was time to turn around.

On the way back I did find a shop that sold phones but I may have paid over the odds. It was funny the shop was completely empty when I entered but within a few seconds I was surrounded by people all checking out what the white guy was doing. Everyone is just curios about you and trying to check out what is going on.

I felt absolutely safe walking around. Well at least in terms of not getting mugged or attacked. I definitely feared for what I was standing on sometimes but I seem to have made a good escape there. I think if you are white in Madurai they assume that you are a doctor at the hospital so god help us all if they need me.

So I'm back in my room for the second night now. Stuart has been reading to me again as well as showing me his pizza the little bugger. Pizza, now that is going to sound better and better as the weeks go on.

Stuart Reading to me

Tomorrow is Pongal which is the Tamil equivalent of thanksgiving mixed with a bit of new year. So its a holiday I will go to the temple and see what it is all about. I'll tell you all about it later.

12th Jan: Dream a Dream and down to Madurai

We went to another NGO (non governmental organization) called dream a dream. Their mission is to work with children from poor or abusive families to teach them life skills, these can be anything from learning to fit in to society to playing sports to dealing with money.

It was founded by a corporate banker eight years ago who was fed up chasing the money and wanted to try with the hardship and poverty that many children in India suffer from. And believe me they suffer we've seen and smelled where these families are living.

Other big achievement today was buying a sim card so that I'm not roaming with a UK sim. All went well I had to take photographs, passport, photocopies of passport, photocopies of Visa that was in passport. So I got a sim and it doesn't work in my useless c****y blackberry or Lesley's phone that I stole from her doesn't work either so I'm going to go and buy a phone tomorrow. Maybe I should have taken her iphone.

Before we left to the airport to fly down to Madurai I had a great meeting with Sham from adopt a business this was to fill me in more on India and her customs. It was really interesting and mind opening as the are lots of dos and don'ts. What people say is not necessarily what they mean they just never want to offend you as it is disrespectful to not agree with your seniors (age) or people who are more learned than you. I'm as prepared now as I can be I think, thanks for the meeting Sham I really enjoyed it.

Its also going to be quite different going to Madurai then going up to Lucknow as culturally they are far apart from each other. So I'll need to get used to one set of things then it will all change.

I've just noticed that five people are following my blog how cool is that. My wife isn't though. Nor is any of my family.

Coming here made me setup skype and last night I saw Lesley Kirsty and Stuart on video which is amazing as Stuart and I are going to do his homework tonight. It will definately be easier being away from them knowing that I can see them most days.

I don't think they are eating curry though.

I'm now down in Madurai where I'll be for the next few days it is in Tamil Nadur which is in the south, it is far more rural than Bangalore which had its own hard rock cafe. How I got from the airport to the guest house I'll never know we were driving along when the bus driver decided to overtake a rickshaw who was overtaking a motorbike so we were well and truly on the wrong side of the raod when the bus coming towards started to overtake something else you have never seen driving like this I could have shaken hands with the people on the bus going the other wat we were that close.

Madurai is mostly Hindu so last night was my last chance for a beer for a while as well so even if I avoid any interesting side affects form a dodgy curry I'm going to be eating vegetarian food and not drinking alcohol. It will soon be skinny dude.

I did however have a cheese curry for lunch today it was magic, Paneer Pasanda, I'll try asking for it again as it was really really good. I've also been trying to eat like the locals, so no knife or fork. I'm getting the hang of it but the laundrette is going to take a pounding as it all gets a little messy. You only eat using your right hand as the left is used for toilet business so is unclean. This isn't easy when you are left handed but I'm going to keep it up.

I'll be starting to do real work tomorrow so I'm nervous of how the day will go. Now that I've left Julian in Bangalore the Indian experience starts for real. He'll be up there in pizzahut and the hard rock cafe but I'm not jealous.

Off to bed now, curry for breakfast, mmm.

11th Jan: Day One in Bangalore

I spent all day walking around with Julian a colleague from IBM who is on the same program as me but will be based in Bangalore the whole time. It was very good to have someone to explore the city with on the first day as its a little crazy. There are so many people many of them trying to take you on a tour, or a rickshaw ride, sell you something or some other reason. Everyone is very friendly but its a lot to keep track on.

We visited a Bull Temple and received good luck and a blessing then went for a walk in the botanic garden which was quite peaceful compared to the city streets. Spot the good luck blessing below.


Whilst walking we saw cows, monkeys, mice, rat (dead), dogs galore and fruit bats so its a bit more varied than a stroll through the streets back in the UK.

On the curry front I had some for breakfast, not sure what it was, part of it looked like a donut and part of it was a little rice pancake with some dips, one was spicy and the other not. Spice for breakfast is going to be a challenge as its not what my body is asking me for. I've then gone mad and had a lamb massala for dinner so I hope I'm not paying the price of that tomorrow as I've got another flight to take to get down to Madurai. Might be time to test the medicine.

We found the IBM office and the hotel is right beside the Telelogic office so work isn't far away if we need it.

Day 2 starts tomorrow and we are going to visit another assignment location which will give us some amount of insight into how things are run here.

10th Jan: Waiting at Glasgow Airport

Well I'm off to India now,

well actually I'm not I'm sitting in a plane on the runway at Glasgow airport and have been doing so for nearly three and a half hours and I'm beginning to think that I may miss my connection. Off to a flier then, Sheesh.

Most of you may know that I'm going but some of you may not so here are some details, I'm going with an organization called adopt a business, you can check out their web site at http://www.adopt-a-business.com/. Essentially they run a service to allow companies and people to contribute socially to the developing world whilst being developed for their own organisations so a big thanks to IBM for letting me go for four weeks.

I'm going to be helping an Indian organisation called Aravind Eye Hospital: www.aravind.org they are a charitable organisation that specialises in eye surgery in India and they perform literally hundreds of thousands of operations each year. Their goal is to reach one million operations a year.

So I'll be helping them do surgery for a while :-) well probably not I'm going over there to help them look at how they organise teams and manage conflict and challenges within a team environment. The idea being that they can learn from developed western based organisations.

So I'll be there for four weeks trying to make a difference and trying to learn and develop new skills. I'm also going to be eating curry for four weeks straight as well so there will be some interesting challenges for me there. I've got half a suitcase full of medicine to make me stop, make me go, and all points in between.

I'm not going to send out too many mass emails as I've set up a blog to capture all my thoughts, I'm going to add this email to it. Along with any adventures and thoughts that I have along the way.

If you want to get hold of me to see how I'm getting on then please use one of the following options. I won't be monitoring my IBM email address while I'm away so please use one of the options below.

email: paul_in_india@hotmail.co.uk
skype: paul.skype.murray
blog: http://paulstimeinindia.blogspot.com/

and we are just about to set off... The engines have started. Finally.

Getting ready to go to India to work with the Aravind Eye Care System http://www.aravind.org/ as part of an Adopt a Business assignment. Check out http://www.adopt-a-business.com/ to find out what this means.

I'll be there for four weeks from the 10th Jan to the 7th of Feb so it will be a lot of learning experiences and curry.

If you are interested in finding out how I get on then please follow the blog or check back in now and again to see how I'm getting on.

Words of encouragement might be needed as well :-)