Dubious signage

My instant (and irrational) interpretation of the following signage above the lift, at Cochin airport... 

Go up a man and come down as a woman!

Indian traffic

Traffic in the major cities of India can be at times horrific.  Although Hyderabad is far better than other metropolitan cities of the country, there are days and times, when things come to a standstill, for long.  

Hence I prefer to ride the bike in the city when visiting communities within the city or for any other office purpose.  It reduces the travel time by half, easily.  

Added to the traffic blues are the parking woes.  Hence bike travel is ideal. Of course, manoeuvring a bike through the erratic Indian traffic comes with its own risks! Everytime I ride the bike in the city I remember one of my former Rectors, while in the UK.  He loved to ride the bike, but he couldn't even imagine riding one in India!  

My basic take on the traffic issue is that the basic infrastructure is in place for a convenient and smooth travel.  Although there are some hiccups like road works, bottlenecks, potholes, and the encroachment of the pavement and even the main road by street vendors, these are not the worst contributors to the traffic.  What builds congestion and heavy traffic on our Indian roads is our driving habits.  We have rules, but none are respected, leave alone followed.  Our erratic driving skills contribute most to the heavy traffic on the city roads. 

That said, the same driving skills also sharpen our senses to a great extent!! For we need to drive not just using one's own mind, but all the while anticipating what the other drivers and riders on the road are thinking and going to do, while driving! 

In Delhi

 I arrived in Delhi for the second time this year. The metro was unusually free of congestion, perhaps because it is a Sunday. But I wasted quite a lot of time waiting for the buses. I then decided to walk to the school. 

More than being frustrated with no bus coming my way, I needed to repair my sandal and so thought I'd find atleast a hardware shop or a cobbler. 

Walking along the stretch from the metro to the school, all I found was dry-cleaners, ice-cream parlours and pharmacies. I was almost certain that finding a cobbler in such a locale would be practically impossible. 

Lo and behold, I actually did find one. In my brief conversation with him, as he bent over and mended my sandal, I came to know that he has been working as a cobbler at the same spot for the last 40 years! Looking at his tools and work style I could gather he was honest about the duration. 

Although there were quite a few restaurants and eateries along the way, I choose to sit by a father and son duo preparing parathas and bought lunch from them. Hot parathas made right then and there. 

It struck me then that the population living in that particular stretch was a very posh one. Nonetheless, it was so posh that the people working for them were mostly from outside the state and really poor. So naturally, there were the posh spots and the down-to-earth spots catering to the two different sets of people around. 

I certainly do not claim to authoritatively speak about Delhi, but unlike Mumbai or for that matter, Hyderabad, in Delhi the dividing lines are clear and sharp. 

Medical tourism

The latest and growing trend is that of 'medical tourism'.  There seems to be some confreres who are eternally obsessed with their health.  So much so, any sneeze or scratch is blown out of proportion to be related to some life-threatening ailment.  

Then there are those who wish, by any and all means, to visit every doctor and stream of medicine available, anywhere in the country, at any costs to address the same health concern.  Thus we have confreres who visit every ayurvedic therapy centre in Kerala, then return and within two months visit another therapeutic centre in another part of Kerala, and in another two months visit an orthopaedic centre in some part of Telangana, and all this while continue taking the strong doses of medicine prescribed by their first doctor whom they visited two years ago (but never again even mentioned to him about the rest of the medical journey)! 

On the other end of the spectrum are some who stubbornly refuse to visit any medical centre, even though they have some serious health issues which need medical intervention.  

Add to this list the growing cases of mental well-being and health issues.  Of course, some of the above issues are mostly because of mental imbalances!! 

The most comic angle of this scenario is that most (not all) of those 'sick' and expecting medical attention, are the first and most to travel places... any distance, any time, by any mode, for no significant reason!  

Vehicles

We're waiting for a new fleet of cars from the hiring company.  Not that the existing ones are old. They are just four years old and in perfect condition.  So perfect that there's hardly any scratch on some of them - they've all been professionally touched up!  But compared to the vehicles we use back in India and the condition they often end up in, these are brand new!

I remember the old sumo of BIRDY house.  Then the one I used - and loved most - while at Ramanthapur.  We would get practically anything and everything in it.  Flour bags for the bakery. Provisions for the kitchen.  Bakery products to the Sunday sale.  Cement bags for the maintenance. Rolls of cloth for the ITI tailoring section.  All of these besides using it as a transport vehicle for confreres and boys!  We could take off the seats, the overhead carriage, the spare wheel (if and when it did have one),... and the tyres, wow, there were so many patches on them that the one patching them up said that the oldest tyre which he used as a stool to sit on in his repair shop, was far better than the ones we had our vehicle running on!  In spite of all these, the vehicle was great!  I loved it more than the new ones we had!

Was reminded of those 'good old vehicles' when I watched this clip from one of the God's must be crazy editions...

Karwaan... an enriching journey

Yesterday watched the movie Karwaan, a lovely hindi movie!  A very simple plot and not too many characters or complexities.  Yet very smooth and profound.  How three different characters, with perhaps nothing in common bond together and in the process help one another learn something profound about themselves, through their mere presence.  The best I enjoyed was the subtle and comic timing of Shaukhat (Irrfan Khan).

Though don't really agree that the lyrics of this song actually represent the lead characters but all the same, do speak a lot about them.

The human voice

A simple reminder of the declining human presence in the world of technology and progress...

Anyone who has traveled in Europe, especially those like me from India, where public transport is anything but quiet, will certainly vibe with the sentiments brought forth in this video. 

Reincarnation and driving

While talking about the tyre and the replacement of it with a new one, I expressed surprise that we had to replace the whole tyre rather than repair the small hole.  I stated that back in India, I have driven vehicles with torn, patched, stitched and stuffed tyres - and am very well living to tell the tale!  Fr Kevin humourously interjected: "Oh, driving in India!!  I'd never drive in India!!  Not only there but in any place where they believe in reincarnation!"

Well its true that traffic in India is chaotic - in fact, crazy, in comparison to the organised traffic adherence here in the UK.  For most Europeans the first and most vivid memory - in fact, the most horrifying one - of India is the traffic they see as soon as they come out of the airport.  I've seen and heard the experience of people myself, back in India whenever someone came from Europe to the Provincial house and even now listening to people who have been to India!

However, there is some method in the madness - if one may be permitted to call it so.  According to statistics in the year 2016, in India, there were 1,50,785 deaths; while in the UK there were only 1,792 deaths and 181,384 casualities.  But compared to the overall population and the state of affairs, the Indian figures though big, are relatively small - if not, a small miracle!  (A bigger miracle would be getting our Indian population follow traffic rules!)

Tyres and times: old and new

Last weekend one of our cars was indicating low tyre pressure.  After a while I found out that there was a screw stuck in the tyre. However, was surprised to be told that the whole tyre needs to be replaced rather than mending that one small hole!  It was not as if the threads were worn out or anything, just that the 'tyre was damaged'! 

Photo source: An old news article on 'illegal tyres'

I remembered the old jeep at Ramanthapur.  The tyres stuffed and stitched and patched and what not, and still running in perfect condition.  The jeep itself was very old but I loved it, much more than the other new vehicles in the house.  It was tough and functional.  It could be used for anything and everything: transport for people (remember taking 15 children in it was no bit hassle - not even for the children), distributing bakery products, getting tons of provisions (sacks and sacks of rice, flour, sugar...), getting goods for the technical school (wood, metal, cloth...)... and even when it was parked in the house, the boys would use it as a jumping board to jump from!  The tyres of that sumo jeep were anything but old - leave alone new! 

I was told that the insurance would not cover costs in case there was an accident and it was found that the tyre was not replaced.  Furthermore, the hole could not really be repaired! Really??  I wonder if there is anything that is 'repaired' in this country; everything is mostly replaced with a new one! 

Road signs and Margaret Calvert

Interesting piece of British history...
The Daily Mail today ran an article about the lady who designed the road signs for the British transport.  In all honesty, I should say, they are very instructive and precise.  For a newcomer it may look too much of a confusion. But once you get a hang of the driving discipline and understand the signs, it is pretty much a joy to see these signs.  They're practically everywhere! 

The lady credited with creating the colour combination, font, size and some of the signs is Margaret Calvert.  She was ably helped in this endeavour by her graphic designer teacher, Jock Kinneir. 

A few other interesting facts:

• Together they designed the signs for Britain's first motorway, the Preston By-pass, in 1958. The Italians and Germans had their grand autostradas and autobahns since before the war. 
• From the start, their creations were modern, clear and colour-coded (blue and white for motorways, green and yellow for dual-carriageways...)
• The 70mph speed limit was introduced in 1967 by the transport minister, Barbara Castle
• The use of upper and lower cases, was a clear defiance of convention, as they found reading block capitals harder. 
• Neither of them could drive! 
• In 1963, their designs were extended beyond the motorways to all British roads. 
• More than their font, colour and text contribution, it was their pictures that made a distinctive mark on Britain. 
• Cow (for farm animals crossing) was based on Patience, a cow Calvert had seen on a relative's farm
• Children crossing (a girl leading her younger brother by the hand) was designed on her own photograph - though she did not have a brother
• Workmen (man with a shovel)

Initially her designs were mocked by critics as 'common'.  Yet that is what their magic and unique legacy is - common and understandable by everyone! While practically everything else has changed in the country over the past 60 years, the road signs, incredibly, have not.  Because they were perfect in the first place. True indeed, the most unappreciated facts of life are the ones that we use most often! 

Time and railways

Today we commenced the winter time here in England.  I do not know of any other country that adjusts its clock twice a year.

Only last week did I learn that for quite some time in England, people did not have a national time or clock.  They only had local time or regional time.  It was only with the railways becoming a means of national transport that people felt the need to have a time followed across the country.  That's how the history of having a unified system of calculating time across the country began.  And it is only after 1807, when horse-drawn carriages were used on tramlines, which eventually led to the evolution of railways, that England began to follow one clock.

This once again proves the theory that time is nothing but a record of motion.  If not for the national rail network, people would have followed their own respective time and no one would have had serious difficulties.  More than transport, I think it has all to do with network.  I guess, if the internet were discovered before the establishment of the railways, even then there would have been the notion of a single clock being followed.  However, in this case there would have been some wider consensus on following a particular clock than mere national boundaries.  

Rome by night

On Tuesday, after the second day of the meeting, Fr Silvio invited me to join him as he was going to drive home a priest to another Salesian community, the San Tarscisio community which is the post-novitiate and the one that takes care of the catacombs!  He knew that I wasn't going to see much or anything of Rome, even though it was my first visit to Rome, the eternal city.  So he wanted to at least drive me round for a while.  However, he really went out of his way and showed me practically half of Rome!! We left Pisana by car at 8.30 after supper and returned at midnight!! Very very kind and generous of him.

He showed me the bascilicas of John Latern and Mary Major, Sacra Coure (the church which Don Bosco struggled to build towards the end of his life), Termini (the central bus and train station), the coloseum, monument of the reunification of Italy and the famous Trevi fountain.  We walked through some of the ruins of Rome from the coloseum upto the Trevi.

He topped it off with gelato (ice cream)!  God bless him for his generosity, patience and hospitality (in spite of all the work of coordinating and organising the meeting!).  

Names and faces

Spending three days at the Pisana and a day at UPS, was truly a great experience.  One of the best experiences was the feeling of meeting or seeing in person all those confreres and places who so far were only names and words.

Heard so much and for many years about 'Pisana' and 'UPS'.  Being there in person was exciting.  Both the places were simple and frugal.  No extravagance or flamboyance about their structures and facilities.  Great example for all to follow.  Know not where then, some of our contemporary Salesian structures in India are getting their inspiration from.

Then there were persons!  Like Fr Francesco Maracanni, someone whom I corresponded much while being the Province secretary.  Then the Rector Major himself! This was the first time I met him in person.  At the UPS got to meet Fr Joshtrom, Fr Peter Gonsalves, Fr Shaji, our two confreres from INH, and quite a few other confreres from India.  They were surprised as was I!  

Cody Museum, Farnborough

Just close to the Salesian house on the main road of Farnborough is the Cody Aircraft museum. Only this afternoon did I come to know that Farnborough has an airport.  However, it is not publicly commercial and mainly operates private flights and small aircrafts.  But I'm told there are some Boeing 737s too flying from here.

This evening took a walk near the airport.  The museum is open only on weekends.  But a couple of old aircrafts and helicopters are on display out in the open.

On a side note, a typical English tradition: all transportation means are always out in the open!  Practically every house has a garage but it is used mostly as a dumping ground.  Cars and bikes are always parked out in the open.  Wonder how do these vehicles remain rust free?  

Travel in India

Had a long conversation with Fr Des, the Rector here at Farnborough - well, more of him talking and me listening than a conversation in the real sense!  But was happy to spend time with him.  He was narrating all his experiences during his visit to India, Trichy and Bangalore.

The things that stood out for him, from what I gathered, from his long enthusiastic and excited sharing were, the food, the colours, the hospitality, the warmth of people and orderliness of children in the institutions, and of course, the 'chaotic' traffic and 'crazy' travel!!

Speaking of traffic, I can hardly imagine what it must be for an European to travel by road in India.  Here things are so orderly and patient that travel by any given road in the whole of India would be near fatal for anyone with a heart condition!  

Travelling around London

Had a very lovely day in London today.  Basically had to go for an interview at the VFS centre for procuring a visa for my trip to Rome, later this month.  I also thought of taking this chance to meet Br Maria (from Chennai Province) who is in London for a visit to his relatives.  We met at East Croydon, had a tasty south Indian thali lunch at one of the hotels and then almost missed my appointment at the VFS centre.  Had to literally run to and from the stations and in between to change trains and the tube!  Not in the past two years would I have run so fast and continuously for almost 20 minutes, twice!  My thighs and calf muscles are aching like hell now.

Anyway, did make it, although a bit late at the visa centre.  Submitted the form and the needed documents.  Had a little bit of trouble explaining why there was no attached bank statement! What was more ridiculous was that they were asking for the bank statement of the 'Salesians of Don Bosco' (the one who invited me) of Rome!!  After a long explanation and then some discussion among themselves they accepted the application.  Hope everything goes on well at the embassy and they grant me the visa in time (by next Friday!).

Another adventure was the maiden use of a travel card.  Wanted to make the most of it, so after the interview boarded the first bus that I saw, travelled till its terminal.  From there took the tube to another station, and ultimately reached back home after changing some 6 trains and visiting a couple of large railway stations.  Besides it was raining and hence no fun in visiting places!

Here are some of the pics...
This is the Finsbury Square Garden just adjacent to the VFS centre.  Beyond the flowers, is a beautiful lawn!  It was nice to see such open green space in the heart of the city.  Everywhere else there was construction going on!

 Here's one of the buildings near the Moorgate station and the combination of the plants and the purple flowers was too good to miss.  It really looked much more beautiful in real... all around the building.

 The Liverpool State station... quite large and with such high ceiling, that too transparent.  Both ends of the lobby have the same design.

Sensitivity dented

While on our way to Battersea by the school minibus for the weekend retreat/pilgrimage, just as we rounded the last corner to reach the Salesian house, Fr John scraped the rear end of a stationary BMW.  After dropping us off at the house, I led the group in and Fr John walked back to the car.  He assessed the damage but could not locate the owner. He returned and then wrote out a note of apology with his name and number on the note.  I volunteered to go and leave the note on the car.  I too assessed the damage and honestly it was hardly a scratch.  Not even the paint had scraped off, leave alone anything being broken or dented.  If I were the owner, I would not even have noticed it right away.  Yet the note of apology was duly placed on the windscreen.  Fr John was visibly upset but this whole event.

Back in India where no one holds anyone accountable to anything at all, is the way it is.  So I'm not very sure if I'd do this if I were to scrape a stationary car back at home.  But I suppose that element of courtesy and honesty is inbuilt in the cultural system of the people here. 

Paradox of cleanliness

The other day listening to the gospel about what causes a person to be defiled, I remembered Fr Paul Vadakkumpadan speaking of cleanliness.  He was speaking of it in the context of our travels, especially by train.  Very often vendors pass by selling boiled groundnuts.  Passengers buy these groundnuts and then chat away with co-passengers happily peeling the groundnuts and munching on the nuts.  But the peels are just dropped on the floor!  They are left there till someone comes sweeping the floor.  And usually it is the poor people, those with disability and children who come along with a small broom or piece of rag.  As soon as the passengers see them, they fold their legs upon the seat, so as not be touched by 'those' cleaners.

That's where Fr Paul says the paradox lies: Those who dirty the place are considered clean and those who clean the place as dirty.

Those who run across the sea...

A quote from a very refreshing new perspective of Nietzsche's philosophy... as that inspired and founded on the philosophy of Herodotus.  Honestly I've never even heard the name of the latter Greek philosopher of the 5th century BC.  But much of what was spoken today by Prof Raymond Geuss  looked sensible and logical.

Those who run across the sea change the sky above them, but not their own internal dispositions (Seneca, Ep. Mor. 17, 12).

It was proposed as a critique of what Herodotus and Nietzsche in a way wish philosophy would actually do: help one view one's own home as a travelling stranger.  For this, the example is Herodotus who travelled far and wide and with prejudice to none!

The idea was that introspection is actually not the ideal for self-knowledge - a direct contrast to the dominant thought, right since the time of Plato.  The alternative proposed: viewing oneself through the eyes of a travelling foreigner.  (There are other implications and conditions involved). 

Responsible excuse

Most of us who have traveled in India by train know that it is no big surprise when trains run late. Very often, whenever there is a delay, the announcement one gets to hear (if at all there is one) is that the train has been delayed.  Sometimes, there is also the duration of delay announced, but everyone hearing that knows all too well that the duration is much more than the one announced.

However, one thing I've observed here in UK while waiting for trains (which hardly run late). On the few occasions that I've traveled and there is a delay in the regular local trains, there is an announcement to that effect. Not only does it include the exact - and very exact - duration of delay, the revised time of arrival, but also the reason for the delay!

Now that's a step towards owning responsibility for one's deeds.

The London South-West train service that I use most often