Bargaining

I've got a little gripe about bargaining in India. Nope, it's not the usual one that I'm always getting ripped off (although I'm sure it happens regularly). It's not even that I get tired of having to do it for soooo many things (I just got back from holidays, so the bargaining quotient vs. normal transactions was waaaaay up). It's more a complaint about the concept of bargaining today. Quite simply, it makes no sense.

Think about where the concept of bargaining originated from. It originated from when people used to barter for goods. You have a pint of milk, I have some eggs. Now how many eggs do I want to give you for that pint of milk, and how many do you want? Then, the concept makes sense. Neither knows the exact value of the thing they have produced (in terms of what the other has), and neither knows the exact value of what the other has to exchange. Nowadays, however, that isn't true. At least on one side of the transaction, and more often than not, on both.

Take that age-old tourist favourite: souvenirs. The guy selling it knows exactly how much the item is worth. He paid a certain amount for it (presumably not in eggs), and he has costs to run his shop. Therefore, he knows exactly how much extra he has to get to make a decent margin (say 20% or whatever, depending on what he's selling). Not only that, but he also knows how much the value of what he will get in return is. Because it's in rupees, or dollars, or whatever. So in fact what is happening in these transactions isn't 'bargaining' any more.

It's ripping people off.

That's because there is no grey area in the transaction. The value of what the customer has (money) is completely known, to both customer and seller. But only the seller knows the value of what they're selling (and they know that completely). So there is no 'bargaining' as such, given that the seller already has a bottom price that they will sell the item for. There's only attempts by the seller to get as much extra on top of that price as possible.

There's only one possible caveat here. The seller is so desperate that he will undercut his margin just to make a sale and get some cashflow. That's a possibility I suppose. But then at least that's a risk you take when having a 'bargaining' system (Wow, think about it, a possible downside for the seller!). And I would be willing to bet that the seller ends up on the right end of the ledger a lot more than half of the time.

Perhaps we need to change the system a little, and given that I am currently in India to solve problems, here's my solution. Make everything legal currency in the tourist markets- so reintroduce bartering. You can pay in rupees if you want. But you can also pay in Kazakhstani Drachmas (apologies to Kazakhstanis as I have no idea of the legal currency there). I'll take two papier-mâché(fancy spelling from wikipedia) elephants for 2,500 Drachmas, you'd say. Or you could pay in eggs if you wanted- but the idea would be to pay in things that the seller had no idea how much they were worth.

At the very least it would make your next souvenir-buying outing a more interesting experience.

Ownership and Responsibility in India


After reading "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga (which I recommend- perhaps not the best writing in the world, and it could turn out to be far too simplistic a reading on the 'relationships' between the rich and poor in India- but as an introductory expose I thought it rather good), talking recently with my Indian boss and walking through some of the public places in Delhi, I have been thinking about a common thread that runs through all three. Perhaps my boss put it best when he said that in India, and Indian society, there is a lack of ownership or responsibility for doing something.


The most obvious case is public works (that's where the parks come in). Most parks in Delhi were once carefully designed, and have had a fair bit of money invested in them- in structures, in plants, in sidewalks, ponds, lakes, etc. Yet on the weekends (even on the designated weekend 'day'- Sunday) they are all but deserted. Go into these parks and you'll figure out that they're not quite empty- every bench, for example is occupied- normally by one guy, who's lying down on it sleeping. The other creatures that can be found by carefully scrutinising dense foliage and hidden corners will be the couples, who are canoodling somewhere away from the prying eyes of the neighbours who wouldn't be in the park anyway (To give you an idea of the notorious reputation that parks have, one young male aspirant told me that his girlfriend was not even allowed to tell her parents that she would be going to Lodhi Gardens- alone or accompanied- because of the reputation it has). Parks are also distinguished by any lake being completely drained, or having stinking water sitting in the bottom, grass being un-mown or bare, and of course rubbish thrown into any of the above places that are in relatively good natural condition.


I ask myself the natural question here- in a city such as Delhi, hot as it is with concrete and high-rise everywhere (although it is self-touted as "one of the greenest cities in the world"), are these beautiful parks, so lovingly created, left to decay to such a state? Maintaining a park in India must be one of the easiest things to do- you have no shortage of labour, at the very least to pick up the rubbish- but also to do the simple task of gardening, pruning, preparing soil for flowers, maintaining areas of grass, etc.


Too expensive? In almost every neighbourhood surrounding these parks in Delhi, small households pay a helper who is normally available 12 hours a day to clean for them, cook, wash their clothes, water their plants, do the shopping, etc. The average wage (at least in Vasant Kunj) is Rs 2000.- per month. (that's about $40). And *every* household has one, so it's not as if these people are earning on the bottom of the pile. In fact, other workers around the complex who iron clothes or wash cars aspire to these positions. So can't the city afford to pay some gardners Rs 2000 a month? Of course they can, and they probably already do. Here's where the ownership comes in.


Now this is a little bit of second-hand information, but here's how the system apparently works. Someone government employee (probably quite high up) has the job of maintaining Delhi's parks. He receives a certain amount per month to do so (for equipment, wages, etc.). He reports every month that the amount has been spent as per budgeted- this equipment bought, these guys paid, this much rubbish collected, etc. If anyone doubts this, they can ask the independent assessor who checks the park every week, to make sure that people are working, and that the park is clean. He verifies that all is as reported. Of course, all that really takes place is the bare minimum of work, and money changing hands to make sure everything is reported as completed correctly. The employee gets to keep all the money that he hasn't spent keeping the verifying officials and any other loud-mouths quiet. And none of the people in the chain feel as if they are doing anything wrong- why actually do the work and put your neck on the line? You only risk pissing some more people off? It's much more work for me to actually DO something than to simply stay with the status quo- plus I don't get paid any more... In fact I'm more likely to be rewarded for not kicking up a fuss and keeping the whole system intact. It's an inherently perfect system (as long as you don't worry about what the system outputs actually are).


What would be really interesting to see would be someone who was prepared to take on the system- and in this particular case it would be so easy. Just put one guy in charge of Delhi's signature parks, give him a reasonable budget, and let him try and really recreate the glory that they were once built with. Give him some room for improving them, if you want- I don't know why people in Delhi go to parks, but there must be a reason I see more people in Vasant Vatika than Lodhi Gardens (Vasant Vatika is a strip of grass near the suburban blocks where I live, and Lodhi or Lodi Gardens is probably the most famous park in Delhi).

Vasant Vatika

Lodhi Gardens

The idea that changing the current state would/should be so simple got me thinking about the whole idea of lack of ownership of these situations in India (as I said it's a theme that reoccurs in the business environment here as well, and not just with fellow employees, but also in things as crucial to a sense of ownership as customer service in India). How do you change a system where the lack of ownership ultimately results in there being such a huge level of corruption, and huge barriers to doing anything with a true sense of responsibility? It must start from the top- someone has to take some responsibility for actually doing what they agreed to do in the first place (I would say what they wanted to do, but that might take some major restructuring in India ;-). But if you agree to do something, you agree to take responsibility for that thing, right? At least the logic seems to follow for me. So the person responsible, instils that same sense of ownership in all those who work under them. They has the power, and they should have the qualities to do that. If it comes from them, then there is a chance that even if those below are not immediately open to the idea, people can be found that will be. Once the system starts to get that sense of ownership passing down through it, then perhaps things at least might start changing.


And I'll be able to sit in a nice clean, shady, green area of a park in Delhi and enjoy it with the rest of an India that feels like they own a little part of having created it.

Nainital, Sattal, Uttarakhand

I guess I should apologise for not writing for a while- what can I say- work has been pretty hectic, and I just haven't been able to sit down and convince myself that I have seen, experienced or thought about anything recently that's worth an hour sitting in front of the PC, when I could be doing something more useful like watching Simpsons back-episiodes on Veetle ;-)

But now I have done something that compels me to write, not least of all because I myself enjoy reading travel blogs, especially to places that can be hit and miss tourist experiences. This one rates as a hit for me, but probably because I have been deprived of these sorts of experiences since I arrived in India.

Nainital, Sattal, Bhimtal etc. are one of the three main "hill station" getaways for Delhites, primarily because they are cool places situated in verdent green mountains, and also because they're only a half-day trip from Delhi itself. Half-day if you have the right transport that is.

A friend of mine who is also working here in Delhi recently told me that she knows heaps of ex-pats that go travel somewhere (out of Delhi) every weekend they can- which usually involves a 12-hour overnight bus or train trip to somewhere, two days of frantic sightseeing/adventuring/etc. and then rushing back on an overnighter to start work on Monday. She couldn't understand how they could do it- and almost every weekend. Well, after seeing some of the places that you could see by taking one of these weekends, I am starting to understand why.

Nainital was a good introduction to the difference that the hill stations are from what you're used to seeing around Delhi. You start climbing at the outpouring of a big river, coming from the mountains, and are immediately in a rain-forest environment, and in our case, also surrounded by clouds. You climb from probably 200 to 1900m, which also gives you an idea of what you're in for. My arrival at Nainital was a little underwhelming- we were let out at a non-descript spot on the road somewhere, from which I could see exactly 5 metres in front of me.

It was, of course, also raining- so the first thing I did was buy an umbrella from a guy near what turned out to be the bus station, thereby making it my second purchase of an umbrella in a week. (As it turned out the purchase ended up having a bonus thrown in, as I got the guy to look after my bag for a couple of hours while I walked around the lake. I loooove India, man!)

Nainital shows off a little of its mixture of cultures, there were quite a few butchers around, although everybody still spoke Hindi, and every now and again a girl would walk past wearing a kurta that I, with my limited knowledge of world fashion and ingrained Western perceptions could only term 'oriental', and I am guessing that the design came from a little further North, either Tibet or perhaps China. Certainly this 'hill station' felt like a mix of people from different hills (it didn't matter that these hills happen to be the highest in the world).

When the mist eventually began to clear after an hour, I found myself in Naina Devi Temple, which apparently is where the goddess Sati's eye fell to earth (I actually thought the lake itself was meant to resemble the green of the goddess' eye as well). Anyway, without waking lyrical, these Hindi temples really touch my spiritual buttons. The place feels so serene, nestled amongst the green surrounding hills, and looking directly out over the lake. I like the open plan of them as well, the temples all face toward the lake, so as you move from one God to the next, you can't help but turn and look out in the same direction that they are looking. It's a little strange I guess, that one of the prime spots in these places, and easily the best kept, is in a holy temple, where people go to spend probably the least amount of their time. Then it's off to a cement bench surrounded by rubbish, or to a damp hotel room where you hope that you've paid enough to be able to see some of the lake.

I spent a good couple of hours walking around the lake, and was only a little dissappointed that I didn't get to heap up a trail to the top of the mountains surrounding it. The weather didn't look that great each time I got near one of the trail heads though, so in one of those "no way of knowing which choice might have been better", I headed off to Sattal after a negotiation on a 'taxi' price with my friendly umbrella salesman/left luggage guy.
Sattal certainly felt like the right choice when I got there. A smaller lake, but with a lot less people, and practically no hotels (only my tourist rest house, as the government lodges are called, and the 'country inn', which looked a lot fancier. There were some YMCA tents there as well, but they looked pretty, erm, 'damp'). Damp would also be the way to describe my room at the rest house, it really wasn't pleasant, and you would have expected better for Rs1150 in India. But again, considering the other choices (which were at least twice as much) I guess you take what you can get.

I had a nice walk around the lake in the afternoon- and got acquainted some of the birds that I would be seeing in the next few days. There was also a large hunting bird who flew down to the water's edge a couple of times to try and grab something, but I didn't identify either the bird itself or it's prey.

Late afternoon reflections in Sattal Lake

The next day I decided to take advantage of what tracks there were close to the lake, but without too much expectation- I was told that there was a walk to a waterfall nearby, and set off after breakfast around 9:30am.  It was about 10 minutes into that walk, when suddenly I stopped hearing the other people breakfasting and boating around the lake, that I knew I was in the exact place that I wanted to be, right at that moment. The only noise was the babble of nearby birds, the weirdest woodpecker I have ever seen was perched on a tree in front of me, and light rain was making this perfect design on the body of water below me. I was completely immersed in a natural setting that felt like it hadn't been significantly changed in millennia. Ahhhhhh- this is getting away from it all for me.

That feeling was compounded as I headed up a mountain track that gave me almost at 180-degree view of the valley and villages below.

All this with no effort, practically no climbing, just some luck and following a couple of tricky paths. Then AFTER that (yep, I was in full hippy mode obviously) I sat down on some rock for about half an hour and looked at some of the micro stuff going on around me. Some weird grasshopper that didn't want his photo taken, an ant who looked like he knew where he wanted to go, but kept running into the ends of leaves so he couldn't get there, this orange hat fungi, suspended on the end of the thinnest black stem...

(No, I didn't eat it, although after reading this you may wonder...) Man, as I said I was just in the right place at that moment- things were good for me that morning.

Then I wandered back to the waterfall for a while- it was also pretty peaceful- completely deserted and nothing but the gentle rush of water to listen to. Of course it had the requisite lots of plastic water-bottles and tobacco pouches spread around it, but I managed to keep them out of frame...

As it started to rain the time was getting right to head back, and when it really came down I wasn't even bothered, such was the mood that this little break in what seemed like just the right place had put me in. Lunch was my chance to try some Kahri (that's curry to you non Indian-English speakers), which was a very yellow sauce in which two balls of boiled gram flour had been dipped. It was (as the cliche goes) as appetizing as it sounds.

After the rain once again timed itself perfectly to allow me to avoid it, I climbed the mountain behind the rest house to the local mandir (temple) which was pretty much straight up a couple of hundred metres or so. What greeted me at the top though, was fairly different from the one in Nainital.

First of all, the location was absolutely spectacular. They had really built the temple itself right on the highest point of that particular mountain, and had views at least over three sides into the valleys or lakes below. They had also done their best to promote the growth of the forest on top of the mountain, which somehow still managed to look natural, despite them having built a temple, living quarters, etc. up there. The old Majaraj didn't look in the best of health, he had on a lot of old jumpers and socks, despite the fact that I was sweating so much from the humidity, but I guess they have little protection from the elements up there. He seemed like a down-to-earth guy though, and everyone was keen to know if I had come to bunk down in the Ashram for the night ;-)

They served me a chai and some cold potatoes on a leaf of dubious sanitary standards, but how do you refuse food offered by the gods? Well, I guess the answer is you eat the minimum possible and try and keep them in conversation while doing so... I got to see some of the creatures that inhabited the Mandir as well (including more of the weird wood-peckers, and a monkey that didn't wanted a piece of me..

(apparently you don't want to mess with the Indian Monkeys- staring directly at them is taken as a sign of aggression, and they will attack you. This particular one was the kind of monkey that 'was just looking for trouble'- first time he peered over the edge of the temple roof and saw me he just kept starting, waiting for me to make eye contact. So I had to keep this crazy monkey in view, without actually looking at him- so I started slightly to the left while keeping him in the corner of my eye. So then he moves over to the left, and I had to start looking right, while keeping him in the corner of my eye. I was just waiting for him to jump on my head...)

So anyway, it was time to head back down the mountain, which on the way I saw some kind of mammal- I only saw it in a flash at first (and had no idea what it was), and so I pushed a little bit towards where I last saw the thing move. Problem was, I didn't know if it was a puma or what, so I didn't push too far into the bush. Then I heard what sounded like the guard dog from the Mandir up above me, barking. It was a weird bark though- only one time, and at very regular intervals (This was a weird dog though, so fair enough). After about 6 barks though- whatever was in the bush shot off at amazing speed (considering you could still barely see it) through the undergrowth, letting out this single 'woof' at the same intervals. Then the dogs down at the lake started going at it, but in 5 seconds it was 200 meters away. Unbelievably fast. I asked the guys down at the lodge what it could have been and they immediately replied 'tiger'(!) I explained to them that I'm pretty sure I know at least what colour a tiger is, so their next guess was a deer- which made sense based on it's size, but I then said- what about the noise- it was making a single bark "like a dog". Still they said deer, and as of course they had no books or anything, the description had to do. Enter the wonderful world of the internet and there just happens to be a couple of great pictures of a "barking deer" taken at Sattal. So, in all it's glory:

The Uttaranchal Barking Deer

Then came my last night at the lake, where I actually had some clear skies to watch a little night mist roll onto the lake.

The only task left for me was to take an appropriately novelty paddle boat out for the maximum 50 minutes on my last morning (finally seeing up close some of the local Kingfishers), and trekking up the mountain through the huge amount of prime land that belongs the Christian Ashram, and onto Bhimtal to take the bus back to the train station at Kathgodam.

Looking down from the road through the Ashram onto another Lake (not Sattal)

Praying for rain

I have always wondered how, ahem, “professional” bloggers stay at it on a continual basis. Blogging is a pretty thankless task- you never know if people are reading them, and it takes discipline to sit down at the keyboard at the end of a tiring day and write something you hope will read as interesting when you look back on it 5 years from now.

I know, for example, that the blogs I have been writing have been suffering from being overly descriptive and not emotive enough (at least compared to some of the first emails I wrote when I was in Guatemala). But that’s probably simply because they are being written while trying to squeeze in interesting experiences around a very hectic work schedule, rather than being consciously developed while having a few hours in an air-conditioned internet café.

Today a couple of firsts for me: I turned up to work in my new kurta (a traditional Indian men’s outfit- the closest comparison I could make would be of a pyjama-like-top and a ‘one size fits all’ drawstring pants), which drew comments ranging from giggles from our female labour, to high/low praise (“you look very smart- like an Indian politician”) to derision (“you look like a young Indian college student”). In the very least I feel a little bit more appropriate now- even if I might attract even more stares now than when I was wearing shorts to and from the site. I’m still trying to judge whether the clothes will serve the purpose they were bought for though- which was to try and make working in the heat of the day a little more bearable while providing some sort of modesty and sun protection. I’m yet to fully appreciate the supposed breathing/cooling effects of cotton. Photos soon?

Second on today’s schedule was a visit to the local temple celebration that’s currently on in Samode. For a month now there’s been a poster up of some extremely holy looking dude announcing that something was going to happen, and a few weeks ago a temporary temple (same stem word, dictionary nerds?) sprang up in the line of sight from our second compost site, announcing that whatever was going to happen was about to. It just so happens that our production manager also announced to us a few days before that he was intending to take 10 days of leave to celebrate a holy festival. All this culminates then at this temple to […], patronised by the maharaja (the holy-looking dude on the posters), where the “rain, weather, environmental and general luck” festival/celebration will be going on for the next 9 days. Today was the first day, and seeing as I had turned up to work in my regal/college boy outfit, I guess it was inevitable that everyone would think I wanted to head to the celebrations.

It wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be- especially for an Indian temple celebration there were relatively few people there. Most were under the bamboo temple that I mentioned earlier, all seated around fire-places which had numbers on them. These it turned out were family allocated plots that the families had purchased at a minimum of Rs 20,000 (close to 4 months wages for the average labourer). Our production manager had apparently paid Rs 50,000 for his (which is about 2.5 month’s salary for him)- basically it seemed like this was a bit of a “who’s who” of Samode- the more important people got a fire a bit closer to the main one, and I suppose got to be seen. I probably shouldn’t be so cynical- the whole thing requires a bit of a commitment- you need to be there throughout the day, mainly listening but occasionally joining in with the chanting to Rahm, his wife (Sitar?) and Hanuman Ji (and probably lots of others as well). In addition, you have to make a daily walk around this circle of chanting- a number of times. And the number of circles increases as the celebration goes on- 11 on the first day (that’s what we did), 21 the second, up to 91 on the last day. One circle would be in the realm of 200 metres, so you’re talking maybe 15km on the last day, not the lightest of walks… Now that we actually did the first day, my colleagues are urging me to come back every day, telling me it would be too much of a lost opportunity not to do so. Not only that, but they have also assessed that if we do it after we finish our work days we will be getting the maximum benefit from a day’s chanting and offering by the guys who are sitting inside the circle working hard to ensure good monsoon rains and a healthy environment for us all. That’s the point of the circling, to absorb the good vibes and aura radiating out from the holy offerings and fires in the middle. So they do the work, and we get the benefits. Not a bad system.

Benefits are also available from the free foods on offer (known as “prasads”- literally offerings), which anyone can sit down and indulge in. Once again, the idea is to make the absolute most of these holy gifts to the gods. I simply thought that my colleagues were being polite when they got me to try and eat my 10^th special-ghee soaked bread or puri, but now I realise that eating more of these prasads means that I could get more of their godly benefits, and that you need to take advantage of them when they’re offered to you- even if you think it would be impossible for a human to actually eat and benefit from that much food. It’s not hard to continually eat either- one of the boons of Indian efficiency is the constant stream of helpers who arrive with a bucket of one of the four types of food every 2 seconds to encourage you to have more. It’s a strange sensation having people eager to give you as much free food as you can eat- the idea seems to be that everyone receives a little of the blessings if more is eaten.

Anyway, suffice to say I am sufficiently “lucked-up” for the day (dirty minds beware) and that I have done my bit for the future of the environment in India or at least in the vicinity of Samode.

Hanuman Temple, Samode

Indians who take Hinduism seriously spend a lot of time at it. I guess one of the reasons might be because there are few set times to visit temples, few rituals in which one is guided, and well, spending time at whatever activity is just something Indians like to do. Buying something from a shop is rarely a simple experience, if the shopkeeper sees you as a customer as having any potential worth whatsoever tea will be ordered and drunk together, and everything from your family to (of course) cricket will be discussed.

Visiting a Hindu temple is not entirely different, although there are subtle differences. The first would be the time taken to actually reach the temple, particularly in rural areas. In the hills surrounding Samode, temples are located at the top of ridges where no roads have ever been built, and no people have ever lived. You can arrive at these temples by taking any of 3-4 paths which start from villages at the bottom of the hills, and there isn’t any other way up but to walk. The walk isn’t taken as an inconvenience, rather it is part of the journey of preparing yourself to enter the temple. In Rajasthan, walking will start early to avoid the killer sun, which is at its most intense on top of those mountains, and will start making you heat up after about 8 am.

On our visit to Hanuman (the monkey god, sorry for the crude representation this word conveys) Temple, probably the most visited in the surrounds of Samode, we started out at about 5:30am from stairs located near Samode Palace (probably the reason most tourists end up here, a luxury hotel built into the ancient walls of the city- which receives coaches of package tourists each week at the moment, and is apparently full in the high season). As is becoming the norm somewhat here in India, I had heard some kind of rumour that either I misinterpreted or was simply false- that you had to climb 1200 stairs to reach the temple. At least this would be bearable when it was still cool in the morning. It didn’t take that long though- and we found out later that it was a much more modest 376. The real delight in reaching Hanuman for me though, was the walk across the top of the hills which separate Samode valley from the surrounding plains. The path stays on top of the mountains for the whole way, only dipping into a few valleys where rivers run in the monsoons. Legend has it that the path (which is constructed of stones of varying hues of red from the mountains themselves) was built by a devoted pilgrim who vowed not to set foot inside the temple until this path was complete. This is a recent legend, by the way, the wife of Dhananjay my work colleague claiming to have seen this man when she was young. He apparently lived on donations given by people who walked to the temple, and he died before the path was completed.

Pilgrims construct models of houses out of rocks on the path so that their future building projects might be blessed 

Today the few choice trees that are on the mountain tops are located next to the path, and there are bird feeders and water hung in bowls from its branches. That means that especially early in the morning your walk is accompanied by the amazing variety of birds that frequent the hills of Samode at their most active and tuneful. The air is also very still, there being no one else around and little noise carrying up from the early-rising tractor drivers in the valley below. Add to that the changing colours of the rocks as the sun brightens and you have the perfect combination for preparing yourself to enter a religious temple and begin some self-contemplation.

The arrival at the temple itself gets you immediately familiar with its mascots- a few hundred Langoor monkeys which are hanging out on the rock face which is on the other side of the valley from the temple, plus some of the braver/hungrier ones swinging over the crevasse via the telephone wires.

The entrance into the temple takes you past a few small shops mainly selling Prashads (gifts for the gods- mainly Indian sweets and flowers) and a few breakfast and tea stalls. The normal practice is you bring something with you into the temple, leave some and hand the surplus over to your friends after your visit (Most of them are far too rich in sugar, and inedible by humans anyway ;-) The inside of temple itself is nothing extraordinary in terms of Hindu temples- a large idol of Hanuman- bright orange, and brightly coloured walls with shiny mirrors and reflective colours along with paintings from the life of Hanuman and the current gurus responsible for ensuring his honouring. Notable is a split-level that enables you to sit and contemplate Hanuman without being in the thoroughfare of people doing the same.

Our visit was a little inauspicious as it coincided with the day after one of the ‘lucky days’ to get married in the Hindu calendar, which meant that we had a constant procession of newlyweds accompanied by various groups (some of singing women) entering the temple. I tried to get rid of some of my super-sweet “gifts to the gods” but it was refused on the grounds that the groom was fasting (or at least that’s the excuse he came up with).

Our visit was followed by a breakfast of Cachori (sp?) in a spicy soup and some chai, and then we said good-bye to all the new Langoor mothers (almost every one had a newborn- there must be *something* good going on around the temple) and headed back before the day started heating up (i.e. before 8am ;-)

Some friendly donkeys on our trip back down

Photos from Jaipur


Gernot and I spent an afternoon taking a whirlwind trip through some of the sights of Jaipur, Rajasthan. Here is a selection of the best photos.

In front of Janta Manta (Indian observatory)

Near the lucky Elephant- City Palace

Detail of doors from City Palace

 Spring door- City Palace

 Pink City Markets

 Haba Mahal

 Jal Mahal (Water Palace)

Block dying 

 Birla Temple

 Sari shop

 Jaipur Markets

Exercise Book maker

Hindu Gods

I’m sure you have at least heard of the religion of Hindu before, so you’ve probably also heard the standard lines thrown along with it: 350 million different gods, reincarnation, gurus, etc. Most people who know only that much treat it as a bit of a novelty- cows, monkeys, elephants and rats as holy creatures; elephant-man, monkey-man, seven armed women as gods. It does prepare you a little for my interpretation of Hindu: That it’s extremely bloody confusing.

I read a little of the background of Hindu before I came, so at least I had heard of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. And I’m Catholic, so I had an idea of the different incarnations of God, depending on what was attempting to be represented. So I appreciated that these gods come in different incarnations, those incarnations revealing a little about their personality and therefore about man’s personality (As I have had explained to me by my boss, the gods are simply different incarnations of man and his virtues and vices).

So now I’ve had the chance to visit a couple of temples, each dedicated to one god or another (I think I’ve seen two of Shiva (or two different incarnations of), 1 Ganesha and perhaps 1 Brahm. The temples have been wildly different: one is next to our current fertilizer production site, with a big Ganesh on entry, who isn’t the real Ganesh- he’s around the corner; one was in Jaipur, where they were preparing an amazing amount of food for a festival in the afternoon- the idol was removed, which is why I can’t be sure who it was for- is it rude to ask them to repeat it more than once?; one was a huge marble structure for the “Shiva family”? built by wealthy industrialists (can I still say that in 2011?) and adorned by statues of the apostles, Mohammed, Buddha and Einstein; and the last was what I visited today, a complex of temples all dedicated to different Gods, but the main one being to the goddess riding the lion (again, an incarnation of Shiva?) and off to the corner a black version of Shiva carrying her trident.

Now I have had these temples and the purpose of the bells and offerings explained to my enquiring brain several times, but it still hasn’t stuck. I think I struggle with ANY terms of reference for these religious practices; but they really aren’t that different to other forms of devotion I had seen; prostration on the ground; prayers to the gods; ringing of bells and drums; and offerings (some of which are blessed and taken back to the family to eat). I guess perhaps the thought of having to remember which of the gods to pray for at which time I think I would find extremely confusing- and surely there’s some grey areas… When you are hoping for success- is that lucky Ganesh or the powerful Shiva?- for example. And then you need to choose which of the local Ganesh temples to go to- which one is more in touch with the gentle elephant? I don’t even want to think about remembering which of these temples have which gods in them (perhaps they’re signposted in Hindi).

I’m learning little by little- I got the story of why Ganesh receives the first wedding invitation of every couple the other day- but this might be something I can only reach a basic level of ignorance in after a year in India.

It’s true!- Delhi can be relaxing

Just because blogs are sometimes meant to be sources of *useful* information, and because I am in need of some myself, I have decided to compile a list of nice places to go and relax in Delhi. Not the sights, because they have been well-documented in hundreds of guidebooks and on the web, but more nice places to go to see something that perhaps isn’t there and (especially important for people living and working here) help you chill out a little.

Sitaram Bazar/ Chandi Mahal

Sometimes you want to see some part of Delhi that is authentic, yet not be hounded by rickshaw drivers, punched by street kids or secretly groped by passing strangers (I was with Anne and Carmen when we went there, I didn’t get groped myself ;-). It is still packed in sections, but doesn’t have that threatening air of the really crowded markets nearer to the tourist sights. It seemed as if not many people walk through here, and the “hellos” were genuine rather than seeing if you expressed any sort of interest to warrant a further probing of your current marital status.

You enter near the southern exit from Jama Mosque, and wind your way approximately south-east to exit somewhere near the Delhi Stock Exchange at Delhi Gate.

The Bazar is made up of shops that are more like those closer to Jama Mosque; “Old Currency Exchanges” (we were presuming from old Pakistani currency), Chapatti shops with queues of men waiting to be thrown a spare one, live goats and chickens awaiting instant slaughter, and the wonderful artistic creation that is power cabling in the inner city. Nothing too remarkable, but it felt nice to be able to see it at a pace that we could set, without worrying about what was happening behind us or around us.

Raj Ghat/ Shanti Sthal

We only made it to two of the shrines to Mahatma Ghandi and his grandson(?) Ravi, but this park stretches for a good few blocks more northward. What it is is a large, well-watered green area especially at Shanti Sthal, with lots of shady trees. There are a few people walking around but really a tenth of what you’ll find in the centre of Old Delhi even on a Sunday, which makes for a nice rest if it’s too hot or the crowds have got too much for you. We spent a couple of hours just sitting before we had to go, and it would most definitely be a spot I will go back to between seeing sights in the old part of the city.

Manju ka Tila

Another area that seems to defy the noise and heat of Delhi is this quarter, originally that of Tibetan people’s in exile, and still home to a small community today. It’s not easy to reach, but you should be able to get an autorickshaw from Vidhan Sabha Metro for about Rs20, and the bicycle rickshaws would be even cheaper. You’ll see the Tibetan prayer flags as you approach, both on the top of the buildings and across the pedestrian overpass.

Inside the height of the buildings mean that the noise of the nearby Ring Road and the heat seem to be shut-out, creating the illusion that you really are walking down the streets of a Tibetan city block. Naturally there are lots of traditional and not so traditional Tibetan handicrafts for sale, the shops functioning as tourist outlets as well as places for the inhabitants to buy their everyday needs.

I need to say it again, the relaxed nature of the atmosphere (not a single shop-owner even attempted to get us interested in buying something), makes it a great place to take a relaxing walk while the chaos of Delhi bubbles outside. Of course most people like Tibetan handicrafts as well, and some of the books with their hand-made covers looked pretty attractive. There are some restaurants serving Tibetan food (don’t ask me what that normally is, but the chicken Momos at Peace House tasted pretty good, and there is at least one Internet Café that serves good coffee, according to our ‘guide’ Jakob.

Relaxing Delhi- we found it and managed to spend pretty much the whole day doing it…

The loneliness of a long-distance worker

This isn’t going to be a lament to how difficult it can be arriving in a new country as someone who is expected to fit right into a new environment and how in the time spent outside that environment- geared as it is mostly around work- it can be difficult to adjust to living a ‘normal’ lifestyle (at least I am conscious that it shouldn’t turn into that ;-). Its purpose is more to try and articulate something that I was struggling with today and that I tried to articulate to my fellow colleagues (who are practically my only social contact at present).

I guess I could sum it up best by saying that beginning a new long-term job in an alien country for a small company makes it hard to quickly find and get into a, ahem, life-rhythm (I told you I was trying to articulate it today, obviously coining terms to define abstract concepts is not my strong point). One of the hardest things is that you practically start from square one when you arrive. You know very little about how simple things operate in the country- how people buy their vegetables, what the deal with phone contracts are, how the public transport system operates. Sometimes these things are close enough to what you know to make the transition simple, but most often they aren’t. There are of course ways of making the transition a little easier, as in most countries there exists some “western” equivalent: think shopping malls, and taxis for two of the above examples- I can’t think of one for the mobiles. What I’m trying to say is that these things can be solved, but they aren’t really long-term solutions. They are also a long way removed from what the locals would do, which is another reason for trying to avoid these easy solutions and “do what the locals would do”.

That’s certainly what I attempt to do as soon as I arrive in a new country- I find it helps me fall into the afore-mentioned rhythm much quicker, and achieve one of the goals of working in a “developing” country (although don’t try and tell Indians that their country is still a developing one- they’ll point you towards the number of millionaires/billionaires and the fact that two of the richest 10 men in the world are Indians, and heads of giant corporations). That goal, at least for me, is to find the positive differences from the life you are used to, and embrace them. That’s a little difficult when your daily rhythm includes as many things about home as possible. One, it’s is hard to maintain when the rest of the society lives differently, and secondly, it’s a little artificial.

Perhaps describing my personal situation would help the understanding a little easier. I tried in vain to find a bedroom in a house or apartment that was already inhabited by a few others- like a share-house. The reason being that I thought it would take care of things like I mentioned above- how do to some of the everyday things that make life a little simpler, without having to ring someone up or bother the landlord. Those requests are part of any natural learning process in a new city- but made more difficult when you don’t have someone available there to answer them. Secondly, purely for the added company at the end of a work day, sitting down to eat together once in a while- look, I don’t have to explain to you the advantages/disadvantages of share-housing, but perhaps you can understand how they are a little more valuable when moving to a new city in a new country. At the very least you have an instant circle of acquaintances, and most of the time it doesn’t take long before you can call at least some of them friends. The situation that you all find yourselves in makes that transition much easier.

For whatever reason that didn’t work out, and I know now that that *function* that a share-house would have provided is basically what I am missing at the moment. Moving into a new flat means you start from scratch. I at least have some furniture, but nothing else. No food, no cleaning stuff, not enough power points, some utensils, etc. It’s not a living area at the moment, it’s a hotel room. Even when you head off to the supermarket, you are trying to buy things as if starting a life from scratch- you of course have not sugar, flour, oil, salt; but also no spices, tea, coffee, washing up liquid, washing up sponges, mop, broom, tea towel… etc. And you get perhaps one or two chances to do this shopping because of course you’re also working. It doesn’t sound too much- and it really isn’t, but… let me try another tack.

Here the cooking is done with gas, and that means getting a gas bottle. My gas bottle I left half-open (half-open means open at the bottle attachment, off at the stove, and it leaks) when I was away for the last week, and all the gas ran out. So I needed to get it changed. So, what do I do? Landlord problem? I guessed yes, so I asked him (he lives below me). He, probably wanting to avoid doing any more work than possible, told me to ask my boss, who now conveniently for him, lives only a few houses away. Or he said you could just go down the market and get it filled. But the market is a couple of km’s away, and I don’t really want to carry a gas bottle that far. Besides, the market’s a big place, and I have no idea where the fill station is. And isn’t there someone to do these kind of jobs? I’ve seen motorbikes loaded with about 6 gas bottles at the same time, putting from house-blocks to get filled. Can’t I just get one of those numbers and call them up? Here’s the crux of what I’m trying to say. Everyone knows that this *can* be simply done- so as a simple job they don’t pay too much attention to my concern that I *need* it done. But they also don’t tell me how I can do it simply myself- they either want to do it for me (but don’t have the time right now), or they tell me to ask someone else (which I guess I have to do every time I need a simple job done). And even if they do have the time today, what happens the next time I need the same thing done- ask them to do it again? Just tell me how to do it once, give me a phone number, direct me to the shop, and I can take care of it this time, and the next twenty times.

So a simple job gets a little more complicated, just because I don’t have this knowledge on how to get things done. It’s not a big deal, and this isn’t a complaint, it’s simply trying to give you an idea of how this feels to me at the moment. It’s not allowing me to get into a rhythm of living, and that makes me uncomfortable. That was it is- some discomfort, nothing more.

A conveyor or a winch?

Before I get into today’s trivia question, just one thing I feel needs to be addressed. I’m currently sitting in the lobby (to use a flattering word for what is basically the entrance door) of the Maharaja Hotel here in Samod watching what apparently passes for cricket nowadays, the Indian Premier League. So here’s my confusion- I’ve seen approximately 20 people that are obviously of European origin during my time here in India. That’s 20 out of 1.2 billion people- a pretty small percentage. However, apparently this percentage makes up 100% of the available cheerleading stock in India- given that the only cheerleaders you ever see at the IPL games are quite obviously not of- well let’s just say Indian ancestry, at least.

So today’s trivia question is one that I’m sure has baffled many a Business Strategy Manager across this little blue planet of ours- what is the most efficient way to get 300kg of harvested worming compost from the harvesting field to a sieve that separates saleable material from rubbish or bulk material?

Firstly you may well be asking- what the hell has that question got to do with Business Strategy anyway? Well, I hopefully can put it this way- part of the strategy in this business involves producing fertilizer, and that means that someone has to answer these questions. Given the current lack of availability of fertilizer production consultants- the responsibility then has to fall on someone. That someone basically means, to a large extent, me.

Here’s your basic sieve (lovingly drawn for your appreciation in Office Impress). It takes raw harvested composted material, shakes around a bit and only passes the finer material through a metal sheet with ½ cm holes cut into it. Larger material slides along the screen and falls off the end. The sieve weighs a ton (literally) and needs the input to flow onto the highest point. We don’t know at the moment how fast we can pour material onto the sieve for to work at its most efficient, but we’re estimating something like 20kg every 2 minutes.

The problem, then, is that raw input is being harvested at a site anything from 20-150m away from where the sieve is located. The output of the sieve needs to be packed into wondrous bags of Miracle fertilizer, and that packing area needs to be static, so moving the sieve really isn’t an option. The challenge then, quite simply, is to get the material from a harvesting site that can vary to the sieve. And a constant flow of material at that to keep the sieve working at maximum capacity.

A few things had to change then. We solved the varying location by getting a little motorized tuk-tuk that can be loaded at the harvesting site before driving to the sieve. Now you might be able to see the issue- we need to get the 300kg of material from a height of about 50cm into the sieve (at a constant rate) at a height of 1.5m. Simple problem, right? So we came up with several ideas.

A ramp seems like the simplest and cheapest solution, but tuk-tuks are normally not built to take 300kg, and trying to drive one to 1.5m off the ground would mean either an infinitely long ramp ;-) or a more powerful tuk-tuk, i.e. there were serious doubts if the tuk-tuk would make it.

A conveyor would allow us to unload the tuk-tuk a little bit away from the sieve (at a point more central to where we were harvesting) and with a decent enough design would allow us to unload the harvested material by just pushing it out of the tuk-tuk and having it “flow” onto the input of the conveyor. They’re not too expensive (about $400 for 8m) and would mean a constant input flow to the sieve. The most expensive solution (intuitively) and the least flexible- although the input we can tinker with a bit.

Then it was time for the creative solution- some kind of “bin” that the tuk-tuk can easily dump material into, but that we could easily then lift up to the height of the sieve and shovel the material in. Our solution was a joint creative effort- we have a “catcher at ground height or at least with sides no higher than the tuk-tuk floor, and then we find a way of lifting it up (either by a winch system or counterweights) and then the material is pushed out or slides out when it’s at 1.5m off the ground.

Pretty cool, huh? Of course there is a little problem contained in that simple word “lifting”. How do you lift almost half a tonne of material 1.5m off the ground? Using the best of my mechanical engineering memory (i.e. practically none) we came up with a few ideas. Didn’t I learn something about pulley systems that allowed you to lift lots of weights even if you were a bit of a weakling? Couldn’t we use a balance system and a counter-weight? What about a winch- they can do pretty amazing things with relatively little engineering right?

So after trying to conceptualise how this would work in our heads, we decided we didn’t want too many 300kg counter-weights jumping up and down around where people would be constantly working with the sieve- might result in some nasty stubbed toes. The winch seemed like the natural choice- basically doing a similar ratio transfer of a pulley, but stronger and simpler to operate (those wires were going to have to be fairly large through the pulleys- probably?) But who knew about making winches to lift a half tonne “bin” off the ground? Someone in Chomu apparently, who showed us a nice little system with a simple two cog pulley driving a steel wire reel to go up, with a safety catch to stop the thing from freewheeling back down, and a brake for when the bin had been unloaded. Almost perfect. Of course then we asked him the price he wanted for this thing- which turned out to be about 3x that that we were quote for the conveyor… :-/ So all this design work, a system that wasn’t quite as good as the conveyor, but I was pretty proud of how close we got… all for the bargain price of $1200.

Back to the… well, back to the conveyor manufacturer.