What was the question again?

I’m sitting in a cafe in Portland, reading a blog entry from a friend in Manchester about the impact of near-ubiquitous networks on human interaction and communication.

So, first off, definitely score one for the digital revolution. I couldn’t have done this when I was at uni, which is when I would have had plenty of time to hang out in cafes. But looking around the café for some anecdotal evidence in either direction, I see about half of the people here have laptops in front of them. One guys is playing internet poker. One girl is busily working on something important. Another seems to be reading a book with her PC unattended in front of here (maybe a report for college?). They aren’t talking to anyone else, but then, cafes don’t normally have strangers breaking into conversation anyway, so no real change there.

But what is more interesting, and relevant, are the two places in the café where two people share a table and have computers at the table. One is a pair of young men, each with a large laptop actually in their laps, pattering away at their keyboards. When I arrived, they were silent, each caught up in his own little pool of focus. But after a few minutes, and a very nice double cappuccino, I notice they pause and start to converse about whatever it is they are doing, one points to the screen of the other, mutters something about ‘firewall’ and it becomes clear that they are working on the same project, or at least related facets of the one project. They stop typing, the murmur in their own abstruse jargon, they completely ignore their cups as they work. These guys are clearly some variant of computer geek, so they are more than capable of setting up this conference of labour in some virtual space, messaging their comments, watching their colleagues efforts on a pair of flat screen monitors so large that they need welding goggles to use them, while physically situated at the farthest ends of the city, the country, the planet. But they sit in a coffee shop instead, almost on top of one another. I guess there’s something available there in the physical presence that they can’t get from the virtual realm.

At the other end of room (not really as far as that phrase might make it sound), sit two women, slightly more formally dressed, slightly older, but clearly just as well educated. Perhaps even more so; the words ‘doctorate’ and ‘research’ waft in my direction as they gather around the gentle illumination of a single tiny screen. It’s clear from the beginning that the screen serves as the facilitator (god, I hate that word, but it’s the only accurate phrase to use in this case) for the conversation, rather than as a possible medium for it. Its seems unlikely from watching these two that they would have considered having their meeting online, but perhaps there is a subtle (or not so subtle) bias on the part of the observer that leads to this conclusion. In any case, lack of computer literacy is no barrier, they could have emailed and settled their negotiation (as it seemed from my location), without ever needing to meet. But they didn’t.

Which pretty much settles the issues of digital interaction replacing the face to face, more traditional method. But doesn’t really address the broader question posed by my friend, does the broad availability of digital technologies lead to more shallow relationships with our friends and love-ones? I don’t know, I doubt anyone does, how can someone who grew up in the modern era make meaningful comparisons with the quality and depth of the bonds between people from another? I think you can only compare how well and how often you speak to your own friends within your own life. And by that measure, I would say that the technology has made for an improvement. For those close at hand, the interactions are much as they were, I prefer actual to virtual contact. For those further flung (and something I come to appreciate more in the last few years), I can now have a conversation with someone with the immediacy (or illusion thereof) that would be otherwise impossible. My blog, the frequency of updates notwithstanding, provides a point of contact, for which there is no proper analog analogue.

BTW Megan, I was thinking I dropping by on my way through.

Its like the Simpsons, but in reverse...

So someone has asked the immortal question. No not that one, although I think maybe Douglas was closer to the truth than even he realised. No, the question in question is: am I still in India, or am I home yet. And the answer is the same as it ever was. Still here. It reminds me of the scene where Apu and Homer go to visit the originator of the Quikie Mart, with Homer pestering him the whole way like some five-year-old glued by sweltering heat to the vinyl-covered back seat of a station wagon on a cross country odyssey. Only in reverse.

The good news is, I'm nearly finished. No really. Seriously. I promise this is the last week I'll be here, I have the airline tickets and everything. As of Friday evening, I'll be winging my way home and I won't be returning to this job again. Not that I'll be spending much time at home once I get there. I'm off to WA to see some friends for a week and unwind. Then about a week after that, I'll be flying to the US to see my girlfriend and find out why the Americans think that their country is so great. Or something. And in mid-July, I'll be dropping in to the UK to see my brother for the first time in what seems like an age (Stu, if you're reading this, I'll send you the details in the next few days). And then I'll be home. For at least a few months. Probably.

What have I been doing recently? Well I went to a wedding. Deepti, the youngest daughter of our South Indian agent, Kurian, got married in a little town about three hours drive from the minesite. The area was quite picturesque, situated in the foothills of the Western Ghats, the mountain range that separates Kerala from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. It was a Christian ceremony, I'm not sure what denomination, its a little hard to be sure with the entire service in Malayalam.

In essence the service was little different from what you might see in a modest church in Australia, although the service seemed to go an awful long time before the priests even acknowledged the presence of the couple, which struck me as a little odd. That and the groom wouldn't smile. Given that it was an arranged marriage, I can understand there being some trepidation, but even Deepti managed to smile after the ceremony was over. Her new husband, Roji, on the other hand was stoic for every photo. Perhaps there's some subtle cultural underpining there that I was missing. Kurian has become a friend of mine over the years now (not just on this job) that we have worked together, and it was nice to be involved, however peripherally, in the wedding. I'll post some photos once I can get my camera working again.

I also returned home to Oz, very briefly, to renew my visa and attend my godson's third birthday. Lachie, who unfortunately looks a little too much like his father, is an amazing kid and I'm struck each time I come home with how much he's changed since I saw him last. Needless to say, all the kids at the party had a ball. Again, I'll post some photos when the camera is up.

See you soon, some of you sooner than others.

OK, so perhaps I was a little optimistic...

You know when you get all fired up and you decide to do all these things and then the moment (and the energy that came with it) passes, and suddenly sanity and normality reassert themselves, and you don't actually do all those things you said you were gunna? Yeah? That's me.

Four times a week; what, was I on drugs? I normally have trouble coming up with something interesting to say about my life once a week.

Of course people who know me (and if you don't know me, I'm a little surprised you're here, but 'welcome' anyway), know that I'm like this, full of good intentions and boundless procrastination in about equal measure. It's not that I'm lazy, I'm not, I'm just easily distracted. I'm always on the hunt for the new before I've really got a hold of the old. Which is a massive productivity killer. I am, to put it bluntly, not a good finisher. Starter, yes, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who can start as fast and strong as me, enthusiasm coming out of my ears (interesting visual image there). But there is a significant chance that, unless I remain enthralled throughout, I'm going to be wandering off the beaten path to somewhere new pretty soon.

It's something I've managed largely to contain and constrain in my professional life, but in my private life, I still struggle with it a bit. I think I mentioned the word 'discipline' in the previous entry, and that's probably the nub of it all. Lack of Discipline. Not sure if that ever appeared on a school report card, but it probably should have. Of course, at school the only discipline that seems to be of concern is whether you're swinging from the rafters firing spitballs in every direction. And the structure for formal study at any level is built into the institution as clearly as the buildings, you don't really need to provide any if your own.

In any case, I'm trying to add some discipline to this blog, write more often, practice the craft even if its not endlessly fascinating. We'll see how it goes.

And how are things in India, I hear you ask? Well I'm nearly done. The job will continue, but largely it will continue without me. The tasks remaining will take several months at least and would involve me only peripherally at most. And it's just time for me to leave.

I had planned to travel up to Agra and see the Taj Mahal, described to me by a few people as one of those things that exceed the hype, that pass expectations. But I just don't have the energy. I just want to be out of this country and home for a while. Besides which, there is an excellent chance that I'll be back in India for another job in the medium term and now that I have a bit of a feel for the place, I think I can manage a bit better next time when it comes to having the energy to do a bit of sightseeing. Plus the likely job is further north and thus closer to the more extravagant attractions of the sub-continent. At least in theory.

Plus, I've been invited to not one but two weddings this month, so there's a good chance to see some Indian culture up close and personal without fighting off crowds of tourists or travelling halfways across the country. Hopefully I'll have some photos to post then.

How do they get tech support?

This is something I've been giving some thought to for some time and I don't think I'm any clearer about it now than I was when I started. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program.

It's an idea started by a computer geek based on concepts and ideas that have been around for some time, according to their website. Make a cheap, robust and reliable computer that you can distribute to the children of the developing world in an effort to improve their overall educational standards and thus their lot in life. Nice idea. Laudable. Education as a potential solution to a large number of the world's problems is something that I've believed in for as long as I can remember thinking about those problems. So why does it feel slightly off to me?

When you read about the difficulties that a huge proportion of the world's population have in getting, say, clean water, the idea of giving children in these conditions a computer seems a little bit like offering the child with his finger in the dyke wall a coat 'in case it gets cold tonight'. He'll probably appreciate it, but he has more fundumental problems to worry about. What is the point of providing these children with a more sophisticated education if before they reach puberty, they're pressed into manual labour making bricks or begging on the street?

I don't want to sound like a pessimist, far from it, and I understand that these people are trying to offer help to the world's most vulnerable people in the best way they know how, with the skills that they have to offer. It just seems like they're aim is a little off. I think the love affair that the West has with computing and digital technology (and I won't even start with my distaste for the use of the word 'technology' to exclusively refer to the computing and communication industries, as if nothing technical had existed before the advent of the silicon age) has skewed perspectives a little when it comes to trying to aid the less fortunate. The explosive rise of mobile telephony in India, for example, has not helped the millions of poor children in Kerala state alone who never recieve a secondary education.

Maybe I missing some vital part of the overall picture here, I freely admit that I haven't had time yet to read the full website. And if the title of this post is a little flippant, is mostly because the plight of these kids seems so terrible that I have a tough time dealing with it head on. I have friends who have done just that and their stories fill me with a kind of crawling horror at the privations of real poverty (as opposed to relative kind that most people complain about in Australia) that it makes me slightly distainful of the the whole idea of OLPC.

Or perhaps I just need to be thankful that there are some people out there who are willing to do something, anything to improve the lot of those who cannot help themselves.

It's festival season again

Nothing makes me realise how long I've been here like the return of annual events that I experienced last year. The festival season is back in India. And I don't mean a couple of weeks of the Adelaide Fringe, no, no. Were taking the next three months. Holi was just celebrated up North (it doesn't have much currency down here), which is where sane people spend too much money buying brightly coloured powders, which they then throw at anyone in range, more or less all day. Last year I was in Bangalore for Holi and got to see the madness first-hand. I naively wondered out camera in hand wearing a white tee-shirt. Not advised.

If three months sounds like a long time (and it is), it's simply because every temple in the country has is own festival, and in the Land Of A Million Gods, that translated into lots and lots of temple festivals. I didn't go to the festival for the nearest temple, because I was completely exhausted that night, but there are about a dozen temples within ten minutes walk, so I might get a chance to see one before the season ends.

The thing that makes it most apparent is the prevalence of elephants. Elephants are quite common here, I would normally see a few a week, but at the moment they seem to pop up everywhere. (If the visual image of elephants popping up all over the place has you questioning my drinking habits, let me assure you that the here beer isn't good enough). We were driving back from a place down the road from Kollam a week of so back and we came across a procession of elephants, all tricked out for some nearby festival or other. And let me tell you, elephants are one thing thing that never lose there impact. There is something about being close to something alive of that size; it reminds me how much I want to go swimming with whales one day.


One of the monks spots me snapping shots (I was a bit hard to miss, standing in the middle of the road, although not for this shot)


You don't often see the younger elephants and certainly not all dressed up for festivals, but this 'little' guy seemed to be enjoying himself.


A bit of assistance proves that they're not just show-ponies, a young tusker helps with the parade float.


And since the traffic didn't stop (it never does in this country), the local constabulary were out to protect the pachyderms from injury (and the cars from damage too I guess)

Why so quiet?

Now some of you, those of you who are still reading given my irregular updates (and bless your cotton socks for doing so), might be wondering why I don't update more often than I do. The short answer is that I don't always have a lot to say, since my life is basically my job at the moment. I know you might think that your life is your job too, but you have weekends off, friends to see movies with, bookstores, restaurants, and access to good quality salad, beer and chocolate. (You never really appreciate just how good as salad is until you live in a country without lettuce.)

Anyway, I say this not as a plea for sympathy, I don't want any, I choose to remain here at this job, I could always quit and look for work elsewhere. It just the fact of life; seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day, I'm working. And since I know full well that there is only so much: "Job slow, Indians annoying, weather humid, beer crap" commentary that anyone would care to read, I chose to write nothing in most cases. That, and I'm buggered most nights.

But after reading a few other blogs that I visit regularly, I realised that this is part of my life, not just the thing I'm doing while I get ready to go back to it (which it sometimes feels like). I'm going to look back on this one day and say, "Well I lived and worked in India for 18 months, it was something of an eye-opener and despite the trials, I don't regret going." And I don't. Its been hard, yes. I have been through all of the emotions that you might expect in this kind of situation, but recently I've come to see what I have drawn from being here, both professionally and personally. So I decided not to narrow my view of this experience so much. It not a trip, it not a job, it not a vacation, it's the part of my life that I spent in Kerala. I guess I trying to broaden my perspective as a remedy against the tunnel vision that can become a little suffocating when you get bogged down in the day to day.

So a few things; I started exercising again, I had been working out on the roof of the hotel, so I'm doing that again. I don't know how much weight I've lost, but I certainly feel better. I bought a digital SLR camera so that I can push myself a little creatively. I've started to notice things that I would have liked to capture in my photos that I can't with the very handy but limited point and shoot that I have at the moment. Unfortunately, the camera appears to have suffered some damage at some point (prior to my buying it), so I'm taking it back for a new one. And I going to try and write at least 4 post a week to the blog, a little enforced discipline to match the exercise to hopefully open up the writer in me a bit more. We'll see if there's one in there at all.

Also, I'm going to be going back to Oz for a week of R&R, which I very much anticipating. One of the main reasons is to see Weird Al in concert with some mates of mine. Last time Al came to town, Shane and I had a ball, so this promises to be an excellent time, although I have no idea if Shane will be going (Duz you want to fill me in there?)

In other news, I am addicts to Heroes (the TV show, not the David Bowie song, although I did buy the three disc Best Of David Bowie, which is brilliant), I'm planning a trip to the U.S. of A. in June and I am ever so close to having my house deposit together. Life is... confusing, as ever.

Okay, so not 100 days then...

So the week before last I racked up a year since I first came to India for the site work on this job. At that stage I was visiting the offices of our sub-contractor, MECON Limited, in Bangalore to help clear up their questions on the job. If I had known the troubles that were going to emerge from that office to swallow my life over the next 12 months, I would have brought a bib and spoon with me and been very much more deliberate about leading them through the job. And for those of you who have been thinking that you haven't seen much of me, I've only been out of India for a total of 8 weeks over that period, including my two weeks in Japan. Hmm, I think I need to rename blog. Or maybe just leave it as a ironic and veiled reference to sub-continental efficiency.

At this stage, I see the light at the end of the tunnel, thankfully. It's still dim and flickering, but to torture a metaphor and borrow an adage, sometimes its better to light a candle than curse the darkness. But don't let anyone try to convince you that India is going to take over from China as the global manufacturing powerhouse, it ain't gunna happen.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Tash.

Marching to the drums

So after a break at home over the holiday period, I'm back in the land of confusion, curry and call centres. What did I do over the break? I'm glad you asked:

Went to Melbourne.

Mostly the reason was to attend the Boxing Day Test match - a much delayed birthday present for Shane, a friend of mine - and hopefully see Shane Warne's 700th Test wicket fall at his home ground. It was ridiculously cold for Day one. Even in Melbourne, home of bipolar (and sometimes just plain polar) weather, 10 degrees plus windchill on Boxing Day is just perverse. But we braved the conditions and were rewarded; Warnie's landmark achievement with a ball that perfectly captured his brilliance as a bowler.

Day two was much warmer and we had better seats (over the bowlers shoulder), so the comfort factor was much higher. Andrew Symond's first test century and overall batting dominance by Australia made for a enjoyable day.

We had a white Christmas, it hailed for a short while in the middle of the day, so that was a first for me. We also got seats to a late lunch sitting at Fifteen (thanks Kate!). For those who don't know, Fifteen was a restaurant formed at the end of TV program called Jamie's Kitchen with Jamie Oliver, celebrity chef, involving fifteen unemployed youths ( I think he started with more and whittled it down to fifteen). The original was in London, but he repeated the process, with some local help, in Melbourne and Fifteen Melbourne is the result. It was great afternoon: food service, decor, the whole things was excellent. Some of the girls had actually watched the show, so they knew who the face behind the food were and the layout of the place allowed us to watch the chefs at work. Recommended.

After Melbourne, I flew home and spent some time at home, catching up with friends and family, and generally doing as little thinking about work as possible. Anne stayed with me for those two week and convinced me to go ten pin bowling, something I haven't done in perhaps ten years. I wasn't nearly as bad as I feared I would be and I had a good enough time to go again with some other friends the following week. Of course my shoulder complained bitterly in the morning, but then thats just because I'm not fit.

Apparently, I'm something of a beach snob. I had commented to Anne that beaches alone are not enough reason for me to go somewhere, as I grew up living 20 minutes drive from some of the best beaches in the world. So I took her down to show her Burleigh Heads. She did her best to hide it, but I think secretly she was stunned at the gorgeous white sanded paradise that is Burleigh beach. Perhaps.

And now I'm back in India. There was some progress on the job in my absence, which was a pleasant surprise, but things are largely as they were in terms of local enthusiasm to finish the job. Might be home for Easter, but I would put money on it.


Arriving at the airport, Lachie, with his luggage ready, was keen to explore.


Jacqui on the other hand, stayed close to mum.


Freezing our tits (and other appendages) off at day one of the Boxing Day Test.


Dining at Fifteen as celebration of Katishe's birthday:
from l to r: Anne, David, Darius, Katishe, Tash, Shane, Kate

Here's a couple of photos I took of a water truck near the site the other day. The painted reliefs on the roof and doors was quite intricate and reminded me somewhat of the matatus (minivan taxis) I saw in Kenya - highly decorated and poorly maintained.





And then there is this:





















Oh and also check this out, it'll take while to load, but it's brilliant and funny and thought-provoking.