Holy Cow - India "the ancient, the eternal and the ever gnu"

I was last in India about 15 years ago. Despite the striking image of cows, my one unerasable memory of India is the sense of humanity. An ocean of humanity. My return to India in mid-August reaffirmed that memory.

On arrival at the airport, I was picked up by a driver, and we then drove over three hours to the university where I am staying and teaching.

We travelled on highways that were covered in cars, motorbikes, rickshaws, buses, bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, cows in roughly that order of frequency.

But there was more - trash, monsoonal rains, water flowing along the roads like a river, and speedbumps - all slowing down the flow of traffic. Yes, that is speedbumps on highways! Everyone has to slow down to gently climb, scrape, grind over these massive lumps.

At some point in the long journey, I started to make a calculation of how many people we were passing. There were often four or five lanes of traffic going each way. (The word 'lane' is used loosely because line markings are either ignored, or if used, they are straddled the way a taxiing aeroplane uses a line.)

So, I estimated that I would pass at least five cars going the other way each second. The average number of occupants in each car varied a lot, but it barely ever was just one, and could be as many as eight or nine or ten people. In addition, I did not count motorbikes (with one, two, three, four or even five passengers) or buses (who knows how many).
So let’s say conservatively that we pass five people per vehicle on average which gives us 25 people per second going the other way.

For simplicity, I simply ignore those travelling the same way as me and my driver, that is, those whom we passed or who passed us.

So, that is 1,500 people per minute, or 90,000 people per hour. I travelled for over three hours and therefore passed 270,000 people – which is about half the population of the Gold Coast where I live!

So that is the sea of humanity.

But there is another sense in which India simply bellows humanity. The people are just so human. There so much room allowed for other humans to be human.

Take the rules of the road. They are pretty simple. There are none!

Rules and regulations limit individual freedoms whereas Indians appear to recognise that each individual is different, each individual needs to choose their own path. And they generally allow room to others to do just this. 

Take the lines marking the lanes on the road as already noted. They are not prescriptive, not indicative, merely suggestive. Mostly they are completely irrelevant.

The traffic on the roads behaved like a crowd leaving an enormous sports stadium. Everyone was going in the one direction. Well mostly. There were a few places where vehicles would turn and then return against the great flow of traffic. And no-one got too excited about that.

In general, the crowd of cars were steadfastly pushing forward with each individual finding their own speed and those wanting to go faster would weave their way through. Like the stadium crowd, there was chatter and occasional communications with others, spoken through the endless hooting of horns and many messages painted on vehicles.

Many vehicles feature signs such as "blow horn," "horn please," "keep distance," "stop" (presumably so you remember not to run into the back of this vehicle! And then some vehicles have these running together apparently calling for an end to the endless hooting: "stop horn please" (see picture).

Some drivers (like mine) appeared to use their horn almost completely at random. We were in no special danger, no clear evidence of being blocked, no one in our way and no one about to collide with us - and he would toot the horn. Just like mindless chatter to the person next to us: “Great game, eh?”

Or perhaps he used the horn to keep himself and other drivers awake. My driver was clearly getting drowsy –and who can blame him. It had presumably taken him about two to three hours to get to the airport, and longer to get home as the 'normal' endless traffic jams swelled with the Rakhi festival crowd celebrating brotherly and sisterly love and duty.  

At one point, due to his tiredness I suspect, we nearly pulled into the stopped car in front. On this single occasion, I said to my driver ‘Hey, watch out’. I think that if I hadn’t, we would have had a fender-bender. With all the sensory overload, there were at least some experiences like a physical collision with another car that I wanted to save for another day.

At one point, a motorbike pulled past with a husband and wife with child jammed between them. Seconds later, we saw the woman and the child sprawled on the road. Fortunately, the accident was slow and no-one appeared to be harmed.

At another point, a car pulled over and people were swarming around a woman lying on the side of the road. Perhaps she had been hit by a car, perhaps she had collapsed. I don’t know, but I was struck in both instances how there were people everywhere already hunkering down to help.

The lack of rules and regulations, the benign and constant communication and interaction with others, the sense of genuine concern. In all these ways, India spelled out not just humanity as in a mass, but humanity as in humane.

For all the chaos, I'm struck at how it works. Sort of.

Tour de France '14(5) : Things seen

Zach’s friend Chance journeyed through Japan with his father at the same time as Zach and I began our 'Tour de France'.

Zach and Chance keep in touch through ‘Clash of Clans’ (an online game), Instagram (a social media network), and occasionally even resorting to old-fashioned technology like email to talk to one another.

During his travels through Japan, Chance updated us on features of his travels like his purchase of blurple shoes (blue-purple in colour), seeing life-size Lego figures, and listing all the fancy cars he saw. 

Chance's list of cars includes five Ferraris, four Corvettes, three Lamborghinis[1], two Aston-Martins (V12 Vantages) and one Maserati !

He also noted that he had seen 20 Skylines ! We weren't sure why they were listed. Perhaps they were all pimped out. Or that was the number he counted from the bullet train in a 10 second interval – which would be pretty cool.

Chance even sent us a movie that featured a Lamborghini accelerating past. 

Yeah, it’s more noise than vision, but it inspired us to create our own list of things seen & heard! Zach had four biggies:

Cars:

We have seen lots of Fiats, Alfa-Romeos, Renaults, Citroëns, Toyotas, Nissans, Opels – oh, and a few Ferraris, a modicum of Maseratis, a lone Lamborghini (orange!)

Planes:

Our host in France, Marc (whose house faces the Pyrenées) works with Airbus and worked on both the A380 and the A400-M. The house is in an area that is used by Airbus for flight trials for brand new planes and planes recently built but pre-delivery so we see lots here.
So we have seen up close and personal (at the house or at Toulouse airport which serves as Airbus' base) a plethora of planes: 

-        a number of A380s - the striking double-decker plane with the largest passenger capacity of any plane. Zach is excited because we will be flying in one on our way home in July. That means he and I will travelling at the height of Mt Everest along with about 800+ complete strangers in an area 50m x 6.5m wide - that is half the length of a rugby field, one tenth the width, and smellier than the post-game locker rooms combined! Woohoo, I can hardly wait.

-        the A350 on a number of occasions - this is Airbus’s latest new model, not yet in commercial operation, designed to compete with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. It is a long range, two-turbine, extra-wide body plane with lots of carbon fibre and some seriously cool wing tips (see picture). We have seen Airbus' version (#1) and the one which is destined for Qatar Airways and is half painted in their livery.

-        the Beluga - the weird shaped plane from Airbus used to transport airplane components and other over-sized items (see diagram). The photo at the beginning of this post is a picture of one of the three that Zach saw.

-        A400-M - a four turbo-prop plane with substantially increased payload, volume and range over previous military transporters.

LegoLand:
Zach's went to Germany with his Mum to visit the LegoLand near to Munich. They had a wonderful adventure. They slept in tent accommodation - without sleeping bags - as a cold spell swept across the region ! The accommodation managers were impressed.
At LegoLand, Zach got to ride rides and saw the biggest Lego figures ever. There's a wonderful one of him standing next to a larger-than-life Yoda - but we have not yet been able to compare it with the photos Chance sent us of the Lego figures he saw in Japan. Zach thinks its bigger, but we need to get the image from his Zach's Mum's phone to this blog. Somewhere somehow we'll make this happen !
When Zach and his Mum flew back into Toulouse airport from Germany, as they landed, Zach took the opportunity to regale his Mum about all the planes that were parked around the airport including three of the only five Belugas (the plane featured at the beginning of this post).
A man sitting in front of Zach and his Mum turned around and told them he was impressed at Zach’s knowledge. Turns out he was a pilot and fleet manager with American Airlines and was in France test-flying the A350. We waved at him a couple days later when the A350 passed close over our heads.

Snow:
It was a BIG deal for Zach to see snow. So we mention that again, but we have already covered that here!

[1] Two Mucilagos and one Aventador

Tour de France '14(4): Food / La Bouffe

France is famous for food, but not for obesity. They eat lots of fat, and yet they’re not fat.

Perhaps it is part of the French Paradox that is thought to be due to their drinking a lot of red wine. Some ascribe it specifically to the resveratrol in the red wine, but elsewhere I argue that this might be just so much snake oil.

Anyway, the real paradox to me is that everywhere else in the world, I am told that drinking red wine will make me fat!

So here I am in France doing some important research on this issue: to see if speaking French, living in France and eating (and drinking!) as they do has any effect on my weight. It’s a heavy gig.

My son has kindly noted that my six-pack looks like a bloated, squishy, mini-keg when I’m sitting down.

However, I think this is an artefact. If I stand up, it goes away. And if I put my fingers in my ears, I can't hear any remarks.

Besides, France is exactly the place for addressing an important dilemma: would you rather live forever on water and celery or live (and die) happily on fine food and drink.

It’s hard to go past the sights, the sounds, the smells of the market. The poissonnerie, fromager, boucherie (including the cheval-boucherie) all selling their wares. Zach enjoys how they offer little tastes of their wares. He and I were treated to some roasted pork rib one day and we liked it so much we went back and bought some.

The other day, buying some Toulousain sausage (a long thick sausage that is coiled into a frypan for cooking and cut up afterwards), I noticed some boudin (blood sausage) and remarked to the butcher that I loved that and would get some next time. He simply reached over, cut off about 250g and threw it in the bag of meat as "un cadeau". And it was good!

And then the rows and rows of fruits and vegetables that positively radiate colour and flavour. Bénédicte, the chief of the household where we are staying, makes a fabulous courgette soup. She slices fresh courgettes, blends them with a bouillon cube dissolved in boiling water, heats the soup, and adds maybe a dash of cream or butter added just before serving. Miam (i.e., yum!)

Marc, the household’s number two, Béné’s number one, makes a fabulous dish out of ‘fève’. These are young broadbeans. You chop off the ends of the pods and cook the whole damn thing. It is fantastic – but make sure the fève are young. Sadly, it’s almost impossible to find broadbeans in their pods in Australia – but you can grow them yourself.

I love how the day revolves around meals. Marc and Béné’s home has a moveable population of between five and twenty people. At about 12h00 and 19h00 every day, everyone is called "à table" to enjoy a fabulous meal. Aside from those mentioned above, some of my favourites are confit de canard (duck preserved in duck fat and then pan-fried), cassoulet (a traditional stew of white beans, duck and sausage made in the south-west of France), patés, terrine, foie-gras (probably best you don’t ask), etc.

And then there’s the cheese platter. What Australians offer in terms of cheese is a bit like what the French offer in terms of beaches: you can see the resemblance, but it's a long way from the real deal.

A French fromage stand – even in a supermarket – offers a staggering array of cheeses: hard & soft; round & square; white, yellow, orange, blue; delicate to downright stinky, cheese from the milk of cow, chèvre (goat), brebi (sheep), etc.

I love the simplicity of meals. I think we have this impression of French cuisine being complicated and rich. Much of the time, it is fabulously simple. Good ingredients, simple combinations. For instance, there is hardly anything better than the French ‘picque-nicque’: a baguette, ham, fresh tomatoes and a chunk of cheese and a trusty French Opinel knife.

In this the French are very much akin to the Australians who love nothing better than a simple barbecue. Incidentally, some claim the word comes from the French: « barbe-au-cul » referring to the cooking of a goat on a spit and literally translated as “beard to butt” – but it is disputed.

Anyway, enough of this talk about food – which the French love to do. There’s more research to be done, more tasting, more discussing, and so forth. And besides, dessert is about to be served!


(For more images made entirely of food, see Carl Warner's stunning Foodscapes: http://www.carlwarner.com) 

Tour de France '14(3): Snow & Andorra

Some days, the snow-tipped Pyrenées which mark the border between France and Spain feel so close, its like we might be able to touch them. But Zach who had never experienced snow wanted to touch it for real.

So, we headed out to Andorra, a little principality (like Monaco) of about 40 x 25km between France and Spain. Its claims to fame are skiing, tax-free haven, and third longest-lived inhabitants in the world (average of 84 years).

We were accompanied by two brothers: Jean and Blaise. Jean is a year and a half less than Zach, and Blaise is transitioning to young adult. Blaise probably only came in order to buy cheap cigarettes in Andorra, but it was fun to have him along.

The drive along the Ariège river towards the mountains was amazing. Lots of signs explained that there were caves and museums of human pre-history along this way. We didn’t stop, but it is nonetheless rather moving to think we were passing near to human homes over 15,000 years old with their artworks still hanging on the wall !

To enter the mountainous country of Andorra, we drove up a very picturesque valley through Ax-les-Thermes, a famous thermal spa resort town. The route then climbed by making very long zig-zags across the mountain up to the crossing into Andorra.

Despite the drive up being like something out of James Bond or the Italian Job (as Zach noted), the crossing into Andorra was uneventful. They didn’t even stop us. Not even to stamp our passport to show we had entered Andorra. How can we log all the countries we have visited if not by passport? Maybe a self-stamping point at the border would be good.

There were at least a few policeman/customs men standing around, but being a tax haven, I daresay the contraband is travelling the other way. This perhaps explains why our nonchalant, James Bond wave seemed to count for little.

Entering from the east (see map), we quickly came upon Pas de la Casa: big apartment buildings, lots of parking (for the tax free shoppers), and access to ski-lifts and slopes.

Didn’t work for me, and I was the driver so we kept going on up. We passed up over the town (more zigzags) and finally came to the Porte de l'Envalira (2408m) at which there were two service stations and a café. We kept going and started going down the other side.

Zach was being very quiet, but I became ‘inquiet’ (French for feeling uncomfortable) because we were going away from the snow - and I knew the snow was where he wanted to be! 

We passed another ski-station called Grau Roig, and came into another little village, Bony d'Envalira. Lots of chalets for skiing in and out of during the season, but not enough snow right now.

We decided to stop at a supermarket to collect the fixings for a 'picque-nicque' and practice our Catalan - the language spoken here. Our Catalan sucked, but we managed to get all that we wanted including Blaise who bought his cheap cigarettes. I presume that the cheap prices aren't that attractive to Andorriens, otherwise they surely wouldn't be living as long as they do.

We headed back up to the top and Zach got to see and touch snow.

Remember the first time you touched snow? It's kind of weird to explain, isn't it? 

It is said that the Inuit (Eskimo) have 20-50 words for snow (although it is disputed!). Australians, not surprisingly perhaps, do not have much of a vocabulary for snow: powder, packed, ice – or more simply, skiable or not!

It appeared to have snowed in the last couple of days because there were a couple of centimetres of light, fluffy, powdery snow over packed, icy snow. Within seconds Zach was making up and throwing a snowball. Then we pulled the toboggans out of the car and started sliding around on the snow. As we ran around, our legs plunged into deep, long-standing snow, our clothes got wet - and of course, none of this mattered. 

Zach wanted to eat some snow – which allowed me to advise him that Australian snow vocabulary does extend to include ‘yellow snow’ which one should not eat. Zach always trying to prove me wrong pointed out that he had poured some lemon Fanta into the snow and it was great! Sigh.

After our picque-nicque from the back of the car, I took advantage of the sunshine to walk up a slope to a lift station to get a 360 degree view of Andorra (see below).

None of the lifts were working anywhere which surprised me as the snow was good for skiing and the sun was shining! Ski season ends in March apparently. I guess it is like back on the Gold Coast – when you live on the beach, you’re spoiled for good waves, and only tourists would go out on a crap day. Anyway, nice walk, and nice view.

So, now we can look at the view of the snow-tipped mountains from the front door, and Zach can say, ‘been there, done that.’

Tour de France '14(2): Fire !

180 degree view from the front door (straight ahead are the Pyrenees)

We’re in Europe – so of course, we have to talk about the weather. It’s changing all the time, so it is the thing to talk about. But Thursday 24 April really gave us something to talk about.

There was a thunderstorm that afternoon. Not such a big one by Gold Coast standards. Just to take a moment out to boast, if you want to see a lightning show, it doesn’t get much better than we have in Coolangatta looking out over the ocean from our balcony. We can watch lightning flashing about for hours. And if that is not sufficiently entertaining, you can spend some time trying to console Zoey the dog, her shivering and shaking and tremors continue as aftershocks for some time after the storm has passed!

However, what France gave us was an up-close and personal experience. 

A loud sizzling sound sounded while we were in the kitchen preparing dinner along with a simultaneous flash of light outside was accompanied by an electricity outage. We mussed around, found the switchboard and turned the electricity back on. In the kitchen, someone commented on the smell of the cooking and closed one of the connecting doors to elsewhere. 

One of the other people in the house, upstairs, came down complaining of the smell of smoke – we told her we had closed the kitchen doors. She returned upstairs and then we heard her say, no there was really smoke. We all raced upstairs and could see through the skylight, smoke rising from the roof. 

We went outside to see that the roof was on fire (see Zach’s photo – the only one of the roof on fire!). A cast of us went running around looking for ladders, fire-extinguishers, hoses, etc. and proceeded to try and extinguish the fire while we waited for the fire-engines (pompiers). The house is some 10 kms from the nearest town, so it was going to take some time. Meanwhile the hose that Papa was using to put out the fire was leaking almost much as it was spraying so his clothes and he himself became soaked through as he did his bit to use water to douse the flames.

Fire engines arrived – four in total eventually – and took over. The roof over one of the bathrooms was completely destroyed and was removed, and two bedrooms on each side of the bathroom were rendered unusuable due to smoke, water-damage, etc.

Dinner that night was by candlelight. Our guests were four firemen who had stayed on after the initial fire was put out, removed hot tiles from the roof and generally making sure the fire was really really out. They also came back at 5am the next morning to check again.

Since then, we have had intermittent electricity which cuts out from time to time – e.g., when someone plugs a mobile phone into a plug to recharge and many of the appliances like the dishwasher are no longer working properly!

And above all, no internet! This has been a bit of an eye-opener. I have realised that the apocalypse in modern times will not heralded by four horseman, not even by the arrival of a tsunami wave, an earthquake, a volcano or even a fire. Rather it will be heralded by the eerie silence that comes by cutting the umbilical that we call the internet! 

Tour de France '14(1): Korea (en route to France!)

The view from our front door in France !

On our way to France, we had a one night stop-over in Korea, a country that neither of us have visited before. But there wasn’t much to see!
There was a heavy fog all around airport – we couldn’t even see the terminal when we landed, and the planes coming and going kind of appeared and disappeared in the mist. Very disturbing sitting in a plane taxiing around among massive planes coming and going!

The bus to the hotel took about 5 minutes and was apparently right next to the airport, but you wouldn’t know for all the fog!

Looking out of our hotel room window, we were able to see into the courtyard of the hotel and there were a couple of cherry-blossom trees blooming which were very pretty. I reflected on whether there might be cheries when Zach dismissively explained to me that cherry-blossom trees are not cherry trees. I never knew – I thought the cherry-blossom season in Japan was from cherry trees. Apparently not according to Prof Holden (Jr).

A pilot on stopover explained there was a nice walk along the street near the hotel and so we went out exploring. Still weird in the fog, but we found an Australian fish and chip shop which the pilot had told us about. Strange kind of blend of Korean shop and Aussie bar.

The thing that delighted us both about are short overnight stay in Incheon in Korea (aside from the dessert bar pictured!) was the friendliness of the people. The waitresses kindly taught us how to say ‘thank you’ in Korean: kum-sam-yi-a-da (no idea how to write it). We’re looking forward to our stopover on the way home when we might venture into Seoul and find a hotel there to stay.

Stephening Standard 2013

A Stop-Work!

Back in 2011, I experienced a mid-life event and inevitably, I bought a motorbike. Crisis? No crisis! Just something different and lots of fun.

Then in late 2012, my mind turned to thoughts of retirement. Actually, I had thought of this before, but when I discussed my idea of early retirement with one dear friend, she scoffed and said: “You have to have something to retire from – academic life barely counts as working!”

The 'Retired' Version vs the 'Working' Version

Regardless, when Bond University called for voluntary redundancies at the end of 2012, I decided to say ‘Yes’. Closest thing to a 'golden handshake' that I was ever likely to get.

Zach was a little concerned I think at the idea that I no longer had a job. However, I took the time to explain to him that I had retired and he seemed happy with that. 

However, 24 hours later, he came back from school with the pronouncement that I could not be retired, “you are too young.” Apparently the teachers had expressed some disbelief about my being retired. I sent young Zach back to school telling him he should ask his teachers about the meaning of the word ‘envy.’

Of course, I have not stopped ‘working’ completely - nor started working any more effectively. I am still working on wrapping up my Master’s degree in philosophy; my thesis is now about nine months overdue. With the help of a past student and tutor at Bond, I completed a consulting project down in Canberra which was great fun. 

Most importantly, the book The Other Glass Ceiling on which I have been working for some years with colleague Charles Areni was submitted to the publishers in the second half of 2013. We are currently looking through the edits and it is likely to be published later this year.

Outback Spectacular

Zach & Mary Poppins

In July, I took Zach on an outback tour during his school holidays. 

We first drove from the Gold Coast up to Maryborough which is the birthplace of both his mother and the author of Mary Poppins! (She was a rather prickly and difficult woman – PL Travers that is – and you will learn more about her if you go and see the film Saving Mr Banks).

We arrived in Maryborough and went to a pub for dinner just around the corner from the statue commemorating the birthplace of PL Travers (see left) only to discover we had arrived the night before the annual Mary Poppins festival - so of course, we joined in the period-festival featuring steam-trains and the many characters in the eight books about Mary Poppins.

We then drove up to Rockhampton, and turned west heading out to Sapphire just beyond Emerald. We stayed there for a couple of days allowing some time for Zach to find sapphires, and garnet and various other semi-precious stones.

From there, we drove out through Barcaldine (home to the Tree of Knowledge where the Australian Labor Party was born in 1891), Longreach (bit unnerving to see a QANTAS jumbo jet parked right next to the road with people walking around on the wing), and on to Winton. 

Winton with a population of less than 1000 people is located about 1000kms from the coast and was our western-most point. What do you think that Winton’s claim to fame might be?

(a)    first home of QANTAS

(b)    place where Banjo Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda

(c)    location of some of the best dinosaur finds in Australia

(d)    all of the above

The best answer is ‘d’! Winton is a wonderful oddity featuring all of the above along with Arno’s wall (made up of multiple engines, typewriters, sewing machines, boat propellers, motorbikes and other oddities), a musical fence, a great museum and more.

Zach at sunset at Blandensburg National Park

In our great journey to the backblocks of western Queensland, we found interesting characters (such as Mary Poppins, gem-fossickers, grey nomads and various assorted outback characters), buried treasures (sapphires, garnets, boulder opals), wildlife (alive, recently dead and ancient), and much more besides (hot artesian spring spas, agricultural machinery displays, Aboriginal artefacts, etc).

France, Hawaii, Turkey

I was invited to visit the Grenoble Ecole de Management in May, and flew over to France to give a talk and visit the school. I was super-impressed and would love to find myself a partial appointment there if possible.

Another trip in August took me to Hawaii to a conference, but also allowed me to engage in all the great activities offered in Hawaii – hiking, running, swimming, surfing, kiteboarding, SUPing, etc.

The BIG trip abroad this year was when I skippered a 49’ yacht in a ‘blue cruise’ along the Turkish coast with my Dad as my first mate. He unfortunately got Turkey-tummy (maybe scurvy, or alcohol-poisoning, or giardia), but once that was cured, he was on a roll. Details and images of this trip appear in a separate post below.

Plans for 2014

I will be teaching from January to April (as an 'adjunct' or 'sessional' teacher), I plan to spend three months in France with Zach (April-June), another two months near Delhi, India teaching (Aug-Oct). 

Zach is aiming to complete his primary schooling this year and advancing to high school (year 7) next year.

Zach going the way of the dinosaurs