Having /a/ blast(s) in India
The rains have finally come to Hyderabad and we hope it brings relief to the farmers and electricity supply …
Apologies …
Firstly let me apologise for the typo in header of the previous blog entry. As you might have guessed, the error was mine and not that of my communication and language expert wife.
The blog is misbehaving and not sending out emails to all subscribers and I had to repost it several times to make the message go out (and somewhere in the repetition of typing the title my fingers slipped …).
So the plugin (technical thingy) that sent out the emails might be disabled (i.e. kicked until it is no longer working) in the near future.
If you want to subscribe to the blog you can do so via one of two ways:
1) RSS feeds. These are really cool and download blog updates straight into your email reader (e.g. Outlook) after setting them up once. (And it is very easy!) Just look for the RSS feed (top right hand side) - and click on articles (not on the picture below, but the one top right of this page):
(Sorry to the people at Sanlam Head Office - not sure whether Lotus Notes supports this …)
2) Through the “subscribe via email” function on the righthand-side menu of the blog.
Send me an email if you encounter any problems.
Blasts
Over the past few days India has suffered a few bangs that are louder and more damaging than the daily fire works.
First 8 or 9 bombs went of in Bangalore (the beautiful place I was blogging about earlier). Fortunately these were quite small, but unfortunately they did manage to kill one or two people.
They were followed the next day with 17 blasts in Ahmedabad. This time some of the blasts carried a higher yield and killed about 40-50 people.
Still feel safe
Although these blasts were terrible and tempts me to spout my unedited feelings for the morons who carry out these cowardly attacks - to put it into perspective :
You don’t have to be an actuary to calculate that 40 or 50 divided by 1.3 billion is still pretty good odds …. (What is the murder rate in SA nowadays?)
So we still feel quite safe and would tell everyone that India is not a dangerous place to visit. (Except maybe running down the fence line in Kashmir between India and Pakistan …, or trying to cross the road …)
One thing we love in India is the fact that when someone’s house gets burgled it makes the newspaper!
Auto pilot
A week or two ago our driver (Sajid) was sick.
He had a “problem with motions”. That is a local description for setting speed records from anywhere to the toilet. So for two days we did not have a driver.
I have by now learned how to navigate the streets of Hyderabad, but I don’t have any idea where to park or leave a car (other than at the shopping centres). So, on the second day I decided that it is time that I take an auto (auto rikshaw) to work.
The morning ride was quite fun (because I leave for the office at least one hour before other people do). On the way back there was a bit more traffic, and you can really get up close and personal with your fellow commuters:
But actually I travelled in luxury, because autos are very often used for more than one person:
The auto’s windscreen is specially designed to filter out some of the traffic. This allows it to cut seemlessly in front of other traffic, etc.
The ride was fun, but inhaling exhaust (and other) fumes for an hour was not that much fun. Next time I’ll take something with to wrap around my mouth and nose …
Friends, Comrades and Countrymen
We have met a South African couple (John and Sian) living in Hyderabad. They moved here roughly the same time as us with the exception that they did not come on behalf of a foreign company - they basically emigrated and started a new business with local partners.
So in Hyderabad there are at least 4 South Africans, plus a few Brits who were expats in SA for 7 years (talk about a nice placement!), and an American who can speak Afrikaans.
Also our staff sporting the green & gold Bok T-shirts make us feel quite at home.
Snake-fanged killer
Kahn is building up quite a reputation. Being probably the first Anatolian Shepherd in India he decided to market the “brand” as a watch dog with quite some success.
Our Hindi teacher (Abdul), who is well educated and with whom we always enjoy a conversation about topical events, wanted to confirm whether our dog’s teeth are venemous …
If we had any security concerns (which we don’t), this would have settled the matter!
Based on Kahn’s reputation and general warm greeting to strangers I have had a delivery boy refusing to hand me something over our (quite high) gate. I had to go out into the street - he was too scared to come within 2 metres of the gate!
Well our loveable snake-fanged killer seems to be enjoying India with us and he regularly sports a smile when he makes someone visably shake where they stand …
Website
We do update our website also regularly.
Please check out the pictures and characters pages that have been updated recently.
www.hyd.co.za
Pir Milenge (until we meet again)
Theo Scheffler
August 6th, 2008 at 9:24 am
hi Teo hoegaan dit daar in India.ons mis julle geselskap hier in Sasolburg.Het vanoggend e-mail gekry van Marga en dit lyk lekker daar by julle. Julle moet laat weet wanneer julle kom kuier dan maak ons afspraak met julle. Moet se daai foto van jou lyk soos ski foto wat ek al gesien het hahahahahaha.
groete
Carel en Jossy
October 21st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Marga kon nie té kwaad vir jou gewees het nie.