Paradise on Earth, Long Hours & the Continuing Experience of Living in India: Ruminations on New Year's Day 2012

On October 18th I had my first one on one review with my boss here in India; it did not go well.      It is well documented and understood among expats that the 6 month mark is the most difficult part of any assignment.  This review happened on EXACTLY my 6 month anniversary of arriving in India.  Perhaps my boss was having a shitty day; she made mine quite shitty, indeed.

Nevertheless, on the 22nd Nancy, Courtland, Effie and I flew to Kuramathi Island – part of the Island nation of Maldives.  The Maldives is a disappearing nation.  Experts can argue all day long as to why the sea levels are rising, an argument undoubtedly immaterial to Maldivians.  This is a small country consisting of a 1000+ islands, atolls actually, in the Indian Ocean.  The highest point in the entire country is 14 metres.  The highest point on the Island we visited is 4 metres.  Our Island was completely submerged and devastated by the 2004 tsunami, but has recovered nicely.

Leaving India and IBM behind, we departed BLR airport for Male, Maldives, the main island on Saturday, October 22nd.  We landed in a storm and had to lay over at the airport for several hours before boarding our float plane to Kuramathi.  The planes were tied up to the docks, which is an unusual site.  When it was our turn to board the planes we packed in and taxied out to the open water and were quickly airborne.  All of us had smiles on our faces.  It was still raining a bit but only in patches.  After 20 minutes we began to descend into what was obviously rough seas toward a tiny dock roughly1 km away from a mid-sized inhabited Island.  We hit HARD!  So hard, in fact, that the co-pilot (a young native Maldivian wearing Oakley sunglasses and flip flops) tore his elbow open on an exposed bolt on his chair.  He shook it off, wrapped it and helped us disembark onto the small dock.  Soon a motorized raft gathered us and ferried us to a nearby island where we then boarded another boat, this time a dive boat.  The seas were still very rough and we had a short but exciting ride to Kuramathi!  The boat pitched and rolled over what I estimate to be 3 to 4 metre waves.  Court and Effie were laughing so hard!  It was like an amusement park ride.  I was relieved that they were not scared.

Soon we arrived at the dock on Kuramathi and made our way toward reception.  While walking down the dock, a juvenile black tipped reef shark swam underneath.  I love sharks!  This was a good sign.  Sharks prefer to live on healthy reefs where food is abundant and the water is clean.

I was fewer than 4 feet away wading it the water when I took this photo.

This place was amazing.  The resort filled every square inch of the island; the service was exemplary and the food was amazing.  Those of you who know me understand that I can be a bit critical of food, and have been known to whip up a decent meal now and then.  All food was served buffet style, which normally leaves much to be desired.  Not here.  Every day, breakfast, lunch and dinner were top quality.  I do not know how they did it.

We spent each day without an agenda, swimming, snorkeling and bathing in the sun.  Some days the weather was inclement but it did not detract from the island or the experience.  When the sun shone during midday it was almost too much.  Kuramathi is 3 degrees north of the equator and we were only 4 weeks past the equinox.  At noon, we cast no shadow.

Am I a lucky man, or what? 

 Again, am I a lucky man, or what?

Courtland discovered that he loves to go snorkeling, much to my delight!  Effie swims like a river otter: completely natural in the element and always having fun.  The island is crescent moon shaped due to being the exposed rim of an extinct and ancient volcano.  The sand is not silica as you find in most places.  It is crushed coral.  It is whiter and softer than anywhere I have ever been.  At low tide, sunken parts of the island are exposed.  We would take walks out a kilometer or more on the sand spit and splash about, ever mindful of the little sharks (which are truly not a threat, but...) only feet away feeding on the schools of small bait fish chasing one another in the surf.  The week passed too quickly.  The Maldives are truly one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  It will be a shame that some of the inhabited islands will be washed over by the rising oceans in my children's lifetimes.

Good Bye Paradise!

We arrived back in Bangalore on the 29th.  Upon touching down at the airport and powering on my miserable little piece of technology called a Blackberry, I realized that this we the first vacation that I have taken since joining IBM in 2001 that I did not carry a laptop and do any work.  I had 573 new emails.

Our driver, Babu, showed up on time and drove toward the city.  It hit us.  I could tell by the sudden silence in our minivan.  The immersion back into India was a rough one.  The trash, the traffic, the poverty, the human and urban decay is overwhelming.  Kuramathi is a manufactured paradise: there are 700 people that work on the island every day, cleaning the beaches, preparing the food, serving drinks, running the power & desalination plant, delivering all the supplies and removing the trash.  All this happens behind the scenes.  All the services necessary to sustain  500 guests on a 1.4 km long island are hidden.  In Bangalore, everything is right in front of you.  It is hyper-real.  India's official poverty level is declared as someone living on fewer than $ 0.63 per day.  That means that if you make 64 pennies per day, you are above poverty.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

I get the point!  

The other day Nancy was ill and I had to care for Court & Ef all day.  We were at the pool at the club house and Court said he was bored.  He was also in a bad frame of mind since his 2 buddies flew home to the US for the holidays.  It was a teachable moment and what I said next hit home.  I must have done it well.  I told him to remember that he is fortunate.  When he asked what I meant, I asked if he wanted to walk outside of our gated community and talk to some of the children that live underneath the tattered blue plastic tarps.  I asked him to stop thinking about all the things he didn't have; that dwelling on those thoughts will lead him to be unhappy no matter what he achieved in life.  He looked up at me and smiled.  No joke, since that moment he has been skipping around and playing really well with his little sister.  I have not heard him complain about missing his friends, even though I know he does.  He grew up a bit that day.  I feel so fortunate that I witnessed it.

He is such a character!

Thanksgiving in Bangalore was fun.  We found an Italian restaurant owned by a French man that served a traditional American Thanksgiving meal.  We went with several friends and had a good time.  Christmas was fun.  Our driver gave us a small Christmas tree.  Conifers are not very abundant, so we gladly accepted what we were given.  Charlie Brown would be embarrassed, but to us it was perfect!  We found some lights, ornament and garland and decorated the house.  We have a large lighted silver star hanging from our balcony that looks festive.  Several other people in our neighborhood decorated their houses and it was mildly Christmas-like.  The weather does detract from the season.  Being from the northeastern US, where December is cold, raw and sometimes snowy in December, having day upon day of 80 degree days with abundant sunshine feels little like Christmas.  This is not a complaint.  I love this weather.

On Christmas Eve I tool the kids to the pool and basked in the brilliant sunshine.  Both kids were in the water when I saw a familiar person from across the pool.  Then I realized that it was a drastic case of mistaken identity.  So far I have not told anyone this, not the person in question or even Nancy.  Since I made a promise to myself to be completely honest in this blog, here it is: I could have sworn that I saw my brother-in-law, Shawn MacNish.  The moment had gotten completely ahead of rational part of my brain.  When the actualization that he is 9000 miles away hit me, I felt a terrible pang of lonesomeness.  I missed Shawn so badly that I considered booking flights home for the whole family.  Shawn is a true friend.  Damn I miss him.

We spent Chritsmas Eve at our club house and had a nice buffet dinner and put Court & Ef to bed.  Again, Bangalore is not a very Chrstmasy place.  And let's face it, the kids want to see presents under the tree on Christmas morning.  My parents really came to the rescue here, so did my sis & bro-in-law Karen & Shawn.  My parents sent a package full of gifts for the kids (their second package of gifts did not arrive until New Year's Eve Dad, but I will get to the Indian Postal system another time).  I had bought several items and had them shipped to Karen & Shawn, who then shipped them to to us.  Add those to the few items we bought over here and it looked like Christmas under the tree!  Courtland, whose good friend Pele (yep, named after the famous football (soccer) player) turned him onto to a computer game called "Age of Mythology".  This is the only thing he wanted.  He got it.  He was so excited that he was jittering!  Effie kept asking for a puppy.  She's 5.  It's what 5 year olds ask for.  Since there is ZERO chance of me getting another animal, I bought her a plush toy dog.  She carries it with her where ever she goes!  It was a big hit.  Incidentally, while I was over here alone last April, Courtland approached Nancy and asked her point-blank: Santa's not real, is he, Mom?  Nancy broke to truth to him and he was OK with it.  We only asked that he not EVER spoil it for Effie.  He did great!  Courtland is such a kind and empathetic person.  He senses people's feelings to extents that I will never know.  I think we'll keep him!

Christmas morning was spent... OK, I know that some of you that know my feelings on religion might cry HYPOCRITE!  Let me remind you that I was rasied Catholic.  I was an altar boy for 7 years.  On many occasions I served Saturday night mass and Sunday morning mass in the same week.  Other times I served both the 9:30am and 11:30am masses on the same day.  I went to Sunday school.  I mowed the parish's lawn.  Truth is, I never believed a word of it.  I am too much of an empiricist.  I got thrown out of Sunday school twice for the dreaded act of "asking questions" and was told to GO SEE FATHER GEISLER!  I did.  On the second occasion he told me something that I have shared with very few people.  He said: "Jim, there are many paths to enlightenment, perhaps this one is not yours".  What I am getting at is this: you can't believe what you can't believe.  I realize now that I am in debt to Father Geisler.  That was very progressive of a Catholic priest.  If that had happened a decade or so prior, I would have likely been beaten and told I was going to suffer the eternal torments of hell.  I could go on and on about how Christianity co-opted the solstice festivals and made their holiest day to coincide with the pagan's celebrations.  I won't.

But I digress...  Some of the best memories I have are of Christmas morning.  My Mom always went crazy on Christmas with the gifts.  I am so happy that she sent us that box of gifts for the kids.  Without it, it would have been terribly lame for Court & Ef.

Since Christmas was on a Sunday, and Sunday brunch in Bangalore is always an event, the culmination of events required us to go to the Leela Palace Hotel for the obscenely ostentatious Christmas Sunday Brunch.  We went with 3 other IBM familles: 1 French, 1 British, and a fellow American.  It was AWESOME!  Roast beef, roast turkey with dressing and gravy, a whole ham shank, Indian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Thai, Japanese and Chinese food.  To describe the desserts I would require more time than I have.  They had everything.  The sparkling wine flowed freely.  It was wonderful!  Despite missing my fmaily and friends, I am very pleased that we were here in India.  We will have many more Christmas holiday in the US.  This is probably the only one we will have in Asia.

We had a quiet New Year at home.  We ordered pizza, had ice cream and watched movies.  2011 was such a great year for us.  If you are still reading this, it means that you are someone special to me.  Happy New Year!