We went to visit a city called Mysore, it’s in south of India, a nice little town except it has a population similar to Sydney. But it does have small town feel,. We visited a number of people; of note were Kiruna and Rashmi.
Kiruna is of note as she was 39/40 preggers and my cousin and Rashmi is her sister thus require a note as she might get offended if her sibling is only mentioned (hi Rashmi).
Monday, 19 February 2007
Cousins
If you’re my cousin and reading my blog then I’d love for you to drop me a line so I now have your email address. It’s up there in the profiles section.
Thursday, 1 February 2007
30th of January
Khushbu arranged for me to spend a day at the hospital she works in, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre. This is a private hospital with a chunk of its patients coming from overseas for the so called medical tourism.
Khushbu took me to see the head of Anaesthetics and Critical Care who the previous day had invited me to spend today observing the anaesthetic side of things in the hospital. In fact he actually arranged for me to spend the day with one of the ICU consultants. Which was fantastic as this is where I would like to end up practising, probably more through physcians training than anaesthetics but that's neither here nor there.
The ICU had equipment about as advanced as they do at RPAH with staff that had the training to use them. The difference between Escorts and IGMC is unbelievable. The doctors and nursing staff actually seem to care about the patients and want them to get better.
In the 6 hours that I was at the hospital I received more teaching than I had during the entire time at IGMC. It was wonderful.
Khushbu took me to see the head of Anaesthetics and Critical Care who the previous day had invited me to spend today observing the anaesthetic side of things in the hospital. In fact he actually arranged for me to spend the day with one of the ICU consultants. Which was fantastic as this is where I would like to end up practising, probably more through physcians training than anaesthetics but that's neither here nor there.
The ICU had equipment about as advanced as they do at RPAH with staff that had the training to use them. The difference between Escorts and IGMC is unbelievable. The doctors and nursing staff actually seem to care about the patients and want them to get better.
In the 6 hours that I was at the hospital I received more teaching than I had during the entire time at IGMC. It was wonderful.
29th of January
I went to pick Khushbu up from her hospital where she works and upon finding her I also found a small dirt ball clutching her. Closer inspection revealed that it was a small child.
Khushbu had been crossing the road to reach her office from the main hospital complex (a hazardous task at the best of times as the concept of pedestrian crossings is very foreign here) and she found an approximately 18 Ð 24 month girl crying her head off in the middle of the road. Seems that this child was lost, but was unwilling or unable to communicate her name or where she lived.
Khushbu took the child to the security gate office, but the security officers there were unwilling to take responsibility for such a child. She received repeated phone calls from her boss asking why the hell had she picked up the child, didn’t she know that she should have just left her there.
After about 30 minutes we dumped the child in the security office in a blanket and started a quick tour of the hospital. It was simply beautiful, especially after compared with what I had experienced in Shimla. The wards were clean, no blood on the floor, walls, bed linen and the equipment worked.
A short while later we received a phone call saying that the police would take over the case and we had to take the child to the nearest police station. The hospitals car was called and a driver, security officer and some random chap accompanied us to the station. The police then declined to have anything to do with her unless we took the girl around to the slum towns to try and find her parents. Fortunately the police agreed to accompany us.
Going through the slums was well worth it, seeing a bit of India that I would have really been a bit worried about going by myself. Each time we stopped we were flocked by horde of people trying to see what the policeman was talking about.
We spent about an hour trying to find the girl’s parents with no success. Whether that was due to not finding them or their unwillingness to come forward and admit to owning the girl. In fact all we managed to find out was that when the policeman yelled at the girl and poked her she would hide in Khushbu’s shawl and wipe snot on it.
We finally left the girl with the police who were going to transfer her to a larger station who would then deal with her.
Khushbu had been crossing the road to reach her office from the main hospital complex (a hazardous task at the best of times as the concept of pedestrian crossings is very foreign here) and she found an approximately 18 Ð 24 month girl crying her head off in the middle of the road. Seems that this child was lost, but was unwilling or unable to communicate her name or where she lived.
Khushbu took the child to the security gate office, but the security officers there were unwilling to take responsibility for such a child. She received repeated phone calls from her boss asking why the hell had she picked up the child, didn’t she know that she should have just left her there.
After about 30 minutes we dumped the child in the security office in a blanket and started a quick tour of the hospital. It was simply beautiful, especially after compared with what I had experienced in Shimla. The wards were clean, no blood on the floor, walls, bed linen and the equipment worked.
A short while later we received a phone call saying that the police would take over the case and we had to take the child to the nearest police station. The hospitals car was called and a driver, security officer and some random chap accompanied us to the station. The police then declined to have anything to do with her unless we took the girl around to the slum towns to try and find her parents. Fortunately the police agreed to accompany us.
Going through the slums was well worth it, seeing a bit of India that I would have really been a bit worried about going by myself. Each time we stopped we were flocked by horde of people trying to see what the policeman was talking about.
We spent about an hour trying to find the girl’s parents with no success. Whether that was due to not finding them or their unwillingness to come forward and admit to owning the girl. In fact all we managed to find out was that when the policeman yelled at the girl and poked her she would hide in Khushbu’s shawl and wipe snot on it.
We finally left the girl with the police who were going to transfer her to a larger station who would then deal with her.
Snowman
I built a snowman at the top of one of the mountains around Manali we climbed. The climb didn't deserve a blog entry but I though the snowman did.
26th of January
Today we caught the Toy Train (also known as the Himalayan Queen) down from Shimla to Kalkua and then the Shitabdi to Delhi. The Toy Train is so called because of the gauge of the tracks it rides on. When you see them it makes you think of the tracks that are in use at amusement parks, the kind of train that kids sit on top of rather than inside of. I was fully expecting to have to do that, but fortunately there was an actual inside of carriage to get into.
We descended around 800 m over about 5 hours with a run of about 100 km. Not the worlds fastest train, but certainly one of the more scenic trains I have been on.
We descended around 800 m over about 5 hours with a run of about 100 km. Not the worlds fastest train, but certainly one of the more scenic trains I have been on.
Commentaries on Indian Society
Indians have a rather unhealthy love of paper work and the associated red tape. Nothing can be done without being in the right queue at the right office for at least 20 minutes. Despite several queues being labelled identical things they can be different, and how the difference is known is, at least, unknown to me. They are very much like Douglas Adams’ Vogons.
They wouldn’t even save their own grandmothers from the ravenous Bug Blatter Beast of Trall without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again and finally buried in soft peat for three months and then finally recycled as firelighters.
They wouldn’t even save their own grandmothers from the ravenous Bug Blatter Beast of Trall without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again and finally buried in soft peat for three months and then finally recycled as firelighters.
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