Category: Personal

Anything and everything about me and my life. You’ll have to hunt a lot for gossip-worthy tidbits, though.

Pourquoi j'ai attendu avant de reprendre un chat [fr]

[en] Why I waited after Bagha's death before adopting cats again.

Depuis la mort de Bagha, j’ai vu bien des gens de mon entourage perdre leur chat également. J’ai été frappée par une réaction courante mais totalement étrangère à ma façon de fonctionner: reprendre un nouveau chat sans perdre de temps.

Du coup, je me dis que ça vaut peut-être la peine d’expliquer pourquoi j’ai attendu plus d’un an avant de chercher à adopter.

Pour moi, c’est important de dire au revoir correctement pour pouvoir bien dire bonjour. En d’autres termes, faire son deuil avant de pouvoir s’attacher à nouveau. Je crois que rien ne fiche en l’air une relation aussi bien que de ne pas avoir bien bouclé celle qui la précédait. On connaît ça dans les relations de couple, dans la problématique de “l’enfant de remplacement“, et je pense que c’est une loi de la vie assez générale.

Le deuil est une question qui m’intéresse beaucoup, très certainement à cause de mon histoire et de mes croyances personnelles.

Quand Bagha est mort, et même avant qu’il meure, je savais deux choses:

  • je reprendrais des chats un jour (oui, “des”)
  • ce ne serait pas pour tout de suite.

Je voulais prendre le temps de pleurer le chat qui avait été à mes côtés depuis plus de dix ans. Je ne voulais pas adopter ce qui aurait été pour moi un “chat-sparadrap”. Je voulais prendre le temps d’être “bien dans ma vie sans chat”, et reprendre des chats parce que je voulais en avoir, et non pas parce que je souffrais d’avoir perdu le mien.

Bagha est mort en décembre. En octobre, j’ai commencé à avoir le sentiment que je serais prête à ravoir un chat. Je savais que je partais six semaines à l’étranger en hiver, donc j’ai attendu mon retour.

Même là, elle a été dure, la première semaine avec Tounsi et Safran. Mais la douleur a vite passé et je me suis bien attachée à mes deux nouveaux poilus.

A la mort de Safran deux mois plus tard, je n’avais pas non plus l’intention de reprendre un chat tout de suite. Je voulais prendre le temps d’accuser le choc sans y mêler un nouveau chat. C’était très différent de la mort de Bagha, mais dur quand même. Je n’avais eu Safran que deux mois. J’avais l’impression d’avoir échoué, de lui avoir fait faux bond.

Quintus est tombé du ciel parce qu’au moment où j’apprenais que Safran était malade, Aleika apprenait que son mari avait reçu l’invitation qu’il attendait de l’université de Kolkata, et qu’ils allaient déménager là-bas. Elle était un peu désemparée par rapport à Quintus: le prendre et lui faire subir une ville indienne ou une vie d’intérieur? Trouver quelqu’un pour l’adopter, à passé 10 ans?

J’ai dit que si elle décidait de ne pas le prendre, et qu’elle ne trouvait personne pour lui en Angleterre, je le prendrais. Un jour ou deux plus tard, après avoir vérifié que je ne regrettais pas mon offre, sa décision était prise. Un mois plus tard Quintus était dans l’avion avec moi.

Alors voilà. Dix ans avec Bagha. Quinze mois sans chat. Deux mois avec Tounsi et Safran, un peu plus d’un mois seule avec Tounsi, et à ce jour, 16 mois avec Tounsi et Quintus.

October Cats 20

Three Good Things [en]

Here’s something I do regularly that really quickly improves my mood — within a few days: take a moment each evening to make a note of “three good things” for the day. Things that went well. Positive things. Even in the shittiest times, you can find three things to look at positively.

I started doing it after reading The How of Happiness. One of the intentional activities that has been shown to make people happier is practicing optimism. Some time before, I head read Learned Optimism, which really changed the way I viewed the inner workings of my psyche. I had not realized that optimism was something you could train yourself into. And reasonably easily.

Making note of three good things during the day past is a way of tuning your brain into a “positive” mode. Positive attracts positive, negative attracts negative (that’s one thing I learned over a decade ago reading Emotional Intelligence: why it may make sense in certain gloomy times to just go watch a funny movie and laugh to “switch gears”).

You know when you start to spiral downwards, making a mental list of all the things that are going wrong today/in your life/this year? Well, you can do the same thing to go upwards. And all it may take is a few mindful minutes of your time to shine the light on good things.

I use Path for this. I love Path, though I’m connected to precious few people on it — scratch that, because I’m connected to few people. A dozen, maybe fifteen at the most. My good things are kind of private, not really blog or facebook material. Path works really well for this. And I have two-three Path friends who have started doing “three good things” too — I love reading those postings.

I usually do “three good things” for a while, then forget or drop off the wagon, and if I start feeling down or discouraged, I remember to get started again. And as I said, within a few days I’ve usually perked up.

This is one of the things I love about growing older: knowing yourself so much better. Fifteen or twenty years ago it would have taken me months to crawl out of what is now a slight dip that lasts a few days, a week at the most.

Have you tried this? Do you do anything similar?

Deux premières [fr]

[en] Took the boat out with no engine (just sails and a paddle). Kept my nephew for the first time!

Aujourd’hui, deux premières:

  • j’ai sorti le Farrniente sans moteur (pagaie et voile)
  • j’ai gardé mon neveu pour la première fois

Une de mes amies était en visite pour la journée après le Bloggy Friday (qui comptait des fribourgeois, genevois et même bernois!). On avait parlé de sortir le bateau, mais malheureusement, après la dernière régate, on a eu des problèmes de moteur. Je lui avait donc dit que c’était compromis. Devant sa déception, toutefois, je lui ai dit qu’on avait quand même l’option “pagaie + voiles”. Elle a relevé le défi, nous sommes sorties de la place et du port comme des pros, et rentrées non moins admirablement. Il y avait des petits airs, on a pu faire un bon nombre de bords, parler de rêves de vie (ou au moins de vacances) sur l’eau, et croiser La Vaudoise (tiens, je deviendrais bien une femme Pirate, moi).

La Vaudoise

Ensuite, autre défi d’un tout autre ordre: garder mon neveu de bientôt cinq mois pour la première fois, histoire de donner à mon frère et ma belle-soeur un peu de temps “baby-free”. Eh bien oui, les tatas c’est là pour ça aussi. Après une première vingtaine de minutes à me demander ce que j’allais bien pouvoir faire de ce bébé hurlant (rien de ce que j’essayais ne marchait), un heureux concours de circonstances l’a calmé complètement. J’ai pu faire mon ménage (en petites tranches bien sûr) et finir d’aménager mon nouveau (et amélioré) “coin canapé”.

New sofa corner

Bien sûr, deux heures c’est long, j’ai donc passé par le biberon, les chansons, les cent pas dans l’appart, les escaliers, les escaliers encore, et pour finir le jardin parce que c’est plus sympa que les escaliers, au bout d’un moment. Mais il a bien dormi!

10 Years With RSI [en]

[fr] Plus de 10 ans que mes mains ont commencé à faire mal. Bilan: c'est sous contrôle, même s'il y a certaines choses que je ne peux plus faire. J'ai aussi procédé à des aménagements pour certaines activités.

In September 2002 my hands started hurting really badly at the computer. I had to take three breaks while writing this article. I took some time off, and when I got back to work, within half a day, things were back where they were. I panicked for a few days. A lot of my life revolved around computers. How would I finish my studies? I discovered it was possible to use a computer with speech recognition, and that reassured me a bit. I saw the doctor, spent 5 weeks off work and computers (well, at work but not allowed to type, it was dreadful, actually), the neurologist confirmed my nerves were all right, I got Dragon NaturallySpeaking (version 5 at the time) and started speaking to my computer.

Life resumed, at home and work. I practically stopped using my hands with my computer and dictated for pretty much a whole year, including my university dissertation and my last written exam (they stuck me in my teacher’s office for that).

When I left my job at Orange, I got an iBook, which meant I said goodbye to speech recognition. By then the rest had done its job, and I had also made some changes which certainly helped improve things:

  • I got rid of my old clunky keyboard and moved the computer away from the drafty window
  • I got a laptop, actually, which meant I started varying the positions in which I typed
  • I started paying attention to my hands: was I in pain? was I uncomfortable?
  • I used a break timer to force myself to learn to stop and take breaks
  • I learned to say “no” a bit more, and give a higher priority to myself over others (ie, taking care of my hands became top priority, whereas others’ needs used to be what came first)
  • In general, I started listening to myself more: how was I feeling? was I stressed? was I tired? did I want to do what I was doing? etc.
  • I made sure I continued to get (gentle) exercise; I went easy on my hands at judo for a couple of years.

Where am I at now, 10 years later? Well, I still say I have RSI, because it’s just around the corner, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me. It’s “under control”. Many years ago my osteopath actually managed to do something to make my hands hurt less. Something to do with my arteries, it seems. No guarantee it will be the same for everyone with RSI, but it does it for me. So when my hands start feeling painful again, I head off to my osteo. With the years, I’ve learnt to recognize my hands hurting as a warning sign rather than a problem in itself. They don’t normally hurt. If they hurt and I go to my osteo, she’ll usually find a whole bunch of things that are, let’s say, “out of balance”.

Here’s what my life with RSI is, 10 years later:

  • I type on my Macbook in all sorts of non-ergonomic positions: I vary
  • At my desk though, I make sure that I am sitting high enough that my elbow makes a 90°+ angle (for me the most comfortable place to type is on my knees => laptop)
  • I never use a mouse, and know tons of keyboard shortcuts
  • I have Dragon Dictate but don’t use it enough — I haven’t invested the time to be comfortable with it
  • I have discovered speech recognition on my iPhone and use it whenever I can
  • I cannot carry my groceries very far without taking a break, even though I have plenty of upper-body strength (I have a rollie-bag)
  • I avoid repetitive hand movements: chopping lots of hard stuff, screwing with a manual screwdriver, polishing by hand… if I have to I take breaks, but if possible I’ll let somebody else do that kind of job
  • I’m still doing judo, and can fight “normally”, though it hurts “more than it should” when people rip their sleeves out of my hands or when I’ve been strangling somebody really hard 😉
  • If I feel RSI coming back, I run to the osteo
  • In general, I take much better care of myself than I used to, and I am much “softer” on myself (I used to be the “tough it out” type, RSI cured me from that)
  • I cannot write by hand more than a few lines anymore; this is a combination of lack of practice (I always type) and some loss of fine motor control probably due to RSI. If I try to write, I become illegible after a few lines, and it hurts. So I don’t.

Over the years, I have seen so many people develop RSI in some form or other. Don’t overwork yourself. Take care of your hands before they start hurting.

3rd #back2blog challenge
(7/10), with: Brigitte Djajasasmita (@bibiweb), Baudouin Van Humbeeck (@somebaudy), Mlle Cassis (@mlle_cassis), Luca Palli (@lpalli), Yann Kerveno (@justaboutvelo), Annemarie Fuschetto (@libellula_free), Ewan Spence (@ewan), Kantu (@kantutita), Jean-François Genoud (@jfgpro), Michelle Carrupt (@cmic), Sally O’Brien (@swissingaround), Adam Tinworth (@adders), Mathieu Laferrière (@mlaferriere), Graham Holliday (@noodlepie), Denis Dogvopoliy (@dennydov), Christine Cavalier (@purplecar), Emmanuel Clément (@emmanuelc), Xavier Bertschy (@xavier83). Follow #back2blog.

Living on a Boat [en]

[fr] Ce matin, j'ai passé une heure et demie à lire les aventures de Capucine et Tara Tari.

I’m writing this (“yesterday’s”) post late, because I unexpectedly ended up joining a party of one of my clients’ — I sailed past it as I was bringing the boat back into the marina, saw the big banner with their name on it, texted my contact, and he promptly invited me to join them.

On Wednesday nights during the “good” season I usually go sailing. We have training races. Tonight I was at the till, and we did good, better than I expected. That means there were more than one or two boats behind us when we crossed the finish line.

I might have mentioned it: sometimes I dream of living on a boat. I’ll probably never do it, but I like dreaming of it. This morning Corinne sent me a link to Where is Tara Tari? — the blog of Capucine and Tara Tari, her boat. She crossed the Atlantic with it. Corinne told me it made her think of a cross between she and I: a nomad on a boat.

I spent an hour and a half reading through the blog, and reading articles about Capucine and Tara Tari. Check out the blog. The boat is beautiful. It’s a 9m boat built in Bangladesh on the model of traditional fishing boats, using a jute composite. The guy who built it sailed it to France, and Capucine took over from there.

The Mollymawks also get me dreaming. I have spent hours reading their blog and books. Unlike Capucine who is at sea alone with her boat, the Mollymawks are a whole family with three children born at sea — now grown and growing up.

Funny how some dreams or obsessions we have seem destined to remain just that. And I say this without bitterness. I’m not sure I would like living on a boat “permanently”. But I like dreaming about it.

3rd #back2blog challenge (3/10), with: Brigitte Djajasasmita (@bibiweb), Baudouin Van Humbeeck (@somebaudy), Mlle Cassis (@mlle_cassis), Luca Palli (@lpalli), Yann Kerveno (@justaboutvelo), Annemarie Fuschetto (@libellula_free), Ewan Spence (@ewan), Kantu (@kantutita), Jean-François Genoud (@jfgpro), Michelle Carrupt (@cmic), Sally O’Brien (@swissingaround), Adam Tinworth (@adders), Mathieu Laferrière (@mlaferriere), Graham Holliday (@noodlepie), Denis Dogvopoliy (@dennydov), Christine Cavalier (@purplecar), Emmanuel Clément (@emmanuelc), Xavier Bertschy (@xavier83). Follow #back2blog.

Histoires d'oreilles [fr]

[en] Sharing my hearing and hearing aid story -- and opening a francophone facebook group for people who don't hear that well, whether with or without hearing aids.

L’autre soir, comme souvent dans des situations acoustiquement difficiles, je parle de mes oreilles et de mes appareils. En face de moi, le hasard veut qu’il y ait deux personnes à l’ouïe “pas top”. On a donc parlé longtemps, et j’ai raconté toute mon histoire.

J’ai toujours été un peu sourde. C’est familial. Mon frère aussi. Mon père aussi, probablement. Bref, dans la famille on est durs de la feuille.

Première tentative d’appareillage quand j’avais 14 ans. Fin des années huitante, gros appareils “intra” couleur chair qui se voyaient bien, inconfortables, réglage pour mon gain “idéal” très probablement, filles de la classe qui se fichent de moi: j’essaie deux jours puis ils vont finir leur vie dans leur boîte.

Je m’en sors très bien sans. Je sais que j’entends “pas très bien” et je le dis — mais je me rends compte aujourd’hui que je n’avais aucune idée à quel point j’étais sourde. Il a fallu que mon frère fasse le pas d’un appareillage, qu’il me parle un peu du processus et de la différence que ça faisait pour lui, de “bien entendre”, pour que j’y pense à nouveau. Aussi, je commence à me rendre compte dans mes activités professionnelles que mon ouïe m’handicape. Je n’entends souvent pas les questions des étudiants ou du public quand je donne une conférence. Je dois faire répéter. Ça devient un peu lassant.

Il me faudra encore quelques années pour passer à l’action. Je trouve le côté geek des appareils auditifs et accessoires fascinant. Je pose des questions à mon audioprothésiste dont il doit chercher la réponse. Ça lui change du quotidien…

Mes appareils sont roses. Ils sont derrière l’oreille, assez petits pour ne pas être très visibles (enfin quasi invisible sauf quand je relève mes cheveux, ce que je ne fais pas normalement car ils sont courts). Le micro est dans l’oreille, avec un embout “ouvert” plus confortable que le moulage fermé que j’ai quand même testé. Un “compromis”, dit mon audioprothésiste (parce que la qualité audio est censée être meilleure avec le moulage), mais je peux vivre avec ça.

Ils ont deux micros chacun et ils communiquent entre eux. Ça leur permet de savoir d’où vient le son et d’introduire cette variable dans la façon dont ils le traitent, de répercuter dans mes oreilles les décalages qu’on entendrait normalement et qui nous permettent de localiser un son.

J’ai choisi la taille “pas mini-mini” pour avoir un bouton “programme”. J’ai quatre programmes différents: un normal, un pour environnements bruyants, un pour les situations calmes avec légère suramplification, et un “silence” pour quand je suis dans le train avec les gosses qui crient à côté 😉

Il y a des tas de choses à raconter sur mon aventure auditive: comment ça a changé ma vie, comment se passe l’adaptation, comment on minimise toujours l’importance de sa surdité (“j’entends pas bien mais c’est pas si grave, je m’en sors sans appareils”), le look des appareils en 2013 (et leur taille!), les situations “impossibles” comme les restaurants, l’absence de communauté de hackers dans ce domaine (on a besoin de nos appareils, et à 6500 balles la paire on va pas s’amuser à les démonter “pour voir”), les anti-larsens, l’habituation, les acouphènes…

Bref, de quoi écrire une bonne demi-douzaines d’articles de blog, ou d’ouvrir un groupe facebook — ce que j’ai fait.

Pour le moment c’est un groupe secret, mais je pense que ce sera pour finir un groupe fermé: contenu inaccessible aux non-membres, mais listing des membres et descriptif du groupe visibles. Si ça vous intéresse de rejoindre le groupe pour partager vos histoires d’oreilles (avec ou sans appareils) ou écouter celles des autres, faites-moi signe et je vous y invite!

3e #back2blog challenge (1/10), avec: Brigitte Djajasasmita (@bibiweb), Baudouin Van Humbeeck (@somebaudy), Mlle Cassis (@mlle_cassis), Luca Palli (@lpalli), Yann Kerveno (@justaboutvelo), Annemarie Fuschetto (@libellula_free), Ewan Spence (@ewan), Kantu (@kantutita), Jean-François Genoud (@jfgpro), Michelle Carrupt (@cmic), Sally O’Brien (@swissingaround), Adam Tinworth (@adders), Mathieu Laferrière (@mlaferriere), Graham Holliday (@noodlepie), Denis Dogvopoliy (@dennydov), Christine Cavalier (@purplecar), Emmanuel Clément (@emmanuelc), Xavier Bertschy (@xavier83). Follow #back2blog.

Here We Go Again [en]

[fr] Des nouvelles.

Holidays in Spain. Two weeks of crazy work upon my return. Then orphaned kittens at home.

Things are lightening up: the kittens are weaned and clean, the big cats are taking care of them, and they have future homes. Though I have two batches of exams to grade (one now, one early june) my work life is taking a more manageable pace.

I’ve been the worst slacker in the Blogging Tribe experiment. I have a huge backlog of insanely cute kitten photos and videos to process and put online. I’ve started planting things for my balcony again. The sailing season has started.

Next week’s objectives: go back to judo, get back into something resembling a blogging habit, and start my new exercice regimen.

Longer term? Figure out why despite having identified long ago that I take on too much and need to slow down, and making efforts in that direction, I am failing.

Life is good.

Sailing [en]

[fr] La voile et moi. Histoire.

Note: I’ve been thinking of writing this post all afternoon, but put it off because I figured I should illustrate it, and some of the photos I’d like to use are stuck on this computer because of the bad internet connection I have here. Perfect example of how wanting to do things “well” easily leads to doing them “not”.

My parents met in Scotland, sailing. So, if you’re one to read signs and stuff, it would come as no surprise that I like sailing. My largely land-bound brother would probably beg to differ.

As far as I can remember, my dad has had a boat of some kind. On Lac de Neuchâtel when we were little, then Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). Holidays on the French canals, in Yugoslavia (nowadays the Croatian islands), and around another lake I can’t quite clearly remember (Lake Constance?).

I always liked going on the boat, but stuck to doing what I was told, pretty much.

When I came back from India in 2000, I signed up to be waiting-listed for a berth in one of the Lausanne ports. I knew that finding a spot for the boat each year was a bit of a juggling act, and for complicated local political reasons, my dad couldn’t sign up for one. There was a 10-15 year waiting list, but it cost nothing, and I figured I might as well put myself on the list, just in case it became handy some day down the line.

In 2008, I was very surprised to receive notice that I had been attributed a mooring in Vidy. It was good timing, as the boat had recently been washed ashore after the buoy it was moored to outside the port had broken during a storm. It was damaged, but the insurance would pay. Now it had a safe place to live.

The mooring being in my name, I had to pass my sailing permit. This was a good thing: I’d been planning on doing it a few years earlier, but life took over and I dropped the project. This was the kick in the pants I needed. I started accompanying my dad and his crew more seriously on their Wednesday evening races, and passed my Swiss sailing permit in fall 2009.

Before I started actually learning how to sail, I remember I used to find it a rather frustrating experience. It was hard to steer the boat in the direction I wanted it to go (though I’d of course done it in the past, under supervision). I didn’t understand the wind, or how to trim the sails. A lot of what went on on the boat was a mystery to me.

With time and practice, though, things started to sink in. I started to be able to take the boat roughly where I wanted it to go. I started getting the hang of the sail thing.

With a boat at sea now (here in Torrevieja, Spain), it made sense for me to go one step further and do a sea-based course. That’s what I’ve been doing this week — the RYA Day Skipper course. (I also added in Powerboat level 2 and VHF/DSC operator training, but that was unplanned, icing on the cake.) I learned a lot during this course (if you’re in Spain and want classes, book with Serenity Sailing without hesitation), but it also allowed me to realise how far I’ve come in just a few years. A whole lot of things which I used to find challenging are now almost automatic: I know where the wind is without having to really think of it, for example, because I now pick up on a bunch of signs that give me this information.

So the next step now? Gather a bunch of friends who are interested in a sailing holiday, and charter a boat for a week or two somewhere in some nice sunny islands. Oh, and if you have a powerboat lying around somewhere that needs to be taken out for a spin every now and again, let me know!

Arc-en-ciel, ICC, kitesurf [fr]

[en] In Torrevieja. Saw the most impressive rainbow I've ever seen (only iPhone photos, sorry). About to start my Day Skipper course, and interested in taking up kitesurfing.

Bon, article bateau, je sais, mais avant-hier, je crois bien que j’ai vu le plus bel arc-en-ciel de ma vie. 180° d’arc, double arc tout le long, luminosité magnifique, indigo visible. J’avais bien entendu laissé mon bon appareil de photo au bateau, alors je n’ai que des photos-iPhone.

Torrevieja After The Storm 4

Torrevieja After The Storm 2 Torrevieja After The Storm 3

Après l’orage, il fait beau ici à Torrevieja. Environ 20°C dehors (plus au soleil), nuits fraîches, bateau qui tangue juste ce qu’il faut. Demain, je commence mon cours de voile de 5 jours (Day Skipper) à la fin duquel j’aurai mon ICC. Le ICC est le papier qui est généralement demandé pour naviguer en mer dans les eaux territoriales. (Après, il y a ce qu’on est capable de faire, et c’est une autre histoire.)

Déjà en octobre dernier, j’avais remarqué de nombreux kitesurfs dans les parages. Le kitesurf, ça me fait toujours penser à Loïc, avide kitesurfeur. Je me souviens d’ailleurs d’une époque où une photo de lui faisant du kitesurf illustrait son blog (ou son compte Facebook? son blog, je crois).

Bref, ça me fait extrêmement envie, et je vais profiter de ces prochains jours pour me renseigner. Je suis sûre qu’il doit être possible de prendre des cours de kitesurf pour les jours où il y a tellement de vent qu’on n’a pas vraiment envie de naviguer!

Random Notes About My 2012-2013 India Trip [en]

A few random notes about my Indian trip, which I was sure I had published, but just found sitting in my MarsEdit drafts.

Health-wise, it was “interesting”. It started off with itchy knees that I carelessly brought from Switzerland. A nice dermatologist near Pune University helped me get rid of it (cream, antihistaminics, and even anti-scabies stuff — it was my big fear). In Kerala, I awoke after a first night of sleep to tons of little itchy bites on my forearm. Bed bugs? Fear, yes, but it seems not: thorough examination and repeat nights with no incident thankfully ruled that out. The bites disappeared, but I’m still curious what caused them.

In Mysore, I carelessly dropped a hearing aid — which promptly died. With three weeks of holiday left to go, it was worth thinking up a solution to get it fixed before my return to Switzerland. I ended up testing Fedex in India for you. There is an office in Mysore, and I’m happy to say it was quite painless: 2800 INR, an announced shipping time of 4 days which they managed to keep. My audiologist was able to change the 70 CHF piece that needed it and send the hearing aid right back again. 140 CHF of shipping! I’m not sure how many days they promised him, but the package took longer to reach me in Kolkata than on the way out. Looking at the tracking data for both packages shows that some parts of the shipping process in India are still big black holes. 48 hours at Delhi airport? Heck. Probably lying in a pile somewhere while people had tea (yeah, I’m probably unfair).

Anyway, the package did reach me and I was very happy to have both ears again for the end of my stay. So, success.

Around the time of my arrival in Kolkata, one of my teeth started reacting really painfully to cold and hot. I’ve always had sensitive teeth (to cold), but this was beyond anything. It got worse and worse, to the extent that I just didn’t want to drink anymore. I needed a dentist. Knowing I have a bunch of 15-to-20-years-old fillings that will at some point need replacing, I figured that if I found a good dentist, I might as well do the work in India. Which I did. A two-session root canal treatment on a molar cost me about a tenth of the price it would have in Switzerland. The dentist in question did part of his training in the UK and worked with Somak and Aleika’s dentist in Birmingham, who recommended him and sent their files there. So, there we go. My first root canal, in Kolkata. The result is magical, I can tell you: no more pain. I think that tooth had been hurting me for a very long time, actually, but I didn’t really notice it until it got really bad.

Aside from the medical stuff, I experimented properly with radio-rickshaws in Pune — Autowale.in. After a couple of successful trips, I booked an auto to bring my parents back after New Year’s Eve party. That was a disaster. Whereas for my previous bookings I had received a call from the driver about an hour before to check the pick-up point, this time around we hadn’t heard anything 30 minutes before. We called. The driver said it would take him at least 90 minutes to get there as his auto had broken down. We called the booking centre to ask them to find a replacement, and we were told that there were no available cars and that we had to “find an alternative”. Try finding an alternative in the university campus around 1am on January first. Well, the Shindes made a bunch of calls, and the son of a neighbor left his party to drive my parents back to their hotel. In the meantime, I left a pretty upset note on Autowale’s Facebook wall. We were really pissed off. The happy ending to this story is that the incident did finally get internal attention at Autowale — they asked me for details and I got an e-mail apology from the CEO, saying this was indeed completely unacceptable and that they needed to find a solution so this kind of situation didn’t happen again. Well, I’m willing to give them another chance next time I’m in Pune. But they better not mess up again: when you book a radio auto it’s usually specifically because you know it will be very difficult to find a ride. Leaving you stranded is just disastrous!

In the “new things” department we also did quite a lot of “day trip with car” outings. Most of them good experiences, some of them a tiny bit sour when it came to payment. No huge disasters, though. Two memorable rides were those to and from Mysore. We took a car from Kannur to Mysore, through the mountains and the national park. Crap road but beautiful scenery. And then, from Mysore to Bangalore, that was more memorable in the “dreadful” category. One of my family members was sick (first part of the trip went OK, but by the time we reached Bangalore we were stopping the car every 10-15 minutes). We got stuck half an hour (thankfully not more) on Mysore road because a car had hit a school girl and killed her, we were told. (I saw an ambulance go by after, though, so I like to think that maybe she did make it after all.)

Indian roads are deadly. Those close shaves we sometimes admire are sometimes too close and end up shaving off a life. I think I had looked up number last year: something like 100’000 deaths per year on Indian roads. 4000 in Pune alone. (Check those numbers somewhere if you’re going to use them.) To compare, Switzerland (roughly the population of Pune): 350-400 a year. In Kolkata I saw quite a few ambulances go by (Akirno’s school is near a hospital). People don’t even make way for them — or worse, they cut them off. Last year when I was stuck in Bangalore traffic to go and take my bus to Kerala, there was an ambulance stuck with us. If you need an ambulance to get you fast to the hospital to stay alive, you’re probably dead. You’d better not need one.

In Kolkata we had a car with a driver at our disposal. I have to say it makes a world of difference when it comes to going out and getting stuff done. Having to find taxis and rickshaws is stressful, even when you’ve become used to it. Don’t get any grand visions about the car and driver though. Boot bashed in, screaming belt, and over the last days we had to push it to start it quite a few times. This did result in a change of cars, however.

In addition to Loki the annoying puppy, I got to meet Coco, the baby African Grey parrot. My first bird contact, really! Let me just say that bird feet are warm (was sure they were cold, silly me), and that I had a great time interacting with Coco and getting to know him. Birds are not boring at all and need a lot of attention! I was there for his first flight across the room — took us all by surprise, him too, probably.

To wrap up I’ll leave you with this article that appeared in Metro during my stay, about Presidency University and some of the infrastructure problems there. Sadly Somak forgot to tell the journalist about the giant rat that fell from the ceiling onto the instrument the students had spent a good long time calibrating so they could run their experiment, or the guy who was sitting hunched up on his chair in his office the first day he met him, because there was 10cm of water on the floor.