Welcome to Raffles!

I was awoken from my reverie by the phone ringing.

Hello?

"Good mawning Sir"! said the friendly Indian voice at the other end.
"Red Cross"?

"Sorry?" I said.

"Red Cross Sir?" he repeated

"Errr...no I dont think sooo" I said, wandering if this was somehow some left over remnant from my helicopter confusion dream.

"No Red Cross Sir?
 Umlette? Indian Red Cross?"

Ahhh! "Breakfast!"

"Yes Sir, Red Cross!"

"Indian Red Cross Sir?"

"YES! Yes please. Indian Red Cross!" I said excitedly.

"Ok Ok Sir! Indian Red Cross five minutes!' He said. (And probably "calm down you fool its only breakfast" in Tamil after putting the phone down.)

And so 5 minues later I sat down to my first Indian Breakfast, which was basically an Omlette with 4 small slices of bread arranged in quarters on top, and served with a cup of incredibly sweet milky tea.

I wolfed it all down, and then ran downstairs where Saravan was waiting ouside to drive me into College.

Once again the sheer volume, noise and chaos of the morning rush hour traffic was overwhelming, and once again Saravan handled it with consummate skill.

We stopped en route to pick up Pranav at his apartment which as it turned out was only about 200 metres from the college door, so at the time I'm wasn't quite sure why he didn't walk to work. Now, having been in Chennai a few days, I realise its because he values his life. Walking isn't really a viable option here. So if your the College Director, a chauffeur driven lift to work isnt so much a perk of the job as Life insurance and Health Care all in one.

Once again he seemed delighted to see me.

Good morning, good morning Myles! he said.
You have slept well? Not more jet lag?

Yes, very good thankyou Pranav.

Ahh! Good good. He was doing the wobbly head thing again.
"And your place is comfortable?"

Yes, fine thanks!

Ahh fine fine! More head wobble.

And you had Red Cross?

We drew up outside the College entrance, and he eagerly jumped out the car.

I followed him up the steps and he opened the glass entrance door for me.

"Please!" He motioned me through

"Welcome to Raffles!"

Nesting Instinct

Pranav had come to the airport with his driver who is called Saravan
We jumped into his car and we set off toward the city centre.

Apart from the heat and humidity, the first thing I really noticed about Chennai was the traffic.
It makes Piccadilly Circus seem like a quiet country lane. Literally Millions, no make that BILIONS of cars, motorbikes, and auto rickshaws, all packed 5/6/7 to a lane, and all constantly beeping their horns, and weaving around each other trying to gain some sort of competitive edge!

Saravan was obviously an experienced Chennai driver, and did as much weaving and beeping as his competitors.  On the way Pranav kept up an excited commentary about how Chennai was an up and coming Indian city in the midst of great growth and change. 'Soon the New Metro will open!" he said.
"This will be REALLY great achievement!"
He said it with such pride that you would have thought he had built it himself. (As it turns out his dad was a Railway engineer. so maybe that explains it.)
Unfortunately my jet lag was beginning to really make itself felt by this stage, and I was fighting to stay awake and appear interested, but I suspect my drooping eyelids and nodding dog head told a different story.

To change the subject & stay awake I enquired about the sort of little religious shrine on Saravan's dashboard with what appeared to me like a little fat Golden Buddha, and a golden sort of elephant creature with lots of arms, and two little Indian flags, all surrounded by a flower garland.

Saravan saw me looking at it, and said
"This for Ganesh sir!"
"Very Big Festival!"

"Yes! Pranav agreed excitedly.
"You have just missed it! It was the birthday of Lord Ganesh!
"He is the son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. he has the head of an elephant but the body of human. Lord Ganesh is the symbol of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune!" 
He smiled all through this sentence and nodded his head in little side to side movements all the while as he said this as if agreeing with himself.

Hmm I thought to myself, I wonder if he's seen that film 'The Elephant Man' 
Having an elephantine head and human body didn't bring John Merrick much prosperity and good fortune did it? No! He was nabbed by the circus and paraded round the ring for the amusement of the punters like, well an elephant really. He ended up screaming "I HAM not a HANIMAL!" at them which only caused further hilarity, and then choked to death on his own tongue( or was it ears ?) by going to sleep without a pillow. But all things considered I thought it best not to mention this, and just said that I was sorry I had missed the festival. 

"Don't worry!"  Pranav smiled and nodded. There are many many festivals here in Tamil Nadu!
"You will see them all!"

Finally we reached the hotel which was/is to be my new home for the next week or so.
It was called NPL's Nest, and so once they had shown me to my room I pretended to be a cuckoo, and moved in next door! (That was a joke Che!)

Actually it was pretty basic but clean and comfortable place, with a simple single bed with clean white sheets, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had been an actual real straw/twiggy like nest;
I lay down and instantly fell asleep.

When I awoke a few hours later I didn't know where the hell I was.

It was very hot and I could hear lots of beeping horns outside somewhere, and apparently a helicopter was just landing in my room. But then I remembered & realised the helicopter was a ceiling fan, and that it was in fact me who had just landed.

For a few minutes I just lay there enacting my own personal 'Apocalypse Now'*' scenario.

"Chennai!" I said to myself
"S**T!
I'm still only in Chennai.
I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one.."







*Apocalypse Now is a War Film with MASSIVE explosions that you will love when your old enough to watch it Che Che.

Chennai What I mean?

Hi Che Che!

So here I am in Chennai, India!  (Bet you like the way it has your name in it!)
I landed a few days ago and was very jet lagged and tired after such a long flight (or I should say  flights) - The entire journey took me nearly 24 hours!

So anyway, Chennai is a big city in the South of India in the state of Tamil Nadu.
(Actually its in a right state too but I will tell you about that shortly)

It used to be called Madras, in fact sometimes they still call it that.  Madras is one of my favourite types of curry by the way but that's not why I came here.

Instead I am going to be teaching design at the Raffles Millennium Institute, which as its name would suggest is a very prestigious and world renowned educational establishment, at least that's what it says on their website.

My boss is called Pranav Desai, and he was at the airport to meet me.
His first words to me were;  "You look completely different in real life."
 I wasn't sure how to respond to that.
The scouser in me wanted to say something like;
"I flew 5000 miles for a job not a date" but instead I just nodded politely and said
"Yes I have had a bit of a haircut!" (Remember Che, you did it for me in France, and it was actually quite a lot of a haircut.)
Then I said "You look exactly the same!' (because he does!)

Here's a picture of him (as copy/pasted from my Skype contacts):