In Kolkata (Calcutta)

Well, I've continued to be a wayward husband, and I'm now in Kolkata! Having completed a week in Mussoorie, I have now got excellent Hindi. Therefore I thought it sensible to come to an area that speaks Bengali!! I have actually come to meet up with a friend from the UK, and visit some projects here run by Emmanuel Ministries Calcutta.

This is a photo of their school that I found on the internet. I'm hoping to be able to get a copy of another friend's photos on disc though, and then I should be able to post some other more personal photos in a few days!

It was really nice to go to Church this morning and see some faces I knew!!

1) Henry Hudson who is from my own home Church in Glasgow was placing the sax up front! He has come to work with Emmanuel Ministries for at least 6 months, and will then review his plans for the future.

2) A girl called Becky who used to go to my parents church in Edinburgh was also there! She is only in Calcutta for 4 weeks, but has been sent by Tearfund to see the Emmanuel Ministries.

3) A girl called "Jen" real name something Korean, but simplified to "Jen" for dummies! She was a student at the same college that I went to to do a few modules on working abroad. She is here long term.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

Well, it seems the Indian Prime Minister and I agree on this one!


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has told Indians celebrating 60 years of independence from Britain that "the best is yet to come".

Mr Singh was speaking after raising the Indian flag at Delhi's Red Fort, where the British flag was lowered in 1947.

He praised the work of those who fought for India's freedom but said the country would only be truly independent once it had eliminated poverty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6947226.stm

Independence Day

Just for those of you who don't know, this is not just a film starring Will Smith!! A surprisingly large percentage of the world's population celebrates independence from the UK at some point in their calendar. I see that Alex Salmond is busy trying to add Scotland to the list of those to escape the tyrrany of England!! Oh well, in the meantime, I'm going in the opposite direction, with a move south of the border planned when we return from India!!

It really is great being a Scot abroad! People don't seem to realise that is was the UK, not England that conquered half the globe. When people think you're from England, they can be quite frosty abroad, but as soon as they realise that you're Scottish, you've made a new best friend!!

Maybe it's also something to do with kilts, bagpipes, haggis braveheart and whiskey- these are the things that Scotland is known for abroad. We are seen as a quaint wee hilly nation of sheep and claymores!

Great Film if you've not seen it! Amazing how Will just KNOWS how to fly alien spacecraft!

Independence Day (India)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

India's Independence Day is celebrated on August 15th to commemorate its independence from British rule and its birth as a sovereign nation on that day in 1947. The day is a national holiday in India. It is celebrated all over the country through flag-hoisting ceremony and distribution of sweets. The main celebration takes place in New Delhi, where the Prime Minister raises the national flag at the Red Fort and delivers a nationally televised speech from its ramparts. In his speech, he highlights the achievements of the government during the past year, raises important issues and gives a call for further development. Prime minister also pays tribute to leaders of the freedom struggle.

this year is the 60th year of independence. Many Indians are very proud of their independence, and for that reason partly, I'm wearing an Indian cricket strip today- I always get a few comments wearing this. Apparrently most of the Indian subcontinent think I look like someone called Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff, who is an England cricketer...

...I used to think that the similarities were limited short hair, trim beard and white skin, but looking at the picture above I'm not so sure now.

Although there are many proud Indians, there are also a few who feel that India would have been better off under British rule. This is a minority, as Britain really exploited India- the few ruling the many. however some people acknowledge that the Raj also brought India unity and infrastructure. Part of the reason that some people aren't happy about Indian rule is that very few people have any faith whatsoever in the Indian political system. Parties can bribe their way into office, and corruption is rife in India at the highest level.

My feeling is that independence is great, and India will soon be a super-power like America, but they need to stamp out corruption, and put in place methods of better ensuring that the common man benefits form the great wealth that is held by the few in India at present.

Dehra Dun

I'm really sorry this image is so grainy, but it was the best one I could find to show the location of Dehra Dun on a map of India. you'll just have to take my word for it that the pointer is in fact pointing to Dehra Dun!!


I came here on the way to Mussoorie. It happened to be the dedication service for a new Church building for Stephen Alfred's (medical director of the hospital I work in) brother's Church there on Saturday as I was passing through. I stayed overnight.

The Church helps support three schools/orphanages, and is also about to start another school in their new premises.

they also help fund an alcohol and drugs rehab residential center that I also visited during my time there. They are doing great work, and the center is run by ex-addicts, which I think is great.

Stephen Alfreds Brother Sam actually broke down in tears during the dedication service, and that was just so powerful. He really loves the poor and orphans and marginalised of the society around him.


Tony Sergant (the principal of the "International Christian College" where I did a couple of modules, and the guy who first told me about Lok Hospital) was in Dehra Dun to lead the services, and he gave me a signed copy of his book "The sacred anointing"!! (It's all been worth it!!!)

Mussoorie

Hey there, continuing some information from my jaunt up north...I took a taxi to a hill-station in the foothills of the himalayas called Mussoorie from Dehra-Dun on Sunday. The roads here are amazing! I had a similar experience visiting another hill-station on a train in 2002 when I went to Shimla. that was fun.


Mussoorie is a beautiful place, but is fairly well shrouded in cloud at the moment. The reason for coming here is to study Hindi for a week. Hopefully my grammer will improve!

this is a photo of the language school itself. A lot of the buildings in mussoorie were built by the British during their occupation, and are very pretty.

I am here all by myself, as I expect you already realise. I miss Jo and the kids a lot, but it is a good opportunity to really study hard.

New Delhi

Below is a photo looking out over "NEW"?? Delhi. I had to download the image unfortunately, as my digital camera is Kaput. It will not charge at all. A digital miracle would be good for me over the next few days, if you are into praying for healing for electrical devices (and why not? It takes all sorts! Don't mock it till you've tried it! (actually, I have a confession to make, I did try it, and it didn't work unfortunately, but do not let this discourage you!)

Oh Oh, our chronological order is really going to be shot to pieces, but hey, what can you do? I am now in Delhi, and we haven't finished updating you on our time in the UK. Jo is hopefully going to continue that from home, so that she can add photos from our computer. Meanwhile I'll probably be interspersing her postings with updates of my time in the north of India.


The reason that I have left my wife (!!Don't worry, only temporarily!!), is that 2 days before we left India I was asked to register with the Medical Council of India. This is something that not many foreigners do due to the beaurocracy involved. I went to the office in Delhi on Wednesday and Thursday, and my paperwork is now complete. I have been told by them that it should only take a few weeks to get my registration through, and that I should get my registration by the 25th of August. (Not to be pessimistic, but I have spoken to someone else who has already completed his registration, and he says it took 4-5 months - a year if you include the fact that they lost his first application!! I'm quite sure that it will be much quicker for me though. No, Really... ...Really)



I have been asked not to work until the registration comes through, and so rather than twiddle my thumbs, I am planning to go to Mussoorie for a week to do some more language learning, and then after that do some training sessions for Oasis India that I had been asked to do before I came back to the UK. These things should keep me fairly busy until my registration hopefully comes through.

Emma and Summer's visit

Unfortunately this is a bit out of sinc chronologically once again! These pictures are actually of before we went to the UK. A good friend of ours called Emma visited from The UK. (seen here in green) She is a paediatric surgery registrar, and used to attend our Church in Glasgow.

In yellow is another friend who has almost finished nursing training, and who came to work at Lok Hospital for 2 months this summer.

These photos were taken when they accompanied me to Dolkan villiage. I do general practice there sometimes, and am planning to go there once a month now that I am back in India.

It was great for Jo to have some other young trendy chicks around, and they really enjoyed hitting the shops together! - especially Emma I might say- I'm pretty sure all the bags you can see are hers!!- sorry Emma!

More of London

The London eye, which was too busy, and too expensive, sooo......

...We had an ice-cream instead

The bank of the Thames

Tower of London (it's not really much of a tower is it?). You can see the famous "cucumber" building in the background on the right.

London Bridge, or tower bridge or some famous bridge! Doesn't really matter really, it's a nice photo (I think)

Yachts manoeuvre in St. Catherine's Docks.

BBQ # 2

I know what you're thinking- "how could they possibly have managed 2 barbecues this summer?", but trust me, we were desperate!
We went to visit Jo's sister Catherine for a few days before Chris's wedding. Here is Catherine hugging Neil, who is doing the manly bit on the barbecue. Catherine and Neil have just got engaged! HOORAY, and AT LAST (don't worry Neil, I love you anyway, even though it took you about 4 years to get your finger out!)

I think it predictably started to rain just as we were about to eat the barbie, so here we are eating it (indoors again!)

Neil is a great guy, and great with the kids. (Hmmmmm... ...He'll make a great uncle... ...and dad!)

Bed-time stories (has Catherine already nodded off?)

First class treatment

We went from Edinburgh to London for Jo's brother Chris's marriage to the lovely Ruth.

Jo's other brother Steve gifted us some first-class train tickets that he gets free with his work. It was the first time that I'd travelled first class I think (and may be the last actually I guess. Although it was nice to travel first class, I realised that I probably didn't really fit in when they came round with tea and coffee and I asked "is it free?"). We had a great time in comfort and luxury, and even got a free meal. I enjoyed a sirloin steak, the first I'd had for a while!

Nursery Day

Continuing the Penni and Stewart Brown and family theme...
...we attended a nursery fundraising open-day with them in Ratho. I had to put this on the blog mostly for the comedy value of Alistairs spider-man face painting. My sister and brother were running the face-painting stall, and did a great job. Penni bought lots of professional paints (at great expense Stewart says!), and below is the result.

I think that Alistair reminds me somewhat of a maniacal Darth Mol from the star wars films!

There was a magic show in the afternoon, and all the children received baloon animals or a sword. As you can see there was a bit of a glut on sword sales around the time of my extended family getting their baloons! Oh how to nurture that pacifist streak?

BBQ season??

Has anyone else actually managed a barbecue this summer? Probably not, but we were kind of in denial, and were desperate to enjoy some British (or Australian probably) summer-time culture while in the UK. as you can see below we are rather hypocritically doing our bit to add to green-house gas emissions in our own-back-yard as it were! From Left to right are Stewart, Inga, Daniel, Adam, Cameron.

This was in my mum and dad's garden in Edinburgh. My sister Penni came with her family. We didn't get as much time with them this summer as we (or they) would have liked, especially towards the end of our stay, but we had some good times towards the start of our break, which was nice. Here's Alistair and Freya's youngest cousin Roselle in the swing, with my sister Penni in brown, (and her name is actually "Penni Brown" now funnily enough!), And Magnus opposite Alistair on the far side of the frame.

Continuing my rant on global warming...

I have taken these images and text from the BBC website. Their full article can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Millions of people across South Asia have spent another night stranded in flood waters.
Almost 150 people have died and almost 20 million people have been displaced or marooned in severe flooding across India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It has been raining heavily in the region for 20 days and more rain is forecast, particularly in central India, a region which has so far received a weaker monsoon.

Many of the rivers which flow through northern India and into Bangladesh are overflowing, and in some places they have burst their banks.

In some areas, the floods are being called the worst in living memory.
A vast area is under water, damaging farmland and affecting thousands of villages. Aid agencies say stocks of food and water are running very low.


12 million displaced or marooned in India
5.5 million displaced in Bangladesh
More than 750,000 affected in Nepal
In Assam, in north-eastern India, three feet of rain fell in July.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6927389.stm

Play Park Pranks

One of the first things we were desperate to do was allow the kids (myself included in that number!) to play outside! India is soooo dusty and dirty and HOT, HOT, HOT most of the year, and then in monsoon (ie now) it is very muddy (and still pretty hot.). It is great to allow the kids to play without worryng about them becoming filthy, ill or hyperthermic!


This photo is one of my current favourites, and is my desktop background just now. Alistair said "Oh look, there's Daddy and Alistair... ...sitting on their balls"! Well, I can't really disagree with that!

It was great to be able to see all of Alistair and Freya's Cousins this summer. This is Laura below, Penni's eldest of five children (oldest only seven years old, yes, my sister is some kind of modern icon of motherhood!). Alistair has come out with some great quotes actually. Another was that towards the end of our time in the UK Jo asked him when he was deep in thought "what are you thinking about Alistair?" He answered soberly "I'm thinking about all the cousins I've made"! He now has 11!

Being away from Friends and Family is one of the main things that Jo and I struggle with in India. We are both very fortunate to have quite large, and very close and supportive families.

I was remarking on how appalling the weather had been in the UK this summer to a friend, and we were suggesting that if it weren't for friends and family people should all leave the UK and move to the South of France or something! I guess the trick would be to be able to persuade your entire group of family and friends that they also really wanted to move to sunnier climes!?

seriously though, What a disaster is global warming! I thought it was ironic when I read today that the melting of the polar ice-cap has opened a fresh debate over the mineral and drilling rites under the arctic ice-cap, as these regions become more accessible as the ice melts! Russia have planted their flag somewhere under the north pole! About a quarter of the untapped oil resourses in the world are thought to be under the arctic Ice-cap, and The USA, Canada, Denmark, Russia and Norway are all in dispute.

I've got an idea, why don't we just create some sort of huge wick or pipe from the underground reserves to the surface of the ice-cap and create a huge bonfire to consume all the natural resourses we have left as quickly as possible, WITH THE ADDED BONUS OF MELTING THE ICE-CAP QUICK TIME!!!! There would end a debate. (Isn't money the root of all kinds of problems in the world today?)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6927395.stm