Morning Journal December

My near death, exotic Asian male cold, that had me on three antibiotics and coughing non stop 24 hours producing the colours of my forefathers, persists like a nagging collection agent.  I slept through the night after a weekend of mostly sleeping and resting and doing nothing of note except entertaining my dog, reading and taking care of business.

I returned from India sick a week ago and have only been able to complete half days at the clinics, my coughing, brought on my talking stress, soul sucking, anxiety, whatever, begins to worry the waiting room and I leave.  

Meanwhile someone has introduced Christmas and I’m still back in Halloween and Remembrance Day.  I didn’t make it to church or may have had the advent candles to kick me into the present. I’ve been jet lagged worse than I can remember. My back and shoulder hurt. My knee is a whole lot better. One joint improves and another atheletic traumatic memory takes over it’s place. My body and I have entered a bargaining phase. I beg and cajole activity when a lot of the time all it wants is the couch.  “The couch! The couch!” My knee used to scream but not it’s just my back and throat whimpering.

We’ve been discussing chronic pain recently.  There continues to be this ‘acceptance’ of ‘physical illness’ as if ‘physical illness’ is ‘without blame and shame’.  Meanwhile I consider everything psychosomatic and ask myself constantly what have I done to cause this, how can I change this, what can I do to make it better. I avoid seeing MRI”s of my joints because they invariably look permanently damaged while I know we’re self healing beings. Neuts grow their severed tails. We’re constantly killing cancer cells on a daily basis. My skin is renewing itself ever matter of weeks and my blood is replaced every couple of months, all the cells renew every 7 years.  It’s a dynamic milieu but my binary limited ego mind reduces everything to good and evil or broken and fixed and if shown an MRI of my back, would simply act as a “NOCEBO”>

A nocebo is a ‘curse’. 

A placebo is a ‘blessing’. In the materialistic world of aetheist medicine , placebo or ‘self healing’ has been denigrated.  The consumer medicine group can’t bill for it and the heiarachical world we live in with big and little, leaders and slaves, and all the hidden agendas, survival of the fittest, priviledge and blame and shame, placebo is denigrated. I believe everything is self healing. I believe as a doctor I’m facilitating the process. I’m like the artist who says he’s letting the sculpture out of the rock. I’m a gardener weeding. I believe God wants good and I’m doing God’s work. So I believe that we have a whole collection of self limiting thoughts and beliefs that stop us from levitating, flying, and saint like behaviour. We hear and know of these individuals but then our propaganda denigrators education system and media constantly ‘discount’ miracles. Miracles and the sacred are going on all the time.

I’m not paying attention.

I’m easily distracted by lust, gluttony,anger, fear, selfishness. I’m struggling daily to be a better person. I look back and see I’ve been writing and saying and doing that for decades with limited benefit. My intention has been perfection and God’s will but like St. Paul said, “I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want to do.’

I”m aware I’ve overweight and would benefit from hours in the gym. I listened to some people in a coffee shop, these ladies and young men, talking about their daily gym times 1-2 hours. “What the fuck are you, professional athletes!”   I encouraged my patient to meditate 15 minutes a day. She’d come from a retreat where they wanted her to meditate 2 hours a day. “What the fuck do they think I do all day!”

So I’m supposed to write the great Canadian novel. it was supposed to be written decades ago. Instead i blogged and journaled and wasted away in oblivion bitching and complaining.

My alarm goes off early each morning. Why is it dark outside!!!!!  The alarm song is ‘It is well with my soul ».  The ipad has the ‘Creed.’It’s a good way to wake. 

I was dreaming of India. I was with a group of people meditating and having coffee and generally hanging out. I often find myself in churches and holy places in my dreamS.  

Gilbert my Guru was beside me . He’s taken to liking the electric warming blanket and lies up against me and it.  Would never admit it. Old dog.

So I started the day great with a hug and belly rub. I gave Gilbert the belly rub.  A lot of my life I’ve woken with gorgeous women in my bed. I’ve looked over and been shocked at the beauty of my bed mate. It continues now even some days, though Gilbert is the constant. I’m really blessed. Now I’ve a happy little dog who is blind and having a bad back now  accepts being helped down from the bed. He has a combination of a clean clothes pile piles suitcases and foam stairs.  He gets up but likes a hand down.

I meditated. I speak to God. I pray. I have this ongoing relationship with God that’s kind of authoritarian 911 guy, a bit like my father as a kid, and a bit like my mother and best of all when he’s a friend. I like the song I have a friend in Jesus.  I just have difficulty relating to this guy’s guy who hiked everywhere in robes and the dessert. I sometimes find a more fitting relationship figure that’s less austere.  It’s my perception. God within. God will come again. I like the name Lord. « L iveor D ie. » I find the God path is life.  Evil spelt backwards is good. I’m reaching.  I’m trying to awaken that within me that has always known god, The child within.  I believe life is a forgetting.  Then we die and we’re reunited.

In my prayers I prayed for my teachers, and mentors and family and friends. It can’t hurt. I have been blessed and so often I feel alienated and alone and detached and afraid.  

I like being alone in the woods. I miss sailing.  I miss the distance from government. I couldn’t have been awake a half hour when I was thinking about the Climate Change nonsense and the diabolical tax fraud claiming to tax us as punishment to redistribute wealth to Equatorial Countries. I’m freezing my butt off. I had to pay $60 for propane to heat the place this week. It’s so cold here. This is the coast. It’s the best it gets in Canada. I spend decades in Winnipeg and northern Canada.  Meanwhile I’ve just returned from where the sun always shines and the people can live comfortably on the street. That doesn’t happen here. 

I’m always upset when I feel someone is taking my money or earnings. I work really hard. I have got up and gone to work and worked 12 hours a day all my life and looked around at white collar and blue collar welfare, people coasting and wanting me to support them. Meanwhile I like supporting people I choose. But I don’t like the government stealing from me to support their nefarious cronies. That’s my viewpoint. It’s worse in the Equatorial countries. Just read the history of Libéria.  All the bullshit about ‘racism’ in the Media and no one is talking about race. It’s not race or gender.It’s good and evil and corruption. Like this massive redistribution scheme to destroy Canadians and I think it’s occurring because our leader is a coward and a slut.  I think the screws were put to him by the big boys in the UN> Take our slaves and peasants or we will cut off gas to Quebec.  We won’t sell our goods cheap says China unless you get on board with forgetting about the Hong Kong freedom movement.  

I think we should be allied with America. They’re the best bet. Trudeau’s father joined with France . France contributed about 1% trade with us while America contributed 80 %.  It’s all above my pay grade.

But there I was meditating, at peace and getting ready to go to work.Thinking politics and bullshit.

Not gratitude.

I really have to focus on gratitude. Praise and thanksgiving.I’ve got this great parka. I know how to live in 40 below zero weather. It’s only 4 below here. I’ve this magnificent dog. I roasted a whole boodle of green Ethiopian coffee beans and had the best coffee. I actually had instant porridge and had prepared for my going to work by boiling eggs on the weekend. I had a delicious boiled egg for breakfast.  It’s a paradise. I’ve this great little dog who always looks for the best and just wants to sniff fee fee ass, eat treats, and drink toilet water, and piss everywhere. Life is a dream. My GURU Gilbert.  

So I’ve got to get showered and dressed. I have running hot water, great propane heat warmth and electricity warmth.I »ve this internet connection to the world, friends all over, I’ve this ipad computer that is beyond NASA a decade a go. I’ve a Dick Tracy watch. I know there’s no intelligent life in the capitals of the world and keep asking to be beamed up and one day I will dematerialize and appear somewhere else. God will take me home. I will meet my mother and father, brother,  aunts and uncles and grandparents again and the friends who have gone before. Today I’ve got to get suited up and try to be kind and nice and do the next right thing.I’ve got this great little car. I remember when I played all day with a dinky toy and thought life would begin when I had an actual car. Now I do. I have everything but my mind forgets. I am blessed and instead I focus on the weak knee or the computer program that bounced me off it earlier this morning. I focus on the fact that I had intended to start writing a book but instead babbled. 

Oh well.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord. Thank you Creator. Thank you God. I will put on the armor of the lord, remember St. Francis, God beneath, God beside, God above, God in front, God behind, protect me and be thou my shining light. May I do thy will.  Let me know thy will. Thy will be done. Lift up my eyes. Raise me on eagles wings. Thank you Jesus!

Mumbai Pictures

We only had a day in Mumbai, enough time to check into the Emerald Hotel and eat a great meal from their vegetarian restaurant. I walked around the neighbourhood having lots of flashbacks and reminiscences of when I’d been in Bombay about 35 years before. 

I’d taken the trip as a reward to myself for completing psychiatry. It was also a question whether I’d come back. I think I might have been socially suicidal at the time.  I know my family was worried but I sorted things out in my mind and returned. I was in a divorce dealing with trauma and rebuilding a life.  I’d divorce again, quit alcohol and smoke, get more degrees, see thousands of patients, sail across an ocean,  and continue to write and take photographs. I was drinking and smoking tobacco and dope, a young intellectual, confused and suffering with a lot of pathos, seeking God.  Here I was back again not drinking and not smoking, definitely more mature, and more with God than not. 

I was back in Mumbai with a horrible bronchitis , popping antibiotics and coughing green sputum. I was exhausted with a couple of nights of not sleeping and flights and coughing all night. But it was good.  Laura liked the Best Western Emerald Hotel, the family owned boutique hotel. She liked the view from the window and the birds.  We joked that she was becoming one of the “neighborhood watch” grandmothers. She napped while I explored.

I felt safe in Mumbai. I have so few recollections from 35 years ago but those I have are so poignant, the Indian friends I made, the wonderful Chicago businessman, the doctor who worked with Saint Theresa’s , Singing Hey Jude harmonies in the carriage ride in the park, the airport crisis, the Sheik, dancing, the hole in the wet dirty floor toilet,  Elephanta Island, discussing Buddhism with the Indian doctor, visitting the hospital with the psychiatrist, lunching with him, doing consults, the husband and wife doctor team, the Bombay Bicycle Club, and walking. I walked everywhere enjoying the safety and friendliness of this foreign country where people spoke English and were so engaging. Here I was walking again and enjoying all the sights and sounds and the colours and the variety of people. It’s that Indian and English thing that is Mumbai for me. I didn’t feel it so much in Delhi despite New Delhi.  Delhi is more like New York while Mumbai is a bit of London to me.  It’s all that crazy mix of India. The Juxtaposions of rich and poor, fast and slow,  modern and ancient,  all side by side and mixed together.  

After walking, and a Tuk Tuk ride back,  getting antibiotics at the chemist,  lozenges and listerine gargle I left with Laura , I took a taxi ride around town eventually ending at Asian Crafts. There I bought gifts  for Laura and I to bring home. Laura was pleased. I was glad to have had a bit of tour. We repacked our bags and had a few hours of sleep despite my continued cough, plugged sinuses and tight chest.  

Early morning taxi. Long flight home. I was sad to leave Mumbai. I’d gladly return. I’d only planned on staying a week when I’d come in the late 80’s  and stayed a couple of months, there just being so much to see and do. 

Now I want to return to India.  I’d fly into Mumbai and head to the Punjab and wander down to the Ganja, maybe visit Tibet.  I could spend a lifetime in India and keep coming back. 

I was glad to be returning to Canada though. I really missed Gilbert, the clean air, and the outdoors. White Spot.  I also like my friends and family here so, full of the exotic and strange, I was glad to return to and appreciate the familial and mundane. Laura remains a wonderful companion. These are some of the pictures I took there.

Home after India

We flew from Cochin to Mumbai arriving at The Emerald Hotel early afternoon. Laura was tired and happy to stay in while I joyfully walked around my neighborhood reminiscing on my last time in Bombay 35 years before. I’d walked everywhere then. Now I enjoyed the walking again, enjoying Bombay, with its mixed English/Indian feel and it’s sense of history and modern.  I love the juxtapositions of this city.  I’d have a last day shop for gifts too.

I was coughing. I’d begun a fever and was producing green sputum.  The air had been bad in Delhi. I’d picked up a dry cough there from the smoke but it only became productive my last day in Kochi.  I began the Zithromax I had for diarrhea.  In Mumbai at the chemist I picked up doxycycline but it too had no affect on the fever. I read that there’s a 70% resistance for animal and human infections in India due to the over use of antibiotics. I had Clindamycin left over from the dentist and though I was still coughing sputum on the plane home the fever broke, the profusive sweating stopped, my sinus cleared and the sputum turned white in 24 hours. 

No one complained about the 50 or so babies on the flight from Heathrow to Vancouver, 10 hours of misery, because the fat old white guy’s cough was disturbing everyone’s sleep. 

At one point I couldn’t breathe with my nose, was claustrophobic and couldn’t seem to get a breath, added to my claustrophobic panic that sometimes adds to my flying experience.  I had an aisle seat so could stand up and did. The feeling passed.  My racing heart slowed. I was able to breathe slowly.  

Back in my bed I loved home.  Safe. I slept.  Waking to breathe but loving my own bed.  In the morning Laura left and I tried to return to work.  No such luck. A couple of hours and I was drained and the coughing which had been better returned from deep in my chest.

It was idyllic to be re united with Gilbert. I love that little bundle of joy.  He barked and did his turns then stayed close and at home cuddled. I slept for hours and days cancelling another day of clinic. I walked Gilbert slowly.  Everything was slow.  Time even slowed. My mind was mush. Jet lag.  I just moved through the motions. Like getting back in sync with an out of sync world.  I liked the familiarity., It was almost like India was a dream.  I saw some patients and was pleased I was of use, signing prescriptions, filling out forms, reassuring.  I was delighted my patient still lived who I’d feared would die. I spoke with some who seemed to be uplifted with the contact. I liked that.  I made it through most of a day before the coughing and fatigue took their toll. I returned home, walked Gilbert then slept through another evening and night. I was able to sit in the hot tub one evening. I showered and dressed and picked up fish and chips at White Spot. I’d thought of White Spot fish and chips in India. Now I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Friday morning I did my tour of duty seeing lots of people for a routine repetitive general practitioner type purpose. I felt good with the duty. I liked the duty.  I like being dutiful. It’s not a popular concept. But I was paying my way.  Going to the post office, going to the bank, paying bills.  I was astonished at how quickly I was connecting.

Laura fell asleep dressed for a play we’d planned.  Christmas Presence. It’s as stooge. I’d thought it was the guitars and stories at Pacific Theatre.  Stooge was great but required attention. Ron Reed is a genius. I nodded off fighting coughing and sucking on sedating lozenges. I felt I’d missed a lot but I’d been there. Filled a seat. Suited up. Showed up. Had felt moments of Ron’s brilliance but despite second act coffee was fading in and out. I’m not in this time zone.  Glad to have been there. Feeling it was therapeutic. The Christmas doesn’t seem to be in place.I’m in India and still getting over Halloween and Remembrance days. Holidays and themes are racing at me. I’m stumbling forward on a Delhi Road.

Laura was beautiful.  Pearl necklace. Sweater. Polka dot dress.  We had after theatre dinner at West Restaurant on Granville.. The consommé was a taste sensation.  I loved the salmon steak. Even the bread and butter tasted wonderful.  I was sorry to let her off at her apartment and drive home alone. I’d been listening to Daya Mata satsanga’s about SRF and Paramahansa Yogananda. The driving time is not wasted.  Before sleep, I read another western, the good man theme.  Simple.

On Facebook the chaos of politics competes with the spirituality of dogs and cats and humor. I enjoy my friends.I wonder about my snide remarks. I’ve increasing doubts about this clever place of expression where I make comments about Justin Trudeau, elite stoner, playboy, name brand, intellect of a puddle, above the law. He represents everything that offends me. Un Canadian and the lies.  But then I think ‘some are sicker than others’. I need to pray for him as we needed to pray for Hitler and Stalin. They’re sick not bad.  I admit I think of the evil forces and need to be less binary.  

I actually slept more in the day, but cleaned the sticky galley flor, shook out the rug, did filing, walked Gilbert, a couple of times, got banking done, picked up mail, generally took care of business, slowly, steadily, with naps. I roasted Ethiopian coffee, did all the actions bringing me back into life. Syncing.

Now I’m early for a doctors meeting. I missed my home group this week, collapsing and sleeping through it after a half day of work fatigued me to the point of sickness. Now I’m here early and ready to go now.  A walk and a little thought and I’ll settle down to the warm feeling of welcome in this group of doctors I admire and am thankful they include me.  

Thank you Jesus. 

Sohum Spa, Crowne Plaza, Kochi, Keralla, India

I just returned from the most incredible massage I’ve ever had.  The Indian gentleman was truly a master.  I actually trained formally as a swedish masseuse and learned basic chiropractic techniques when I was a family physician.  I performed many massages and physical treatments until a quarter century ago when I simply stopped.  I’d gone to all the best masseuse in the day as the way to improve technique and train is to experience a variety of massages.  I’ve known deep, Swedish, Acupressure, Thai and a variety of others.

I almost died when I had the masseuse of a NFLfootball team  He was obviously not used to little muscles and almost pierce my body with his iron fingers. On another occasion, one woman couldn’t understand that I really wanted ‘just a massage’ as her skills lay elsewhere.

This was interesting in that it began with me sitting up and him doing a chair massage on my neck and face. Then I lay on my stomach to have the most advanced back, leg, foot, hand, arm, shoulder massage possible.  Technically one is moving lymph fluid back to the heart while also tapping trigger points of muscle tension. He did that but in addition had moves which I expect are related to chakra mobilization. Some of what he did reminded me of acupressure techniques I’d once learned.  

He was also using these long deep strokes made famous in Swedish massage but adding a number of variations which again seemed distinctly different and I assume are the ayurvedic components. It was all simply wonderful.  

I think I looked like Gilbert looks after the girls give him a massage. My ears were floppy and my eyes rolling about in my head.  I was kind of whoozy and he assisted me standing.I was directed to a steam room with a shower. I was told how to turn the steam off and advised that it would be best not to use the soaps but to leave the oils on. I could soap up if I wanted but best not to.

 I didn’t last long in the steam room. Somewhere I wrote of my experience in the steam bath in Istanbul, the Hamman.  I consider that one of my near death experiences. The other was the time I went with the girls to Calistoga in California where the hot mud baths promised to remove all one’s toxins. The girls, true beauties in the day, came out looking refreshed and alive whereas I felt half dead. I need my toxins. After a cheese burger and a beer I revived somewhat.  

When the steam got hot I turned if off and showered.  Dressing I can never understand how I can put a good rifle grouping in a target at 300 yards but can’t seem to get my foot through the hole in my shorts without falling over.

The cost was miniscule compared to Canadian massage and spa treatment. No wonder people come to India for Ayurvedic Medicine. I simply wished I’d taken advantage of the spa on the first day rather than the last.  Laura didn’t want the spa, enjoying being away from people. Her greatest joy has been watching the river out the wall to ceiling window.   She loves the view and all that’s happening, the boats and birds, colours, lightning  and shadows.   

“Three eagles are circling,” she just told me when I came in. 

“Something smells like curry.” she said.

“I think it’s me.” I said.

“It’s a nice curry smell.” she replied. “But its’ making me hungry.'

“Ill order room service."

’That would be great. I’d like to pack for the plane tomorrow. You really are making me hungry."

We’re waiting for curried fish and mushroom pizza and more lime soda drinks.  I’m feeling wonderful.  Kind of like that changeling on Star Trek.  I just need a bucket.  I have the consciousness of play do.

  

India - journalling

I live in small spaces usually. For a decade or more I lived on a sailboat and then in RV’s.  When I travel I don’t feel guilty for having large rooms with nice views.  I do this with Laura along mostly.  On my own I’m not as likely to choose luxury but truly I do appreciate it.  With Laura I’m happier to be in the room that ranging all over trying to see and experience everything.

This last few days here in the Crown Plaza has been like my university days when the work was easy, light patient loads, lots of meetings, lots of time in the office and long vacation and study times paid for by the university or government.  In private practice I only make money seeing patients individually and when I’m not at work I’m not making money. Further other than the tax ‘write off’ for study abroad I am not paid to attend conferences in general.  I used to be a speaker and get handsomely paid but frankly it’s not appealed so much. When last I was a conference speaker I couldn’t relax and enjoy other’s presntations till mine was over.  This conference was so full of original ideas and material  I was glad I could give it my undivided attention.

I like being surrounded by specialists in my field. In my work I’m blessed to be around generalists but thoroughly enjoy communing with ‘my own’ odd and peculiar tribe who sees things in a wholly different way I did when I was a generalist  I’m actually disappointed, and joined 'like minded doctors" because my field was facing  ‘reductionism’ and coopted by corporate industry and government. The patient was decentralized and the doctor was no longer a professional but a ‘health care worker’.  Increasingly, as in all communist countries, the lowest common denominator professionally, but the one who espouses the “fashionable politic’,  is being put in charge.  Health care is likened to other consumer items and mostly seen as an ‘entertainment’ ‘commodity’ in the ’service industry’.  When I talk about morbidity and mortality and 'change' in my community I'm looked at oddly whereas here internationally it's what it's all about. It really is but 'lies' are more profitable. 

I’ve left all those negative thoughts behind for weeks uplifted by the science, research and psychiatry and medicine being spear headed around the world.  

Our life expectancy is increasing.  Thanks mostly to infant and child care and public health measures like clean water and vaccinations people are living longer. A friend has developed a heart condition which mere years ago would have caused early death but now responds to treatment development in my life time.  So many I know with cancer are livings decades longer than they would have a decade ago thanks to advances in medicine.

I’m treating depression and stopping suicide and addiction and extending life while improving the quality of life as well.  Not only am I treating present conditions I’m preventing worse future outcomes and the spread of disease. It’s so uplfiting to be among epidemiologists and scientists rather than beurocrats and politicians whose motives are corrupted by power and money.
I’m not saying that we’re immune but each day I experienced that thrill I had when I first began in medicine wanting to help.  I have helped.  As doctors and scientists and clinicians we have helped, a great deal.

The engineers who developed a cheap efficient reliable 125 cc Honda motorcycle helped just as the first to build a bicycle did.  The world is a better place for technology and science despite the fearmongering and Luddite litanies.  So much emotionalism these day in the news and so little logic, science or truth.

I’m here looking out the window at a magnificent view of the backwaters of Kochi, Keralla.  That beautiful woman, Laura, is in the next room having her bath. She does love the quiet and alone time of bathing.  I expect her morning routine saved her when her children were small.  Even Gilbert sometimes sits at the door waiting for her to come out so he can play with her. 

We’ve booked a car for the airport for tomorrow at 530 am. We’re flying to Bombay where we’ll board an international flight home.  We hope to buy trinkets and stuff there.  In an hour we’re taking a boat ride along the backwaters, a famed tourist activity. I’m looking forward to seeing the fawna and flora. From our 14th floor window,  we’ve been watching the boats go by below us. Now it’s our turn.  When I think of the boat rides I’ve done over the decades of travel I’m impressed with yet another. 

Friends are retired.  I actually miss my work. I miss the staff and the routine. I miss duty and service. I really feel doing medicine is ‘right livelihood’ in the Buddhist 8 fold path. it’s also what Jesus and other saints did, healing. I’ve thought of myself as a healer. Being coopted by courts and insurance as a lie detectors and to validate their money occupations I've felt less enthusiasm.
Hearing of another our age dying and once again reading the philosophies of passing through, I realize I’ve become attached to ‘creatures’ yet again. Just like I have to empty my storage locker I’ve re acquired some mental baggage, laughing to myself at my ‘future plans’ when I hear a friend died who never did learn to live for today. I’m living okay.
When I travel I keep returning to my first love of being with Gilbert by the side of Canadian stream. I really like my truck and camper with the motorcycle on the front and a boat of some sort along. Laura likes this too. My sailboat is another truly happy place despite the countless near death experiences.  Countless Canadian guys with campers and trucks  can’t be wrong. My father loved this life in retirement, camping with his van and his canoe, fishing.  My brother had his house on the lake and went kayaking.
I’ve these books to write and nothing to stop me but general apathy and laziness, nothing a writer isn’t well versed in.  I need to exercise more, watch tv less, eat better, and meditate and pray more deeply.  This trip completed the research I needed for one. 

Otherwise life is good.  It’s certainly been a wonderful time of self care. I love learning.  I love museums and libraries.  I love nature. I’m looking forward to seeing the birds alongthe river.
I’m enjoying photography. The Iphone 11 has been a godsend and the Nikon Coolpix 1000 has worked out very well The Gopro 7 Black has been alot of fun. it’s often seemed like one is down and I’ve been glad to have two back ups. It’s not like I’ll have a chance to get another picture next week.  

Breakfast was perfect this morning. The unbeatable cappuccino and a man made me a perfect omelette as I watched.  Other mornings, the breakfast comes with the room and is a huge smorgasbord, I’ve enjoyed mostly East Indian food, but today I enjoyed omelette and hashbrowns pancakes, yogurt, and pastry.  Decadence.  A lot of serious travellers survive on the one meal aday they get with their rooms, maybe having a light snack late in the day.  The nutrition has been great.
I’ve been a lot more active than normal and enjoying food more.Too often I eat as a nervous addiction watching thriller movies.  Here Laura and I actually share a sit down meal and we mostly resist looking at our phones and if we do share with the other what we’re finding amusing.  I love the amusing bits on facebooks.  Funny dog and cat and burro videos, pictures of friends vacationing, baby pictures.  The politics doesn’t change and bores more now that the dictator had taken control and is setting in motion the destruction of Canada as a democracy and land of the brave and free.  The lies are so thick but the baby pictures and kittens and puppies off set the gloom and doom.  

I am so thankful to God and creation.  I’m not lucky. I’m blessed.  Thank you Jesus. Thank you God of Gods. Thank you Holy Spirit. Thank ‘god of my understanding.

Guide me today and be with me and watch over , protect and aid my family friends and patients.  Thank you lord.

India - musings

When I first came to India in the late 80’s, I stayed in Bombay and environs for a couple of months. I’d thought to go further but so enjoyed the city and people there that I stayed and vowed to come back.  Here I am returned 30 plus years later and loving India even more. I’m more mature now and appreciate the breadth and depth of culture here. I remember being so impressed by the old and new then. I wrote about the juxtapositions and contrasts coming together back then. My favourite image was an old kabab shop which had used the wall of the Holiday Inn as part of it’s structure. Old and new. Adaptations.  

This time I see so much industry.  Everything is in motion. So much development.  It’s easy to see the lousy roads and poor sidewalks that make one think of Mexico but what jumps out at me is all the great corporate offices. In Delhi the contrast was Old Delhi and New Delhi. The hundreds of year old market place of Old Delhi was a world away from the grand government buildings of New Delhi.  

It’s such an inclusive world with an old bicyclist hauling bags of material on his ancient machine vying for road beside the latest commercial trucks and vans.  Everything imaginable is here.  Temple, church, mosque all in a row.  Restaurants serving vegetarian and non vegetarian foods, western foods and eastern foods.  

My brother who lived in Hong Kong and loved what I saw as chaos in the stores would love it here. A single store sells autoparts, canned vegetables and plumbing plungers.  I can’t imagine how this happens.  We have our stores separated and even our city blocks are specialized but not here to any great extent.  I imagine a diaper sales man coming into a lamp store and the deal is just too good for an Indian merchant to resist.  My brother had an MBA. He understood business better than me and appreciated the deal. I’m a doctor and see a foot categorized in the cranium.  I want my stores to be organized like the Hudson’s Bay of my childhood. I’m most comfortable in Harrods. There’s method in the madness here but it’s too obvious a different form of organizations is going on.

I love the ladies in colourful saris without helmuts riding side saddle on the backs of modern motorcycles.  The men wear helmets because it’s the law.  

The streets are a cacophony of sound with horns honking like a metallica symphony. In the holy places there’s quiet.

On the street there’s often disrepair but when I pass through the doors of shops, hotels and office buildings I find myself back in the 21’s century.  There’s so much corporate wealth and so much old wealth. I think when I was in Bombay I was more impressed by relative poverty.  The country was poorer then  An economic revolution has occured.  I walked all over Bombay, and there were crowds walking in the streets with lots of bicycles, occasional cars and a few scooters.  The material wealth today is so apparent in vehicles and smart phones.

I loved seeing the Harley Davidson dealership here in Kochi. It was near to the Mercedes and Porche dealerships.  

I read a book about the last Jews of Keralla.  Jewish merchants had been here for the spice trade since long before BC.  St. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus had walked here from Israel and seeded 11 churches in India.  In general the disciples followed the already established jewish trading communities. Here the backwaters make this whole area extraordinary, the rivers being an amazing protected highway system.

The Indian Navy has a port here on the Arabian Ocean.  The Portuguese were the first Europeans to come here but were soon pushed up to Goa where they remained.  The area of Keralla has a mix of Hindu, Moslem, Christian and communists.  I laughed reading a novel set in the region where a wise man accuses the Communist Party leader of worshipping the trinity of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the trinitarian god of the godless. Communism or rather socialism are working well here, the area being one of the most prosperous in India.

The hotel offers ayurvedic medicine and massages . I’ve been considering an ayurvedic massage. Laura hasn’t any interest in the spa. She’s so enjoyed the Crown Plaza rooms. Room service has been excellent. I’ve just enjoyed sweet lassies , a plate of cheese and crackers and cappuccino. The cappucino in India is the best I’ve ever had.  

I love that people speak English. There’s still a lot of misunderstanding both ways with nodding and smiling but it overall makes things a whole lot easier.  There’s so much kindness here and people really do want to help. This Crown Plaza hotel has been extraordinary for that.  I stop to think and someone asks if they can help.  It’s unnerving at times but mostly its rather pleasing.

10% is the standard tip but everyone seems pleased with 50 or 100 rupees for most other things.  100 ruppees is a couple of dollars. it’s a bit like New York but there that sense that everything revolves around money is hit or miss here.  Here it’s muted. Paris, in my limitted experience of the city, it was always in your face.  This morning the waitress commented on Laura wearing the Kochi Harley Davidson tshirt the day before.  She was positively interested in Laura as one human to another. I dont’ get the sense of entitlement with ‘tips’ that I’ve experienced in other big cities. Here it’s appreciated obviously but it’s not demanded.

In my day to day life at home tips don’t really enter into it much. I don’t get tipped and generally only tip at meals or with hair dressers for me or my dog. I remember my political science professor friend saying that in Indian ’there’s individual baksheesh, while in Canada the backsheesh is institutionalized.’ 

The most valuable experience is the sights and sounds and being apart of the culture and history of the place.

I’m loving taking pictures and enjoying reflecting on what I’m seeing. I’m enjoying writing about my experiences and pleased that friends appreciate this and thank me.  Photography and writing are what I really enjoy especially when I have so much new and interesting to photograph and see. My friend Anil paints and draws so we so enjoyed when he posted his pictures ,as he did them in Venice.  

I like to draw and have when I’ve had more time.  I imagine I’ll get back to it one day, when a whole day lays before me like a blank canvass.Even now I’m wondering about going outside for a walk down the street. We’ve been enjoying being in the room and hanging out today, the trip a bit of a whirlwind, so a down day has been appreciated.  

I think of Somerset Maugham writing of his travels and describing the meal as the important  event in the slow steamship journey.  We’ve certainly enjoyed our meals here, such flavours and variety.  We also get a peak at the other guests. This morning there were three very peculiar old birds I imagined were spinstered friends who’d all offed their husbands in some Agatha Christie manner.  

Time moves so fast now. I believe it was slower back then.  Maybe that was just for the elite and priviledged, the characters in then Bronte Sisters novels.  Here you get some sense of the 19th century days of sophistication. The princes held this land and the Moghuls and the British at different times. Now India is the world’s largest democracy despite Nehru’s interest in central government and control.  Their beurocrats and government services were always important. The city is a hub for that.  

When I was driven out to the Elephant Training Camp I drove by small farms and beautiful large homes. They were vaguely reminiscent of southern plantations.   If I’d gone further I’d have ended up eventually in some of the primitive villages which were described in the public health presentations at the conference I attended.  Here I’m in the bustle.  I’m pre retirement but as we hear of friends becoming sick and others dying the sense of time takes on a new meaning.  

This is an ancient land of many empires.  Canada is such a young land.  There are 1.3 billion people here and 37 million people in Canada.  

Right now I’m a tourist in paradise. I’m here with a beautiful lady and am so thankful I’ve come.