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MANGALORE, KARNATAKA - 11th October 2009

Something I've always struggled to explain in England is my attachment to Mangalore. A relaxing afternoon drink on Bangkok's Khaosan Road last summer descended, as many of our conversations tend to, into enigmatic debate when I - born in Westminster, raised in Kent - said that I considered Mangalore my home. Simon, supported by Dows, was having none of it, taking the view that your home is unambiguously the place where you grow up - it's a statement of fact that isn't open to interpretation (or something along those lines). My argument, supported by Jamie, is that you can't understand what it's like to have a home away from home unless your family circumstances are such; that the feeling of attachment you have to what you call "home" is something that has to be felt to be appreciated. E&M/Operations management students reading this might want to consider this in terms of Garvin (1984)'s "transcendent quality" - something has a quality that "can be understood only once you have been exposed to [it]"...

Long story short, despite the fact that I've never lived here and was born in the UK, the moment I've landed/arrived in Mangalore I've always felt naturally at home in a way that is unlike anywhere else in the world. It's beyond simply being surrounded by family, or being on holiday - it's something that I really cannot explain, but is pretty much set in stone. One of my uncle's friends asked why we were in such a rush to leave Mumbai - to quote my uncle, "his heart and sole is in Mangalore".

So, as always, I was brimming with excitement when our 16 hour bus from Mumbai rocked up in Balmatta (centre-ish part of Mangalore) on Thursday morning. Arriving at "Howzat" - my grandmother's house - is as wonderful a feeling now as it has been any of the previous 13 times I've been here (albeit I don't really remember the 1988 or 1990 editions). And, as is the way, I've been fed like a pig being fattened for the slaughter since the moment I arrived. The information age has well and truly come to India, but the concept of a "light lunch" or "light dinner" has made little or no headway in Mangalore - breakfasts are huge, lunch is huge, dinner is huger still. God knows where it all goes.

Mangalore for me usually means chilling out, which is pretty much all I intend to do, but I have lots of family from both my Mum and Dad's sides here who I always catch up with. One such visit on Friday resulted caused a chain of events that resulted in a pretty novel experience. One minute I was visiting an aunt (my Dad's sister) - naturally in shorts and t-shirt like a standout foreigner - the next minute I was getting a lift with an uncle (Dad's brother) and his wife to their younger daughter (my cousin)'s school to give an impromptu talk about English life to about 150 schoolkids. The whole thing happened in about 20 minutes, so my "talk" was pretty much as ad-libbed as it comes... but seemed to go down pretty well. The headmistress asked for a show of hands at the end about who'd like to visit England, and everyone was up in the air... good to see!

My cousin's put some photos on facebook which you might be able to see (such as here)... if not my ones will turn up at some stage in the future (UPDATE - they've turned up!).

Till then, I'll probably still be kotching here, working my way through yet another Flashman.

Rain, rain, go away...?

As has been previously mentioned, after a dry, humid and all-round stuffy first 24 hours, my arrival in India saw greeted with some seriously mega rainfall, with dire consequences for all forms of transport.

Northern Karnataka - immediately south of Mumbai - does not usually experience heavy monsoon rainfall as it is largely on top of a plateau by the Western Ghats. On this occasion, however, it bore the brunt of a massive late summer monsoon, wreaking havoc in the region and resulting the closure of Goa's international airport, the suspension of long-distance rail services down the west coast, and the closure of the main highway linking the southern states with Mumbai.

My uncle, taking an overnight coach from Mangalore (in southern Karnataka) to Mumbai to meet me, basically raced the storms - his coach was unable to return to Mangalore as 4 landslides closed the highway just minutes after they had passed them.

The floods from the rains have caused untold damage and several deaths... but represent one of India's annual ironies - without such heavy rain, the suffering in a few months would probably have been a lot worse.

The day I arrived in India, the headlines in the media concerned the "worst drought in Mumbai since 1972" - a summer of failing monsoons had left the lakes that provide the city with water more than 30% below on required water levels as the monsoon season drew to a close. With next-to-no rain falling between November and May, an urban area the magnitude of Greater Mumbai requires all four of its feeder lakes to be overflowing come the close of the monsoons; the massive failure to do so brought fears of a shocking lack of water next summer.

So while the downpours brought suffering to Karnataka, as those same rains headed further north they brought untold relief to Mumbai's 15+ million inhabitants. Some sort of pun involving clouds, silver-lining, etc., can probably be inserted here.