Author: Alex Murphy

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fun stuff travel Weekend

Alex Murphy’s Life in India: The Children of Malipalpur

India School Children

The unquestioned gospel is that children are the future, and the future of life in India is bright indeed!

My route from home to rugby at 5.45am on a weekend morning takes me up the truck laden Sohna Road onto the massive NH8 inter-State highway. I follow this towards Delhi for about 12km, then at New Delhi Airport — my unofficial Delhi residence — I turn East through Mahipalpur towards the ground at Vasant Kunj.

Yesterday it was raining, lightly, and the roads were still pretty wet due to the weeks Monsoon downpours. The road at Malipalpur is a type of duel carriageway, but the inside lane is littered with debris and people so it can’t really be used. The area is pretty dower in appearance, although it does have a rather splendid Royal Enfield showroom with over 100 of these fine machines on display. Once you’ve left the NH8, for about a mile the road passes tightly pack rows of shops selling everything you can imagine. The area is not a slum area, well at first it’s not, but as you travel further East, huge slums are present on both sides of the road.

Yesterday morning, Saturday, the children of Malipalpur and some from the slum areas were waiting by the roadside for school buses, or the girls, in excess of 200 I would say were heading West on foot towards their schools. I guess I saw upwards of 500 children in that mile, and you know, they all looked immaculate. Standing roadside at just after 6AM on a Saturday, perfectly pressed shorts, shirts and the white on the girls collars sitting over their sky blue dresses was dazzlingly white. They looked perfect. I thought back to how I used to trek the mile to school every morning with half a school uniform looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Indeed most of my school mates looked pretty much the same, many with uniform modifications which declared them as individuals in some way. These were children predominantly middle or upper working class from brick built homes with water, electricity, gardens and regularly emptied dustbins. We looked like a bunch of scarecrows.

So here we had children with nothing, many without running water, electricity, mains sewage and certainly no rubbish collection or gardens, making a supreme effort to go to school looking like they wanted and desperately needed the education on offer. They knew they were the lucky ones, many never get the chance to receive any formal education.

One of the things that really makes you realise how wonderful life in India is, is the incredible thirst for knowledge everyone has. They all want to know more so they stand a better chance of success. Last year whilst visiting the Taj I met a young lad, about six or seven who was trying to sell me a globe with snow in it. He spoke perfect English and attempted to negotiate a price. During the sale his attention was drawn to a German party, he broke off his sale to me and without drawing breath, began to negotiate in German. When he came back to me I asked him about his language skills and had he picked them up at school. No, was the answer. The nine languages he was able to negotiate in he had picked up from tourists as he had been selling keepsakes at the Taj since he was two.

I know it’s a different world, and you cut the cloth to suit the economy, whichever economic environment you are brought up in. But what India has really heightened my awareness of is just how much of a waster I was at school. Having everything served up on a plate made me value it much less. Lots of attendance because I had to, not because I wanted to. How many people I wonder back home would change their perspective on Education and how important it is if they came out and witnessed the absolute passion here for education.

I wish I had my camera yesterday morning to snap a few of the tartans, the reds, the blues, the greens, the socks, shorts, tunics, everything, because I’m sure if I shared them you would all at least have some belief that the 250 million children of schooling age will be able to afford change to help India out of its poverty. The government claim that literacy levels in India are around 70% but I think this is optimistic. However, with the right will — and trust me the will is here — over the next 10 years this Country should make massive inroads to easing its domestic problems.

I love India.

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travel Weekend

Alex Murphy’s Life in India: Driver’s Licenses and Cremations

Crematorium Candles

Making the connection between getting a driver’s license, MI6 ’00’ status, and averting explosions at open-air cremations.

Earlier this week I passed another milestone in my Indian adventure when I was issued an India driving license, and now I feel a bit like James Bond, with a license to kill.

Daft as that may see,it actually isn’t far from the truth. The driving test involved driving 100 yards in a straight line, reversing ten feet, and that’s it. No Highway Code, no test about the practicalities of driving, no question about what you do at traffic lights, no discussions about giving way at junctions, moving to the right to turn right, etc. etc.

It’s no surprise that chaos reins when no one is given clear instruction on how to drive, it’s a suck-it-and-see state of affairs. What you should really find worrying, though, is that with my 100-meter license I’m entitled to drive in UK as a visitor for up to 12 months.  How scary is that?

I went to a cremation on Friday. In India the tradition is that the cremation should take place on the same day of death, before sunset. There are exclusions, of course — for instance, if the circumstances of the death are suspicious — in which case the period between life in India and cremation can be extended. This cremation I attended was for the wife of a work colleague who died after a prolonged illness.

On arriving at the cremation ground you first work your way through many bodies, laid out in a number of altars, waiting for blessings and then cremation. It’s an open cremation, with the body placed on a pyre and doused in oil, after which the priest alights the pyre. There were about six pyres burning at the same time. Whilst I was stood watching the cremation, a family turned up with another body to cremate. You don’t need a death certificate to cremate a body, and indeed where a death certificate is issued, only 30% carry cause of death.

So I’m watching this family prepare this body for cremation and suddenly there’s a stir. A mortician is called for and without any screen or cover he opens the chest and pulls out a pacemaker! Apparently in hospital all metal is removed, however when a family just turn up things can be missed, and if certain things are left in place they can explode dramatically and throw off bits of body in all directions!

Back to the main cremation, there was a problem with the fire and many of the mourners started to argue about who and how the fire had been constructed. We left to return to the office, picking our way through more bodies waiting to be moved into the cremation ground for burning. Unlike the UK, following cremation the ashes are cast into running water, with no grave stone set or urn filled. The memory is retained in a picture hung on a wall at home with the years of birth and death. It is all absolutely final. No grave to visit and to place flowers on, no lasting place of peace where you can sit in the grass and chat to your mum when times are tough.

 

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travel Weekend

Alex Murphy’s Life in India: Sacrifices

carflag

My daughter’s 18th Birthday party was not a sacrifice I was willing to make.

One of the really tough things about living out of Country and away from home is that when you should be around to support family and friends at times of births, marriages, deaths, and birthdays; the best you can do is text. Over the last year I’ve missed all of these, and felt pretty inadequate at times when I can do nothing to support those who need a shoulder to cry on.

Of course, I know there are plenty of people in my same position, including troops on overseas duty.

I lost the closest thing I had to a dad just before I embarked on my wonderful trip to India. I was able to lay him to rest the very day I left for India, but I was there. I learned this week that a wonderful lady, a great teacher, who had taught all my four children, had died. Her husband had been a rugby player with me and from 4000 miles away I could do nothing to show my sadness for his loss and my sorrow at her passing.

Today is my daughter Francesca’s 18th Birthday party, the last of my four fabulous kids to reach adult-hood. For the other three I’d been there to celebrate and smile as I watched them become “grown ups.” Faced with missing an enormous milestone in my own and my family’s life, I jumped on a flight to London at 2.20am Delhi time this morning, and by the time Francesca came down for breakfast I was sat at home. She didn’t know I was on my way. A perfect moment, priceless, never to be repeated. I’ve got just about enough time to catch, my breath, party tonight, then head back to Delhi.

So Hurricanes, forgive me for missing training this morning. I was on a mission, but I’m sure you understand. I’m having a fabulous experience in India, I’m at real peace, but days like today remind you just how much of a sacrifice those you love have to make for you to pursue your own dreams.

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Business travel

Only in India: Some Thoughts on Labour

Parking in India

Treflor.net contributor Alex Murphy is President at DCM Shriram and a Privilege Member at Rugby Football Union. From time to time he will share his thoughts and observations from his life in Gurgaon, Haryana, India.

A part of living in India is that typically you have staff to help in the home and a driver. Me, I have both a housekeeper and a full-time driver (who doesn’t often get the chance to drive as I love driving). You also notice that there are thousands and thousands of security guards, everywhere. At every shop, every house, every gate, you will find a uniformed security guard acting as some kind of protection, and — to be honest — they are 99.99% ineffective. At the homes of the people I work for these security guards are occasionally armed, but they are still pretty much ineffective.

The whole layer of domestic staff and security I describe provides enormous levels of employment in a country where employment remains hard to find. It is said that the poverty line in India is about 59p per day, and making more that is considered to be of independent means. A member of domestic staff or a security guard will earn about £170 per month, money that is generally paid in cash, an amount that at £5 a day is considered a good living wage. And even though by UK and US terms this seems a pittance, in India it’s considered a good wage and the staff work hard for their money.

Parking in India

I elect not to have live-in staff, even though the house comes with a staff flat. The thought of poor staff members regularly finding a naked, hairy, European sitting eating his cornflakes is more than I want to bestow upon any individual. And this is where one of the huge dilemmas of working in India occurs. No, not a hairy European, but labour.

The workforce in my business is very well educated, with over 60% of my Head Office support staff of 148 having at least an MBA. The level of competency is incredible high in areas such as computing and accounting, but at under £5,000 per annum you find yourself having to make bizarre calculations. For instance, new computer software that will speed up process will cost you £200,000, have a shelf life of about three years, and will require annual service contracts to the value of £35,000. That’s about £300,000 over the life of the software, or £100,000 per annum. It will take some write time and is subject to technical failure. On the other hand, for that same amount I could employ no less than 20 MBAs, assets who would actually deliver me far greater capacity, not be subject to power failure or viruses (save for malaria, perhaps), and who would be mobile as required. So what do you do?

A good example of how all of this works in practice is our central costing cell. The software to run our commercial, technical and drawing capabilities again would be enormous. If the system rejected any of the data then this would require third-party intervention to access the rejection information, go back to source, and resolve. We have 28 bodies processing the info, and if something goes wrong they pick up a phone and say “What did you mean by…….?” and the situation is resolved in under a minute. Now, yes, I’m sure all you computer types will scream about efficiency and process, but it’s a hard and true fact of life that in the more developed economies — those in which you have to pay £50-100,000 per annum to computer and data geeks — that computerisation is a huge cost saver. In India, though, where we are still finding our business feet, there is still have incredible value for money in labour. And it isn’t slavery as it’s all relative to what your rupee buys you. My people are my greatest asset.

My morning today started with me wishing my driver Ravi well before he took my daughter and two friends to Agra and the Taj Mahal for the day. The 6.30 collect became 6.45, as three teenagers did what teenagers do and took their time. For the first time ever the look on Ravi’s face was one of “We are going to the Taj, is there really any need for this fashion statement!”

Only in India…..

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Alex Murphy’s Life in India: Driving

Alex Murphy

Guest contributor Alex Murphy is President at DCM Shriram and a Privilege Member at Rugby Football Union. From time to time will be sharing his thoughts and observations from his life in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. Today marks his first time writing for trefor.net.

The drive to work throws up the usual list of crazy antics this morning. However the bodies of four dogs lay by the side of the road, victims of late night speeding drivers who don’t even slow up at the point of impact. Their bodies will be gathered up later, taken away and boiled to make patent glue. I also got overtaken by a cop bike with flashing lights, with three cops on it, two with machine guns!

Alex Murphy

Every morning you see cars and auto-ricks full to the top with people. 10 in a fiesta sized car is nothing unusual and 16 in an auto-rick, about the size of an escort van, is my record. No seat belts, unrestrained children and 180,000 deaths a year. But there is no choice. 1.2 billion people have to move around. They have little money and they must share whatever mode of transport is available. If that means over loading cars, sitting on the roof of buses, hanging precariously onto trains, then that’s what they have to do to reach their destination. The goody goody mob from Europe, the anally challenged safety crazed serial jobs worth would explode if they looked at what goes on here. But there really is no alternative. The transport infrastructure simply does not exist to move the volumes who need moving daily in a controlled, safe way. Yes they take a risk every day getting on sub standard buses, auto-ricks held together with Sellotape and cars that would not be out of place in a destruction derby in UK. But the name of the game here is survival, and for that they are prepared to take the ultimate risk and tragically all too often pay the ultimate price.

I’ve also learned another important lesson this week, Indian drivers only look forward. Not left, right or backwards. They have no peripheral vision. They have mirrors, but mostly they are folded against the vehicle to stop two wheelers ripping them off. But as everyone only looks forward then it’s accepted that you only have responsibility for what’s in front of you. Thus when you join a main road from a slip road, it’s not your problem what’s coming from behind, they are responsible for varying their path to avoid collision. And it’s the same everywhere, if you are behind, you must find the solution. Funnily enough in a wired kind of way it works. The high levels of road deaths are not due to the quirky driving. They are usually speed, alcohol and truck related, with many being pedestrians who wander into the roads on the assumption traffic will stop, it doesn’t. Can it be changed? No I don’t think it can. I saw a guy on a mobile phone this morning so totally engrossed in his conversation he ran into a parked car. He drove on, without a second thought. Now, I still try and drive like a Brit, but truth be told if you give way, merge in turn, stop at red lights, drive the correct way down a dual carriageway, graciously let traffic in, then you will get nowhere very very slowly.

I love India, the most challenging place on earth, the most delightful people on earth, the most vibrant economy on earth…..did I mention the challenge? Oh and of course the traffic!

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