The Lok Saba in New Delhi

As is my wont, after each trip to India, I try to record my most prominent observations.  I’ve been back in Canada for more than a week now, and am still jetlagged and catching up on work.

As I write this, both CBC and BBC radio are broadcasting features on India.  BBC had a special on the various types of corruption that are endemic across all levels of Indian society.  And CBC has a brief special on a topic I know a tiny bit about, as it abuts my field of expertise: the Indian demographic gender gap.

Wit regard to the latter, many parts of India (predominantly the North) are following China’s demographic trap: generations of sex selection bias against girls has resulted in a bride shortage.  From a feminist perspective, it’s offensive that the dialectic is being phrased as a crisis for men.  From a demographic perspective, it’s interesting to predict the manners in which this gap will manifest upon society.

An acquaintance of mine, Dr Prabhat Jha of the University of Toronto, is the author of a new study in the Lancet that is making the news: Trends in selective abortions in India…

Some have theorized that a shortage of women will mean an increase in women’s power.  Other’s have predicted that it will mean a greater commodification of women.  The “burden” of dowries may be reduced, as brides become more desirable. Interestingly, I am told that we are not seeing young men going abroad to seek wives; they are more likely to cross caste, class and generational lines.

Additionally, we are supposedly seeing a re-investment in the quality of lives of the eldest sons alone.  That is, efforts are made to find spouses for the eldest son; the remaining sons are left to their own devices.  So rather than conceptualizing this phenomenon as the glorification of boys, I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s the glorification of eldest boys.

It’s worth pointing out that the China and India cases are different.  In China, it’s the result of the One Child Policy.  In India, it’s entrenched within the culture of the nation.  Now, there’s no denying that the shortage of girls is troubling for moral, political, social and economic reasons.  At the same time, it’s the fastest way to reduce the populations of the world’s two most populous nations.  But economic wherewithal is still affected in very large part by population size.  So where this all ends up, nobody knows.  Sex selection is not just a phenomenon of India and China, but is prevalent across many countries.

In a future blog post, I’ll try to develop this topic further.

The second theme is corruption.  It’s almost a joke that India’s sole constant is its corruption.  We take it for granted.  While we were in Delhi, “spiritual leader” Baba Ramdev was threatening to start a hunger strike (Satyagraha) in protest against governmental corruption.  I’m not sure what qualifies Ramdev as a spiritual leader, beyond his orange robes; but there’s no denying that he attracted thousands of supporters across the nation, many of whom showed up in Delhi to take part in the hunger strike.

I was surprised to learn that the Satyagraha made news in the West, as well.  Adam and I tried to get to the Turkman gates to watch the protest, but no taxi driver would take us there…  Probably for the best, because the police ended up raiding the site and driving out all the assembled protestors. But the issue is not off the Indian front pages.  As India matures into a global economic and cultural leader, I think it will be corruption that must be the first dinosaur to fall.

Lastly, one observation that still percolates across all of modern India is hierarchy.  We all know of the caste system.  It’s technically illegal, or at least illegal to apply in any formal context.  Yet, the desire to create classes of people is strong in India.  It’s why Western tourists, however horrified they might be by India’s crowdedness, pollution and poverty, are nonetheless privileged to receive extraordinary service and deference.

It’s one thing to see private business exercise their need to reward status.  It’s quite another to see taxpayer-funded institutions do it.

Example: the passport control line at the airport.  There’s actually a first class line at passport control.  Think about that for a second.  Passport control has nothing to do with the airlines, or even the airport.  It’s a government-run, supposedly objective process for assessing the quality and intent of individuals entering and leaving the country.  Yet, if you happened to pay an airline some extra money for a more expensive seat, you get to wait in a much shorter passport control line when you arrive.

This is yet another aspect of Indian society that must –and will- change as India (or at least India’s middle class) enter’s the ranks of the world’s economic and democratic leaders.

Okay, my shoulder is killing me.  Got more to say, but I have to stop typing now!

Here are the photos from the most recent trip.

Congrats to all my students who are convocating today!

Greetings from Beijing airport.  After a month of traveling, this is my last stop before a flight home.  I will have circumnavigated the globe (entirely unintentionally) as of 7pm tonight, Toronto time.

I’m online now via the “free” airport wifi in Beijing airport.  To get a login name I had to scan my passport into a machine.  Who knows what kind of identity fraud I’ve just opened myself up to?  First thing I did was to check my Gmail… in the wake of a series of high profile Gmail hacks originating from China.  I’m sort of surprised that Google products are accessible at all here!

I say that not lightly, because I’ve been unable to access either Facebook or Twitter.  So for my readers who can’t access my “wisdom” in those fora, I say: “Beijing, bitches!”  Happy, now?

After two weeks of interesting, and sometimes frustrating, Indian inefficiency, I was looking forward to some good old-fashioned one-party-rule getting-things-doneness.  The way international transfers work here is that you get off your incoming flight, go to an “international transfer” desk to get your boarding pass for the next flight, then go through Chinese passport control and security before re-entering the departure lounge.

So I arrived at the international transfer desk and proudly presented my passport and itinerary and asked for my boarding pass to Toronto.  It was 12:15 pm.

The fellow said, “Sir, yours is an Air Canada flight. The Air Canada desk is not open yet.  Please wait until 12:20 for that desk to open.”

So I took a seat across from the desk and waited.  And waited.  An hour passed.  So I stood up and asked about my flight again.  Same guy hands me a boarding pass and says, “your flight will leave from gate E14.”

Now, the important part about this story is that nothing had changed.  No one came to the desk, nothing new was printed and there was no phone activity.  He just had me waiting there for an hour before handing me the boarding pass which had been sitting on his desk.

But then the worst part about this segment happened.  Let me preface this bit by saying that you don’t mess with Chinese security.  They take shit seriously.

Now, I’ve been traveling with an Acuball (TM) for nearly 3 years now.  I have two herniated discs, and nothing has given me joy and relief like the Acuball.  I sleep with it and I travel with it.  It’s the perfect back support.  Here’s a pic:

The Acuball comes in a set of two: a large one for the spine and a small one for the foot.  And they’re blue.  (Heh heh.) But I only ever use the large one.

I’ve written about my adventures with my sturdy Acuball before, as in this post.  And I’ve taken it around the world with me.  I think I’ve taken it to over 12 countries and on well over 100 flights.  Sometimes security gives it a shake or asks me about it, but it never goes beyond that.

But in Beijing, the security folks picked it up, examined it, waved a naughty finger at me (seriously), then –gasp!– tossed it in the trash!  THE TRASH!

My heart literally sank.  For one thing, the Acuball goes for something like $75.  The thing ain’t cheap!  And for another…. the trash!  Why?  Was I going to hijack the plane by giving all the pilots better spinal health?

Just met a nice Korean fellow who’s practicing his broken English while taking his family to Oslo.  That kind of courage –to enter a whole new world without the benefit of language– is one of the great things about travelers.  Meeting him helps to quell the absolute anguish I feel over losing my Acuball.

So I will end this post here and go find a bar.  I need to raise a glass to my little blue balls.

These past couple of days have been a whirlwind of work (not so much of activity).  I’ve spent most of my time sequestered in a hotel, writing papers and reports. Hey, I’m not on vacation here!

Had a wonderful lunch with a new colleague at the Centre for Development Studies yesterday.  The CDS is an attractive campus that teaches economics from a development standpoint; its architecture is economical, using building materials meant for low income housing— but done so artistically that it actually looks more expensive than traditional buildings!

And today I gave a lecture at the Achuta Menon Centre for Health Sciences in Trivandrum’s medical college.  It really was a lovely experience.  First, I had a chance to meet with the students, most of whom are medical or nursing post-grads who are currently pursuing MPH degrees.

I was quite impressed by the breadth and depth of their various dissertation topics… and a tad horrified that each of them is required to self-fund his or her research!  This kind of work can get expensive very fast.  I have strong memories of being (literally) a starving student, and I hate to see students pushed further into debt.

This is not a criticism of the Indian system, but rather an expression of concern for all students around the world.  The cost of education, worldwide, is much too high.

Here’s a nice pic of the conversation I had with them:

Meeting with MPH students in Trivandrum

The actual lecture was held in a different classroom (an advanced and large seminar room), with students and professionals from across the city invited to attend.  It was actually quite packed.  And, as usual, I was only vaguely prepared.

See, I have a policy against over-preparing for presentations.  As is my tradition, an hour before the talk, I wrote a few notes down on a bit of paper over lunch.  That would be my outline.  I find an audience enjoys the spontaneity of a reflective speaker who contemplates in the moment.

Before asking a question, one student said something to the effect that, “We are surprised.  We did not expect such a serious topic to be presented.”

This confused me for a while… until I found out that those students have been reading this blog.  Ahhh.  Now I’m embarrassed.

So, to those MPH students still reading today: thank you for attending my talk, and try not to be too shocked by some of the nonsense I write in this space, okay?  I may have a lot of degrees, but at heart I’m just an idiot with a big vocabulary.

Now, our original plan was to head to Rajasthan in the morning, for my final day in India.  Hey, I deserve one day of pure tourism, right?  When I expressed this intent to one of the students, she claimed that she had always wanted to go to Rajashtan.  So I immediately took her photo and promised to digitally add her to the scenes that we would be visiting.

Unbeknownst to her, our plans had to change.  The flights are just not working out.  A back-up plan to drive to Madurai also fell through, as did an unpopular plan to spend the last day in Chennai.  Instead, we are spending our final day in Delhi, before Adam flies off to Toronto and I to Beijing (don’t ask).

So to that student who wished to see Rajasthan, I offer my apologies…. and this:

The statue of Vivekananda, as seen from the Gandhi Memorial, in Kanniyakumari

Back in Thiruvananthipuram, or Trivandrum.  Haven’t been here in 15 years.  When I was here last, I was a student studying at the Institute for Social and Economic Change.  Good times, except for the the episode where a little girl essentially died in my arms after being hit by a bus.  But we won’t talk about that.  Suffice it to say that the place has some strong memories attached to it.

So far, this is my favourite stop in India.  Most of the men, and pretty much all of the women, still wear traditional garb as they go about their business.  English (or indeed Hindi) is rarely heard or seen.  No one takes notice of my Western appearance or of Adam’s whiteness.  It’s as if nothing of the West matters here, which suits me just fine.

I’ve written before that India has a special relationship with feces.  Every traveler here has a death-defying tale of diarrhea.  Due to poor waste management, many parts of Indian cities actually do smell like shit.  Let’s not mince words, okay?  A traveling companion greeted with the following statement:

“You know that feeling after you’ve been drinking too much and you know you’re going to be vomiting for a long time, and you feel as if you’re going to die?  I just experienced that through my anus.”

So beware of the flowery reports of the place.  Yes, I love India.  With every visit I am bewitched by her complexity, subtle beauty, layered complexity and unending depths.  But after a few weeks, almost everyone gets inured to what is obvious upon first arrival: there are serious problems with infrastructure and waste management here.  Garbage is ubiquitous, and no one seems to care.

Yesterday we took a pleasant 3-4 hour train ride to Kanniyakumari, the southernmost tip of India, a place where three oceans collide, and where Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were scattered.  There’s a brilliant and enormous statue of sage Vivekananda on a rock just offshore.  It captures and holds one’s gaze.

This is part of the illusion –the maya, if you will– of India.  One is so entranced by the wonders that soon one fails to see the less wondrous: the lakes of rubbish at one’s feet.  It’s actually quite amazing the lengths to which one goes to avoid photographing the empty water bottles, newspapers, plastic containers, and so forth.  But the truth is that the garbage is as genuine a part of India as are the temples, statues, gorgeous children and ancient shores.

One important change from previous visits is that the number of beggars and touts is significantly lower.  Yesterday, Adam was beset by a small child beggar who would not leave him alone.  The child was chased away by a passerby who apologized and said, “that is not the real India.”

But it is.  It’s as much the real India as are the thousands of mobile phone stations, the isthmus populated by modern wind turbines, the aircraft carrier patrolling offshore, and the leper whose hand I unthinkingly shook.   It serves no one to ignore one aspect of India in favour of the others.

Garbage is everywhere, even on the train tracks in Trivandrum

Even in a place as lovely as Kanniyakumari, there is rubbish aplenty

We took a harrowing bus ride back from Kanniyakumari to Trivandrum, first stopping in Nagercoil to switch buses.  There comes a point when you have to surrender yourself to the fates, in full appreciation that you have no control over certain forces, specifically the bus, the driver, the roads and the other drivers.

If you’ve never been on a bus or car in India, you’re in for a special experience.  Western rules of the road, or of safety, do not apply.  Your only option is to surrender to the situation.

I’ve got to give a shout-out to Google Maps and my HTC’s excellent GPS system, which allowed me to keep track of our progress at every turn –a remarkable feat when one is traveling in a truly alien land in which one does not speak or read the language.

Adam made a friend on the bus:

Adam's friend on the bus from Kanniyakumari to Nagercoil

One of the few joys of public transportation in India is the ability to buy excellent food from the variety of vendors who are all about.  Here’s a fellow outside out bus in Nagercoil, selling roasted nuts:

Nut vendor in Nagercoil

I will leave you with this eerie photo of the Keralan coast, taken from a moving train through tinted windows:

Flying to Trivandrum in the morning, so have to keep this short.  Had a very productive couple of days, including finishing and submitting one paper and completing the revisions for a second.

But no one cares about my academic career.  What you want to hear about is India.

You can’t visit India and not see a movie in the cinema.  India is the last place in the world that really knows how to publicly enjoy a film.  In the West, cinemas have become the domain of rude teens, people who walk in and out, or who talk throughout the entire performance.  In India, movies are everything.  People pack in, and cheer and clap loudly for what we might consider to be innocuous parts.  Hey, but as long as they are involved with the film, I am totally okay with it.

We saw Hangover 2 in Eranakulam.  The theatre was  jam packed (with almost entirely men).  Seductive Kama Sutra images peppered the walls in the form of sculpture… but this was not a porn theatre.  (No, really.)  Whenever a main character appeared for the first time, the crowd would erupt with cheering.  This really was an interactive audience.

Today was a totally different adventure.  My old friend John, a Keralan I’d known in Ottawa, married his fiancee Kiran.  We hired an all-day taxi to take us the 3 hour drive to the town of Palayur in Thrissur District where the wedding was to take place.  After much hand-wringing and some frantic driving, we arrived precisely on time.

The wedding took place in St Thomas’s church, which is the oldest Christian church in India.  It’s a fascinating historical artifact.  See, Thomas (“Doubting Thomas”, Jesus’s direct apostle) arrived here in the first century AD and started converting people.

The first few Brahmins that he converted to Christianity are supposedly revered to the extent that community leaders still try to trace their descent from them.  As a result of their conversion, ancient Hindu temples began to be transformed into churches.

This was one such church.  The Wikipedia entry suggests that it has both Persian and Hindu designs.  Indeed, the massive lingham now has a cross on it.  The dia, a traditional Keralan Hindu lamp, also now has a cross adhered to it.  The Christian ceremonies themselves, from what I could follow, have elements of Hinduism woven in.  It really was a fascinating blend of ancient Hinduism and early Christianity.

It should be pointed out that Christianity in India predates Christianity in much of Europe!  In fact, when Dutch and Portuguese first arrived here in the 1500s, they were shocked to find Christians already living here… who’d never heard of the Pope!

It’s a strange thought, even for a non-Christian like me, that this little structure in India was where once preached a man who actually personally knew the historical Jesus.  Or at least that’s what they say!

Okay, off to bed.

Wedding attendees inside St Thomas's Church in Palayur

Greetings from Eranakulam, a busy little town in Kerala, most known for its proximity to Fort Kochi (formerly Cochin), one of South India’s grand tourist destinations.

The region has had contact with the West for thousands of years.  Jews first arrived here after the destruction of the second temple around 70 C.E.  Christianity arrived here long before it did in many parts of Europe.  The Portuguese, Moors, Dutch and English have all had their grubby hands on the place.  Ancient Romans started the spice trade here when they discovered the Monsoons would bring them in and take them away like clockwork.  And Cleopatra herself had once planned to re-establish her empire in Kerala, just as Octavian’s armies were closing in on her faltering dynasty.

Why did they all come here?  For the spices.  Originally, black pepper was the lure that drew them.  Later, it was cardamom, ginger, saffron, tea and even imported cinnamon from further south.

Today the tourists flock here for spices, dance culture, some run-down beaches, the pleasant people and for a taste of old India, not quite ancient, not quite modern.

Indeed, at one point while having a snack at a cafe, I did a double take.  I suddenly realized the cafe was in fact the 16th century home of… Vasco da Gama!  Cool.

Yes, I’m working.  I’m holed up in a hotel room breaking all my dietary rules (pasta and Coca Cola), trying to finish a paper.  Yesterday, however, I took the time to see the sights.

No trip to Kochi is complete without seeing the old Chinese-style fishing nets, which are counter-weighted in a clever fashion.  When I was here last, 15 years ago, I was also able to visit an obscure martial arts school which taught Kalaripyattu.  Today, the art has grown in popularity so much that demonstrations are given nightly at the cultural centre.

Kerala is also famous for its tourist-friendly Ayurvedic clinics.  If you’ve never had an Ayurvedic oil massage, it’s something between medicine and molestation.  Thus, I enjoy it.  Had a good one yesterday (the massage, not the molestation, though sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference) and barely made it to a performance of Kathakali dance.

Now, I’m not a big fan of Kathakali.  I’ve seen it before, and I appreciate the discipline and rigour and historical importance, but I always fall asleep during a performance.  This time was no different.

The performance was seriously like a medium-strength acid trip.  The performers emote through make-up and extreme facial expressions.  The backing band for this demonstration were something out of a Wall of Voodoo video.  The lead drummer was expressionless and looked totally stoned.  The second drummer, who looked all of 8 years old, was going nuts on the drums.  The singer, who spent most of the time playing a kind of tambourine, looked both bored and drunk.

But the rhythms were perfect and endless.  Very hypnotic.  Here’s a pic:

This Kathakali performance was like an acid trip

In some circles, Kochi is famous for its 16th century synagogue, situated in “Jew Town”.  Yes, that’s what it’s called.  Nice place, but the walk there is, of course, peppered with souvenir shops manned by the requisite clingy hawkers.

My favourite was the store with the big sign in front that read, “Hassle-free shop!”  It was the one with the loudest and pushiest fellow trying to herd us in.

Oh irony, thine name be India.

First two days of my 3rd visit to Mumbai.  Here’s a pic of Juhu beach on a Sunday:

Juhu Beach, Sunday May 22, 2011

We tried some pav bhaji (roasted tomato puree) and met some locals.  Will we get sick?  Likely, but such is life.

Later in the evening, met up with my friend Payal who showed us a couple of Bombay nightspots we’d never have found on our own, including a bar that had been taken over by a salsa club.  Ottawa, too, has been colonized by freakin’ salsa dancers.  I’m quite ready to be rid of salsa for a long, long time.

Today we rode the commuter train from Juhu down to Colaba and did some shopping.  I bought an entire suit within 90 seconds of seeing it.  Hey, why mess around?

A visit to the Jehangir Art Gallery (a traditional spot for me that I’ve made to sure to visit on every trip to Mumbai) exposed us to a new show by Jaya Kanoria, who revealed to me that artists apply years in advance to have their shows curated at the Jehangir.

Her works describe a disconnected city wherein residents are unaware of the layers of social discourse.  This is not what I see of Mumbai, but I’m not a resident.

About then, the first tinges of Bombay Belly struck both Adam and me.   It was still early, so we decided to hoof it at a rapid pace to the Taj hotel to avail ourselves of luxurious bathrooms.

Just then, one of those annoying map touts got hold of me.  You know, those unfortunate fellows that try to sell oversized maps of India to tourists.  What tourist has room in his suitcase for a giant map of India? (I wrote about them five years ago.)  Ordinarily, I’m pretty good at shaking them off.  But carrying bags of clothes and fighting off the first pangs of intestinal urgency made me weak.

He sensed it.

The bastard chased me for blocks.  We argued in his broken English and my broken Hindi.  Finally I gave him 20 rupees to go away.

Yes, I was his bitch.

Yes, we made it to the Taj in time to avoid an, um, messy situation.  I made sure to tip the poor bathroom attendant.  Then we decided to have a drink by the pool of the Taj.

Now, this entailed pretending to be guests of this incredibly expensive hotel.  Loaded down with shopping bags, we looked the part.  But our fake hotel room number and unlisted names were a giveaway… we fled… upstairs for high tea.

Yep, my carb embargo was put on hold because no one can resist a full, fancy old English high tea spread.  We stuck it out there for hours, sucking up all the nasty calories that 1000 rupees can buy… and of course tempting the intestinal gods in the process.

Several further frantic tips to the bathroom attendant later, we made a rush for the train back to Juhu.  See, there’s a window of opportunity in between spasms during which one can attempt to get home.

And here I am, drained in all ways, settling in for a long night of work.  And Adam?  Drinking beer, of course.  Bloody hedonist.

(Oh crap.  Adam just farted.  It burns!  It burns!)

I leave you with this: graffiti from the inside of a Mumbai commuter train:

Vasant Kunj via Google Maps

As is tradition, I am once more blogging this year’s trip to India.  Click on the “india” tag to see the earlier visits when, frankly, I had more time to write.

I’ve just spent two weeks in Europe, meeting friends and exploring some aspects of the European assisted reproduction community.  I’m in India for two weeks to attend a wedding, give at least one lecture, and have some research-related meetings.  There’s also going to be some time to see the sights, which is why my old grad school friend (and hedonist) Adam will be joining me.

My economy flight from London through Frankfurt to Delhi was predictable.  As a seasoned world traveler, I know to check-in online the night before to make sure the solo traveler isn’t given the middle seat or the non-reclining seat.  I deliberately chose a spectacular aisle seat with all sorts of room in the most spacious section of the economy fuselage.

On schedule, as is the Indian way, some dude is busily trying to get me to switch seats with him so he can “sit with his wife”.  Of course, the options he was offering were all, as expected, middle and non-reclining seats. I’m well past the days of casual generosity.  I barely acknowledged him except to say twice, “No, this is my seat. I want this seat.”  But he kept at it for what felt like 30 minutes.  Sit down, motherfrakker!

So, I go into Delhi last night.  I hate Delhi, I really do.  When Adam arrives in a few hours, our first order of business is to get the frack to Mumbai.  When I was here last year, the city was gearing up for the Commonwealth Games.  The new subway was being frantically built, and Indira Gandhi Airport expanded.

The new airport is stunning.  And huge!  It still smells bad, though.  You know, that standard tropical smell: sweat, heat and fungi seeping into fabrics.  As I said at the time, “it smells like ass.  Indian ass.”  I wonder where the electricity is being generated to power this monstrosity.

Of course, passport control still suffers from leftover Indian idiocy.  There’s actually a first class line, but no way to actually tell if someone flew in first class.  So why have the line at all?  For a country that subsists on queuing, India (and most Asian nations, to be fair) doesn’t know how to create queues efficiently.

This is what I mean: if  you have several desks or kiosks servicing a queue of people, it is more efficient to have a single line waiting for the first available desk, than to have a separate queue for each desk.  Why?  Because you never know which person in line is going to hold up the whole affair, and if the line can then go around to the next desk, it’s not an issue.

See?  Most banks and men’s rooms (think urinals) have figured it out.  Tim Hortons and Indian passport control have not.

Anyway, I was met by my driver from the hotel, who never said a word or looked at me through the entire procedure.  Amazingly, he picked up his car from a modern, automated parking lot.  I was very impressed by it.  On the drive to the hotel, I was further impressed by how much Delhi traffic had matured.  There was a strong police presence, well marked lanes… and drivers actually using their indicator lights!!  Where was I?  This was not the Delhi I’d come to dread!

As an aside, there was a terrifying moment during the drive when a strong wind blew several hundred pounds of dry concrete across the highway, completely obliterating all visibility instantly.  My car screeched to a sudden halt– luckily, since it turns out there was another car just inches in front of us!  The improved quality both of Delhi cars and roads allowed this safe and sudden stop.

I checked into the Hotel Malik Continental, your standard concrete block of over-airconditioned budget accommodation in the suburbs of Delhi, in a neighbourhood called Vasant Kunj.  (See misleading map above.)

Now, my room had only one bed, but Adam was going to join me the next day, so I requested one with two beds.  They said they’d take care of it in the morning.  This is where more Indian hilarity ensued.

This morning I got up late and began my routine.  I do my 90 minute workout each morning.  Halfway through, I get a phone call from reception, “Sir we are sending a boy up now for your bags to move you to the new room.”

After a moment of confusion (I’d assumed they’d forgotten about my request), I said, “Okay, give me 5 minutes.”  I threw everything together furiously, and waited.  And waited.  After 20 minutes, I called back down, “Um, where’s the fellow for my bags?”

“Oh sir, room will be ready in half an hour.”

Okay, okay, don’t get mad, Ray.  It’s frakking India.  I unpacked my stuff and got back into my workout.  Of course, 2 minutes later there’s a knock at my door: they’d come to move my stuff.

Sigh.  Frakking India, with its inefficiencies and miscommunications.  Anyway…. all that is behind me.

Today I took a walk through the neighbourhood.  This is a new industrial development near to the airport.  The roads are busy, and the sidewalks are crammed full of typical Indian activity: naked toddlers, endless scooters and motorcycles, and that ubiquitous Gangetic plains dust.

I did get a close-up view of a dog-catching exercise, like something out of a 1950s cartoon.  A truck was driven by some small, ill-mannered men carrying nooses.  The men were literally lassoing stray dogs and dragging them into the truck.

Around the corner was a sign of the new India: a condo and shopping centre development.  It’s all vacant still, of course, except for the very visible security guards keeping interlopers and squatters out.  And just like every other Indian construction project, adjacent to it is a slum in which live entire families of construction workers.

The young slum boys, all barefoot and some naked, were playing cricket on the pristine empty streets of the condo development.  Atop piles of sand and rock, old men slept.  I’m pretty sure that a field of rubble between the condos and the slum are an outdoor open-concept toilet, as several semi-concealed women were squatting there, covered strategically by their saris.

Most amazingly, no one took any notice of me.  This is a remarkable development.  On my first trip to India 15 years ago, any foreigner would be greeted with, at the least, stares.  At the most, there’d be gaggles of kids begging for change, following you about or waiting for their photos to be taken.

Today, Indians are inured to foreigners.  Either than, or I have grown to look more like a local.  Quite possibly a bit of both.

Okay, off to the airport to get Adam.  Then we eat curry and drink gin!

Greetings from Vienna, where I just visited the Esperanto Museum.  Know what I learned there?  Well, I learned a little about this guy, a Flemish physician and scientist named Jan Baptiste van Helmont (whom the Austrians call “Johann”).

Johann is our Obscure Historical Figure of the Day.  You’ll recall our first installment of this service was Edmond Albius.

Johann’s incredible contribution to history was his invention, in 1652, of the word “gas”.  In a book written in Latin, he described the vaporous state of matter this way: “Hence I name this spirit, unknown till now, with the new word gas.”

“Gas” has become the standard term for that state of matter in almost every human language.  It also now refers to fuel and to that bloated, post-meal feeling, characterized by stinkiness down under.

What is less known is that Johann intended for two distinct but related words to enter the canon.  “Gas” was to be partnered with “blas”.

“Blas” was a theorized cosmic substance that Johann thought might influence the thoughts and actions of men.  Clearly, “blas” never took hold.

Now don’t you feel all warm, fuzzy and educated?

I leave you with this:

Hola!  Greetings from Fuengriola, Spain, where I have taken a pit stop en route to India.  (Yes, it’s work related, so stop asking.)  Many thanks to my various hosts: Mieke in London, Amanda & Steve in Spain, and soon Paul and Tijen in Vienna.

I was stopped yesterday by perhaps the only other Indian (actually Pakistani) guy in Fuengriola, who thought that I looked like Bollywood action star Salman Khan.  I atrribute this solely to my rippling he-man muscles and dashing superstar good looks.  Or, more accurately, to the fact that all Indian men look alike.  Judge for yourself:

Salman Khan vs Professor Wat

Now, today’s actual topic isn’t so much my self-delusions, but a topic that is relevant to my graduating students.  Many have come to me seeking advice for how to choose an Epidemiology graduate program, since several were lucky enough to have been accepted to more than one.

So what follows is a list of what I believe to be the appropriate criteria to employ when making your decision.  Much of it applies to non-Epidemiology grad programs, as well.  If you disagree with me, or want to add your own thoughts, please do so in the comments section below.

(As always, I ask Facebook readers to comment directly on the blog, rather than through Facebook, or to log in to Disqus via your Facebook account.  This way, non-Facebook users can see your wisdom, as well.)

1. Money

Which school costs you less?  This is a combination of tuition, stipends, scholarships, etc.

2. Livability

How is the city in which the school is situated?  Do you need a sophisticated urban environment (Montreal, New York, Toronto, etc), or do you prefer a small, rural environment (Guelph, Ann Arbor, Waterloo, etc.)  This can also include such things as the physical attractiveness of the campus, if that’s important to you; or whether the university has sports teams or social clubs that might be relevant to your lifestyle.

3. Age

How old is the program?  New programs are good if you want attention and resources: everyone associated with the program wants the first batch of graduates to be outstanding.  But older programs have well established processes, fewer administrative hiccups, and are known to employers.

4. Reputation

Look at the program’s faculty list.  How many are endowed Chairs?  Look up the publications of their faculty members: do they publish in top journals?

5. Adjuncts

Does the program have connections with the wider community?  In Epidemiology, one way to measure this is to see how many adjunct professors from government, industry, etc, are listed amongst the faculty.  These individuals represent additional resources you can call upon, and potential entries into the work world.

6. Supervisor – reputation

There are two schools of thought here.  A big name supervisor is an asset as your career progresses.  But a big name often won’t have time to coddle you.  A small name (*cough* me *cough*) will invest a lot of time on you and your project, but won’t win you any additional friends in the wider community.

7. Supervisor – workload

How many students does your intended supervisor currently have?  It’s nice if he or she currently has a handful, since they can help yo navigate the process.  But too many can mean that resources and time are stretched thin.

8. Supervisor – expertise

Does your intended supervisor, or indeed the program as a whole, have the expertise that you seek?  If you’re intent on being a maternal health specialist, for example, a program and supervisor with a focus on prostate cancer might not be for you.

9. Rate of graduation

Find out the percentage of accepted students who successfully complete their degrees…. and how long it took them to do so.  This is an indication of the program’s commitment to pushing students out into their lives.  I would say that this is one of the most important indicators.

10. Employment rate

Find out how many graduate get jobs, or end up in doctoral programs (whatever your intent is) upon completion.  A well considered program should produce graduates who are in demand by employers.

11. Self-employment

One of my peeves is a program that has a history of hiring too many of its own graduates.  Find out where core faculty members received their doctorates.  If it was from the same university as the one that currently employs them, then that might be a sign that the program lacks intellectual growth and diversity.  A caveat is that some graduates go on to do remarkable post-doctoral work elsewhere, or are employed elsewhere, before returning to work in their home universities; I think this is an acceptable exception.

12. Globally Known?

This is not important for everyone, but might be a small factor at play.  A middling degree from a globally recognized brand, like Harvard or Oxford, might be worth more than a degree from a stupendously wonderful program at the University of Buttfrack-Nowhere.  Mind you, if the latter really is stupendously wonderful, then it should also have a globally recognized brand, within its own discipline.

13. The personal touch

Does the program get you where you want to go?  Most students don’t know where they want to go.  But a few have figured it out.  If you know you want to commit your career to HIV fieldwork in Tanzania, then a program without an international health component is useless to you.  Similar if they have no connections to global NGOs, or no faculty members with global expertise.

14. And lastly…

Don’t worry so much about it.  In my opinion, there is no wrong decision.  Even if you pick a crappy school that makes you miserable, you have it in your power to write a kick-ass thesis that will win awards, garner publications, and make you a superstar.  At the end of the day, the power to make or break your career is always in your own hands.