The East to West transition - Part I - My Last week

Within the space of 1 week I go from this:

To this 

So, there I was on Leeson Street, Dublin ready for an interview.  Everything was alien, even wearing shoes.  I'd had a cup of coffee for the first time in two months and it had cost more than some hotels I'd stayed in India.   I was BACK.

So here's how it went for me:

• Why ‘same same but different’ needs to change 
• The world's biggest X Factor
• My mum the highlander pt II
• Toilet talk
• Internet Dating in England 
• Sex in Ireland
• Yoga my saviour 
• I don't get the job
• Why you gotta love the Irish 

Oddly enough sitting with Babas (me with the bearded boys in the top photo) is something that I did quite alot  in India.  The Irish equivalent would be sitting with a drunk on a park bench.  Watch out for me in Phoenix park when I'm back ;)

I overheard a classic 'lost in translation' story.  Along with an Indian lady saying she was 'breast eating her children' I overheard a story of a european bride who got her wedding dress tailored in India.  Good idea, cheap quality tailoring.  Bargain.  Only she wasn't clear with her instructions and sent high quality italian material for 1) wedding dress and 2) evening dress.  One in red, one in white.  In India red means purity and white is associated with death.  I'll let you do the math.

Rishikesh is a classical postcard image of India with it's temples and ashrams oozing incense smoke over the Ganges.  As I departed on my way to Delhi walking across the bridge crossing the Ganges at 5am I savoured the awakening of the holy city.   Despite our taxi driver turning up late as he'd forgotten about the pickup the peace of The Ganges that morning will stay with me forever.

Picture Postcard Rishikesh.... 

  

Two weeks before I was due to leave I'd had the rishikesh runs so I was keen for my last week to be a good one, and it was.  I squeezed in as much yoga, 6 hand massages for $6US (!) and all the stuff I cannot do at home as I could.  I bought as many Osho books and incense as I could humanly carry (my bookshelf is very tantric bias now ;) ).  I'd tried to visit Neelkanth (Shiva) temple a few weeks before choosing to hire a moped and speed up the mountain with a fair maiden on the back but we were stopped at a road check and rather than admit we didn't have any paperwork (this is India) and face a potential fine we didn't go.  Lucky for me a friend, Rajenda has recently setup a tour company so I headed up with him.

Rajenda is one of the lads I know from the Sivinanda Ramesh Music School and like a lot of his fellow students he has polio.  Rajenda is a little different though.  He's a true entrepreneur.  A story that will make you grin from ear to ear.  Most of the lads who have polio (including Roopak the guy I've been working with) are very slow at seeing opportunities to help them survive/strive.  Despite being shunned by his family from an early age due to his disability Rajenda moved to Rishikesh, a tourist destination that is also one of the begging capitals of India.  He soon worked out that he'd have to be different to earn a living and focused on perfecting his english and social skills.  A decade on, Rajenda has a network of supporters who have bought him a specialised (3 wheel and turbo!) moped and he runs tours of the local area.  Unlike many of his peers from his life as a beggar he is not a 'guy with polio', he is a tour guide with a charming knowledge of the local area and a smile that makes your day.  

Rajenda high above The Ganges winding it's way away from Rishikesh

Me and Rajanda at Neelkanth :).  

The Shiva stamp at the Neelkanth temple and my favourite smell..sandalwood incense :)

If you are in Rishikesh and looking for a tour guide to any of the surrounding temples, the national park, waterfalls or just a ride around with entertaining banter call Rajenda on +91 975 6514170 or contact him via Facebook .  Rajenda plans to expand into other ventures in the next few years including the possibility of having his own tour jeep. Carpe Diem?  What a legend.

For a country of 1.3bn it's shocking how few entrepreneurs there are.  Where are the Indian Airbnbs, WhatsApps, Pininterests??  The education system is based on rote learning which results in a majority of the population who are great at remembering their times tables and quoting Tagore poetry but tend to wobble their heads when creating a new concept.  By encouraging memorising the 'art' of originality is lost. 

When walking down a market street you will often have sellers thrust shiny sunglasses or belts infront of you and 9/10 times you'll be wearing both a belt and sunglasses.  Seriously lads same same and not even different.  

At Neelkanth there were at +20 sellers of 'water from the ganges' in a row.  They all looked the same and their mouths dropped when they saw Rajenda arrive with a tourist then jump down on the floor and walk around the winding alleys on his hands.  Yes, he's different from you and not a 'rotebot'.   

Here's a clip from my fav Indian film to illustrate my point. 

As The Three Idiots and numerous articles demonstrate there are a lot of cultural issues with the Indian education system.  That's not to say their aren't entrepreneurs in India but it's a problem.  It's a factory mentality with a few people driving against that system.  In Rishikesh alone the business opportunities are huge but 90% of people are doing the same thing, selling the same shite.  Friends of mine Martin and Hannah came up with sustainable businesses for local street kids to get them to sell postcards.   All the street kids in Rishikesh sell flowers to use for a blessing in The Ganges and their USP is usually their emotional sales skills ie. poor me.  The postcard idea involved giving one girl a number of pro-quality photos of Rishikesh, some card to back them and a pen and ruler to make them into sellable postcards.  After making profit in her first week she now has a memory stick with the images on and reproduces them on demand.  Watch out Dragons Den ;)

A Rishikesh flower seller

India, is, however, ready for change.  +850m people are voting right now in national elections and there is a hunger for change.  We might be used to images of India like the below:

However, I was in Delhi a city of 16m people on the first week of voting and the voting process appeared impeccably organised.  The voters are out in numbers and hopefully come the 16th May we'll see change.  With the incumbent having been in power for 80% of the last 1/2 century, and people protesting for change in huge numbers this is the world's X factor; a change in the world's democracy will make a change to us all.  Hopefully less of the same same.

The big issues are education, sanitation, pollution, health and corruption.  On my last night in Delhi I was reminded of one of the smaller scams that shopkeepers do daily by giving change in toffees.  Here's what my friend Gaurav had to say about it (he's a fan of the common people's party - the one that really could make a change :) )

Part II & III coming soon ....

• My mum the highlander pt II
• Toilet talk
• Internet Dating in England 
• Sex in Ireland
• Yoga my saviour 
• I don't get the job
• Why you gotta love the Irish 
• How to feel every beat