There’s nothing like a bit of R&R to get the writing juices flowing again – and glorious Maui is just the place to do it. Simply stepping off the plane is enough to allow yogic deep breathing to come to you without effort. I really have to work out how to make a living while spending 4 or 5 months of every year here. When I say “here”, I don’t mean the touristy hells of Kihei or Kaanapali. Rather, get me to the gorgeous areas on the slopes of Haleakala, surrounded by verdant growth, “surfing” goats producing cheese, Buddha-infested lavender farms, etc…. We’ve stayed in the area twice now and it has completely won us over! Here’s our friendly Buddha surveying the vista below him:
Not to create too obvious a segue, the Buddha’s approach to life has been somewhat similar to ours since the last blog post went up on December 2010. Perhaps that’s a bit of stretch but we’ve tried to take life as it comes and focus on the things we can control rather than getting stressed about what we can’t. We’ve both changed jobs and have moved on from the idea that we’re going to be able to produce offspring ourselves. Brita’s thrilled with her one-year contract with Vancity (she’s in charge of their community engagement) and I’m now running a public company focussed on investments in energy-efficient green technologies.
We’ve also decided we’re going to adopt!
Actually, we made the adoption decision about a year ago but (good thing we’re being Buddha-like), it’s taken until last week before our application was submitted. It might be that spending large amounts of time in the sun has addled our brains, but we’ve decided to stick with India as the fulcrum of our efforts. Not surprisingly, in the year since the decision, there’s been a fair amount of “what to do’s” and “WTFs”. We’d gone through all the home visits (8); put together reams of information on income and banking; explained why Brita likes gardening better than arithmetic; why Macs are better than PCs; and many other highly consequential bits of information on our not terribly-exciting lives (must admit, I forgot to mention that Twitter is the best thing ever!)…so that we were ready to have the whole lot submitted by July. Inevitably, the Indian central adoption agency decided that they had far too much of a backlog (500) to possibly take any further applications…until September 30th. A collective “oy vey” was uttered but what’s a couple of months in the grand scheme of things. Of course, we knew better and, sure enough, September 30th became December 31st…then January 31st.
Miraculously, January 31st has held up but things are never as simple as they seem. The Indians have completely changed the system (of course, they announced this only a few days before they opened up applications). Now, everything must be submitted over the web on the first of every month – BUT they will only accept 100 new applications per month. Given the entire process has been shut down for 7 months, I could only imagine getting ours in as part of the first 100 was going to be a bit of a lottery. Fortunately, I gave our agency a call and reminded them that 10am Indian Standard Time was actually 8:30pm the evening before in Vancouver. Good old Fonnie stayed late at the office and hit the “submit” button on the nose of 8:30pm on January 31st….and much to everyone’s amazement, we made it into the first batch.
So…we’re in – a huge step!
We’ve asked to adopt from a remote Indian state (Mizoram) which is actually located between Bangladesh & Burma. Kids from this area, apparently, have a difficult time getting adopted as they don’t look particularly Indian. Since one has to have a connection to the country to adopt (except in very limited circumstances) and there seems to be a social stigma (amongst Indians) about admitting that their children are adopted, kids from Mizoram haven’t been very popular. We have no such issues, so bring ‘em on we say!
Since no one (including us) had a clue where Mizoram is, here’s Google leaping to the rescue:
Who knows what other mayhem will ensue once we get into the process but, at least, we’ve wedged a foot in the proverbial door! I’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. Here’s an example of kids from the area…cute!
Will update when we hear more… In the meantime, the Maui sun is spectacular…especially with Brita in the pic!
The Subject Line of this post was the quote of a dear friend of ours upon hearing the latest spate of news in our ongoing saga. The last few days of cautious optimism, the result of the news of a positive pregnancy test on the 23rd, came crashing down this morning with an email letting us know that a subsequent blood-test three days later showed that the beta HCG level had plummeted from 43 down to 1. Unfortunately, it appears that ours has turned out to be a “biochemical pregnancy” – which is a term used to describe a situation where the embryo stops growing at a point where it’s still not visible on an ultrasound. The majority of times the reason for this happening is that the embryo doesn’t have the right number of chromosomes so it can grow for a while but doesn’t have the tools to sustain itself for very long. Needless to say, it’s not been a good day!
At this early stage, we’re in a bit of a daze and haven’t really thought through where to go from here. We’ve written to Dr. Banerjee to ask her opinion as to whether, given the type of miscarriage, it’s even worth considering repeating the process. No idea what we’ll do, irrespective of her response.
There is one thing this adventure has reminded us of – we are surrounded by amazingly supportive friends and family. You live virtually next door and around the world, you range in age from under 18 to over 80, you keep in touch over Facebook, Twitter, e-mail or via our blogs. You would confound any demographer attempting to pigeon-hole you into some analytic category. At every stage, regardless of the hilarious, the sad, the wacky or the sublime, your unstinting support has been invaluable to us staying motivated and ever-optimistic. And…we still are… So, thank you!
We’re still reeling over this but starting to look forward. Once the fog clears, we’ll take the path (whatever it may be) forward….
Oh…the jet lag! We’ve been home since Wednesday morning and, for the first couple of nights there was an excellent progression of waking times – 5am and 6am. Then I forgot the melatonin on Day 3…and bam – 3am! The result of all this is that one feels slightly detached from the world around you. What are the consequences of this detachment you may ask? Well, Brita, in particular, went zipping off to our storage locker in North Vancouver on Friday morning (a nice 14km trip each way) to get our XMas decorations and realized that she had the wrong key when she got there. A second trip of another 28km ensued immediately thereafter. All was fine until this morning when we were all set to go and pick up a tree…and discovered that the base was still sitting in the storage locker. Right…28km trip number three… For your viewing pleasure, I enclose the Google Pedometer view of the backing and forthing below (by the way, this is an awesome tool to measure any distance you may want to travel).
The Twilight Zone effect doesn’t just apply to our walking zombie state, it also applies to the limbo we’re currently in waiting for news from India. The good Dr. Banerjee had gone missing on a “personal issue” for a couple of days before we left Delhi so we’d only received updates from an assistant. It turns out that she had a seriously high fever for a few days due to (they think) Chikungunya, which is a Dengue-like, mosquito-born disease. These damn mosquitos are seriously inconveniencing the entire process – that’s two victims (the first was surrogate number one, Neha, who got Dengue). Fortunately, Dr. B is back on her feet and back at it (she must be one tough cookie!).
The latest news is that, of the 8 little guys that were hanging in after 3 days, there were 4 that were Grade “A” and 4 that were Grade “B” (sounds like something put out by the British Columbia Egg Marketing Association). “A” is considered excellent and “B” is good. The Grade “B” dudes, however, started to show some fragmentation after Day 4 so weren’t considered good enough to be frozen (for a potential future effort). So…all four of the over-achiever Grade “A’s were transferred into Leena (apparently, it went well). All fingers and toes will be crossed for a positive pregnancy test on December 21st! They’ll test for increased levels of BHCG, which indicates that an embryo has successfully implanted. The results should be in by the 23rd and the hope is that, of the four, at least one will hang in there…
In the meantime, the XMas tree has finally gone up and an excellent glass of Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban (hooray for the Shanghai Airport Duty Free) is brightening the twilight as I write…
So…we have good news! After far too many days of me injecting her with hypodermic syringes, a Baker’s Dozen of eggs plus one (ie. 14), were extracted from Brita on Saturday afternoon. Of these, we were told (24 hours later) that 10 of them had fertilized – which is a pretty good percentage. As of 48 hours into their petrie dish holiday, 8 were still going strong. We should be hearing one further update before we hop on the plane this evening. The plan is to keep them swimming away in the petrie dish for 4 or 5 days (depending upon quality of the embryos), then choose the best to insert into Leena. We should know the results (hopefully, a positive pregnancy test) by December 21st or so… Fingers crossed!
The Adiva Clinic in Delhi touts itself as being a “world class” institution – no doubt, to soothe the frantic nerves of any westerner who is considering crossing its threshold. From our experience, this is well, at best, a hope and a prayer, rather than the reality. There is no question that the medical expertise (at least, with our Dr. Banerjee) is as good as you’re going to find anywhere. She gets a ringing, unreserved, endorsement! The rest of the experience, on the other hand (comparing it to our previous experience at PCRM in Vancouver), doesn’t come remotely close to a top clinic in the West. In other words, if you’re going to go…expect India with all its madness…and you’ll be fine!
Frankly, the place is completely chaotic and, for the most part, the staff seems to only have a vague understanding of what’s going on and when. Almost nothing of detail is communicated in advance and, when it is, rarely is any context provided for what needs to be done and why. I suppose part of the problem is that many of them don’t speak English, which would be fine if the target market was mainly local – but crazy if attracting foreigners is the objective. Brita had some “fun” herself – so check out her latest blog entry for details. My experience was mostly about waiting (hours….) interspersed with providing my “genetic contribution” in somewhat trying circumstances. While Brita was getting her prep-work done, I was signing, for about the 3rd time, the same set of consent documents which I’d reviewed about 30 minutes earlier. Apart from the fact that they should be presenting you with these documents a couple of weeks earlier (when the hormone stimulation was started) rather than when the extraction is about to commence and you have no option but to sign…., they insisted on signatures appearing in places where the documents didn’t even call for them…ahh well.
I can live with disorganized documents but the “contribution” experience certainly didn’t leave me looking for a satisfactory cigarette. One of the staff beckoned me over to his office and handed me a sealed plastic collection container and asked me to write our names on the label (try doing this when it’s already stuck onto the container). Then, he escorted me next door (to the scary looking room mentioned in the last post). It turns out that this room is only the outer room – the real action happens behind the inner door. By the way, the hallway outside was lined with interested spectators with nothing much to do except cheer on the hapless participants. Back to the narrative: the inner door was locked when we arrived. So…instead of assuming that someone might be “busy”, he proceeded to wiggle the handle and bang on the door…repeatedly! This, as you can imagine, did not do anything for my confidence that I would be left in a serene state myself. Finally, he gave up…suggested I just wait until whoever it was came out and then left me to lean casually in the doorway, nodding politely to the peanut gallery. A quick game of “Madden NFL” on the iPhone seemed in order…
Finally, the inner sanctuary opened and, much to my surprise, out walked a woman. No idea WHAT she was doing in there… So…in I went, expecting (half-heartedly, I must admit) to find the usual paraphernalia one finds when required to perform in such unusual circumstances. No such luck! Instead, I found a small bed with rumpled sheets (ugh), a small tv with a DVD player (empty)…and an attached bathroom. The only upside was that the contraption with the stirrups was safely in the outer room. That about covers the visual landscape but it does nothing to provide an impression of the soundscape which enveloped every corner of this small heaven. Bollywood music thumped from the left, loud voices of clerks came from the right, shrill complaints of waiting patients & families trailed in from behind. They all seemed to reside in a slightly different octave from each other so one got the impression one was living Pink Floyd’s “wall of sound”. Having said all that, performance was imperative, so I locked the door and told myself that any distractions were mere crumbs to be ground under my feet! Focus needed to be the order of the day so I set off (metaphorically) on the path….and all was going to plan…until…bang, bang, bank, knock, knock, knock….wiggle the doorknob, wiggle the doorknob, bang, bang, bang! Seriously! A loud “HELLO!”, followed by an “OI!”, and an “EXCUSE ME” followed in rapid succession from my lips. A “BUGGER OFF YOU IDIOT” was waiting in the wings should another volley of knocking have commenced. Fortunately, for both me and the fool outside, there were no further intrusions into my karmic space and, having done my best to eradicate all hostile thoughts, and summoned every meditation trick I could remember, I managed to produce the medically required stuff in record time. Needless to say, I was not in the usual blissful mood usually experienced after such exertions when I emerged from the inner sanctum. Of course, the outer door was wide open and my fascinated fans were all agog at my re-emergence. On top of that, the guy who’d provided me with the sample container had gone for lunch (& no one had replaced him) so I had to hunt down someone else to ensure that the valuables were properly put away in readiness for completing their fertilization duties… Mind-boggling!
Shortly after I’d found a seat in an incredibly crowded lobby (I find it amazing that entire families seem to accompany a patient to this clinic – so, of course, there’s almost nowhere to sit), Brita showed up in a hospital gown (and a most attractive cap). I don’t know who designed this building but walking prepped patients through a crowded lobby seems like a particularly daft idea. At least I could confirm to her that I’d done my bit and she whispered something about an odd barber experience she’d just endured (see her blog for details). Then ensued a few hours of reading & playing games on the iPhone while observing all sorts of entertainment in the lobby – complaining patients, a kid attempting a cartwheel, what seemed like a family reunion…frankly, I was expecting a herd of goats to pop by at any moment. Why they can’t restrict visitors to one or two per patient, especially with limited seating, I have no idea. Here’s a little snippet of the view from my top-secret spy cam:
A couple of hours later, I was told to pop into one of the ground-floor offices where Dr. Banerjee would join me shortly to provide an update. She turned up about 10 minutes later and gave me the good news of the 14 eggs that had been retrieved plus instructions for Brita’s post-operation medication. What I didn’t know at the time was that, while the good Dr. B and I were discussing eggs and meds, Brita had been rolled out of the Operating Theatre, down the elevator, and out into the, now famous, lobby. She, in her half-drugged state, was, fortunately, quite amused at this since we’d seen exactly the same scene being played out with a distraught American woman just a couple of days earlier. The attendants, like on that occasion, seemed to be completely confused as to what to do with the patient and, eventually, after the attendant crowds had seen their fill, wheeled her back into the elevator and took her upstairs. What’s amazing was that we’d mentioned the American woman’s experience to Dr. Banerjee who had, immediately, phoned the responsible party and told them that anything like that was completely inappropriate and shouldn’t happen again. Yet, here we were only two days later….maybe that’s why the crowds show up! Brita tells me she was peering around in her hazy state looking, in vain, to see where I was- no doubt ready to pose for a pic!
I was finally summoned to go and see the recovering patient about an hour later – when she was actually in a rather decent recovery room. God knows why she’d had to have the building tour first, but she was looking quite chipper when I found her:
A celebration was definitely in order once we heard that all had been successful. Brita was feeling a bit “off” after the surgery so she stayed in bed while I went off to check out the Asian Tour Event (the Delhi Open) being played at the Delhi Golf Club. This was Englishman Paul McGinley teeing off in front of some of the very cool monuments the golf course is built around.
There’s plenty of wildlife around the course (I gather cobras are considered a hazard in the jungle – but not sure how many penalty strokes one gets) but the most colourful of the bunch has got to be this fellow and his kin.
That evening Percy treated us (and Aprajita) to a fabulous dinner at a fusion restaurant called the Indian Accent (it’s in a boutique hotel called The Manor). The food, and the company, of course, was terrific! I do have to mention one particular appetizer for which I hold a particularly fond spot. A popular street food in Calcutta is the “Puchka“. These are puffed, crispy balls stuffed with a spicy mixture (usually potato based), then filled with a tamarind-like sauce. You pop the whole thing in your mouth…and wait for the flavour to explode! Given my immune system has long-ago given up any hope of surviving an experience with Calcutta street food, imagine my delight when a seriously up-market version showed up on the Indian Accent menu! They were awesome!
It’s time to hit the road on the long flights home. First, a 5 hour jaunt to Shanghai, then another 10+ to Vancouver. Somehow, I seem to have started to catch a cold before I get on the plane, rather than after! Here’s hoping I can leave it on this side of the International Date Line…
[Editor's Note: Hot off the press...the 8 little buggers are still going strong on Day 3...woohoo!]
There are many things that have an adverse effect on the scheduled departure of an airplane flight. During the winter in Delhi, the most common reason is fog (when the regular stuff created by the atmosphere combines with the irregular stuff created by thousands of puffing cars and transforms the air into a reasonable facsimile of the pea soup of 1850′s London). If all had gone as planned, given the absence of apparent fog as I peer out the window, we would be getting ready for Rai (driver, most excellent) to take us to the airport. Given this line of introduction, you’ve probably guessed (correctly) that any imminent arrival of fog will have no effect whatsoever on whether we depart tonight or not. Nope! The follicles have rebelled and have pointedly refused to take part in any itinerary booked for us by the good folks at Bains Travel in Vancouver. Note: We’re now booked out on the 7th evening.
The good news is that the afore-mentioned follicles, however uncooperative they are being on timing, are doing all the right things on their own schedule. There are about 12 of the little fellas coming along nicely in Brita’s ovaries with the “lead” one blowing past the goal of 14mm (that one reached 16mm last night). So, now that they’ve got their way on the timing, they are doing all the right things. Ideally, from the perspective of travelling on time, they’d have been yanked out and dumped in a petrie dish yesterday but now they’ll be making their entrance on Saturday afternoon. This will require us to descend on the Adiva clinic at about 2:30 in the afternoon and, after the prep, the procedure (about 30 mins), plus the recovery time from the general anaesthetic, we should be set free at about 8:30pm. You may ask what I’ll be doing while all this is going on and, yes, a good book will be present. However, I too have tasks to perform…on demand, I might add!
I should point out that, having gone through this IVF thing twice so far, I’m quite happy to “put out” for a good cause, but this time my focus will have to be like none other! One only has to have had spent a few days coming and going through the insanity of the Adiva lobby (and this room is right off it) to understand that solitude and, hopefully, bliss will not be accompanying me on this journey. Unlike the leather sofa splendour of the “collection” room at Vancouver’s PCRM, with its spa-esque environs and gentle music wafting around , this place is all business. From a brief, and nervous, glance as we walked by the other day, it appears to have glaring fluorescent lights, various types of lab equipment…and a set of stirrups! Between that, and the propensity for anyone and everyone to walk in without any semblance of a knock, there is no question that if performance anxiety were ever to raise its ugly head, it would likely do so then. I seem to recall that East German athletes (given they were hopped up on all sorts of performance-enhancing drugs) used to gain great benefit from using creative visualization techniques while they were practising. Having had a glimpse of the terrors awaiting me, I might just give that a try….
This, by the way, is the kind of activity that goes on in the Adiva lobby (it was, actually, even more insane about 10 minutes before I took this).
I was going to do some venting about the idiotic lawyer we’ve had to deal with for the surrogacy contract (sloppy, un-professional & egotistical) but, frankly, there are more important and positive things. Suffice to say, I doubt the clinic will use him again and I think I’ve helped them improve their documents. Onward…
A vastly more important event in the past couple of days was the arrival of a new member of Percy’s family – a dog who had been at a local shelter. The poor thing had her front paws run over at some point in the past and the idiot owners just abandoned her to the streets. She’s a yellow lab named Zara who hobbles around on about two and a half legs (she raises one of her front ones when she runs) and spreads love in every direction. Brita and I went to pick her up at the Sai Ashram shelter down the road from Percy’s place. It’s hardly the lap of luxury but it’s paradise for any street dogs lucky enough to find their way here. We were surrounded by about 20 as soon as we hopped out of the car.
We got Zara home (much to the chagrin of Sophie, the other 3-legged resident of Percy’s homestead) and she’s settled right in. She’s been to the vet three times already to get her on anti-biotics and vitamins…and is now running around with a large cone on her head to prevent her licking the wounds on her paws. Through it all she’s been incredibly easy-going and friendly. She’s gone from getting all the bad breaks to being one lucky hound – the rest of her life is going to be great! This was Zara having a nap this afternoon – before entering her cone-head phase.
There’s almost always a silver-lining to plans gone awry. Sure enough, our extra few days spent in Delhi will allow us to hang out a bit longer with Percy and various other new friends…and, much to my great delight, check out an Asian/European Tour golf event going on in Delhi (the Indian Open) over the weekend. There’s even a possibility I might get a round in at the Delhi Golf Club (which is hosting the tour event) on Monday and get to experience what it’s like to play on a course already set up to host a championship. Now that should get the ego crashing to the ground even if I manage to survive my Saturday experience at Adiva!
Over the years I’ve learned (sometimes painfully!) that when certain hormones are coursing through a woman’s body, it’s best to strew around the eggshells (liberal helpings, I would suggest) and tiptoe across them with extreme delicacy. Given such experience, you can imagine my consternation when advised by the good Dr. Banerjee that my job over the forthcoming 12 days was to poke my wife in the backside with a hypodermic syringe full of just those hormones – ie. a vicious circle of increasing hormones – inflict painful needle – increasing hormones – inflict painful needle – etc, etc….egad!!!! I’m pleased to report, however, that we have now passed Day 7 of such insanity, and that, for the most part, I’ve escaped relatively unscathed and that not too many eggs have been broken in the process. The particular hormone in question is FSH…which, ironically enough, is the thing that results in multiple eggs being produced. Hence the universal law of eggs neither being created nor destroyed (in the form of strewn eggshells) has been held sacrosanct…or does that universal law concern “matter”…whatever…eggs are matter too!
These afore-mentioned eggs are, apparently, the end-result of follicles being created in the ovaries. Not to get overly technical, but we’re waiting for the little fellas, the follicles that is, to reach approximately 14mm across (last Wednesday, they’d grown to 7mm), at which time, my tension level will rise once again. You may well wonder how, given the eggshell scenario set out above, this could be possible. Well, the simple answer is that I will then have to provide hypodermic pokes both in the morning and the evening, thus increasing the potential hostile risk by a factor of 2! I sympathize more and more with the South Koreans, notwithstanding Sarah Palin’s vacant ramblings on the issue…
We have another visit to the clinic tomorrow to see whether our follicular friends have grown to the hoped-for 14mm (I’m thinking of naming each of them) and to finalize the contract (which has been back and forth about 3 times and has confirmed my view that most Indians are great and easy-going with the big picture but details are often the problem). I’m sure we’ll get it done tomorrow since the clinic’s lawyer will finally be present…and it would be far too embarrassing for him not to get it right!
The second theme of this post (vaguely continuing on the egg subject) is the awesome domestic staff that Percy has surrounded himself with. Starting off with the cook, Ahmed, who is an expert on breaking, if not strewing, eggs himself. Every morning, he prepares us a great breakfast (his “masala omelette” is fabulous) and, usually, lunch and dinner as well. In between, he delivers hot tea on demand and never fails to have a smile on his face…. Here he is, the master of his domain…
Next comes Rai, one of Percy’s drivers. Rai is a master of many skills (and you have to have untold numbers of those to manage any number of large vehicles through Delhi’s insane traffic). He has tracked us down outside numerous, confusing, airport terminals, ferried us to and from the clinic, put up with waiting countless hours for us to potter around various shopping areas across Delhi…all the while being completely unflappable and professional. I should point out that he’s picked us up at the airport well after midnight and taken us there at 4:15am (separate occasions) so is on call as and when necessary. Talk about stellar service! Here he is from earlier today at the Khan Market where Brita shopped and I sipped my first latte in over a week…
My final comment on the great domestic staff around here concerns something that, initially, left me completely confused. I have now discerned that there is a particularly rare variety of bird to be found in these parts (I’ve dubbed them the “Security Birds”) which only come out at night. They insist on announcing their presence every hour, on the hour, starting at 11pm and continuing until about 5am. They tend to have a shrill call which is repeated in rapid succession over about 30 seconds, after which they go quiet for the balance of the hour. I was quite baffled by all this until I was advised that these are the birds in question:
Apparently, there are three of them stationed around the property and are required to switch positions every hour, whistling as they move to their next station. This is so none of them fall asleep on the job and, I suspect, the first fellow’s whistling serves to wake up the second one while providing evidence to those inside that they’re actually working. Oddly enough, I now seem to sleep through all the whistles after midnight. That’s probably because I’m getting good at tuning out all the other noise as well (fireworks every night, marching bands playing up a storm….it’s wedding season and one of the big centres for this is the Tivoli Gardens next door).
I should point out that when I took this picture earlier this evening, given my abysmal Hindi, I think these poor fellows thought I was doing an inspection (Percy’s away in Bombay) so they insisted on blowing their whistles with great gusto (until I asked them to stop)!
The last, but certainly not least, subject on the agenda is another reunion with an elementary school (the afore-mentioned Higgins School in Calcutta) friend. In this case, not just any old friend…but my first crush! Yup…36 years later, I finally got to see Sanober Randeria (now Sanoo Katrak) again. I was just a tad nervous because when I tracked her down via Facebook a few months ago (she lives in Columbus, Ohio), she had no idea who I was. Hah! Oh, the ego slap! Even after telling her that I was sure our Grade/Class 5 romance was mutual, she still insisted that she wasn’t sure who I was. Oh dear! Subsequently, she claims to remember the kid with curly hair, so I’m slightly placated…I think… Anyway, it was great that she happened to come to Delhi for a friend’s son’s wedding so Brita and I met her at her hotel for dinner. It was really a lot of fun and it was so nice to catch up. See…we all got along fabulously!
In fact, we got along so well that we got together again a couple of days later. We ended up in Greater Kailash 2 (GK2 to its friends) and wound up having some masala chai at this place – which held itself out as a cafe but, it turns out, doubles as a nightclub in the evening! You know you’ve got pretty comfortable with each other when you can sip chai with pole dancers lurking in the background….welcome to the Mannekin Club! Made my day….
What’s the old adage? You can never go home (or something like that)? Over the course of time, things change…and it’s never quite the same, or so “they” say. It’s especially tricky for those of us who started off in one part of the world and then ended up on completely the other side. Where really is home? Frankly, for me, Canada feels like home since I’ve been there since I was 11 and, given my advancing years, that comprises the vast majority of my life. However, those early, formative years in Calcutta still ring out with vague memories of early mornings at the racecourse with my Dad and far too many smacks with the bamboo cane by Miss. Higgins at the nursery school bearing her name (I’m sure I hold the smack record!).
Since we’re in India for a good spell, and we have some time before the treatment starts (turns out we had more time than we thought, given the substituting surrogates), Brita and I decided it was time to pay a visit. We’d visited the Calcutta airport, while flying between Bagdogra Airport (Darjeeling) and Bombay, during on our honeymoon in 2006 but that was the extent of Brita’s exposure to the city. This was Brita’s third trip to India so it was high time she visited the old hometown. Fortunately, they rolled out the welcome mat (it was hard to miss as, in an exemplary urban planning move, they placed the sign precisely where the traffic bottleneck happens when leaving the airport).
We’d caught the 6:25am flight out of Delhi because I wasn’t going to visit Calcutta without going to the races and, much to my horror, I discovered that this was the one week where there was no racing on the weekend. That meant getting into town in time to catch the Wednesday afternoon races. Only after we got there and were chatting to our gracious host ,who happened to be the current Chairman of the Royal Calcutta Turf Club (Cyrus Madan), did we find that some ex Chief Minister had just died so they’d cancelled the previous weekend’s racing and rescheduled it for the weekend we were going to be here anyway. Ahh well…it’s India…. Nevertheless, it was a great afternoon at the track – I was so busy soaking up the atmosphere of the place that I didn’t bother to buy a program nor place a single bet! On top of that our new friend Gautam (moved here from San Fran) handed me a roll of the most-excellent street food ever invented…the shockingly good, Calcutta invention, the “Kathi Kebab”. If I can get one of these guys to move to Vancouver, we’d make a fortune selling these on Burrard or after the bars close! One bite and you can’t help but have a smile on your face….
The afternoon at the races should have prepared us for what was to come – overwhelming hospitality wherever we went in this city. From Cyrus (even though he was busy doing his work) taking the time to chat to us, to Gautam sharing the afore-mentioned kebab, to Ram Gupta buying us a drink 5 minutes after being introduced, to Harish & Kavitha inviting us to dinner and a city tour after chatting with us for 10 minutes…it went on and on! That same evening we were picked up by my old friend Aditya to be taken to dinner at his place – where two other friends I hadn’t seen in 36 years were waiting to join us. Apart from the great fun of reconnecting with people you haven’t seen since you were 11 years old, our concerns about finding things to do for the following 4 days evaporated in the space of about 10 minutes. They all wanted us to come over to their respective places, take us out for dinner, hang out during the day, etc, etc, etc….and suddenly we were worried that we couldn’t remember what we had committed to and when! This was the four of us…admittedly, looking decidedly longer in the tooth than when we last saw each other…(at least when they last saw me).
We spent our first night at the idyllic Tollygunge Club (warning – it is the usual terrible website). This place is an amazing oasis from the teeming milieu outside. You can play golf or tennis, ride a horse, swim in one of two pools, and be pummelled from head to toe while being slathered in mind-boggling amounts of oil at the Aryuvedic Spa…all in the same day if you wish. On top of all that, as a guest, you can take advantage of the club-subsidized prices in all the restaurants (seriously cheap!). Our favourite was a breakfast of “Akuri” (spicy) eggs with hot-buttered toast…ahhh….
Another reason we made sure we could get at least one night at the Tolly was that I wanted to show Brita where my family first got into horse racing. In the ’50′s and ’60′s, Tolly used to host amateur horse races (presumably starting when club members wanted to race their horses against each other). It grew into quite an organized spectacle with a racetrack encircling the grounds, a grandstand…and, of course, bookies. All of that is now gone (mainly due to land being grabbed by the city for the subway line in the 1970′s) and, what used to be a 9 hole golf course has spread itself out and grown to 18 holes. The place where the grandstand was, is now part of the hotel complex but they’ve kept the old winning post (visible in the bushes in the photo below).
The central and southern part of Calcutta is the part I’m most familiar with, having been the area I spent the most time wandering around as a kid. The actual core of the city isn’t that big so I still have a pretty good idea how to get around. The main street for social things like restaurants and bars is Park Street, with some famous older places such as the Swiss confectioner, Flury’s, and a bar which has been around since the 1960′s (Trinca’s). Flury’s used to supply the amazing Easter Eggs my mother used to ship up to Darjeeling for me when I was in boarding school…they were hollow chocolate eggs (probably 6 inches long) filled with yet more small chocolates and covered in a fancy marzipan coating. That was heaven for a 7 year old! Like many other parts of the city, there are some great heritage buildings on Park Street (some of them could be in better shape!) from the 300 years of Brit colonial rule.
Of course, the one thing I had to do (especially to re-live old memories) was to wake up at the crack of dawn and head over to the racecourse to watch the horses working out. Cyrus, being the great host that he is, picked me up at 6:15. Calcutta often has a light mist in the early mornings during the winter (combined with the usual smog) and that makes the whole place glow with the sunrise. The light, along with the sound of galloping hooves, is such a great memory for me! This was taken from the trainer’s stand with the Victoria Memorial (Warning! Rubbishy website #2) looming in the distance.
After walking out into the area where the horses warm up before their works and chatting to various of the locals, we made our way over to where the majority of horses are stabled. Horses and grooms (called “syces”) have to be nimble of foot as they have to cross a rather busy road to get to their stables at Hastings. These have been around for a long time and have that patina that seems to come to old buildings which have seen hundreds of monsoons. I spent many great hours here as a kid – riding around on horses as they were being led about, helping to feed them (while trying to retain all ten of my fingers)…and sipping hot tea out of very environmentally-friendly mud cups!
Our final dinner in Calcutta was eaten at what’s commonly referred to as a dhaba. These are usually restaurants located at truck-stops or attached to a gas station and are open 24-hours. Unlike the usual truck-stops at home (read greasy-spoons), these often have food every bit as good and fresh as you’d find in fine restaurants. New friends, Harish and Kavitha, showed us around their lovely farm near the airport (after a night-time tour of the city), then took us to a dhaba nearby. The food was amazing – kebabs, rotis, etc…fresh and hot! Definitely one of the best meals we’ve had while in India.
The last, but certainly not least, trip down memory lane was to go and visit my old nursery/elementary school. Miss. Higgins (of the afore-mentioned penchant for introducing bamboo to my outstretched palm) had a school on New Road, to which I used to hike over every day. Tunna, Aditya and myself headed over to have a look on Saturday morning but, much to our chagrin, we couldn’t actually get inside the main building. At least we had a poke around the grounds (it’s amazing how much bigger you remember things from your childhood) and had a chance to reminisce about all the trouble we used to get into!
Our old house was just up the street and around the corner on Diamond Harbour Road. I’d seen the old place a couple of times since we’d left in 1974 but it’s really going to seed now. The stately old red brick is crumbling, the front gate looks like it’s about to fall off, the garage has been turned into a shop and funny bits of black plastic are hanging from windows. It’s all rather sad, really, and I’d expect some developer to knock it down and put up an expensive set of flats in the near future (assuming archaic state rules allow the landlord to convince the tenants to leave). Having said all that, the old place looks a bit artsy in black and white…
It may not be the most trendy city in the country, nor the most hip, nor the commercial or political capital anymore, but, for me, Calcutta is the big city with the most soul. Between its gorgeous buildings, hospitable people, and its well-earned reputation as being the intellectual capital of the country, it’s definitely my, admittedly biased, favourite. On top of that, I love the fact that the place is flooded with thousands of Ambassador cars (mostly taxis) all scuttling about on their ancient, twisted axles, no doubt hoping that they can find a role to play in the 21st century.
Yup…they’re probably right when they say you can never go home – especially after all these years. On the other hand, it makes a visit so much more rewarding!
PS: For all the Calcutta pics, check out my FlickR Album
As a young kid, some long-forgotten horse racing aficionado warned me to beware of the combination of slow horses and fast women!
Clearly, I’ve taken this advice to heart because there’s no question that our adventures in surrogacy in India have now resulted in two, count ‘em, two of our gestational carriers being left standing in the starting gate. In the process, my ability to make up fancy rhymes (Hee-Ha for Neha) or, more recently, cover tunes of questionable XMas songs (Santa Baby), have been severely compromised. As mentioned previously, poor Neha contracted Dengue fever while we were en route in Malaysia and yesterday we found that her substitute starter, the brilliantly named Pinki Baby, is taking too long to start her cycle (not her fault – her biology is not cooperating). So…third time lucky, let me introduce you all to Leena!
Notwithstanding the delays in starting the treatment (we MAY have to extend our stay by a few days), we’re quite pleased that Leena is going to be working with us. This is, without question, a woman with the soul of a linebacker! When we were first introduced to her, we were a bit nervous. Unlike Pinki Baby (we never met Neha), there was no question of deference – she looked us straight in the eye with nary a smile…tough as nails, I thought! However wary we were about her “nary”, we didn’t have a lot of choice as waiting for Pinki Baby was a risky proposition (time-wise). So…we sucked it up and took the plunge – Leena, it is, we told Dr. Banerjee. Well…she must have had her game face on for the interview because, once she was confirmed as being in the race, she was as jolly as anyone you’d care to meet! She doesn’t speak a word of English but (working through the translator) she was pleased as punch to pose for a pic and was grinning from ear to ear (she reverted slightly to the game face during the picture taking). As far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to have a carrier entrusted with your child, this is the kind of solid, no-nonsense, knows her own mind, don’t mess with me kinda woman you want! Now, if only I could think of an appropriate limerick….
We’re now in the process of waiting for Brita’s cycle to start so she can be stuffed full of all sorts of hormones! I am building a bunker to survive the process….:-)
The next post will cover our 6 great days in Calcutta – a bit out of order but thought I’d better give you all the surrogacy update tout de suite!
I will leave you with one of the more bizarre elements of using a local Indian mobile phone. Percy, our ever gracious host, has kindly provided us with a Nokia phone that we can charge up with minutes as and when necessary. What is very weird (God knows how to turn it off..and, I suspect, even he/she would have trouble) is that we must get a random text message from Vodafone every couple of minutes. Driving me around the bend! Here’s a sample of the profound questions received during the last hour. I’ve dubbed them (in a tribute to David Letterman) “Stupid Indian Text Tricks”.
“Make-up tips: Have a long face? Click OK!”
“Bolly Comedians: Who played the annoying guest in the film Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?”
“To play hockey, you need a ball and a hockey…?” (slightly offensive to us Canuck/Habs fans!)
“Are you marriage material? Test now! Which dish do you know how to cook?”
With suspicions I have a long face and doubtful about my talents about cooking the right dish, I think it’s time to head to bed and dream of fast horses…
Malaysia needs to get some better PR! That is the considered opinion of Hootoksi’s dad, a superbly elegant and eloquent gentleman who you’d never guess has passed his 90th birthday. Hootoksi’s parents moved to Malaysia (from Bombay) in the 1960′s to help construct the first palm oil refinery in the country, a joint venture between the Malaysians, the Brits & the Indians. Palm oil production is a huge part of the Malaysian economy and you can see the plantations stretching for miles in the countryside around Kuala Lumpur. I may be wrong, but I think it only ranks behind tourism and crude oil in terms of a revenue generator for Malaysia.
Back to the PR problem: Either the country is not on anyone’s radar at all or it’s widely believed in the West (certainly by us, before we came here) that Malaysia is an Islamic state…which, given the current hyper-sensitivity to anything combining the words “Islam” & “state”, naturally give rise to all sorts of pre-conceptions. In reality, Malaysia is a secular and open-minded country populated by a Malay (usually Muslim) majority (about 60%). The rest of the population consists of any number of other ethnic groups including Chinese, Indian (mainly Tamils), etc… You certainly see a lot of women in head scarves, some in burkas (oddly enough, usually accompanied by men in flip-flops and board shorts)…but plenty of others wearing many of the same clothes you’d see western women wearing in any city in North America. The point is no one seems to care one way or another and everyone gets on rather well. This is a very well-adjusted country and, frankly, should be one of those held up as an example of how a state containing multiple ethnicities and religions can co-exist brilliantly while creating a modern country with excellent infrastructure (eg. they’re rolling out 4G wireless broadband next week) and facilities. And, on top of that….I shall repeat from the previous post…they are mind-bogglingly hospitable and friendly! Secular, tolerant, modern & friendly – yup, basically Canada with better weather!
If our first three days here were all about relaxation & the beach, the latter three have been about family, people and great conversations. Robert is my third cousin on my Mum’s side (thank God for the genealogy website “Geni” or we wouldn’t have had a clue whether we were third cousins or 10th cousins, four times removed). He and Hootoksi retired to Malaysia (after working for UNICEF for ages) seven years ago and barely knew anyone when they got here. It’s a testament to just how interesting and nice they are that, of the people they introduced us to, I don’t think one of them WASN’T the head of a bank, the owner of a multi-national company or a member of the Malay royal family! Seriously, all these people want them around and, after spending three awesome days with them, I can see why!
Going a bit backward in the chronology, given Brita’s worries about leaving our two bigger suitcases at the KL airport’s “Left Luggage” facility while we went up to Langkawi, it was with a wee bit of tension that we headed from our plane to the arrival section. As you can see, the facility in question is not one which might fill the weary traveller with a great deal of confidence that his various bits and bobs would still be there when we returned.
However, all was karmically well and we were greeted on arrival by both our massive suitcases as well as the smiling faces of Robert & Hootoksi. The evening was spent catching up and cross-examining each other about every detail of our pasts since, third cousins notwithstanding, this was really the first time we’d actually spent a significant period together. What a great and relaxing home they’ve made in Malaysia complete with purring cats, friendly dogs, attention-deficit disorder Koi!
The next few days were a combination of utter relaxation interspersed with mad rushing about! This was the Roti Canai Thelur we devoured while out for breakfast at an Arab restuarant which, strangely, seemed staffed completely by Tamils!
That evening we were taken to an amazing Diwali party hosted by friends of Robert & Hootoksi’s. On the way in, we had an amazing view of the Petronas Towers (for a short while, the world’s tallest buildings).
We met some really terrific people there including a member of the Malaysian Royal Family, the head of Citibank in Malaysia (the host), a fellow who is establishing palm oil plantations in Uganda and someone who’s heading up 4G (ie. the fastest cell-based data network)… All interesting and accomplished folk – we had a great time. The crazy coincidence was that the cell network guy knew my best friend from school in Darjeeling and his sister is married to a guy who I was about to meet in Calcutta!
Our one excursion out of KL was to go to Malacca – a former pirate base in the not so good old days! Where you have water and pirates, the inevitable conclusion is that you absolutely must have boat tours. Don’t ask me, I don’t make these rules!
The city, in turn, had been colonized by the Portuguese, the Dutch & the English and the result is a town with some amazing architecture and, for some unknown reason, flower-encrusted rickshaws (usually blaring loud music as they ferry their passengers hither and thither).
We left Malaysia on Monday being thoroughly impressed with everything we saw. The smiling faces, the scenery, the cleanliness, and the organization. However, the best thing was the hospitality and spending time with Robert & Hootoksi. We will miss it all!
PS: For all the Malaysia pics, check out my FlickR album.
Some people will insist on blogging at the craziest hours…while, other, more sensible folk, prefer to be maximizing the amount of shut-eye!
Back to the subject at hand, I have to admit, the best thing about China Eastern Airlines was the magnificently quick check-in line which, on first viewing, looked like it would take hours! What followed, including iffy food and Chinese (understandable) & Bollywood (???) movies on a screen that must have been 20 feet away…not so good (try reading dim subtitles at that distance). I think I managed a couple of hours sleep on the 12.5 hour flight while Brita snoozed and snoozed and snoozed! Feeling a bit woozy, Shanghai’s airport, which on other occasions would have seemed a very cool design exercise, gave me the impression of the thought police zapping my hapless brain with long electrodes! Given that both Twitter & Facebook appeared to be blocked (at least at the airport)…who knows!!! I was somewhat placated in my mental meanderings by the sight of this extremely non-fussed local….
Now, here I sit 3 days later and all worries about mental infiltration have vanished (maybe). It’s actually a thundering, but warm, warm monsoon deluge outside and I’ve just returned from sprinting out there and dancing around in it. It was glorious but, one would understand, if the mental questions might persist in the non-biased observer!
We’ve had some glorious days at the Berjaya Resort, located on Langkawi’s southern coast. It’s been in the low to mid 30′s celsius every day and a nice variety of sun and cloud (you need some of that at this temperature!)…and now the afore-mentioned monsoon. We’d, initially, been put into a regular chalet but we were a bit disappointed – it was quite dark and looked like the fixtures had been there since the 1980′s. However much I have fond memories of that decade, I prefer the memories not the reality in the here and now! So..for an extra $25/night, we have a fabulous “Rainforest Chalet”, recently updated, with the perfect combination of having an ocean view while still being surrounded by jungle. If any of you come here (and you should), make sure you get an updated chalet…it’s well worth it!
Being in a jungle, one tends to fraternize with our distant cousins – ie. monkeys (yeah, yeah…creationist types cover your ears)! Everyone needs a holiday so it’s completely understandable that Malaysian monkeys are in as much need of a bit of R&R as anyone else – who are we to make judgements! So…we’ve been getting quite used to waving to families of these guys coming and going, up and down the road, swinging from tree to tree, playing on the jungle gym…makes me wonder whether a tour bus of them arrived recently. However, even though all is very civil between monkeys and humans, there is a general view that monkeys, being the Rap Stars of the animal kingdom (they love shiny, blingy things) need to be kept out of the chalets. So…warning sings everywhere!
What more can one say about a few days at a resort? We ate, we drank, we swam in the ocean, some of us danced in the rain, we went to the spa…that about covers it! It really is quite gorgeous on this island – these couple of pics are at the Thai restaurant at the far end of the property. That’s Brita…checking Facebook in the middle of the first pic!
You can see an aerial view of it sticking out into the ocean from an earlier post here.
The only minor frustration (applicable purely to those of us who need to be connected to our social world at all times) is that the wi-fi speeds at the Berjaya, assuming you’re not being disconnected every 5 minutes, make me nostalgic (not!) for the days of dial-up, circa 1996. But seriously, you might be thinking, you’re at a resort…who cares! Well, you’d be quite right – it just took a couple of days of decompression and a trip to the spa yesterday, for me to report that wi-fi speeds are now mere piffle to me and that they can go on at 2kb/s ad infinitum for all I care. I can also report that I’ve now been scrubbed, wrapped and pummelled and have emerged squeaky clean, flexible enough for yogic exercises, and generally pleased with the world!
In the middle of all this serenity, we received some good news and some bad news from Dr. Banerjee. The good news was that the long lost wire has finally been found – so hooray for that! Always nice to know that large quantities of cash are not careening around, homeless, somewhere in the vast array of the ICICI banking world.
The bad news (especially for Neha) is that she has contracted Dengue Fever so will be unable to be our surrogate! There seems to be quite an outbreak around Delhi (and perhaps other places in India) but, I hope, given the monsoon has now ended, that it will abate. Between a cousin of mine and one of the Canadian gold medallist swimmers getting it, this is clearly not a parasite that differentiates between rich or poor or on the basis of fitness level. Dr. Banerjee, fortunately for us, has another surrogate whose cycle will match up to our schedule and is going to be sending us her details soon. I have no idea what happens if a pregnant woman gets Dengue…but it is a bit of a worry going forward. We can only do what we can do….and ask all the questions we can think of when we have our initial meeting on November 9th. For now, I’m not going to worry about it because that would defeat the purpose of this mini-holiday before we get to India!
Now, a final comment on Malays generally (obviously, a huge generalization): I don’t think I have ever experienced this level of friendliness by almost everyone we meet – anywhere! The resort staff, one can understand, as it’s part of their job (not that that seems to necessarily be true at other hotels/resorts I’ve been to) but it seems to be universal – from taxi drivers to gardeners to sentries. It’s amazing how pleasant interactions with people make you want to return (perhaps it’s an insidious tourist ministry plot!) over and over again. If Malaysia wasn’t such a long flight, this would be my preferred mid-winter holiday destination, no contest!
We’re catching our flight back to Kuala Lumpur this afternoon (hope the torrential downpour stops before that) and will be spending the next few days with my cousin Robert and his wife Hootoksi. They’ve decided to retire to Malaysia after spending many years with UNICEF and living all over the world (including Bhutan, Yemen & Tanzania). Given a quick viewing of Robert’s website, they spend most of their time hosting guests! Having seen Robert & Hootoksi a few times over the years, it is clear that Malaysia was the obvious choice for them. Given their amazing hospitality and friendliness, them retiring to Malaysia was like taking ice to the Eskimos, coals to Newcastle, rain to Vancouver….you get the drift!
Bring on KL!
PS: We’ve had confirmation that the CTV News piece will air on Tuesday, November 9th (6 o’clock news). At that point, we’ll be on a plane to Calcutta (10th morning, our time)
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