Update 9-18-07

Hi,

Happy New Year, to those who celebrate.  We'll start with reconnected friends.

From Rob Kelman:  Hi.  Please add Greg Kaplan back onto the class mailing list.  His new e-mail address is:  kaplansatthepond@charter.net   Thanks

    Then, connected indirectly to Rob, from Zelda White Nichols: Congratulations to Linda Cohen Greenseid's son, Jamie.  An Emmy.  What a fabulous accomplishment.  You are probably still up on that cloud nine.

    [Rich -- Jamie, of course, is also Rob's son.]

    Zelda adds:  I still like getting my newsletters in this form rather than blogging, Rich, so I hope you will continue this format.

    [Rich -- I'm not ready to blog yet.]
   
    Another memory of Grace Dibble Kincade, from Booker Gibson:  Grace Dibble was an easy person to remember.  Didn't she  have such a pleasant, inquisitive smile?  She must have been a great teacher.

    Back to the holidays, Barbara Blitfield Pech has sent us a card inscribed:  L' Shana Tovah.  May you be surrounded by loved ones, friends, and family.  May you know peace love health and bountiful abundance. May you be inscribed in the book of life for another glorious year.

    Concurrent with the holidays, Ryki Zuckerman is one of the Poets of the Week for September 17 to 23, 2007 on the Poetry Super Highway site:  http://poetrysuperhighway.com/potw.html. One of the poems featured there, "Commerce of Trolls" will soon be readable here as well. Meanwhile, you should note that the poem has also been accepted for the print edition of the "Gray Hair" issue of the forthcoming "Earth's Daughters" magazine.
        After "Commerce of Trolls" spends a week on the Poetry Super Highway homepage, the poem will stay in that site's archival area. Ryki's bio may also stay there, but if you can't read it there, here it is:  Ryki is an artist, poet, and co-editor of "Earth's Daughters" magazine (www.earthsdaughters.org), who also programs two reading series in Buffalo, New York.  Her chapboook, Body of the Work, was published by Textile Bridge Press.  A few of her poems are at Buffalo State Rooftop Poets website: http://www.buffalostate.edu/library/rooftop/members/.  You can also hear her on a podcast there, as well as at:  www.thinktwiceradio.com at the Allen Street Hardware Cafe.
   
    A compliment from Robert Fiveson:  I insist you post this, please, especially considering you post every other self-indulgent stream of consciousness drivel I come up with.  I just want to thank you, and I am sure I speak for many others here, for continuing to be the hinge pin that the wheel of communication turns around for this class.  Though its obvious we love and care about each other, we would be just so many disparate and occasional mini-reunions without your caring time and effort.  So thanks, Rich.  Thanks a lot.
   
    [Rich -- You're welcome.  We've been using Robert as a punching bag for a couple of weeks now, so the least I can do is make myself a temporary target.  Though if I'm so good at keeping connections, how come I haven't paid my Alumni Association dues yet, especially after I reminded all of you to do so almost a month ago?  I'll try to mail the check tomorrow, Dennis.]
   
    And that's the end of the local news.  So here's some travel filler from friends of mine, Melody and Ken Eckhart.  After spending several years in Singapore, they came back to Florida for a year, and now they're off again.
        First, from Melody:  Some of you had remarked how you wanted to receive and how you had enjoyed the travelogues we wrote while in Singapore.  Just in case you do not know,  we will be moving to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for a year assignment.  Ken is there now and is traveling between Dubai and India, so he has written a piece on his travels into the country of India.
        If you are running to an atlas to locate the United Arab Emirates, I will give you a hint:  look for Iraq and head southeast across the Gulf of Arabia and through Kuwait.  The United Arab Emirates is on the old pirate coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The country has lost most of that reputation, but it developed another one.  My definition of Dubai is:  "Combine Las Vegas and Disney World and put them on steroids."  Money is the operative word in that world.
        Ken and I will be there probably through next April or May.  Part of Ken's assignment involves work in India, and this past week he was there and was given a firsthand tour by one of his colleagues.  From Ken:
        Bombay, 9 July 2007.  For all the time we spent in Southeast Asia, I think I only crafted one of these from scratch.  Mel always did most of the work.  So I thought it might be time to give it another try.
        As many of you know, we have been seconded to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for the next twelve months.  I will drive the initiative to build Spencer Stuart business in the Middle East.  I also have another role which is to be a bit of a godfather to our business in India.  I will be down here for a week every month to help out.  Although I have been here on previous occasions, what I generally see is from the back seat of a car.  Despite that limited view, it has always been an eyeful, though I am usually reading, talking to a colleague, on the phone, or in daze.  Last Thursday, when I flew down, I promised myself I would get out for two days over the weekend and drink my fill.  Following the addition of all this new data, I returned to my hotel room Sunday afternoon brimming with a newfound perspective on why things are the way they are.
         India has somewhere between 1.1 and 1.2 billion people.  Along with China, at 2.3 billion plus, the total is in excess of forty percent of the world population.  If you have any doubt that these two powerhouses are on fire, read a book called Chindia.  Bombay has actually been renamed Mumbai, reverting to its historical roots, but the locals still call it Bombay.  There are roughly fourteen to fifteen million people scattered over what was once seven separate islands on the shore of the Arabian Sea.  It is a classic example of the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Poverty is everywhere, along with trash, unpainted buildings, pocked roads with few lane lines, and not enough traffic lights.  The average income for a family of four looks to be something like 3,000  5,000 rupees per year -- that roughly translates into 75 to 125 American dollars a year.  You look around and ask simple questions like, "Why can't the building be painted?  Why can't  they pick up the trash?  Why don  they raze that building?  Then, you get a history lesson that makes it all clear.
        To set the stage, Saturday morning, I had the driver take me to Willingdon, a fashionable old club of the Raj class, for breakfast on the verandah with our country managing director.  We talked some business, watched the golfers, had our obligatory tea, and then I was returned to the Oberoi, a five-star hotel.  I changed into a T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes and was promptly picked up by one of my local partners in a small black and yellow taxi which has been manufactured in the mid-1960s.  I could barely pour myself into the tiny back seat.  Our destination was seven stops north of the Church Street Station, where we would work our way to Akhil's apartment to join his wife and sons for lunch.  The local trains transport some five million people per day around the metro area.  Nationwide, India's  train system is the largest in the world.  Fighting our way through the maze of bodies, we finally got to the front of the ticket line, and Akhil treated me to a first class seat -- I think it was around forty-five American cents for two first class tickets.  We slithered down to the proper platform and jumped on the train as it was moving, securing a position near the open door -- actually, there were no doors -- so we could see along the route and so we could breathe.  I probably didn't see much of anything I had not already seen, but being right on top of it gave me a different perspective.  As the sites whizzed by, Akhil held forth on why things were the way they were.
        He had gone to school and lived in the United States for a number of years and returned to Bombay to be near family and do something to help his country.  As a former CFO of a mid-cap business in the West, I asked business questions, and he was gracious, accommodating, and open in his responses.  As we finished the ride, we exited the car -- once again, while it was moving -- and we headed for the motorized rickshaw cue.  Again, I had to pour myself into the tiny cab, and we rode to within a half-dozen blocks of Akhil's apartment.  Then we walked the balance of the way.  These neighborhoods have no zoning, and so the buildings go from residential to commercial, high end to low, though the trash and the roadways never change their appearance.  It had been raining, as this is monsoon season, so the streets were more challenging than usual.  When we got to Akhil's apartment, it was an oasis.  A beautiful home, a wonderful lunch -- served by more people than I could track -- and continued business and historical discussions.  Then, a car ride back to the hotel.
        Sunday morning, I hired a car and driver to take me around old Bombay.  Serena, the guide, was excellent.  She was an Indian woman about my age, who was ready to be a grandmother for the first time, and she filled in all the areas Akhil had not covered.  The day was topped off by a visit to where Mahatma Gandhi had lived from 1917 to 1934.  It was the highlight of the two days, and everything came together as I stood on the balcony where he used to address the crowds.  Here's what I took away.
        India may be one of the most misunderstood places in the world.  When it was a British colony, the locals were treated in a less than ideal manner, and, as is often the case, freedoms were restricted.  At the same time,  things worked, infrastructure was created, process and governance were implemented, trade happened, and life moved forward.  Even today, with all the difficulties and problems created by colonization over the years, the local citizenry is not unanimous in stating that things are better without the foreigners.  However, in the early decades of the 20th century, tempers flared regularly, people were abused and some were murdered, and the situation became progressively worse until patience ran out.  In 1915, after a twenty-year stint in South Africa, where he was a major force in setting the stage for civil rights, Mahatma Ghandi returned to India along with his brand of change.  From that point forward, things would never be the same.  By 1947, India became an independent republic, and, a year later, Ghandi was assassinated by a Hindi fanatic.  But the seeds were sown, and Nehru became the first prime minister.
        Since then, this purest of all democracies has exploded in population, but the infrastructure has not kept pace.  Life has created a vicious cycle that no one seems to know how to break.  For every one thing that works, ten do not.
        The airport is too small and needs to be expanded.  There are squatters in favelas who live on the outskirts.  The politicians won't remove them in order to start construction because, if they do, the interest groups -- including the squatters -- will not vote them back into office.  If the politicians are out of office, not only will they not receive their salaries, they will lose the opportunity to receive payoffs for allowing those things to happen that work in the favor of the strongest interest groups.  Ergo, no new runways.
        Other signs of corruption:  A family is to receive its forty-foot container of furniture and personal items that has to clear customs.  It arrives, and they have two choices:  Either they accept it legally and, if so, the officials will literally unpack, question, and argue every item in the container, and then charge the legitimate customs fee.  Or  the family can slip the official 1,000 to 2,000 American dollars, he will let the container through, and the family will get the contents.  The first way takes two months.  The second takes two days, and presents a real dilemma for someone who wants to do the right thing.
        An apartment building is run down and in bad need of a paint job and general repairs.  The property is expensive, has significantly appreciated in value, and in a great location, but there is rent control that has been in effect for many years.  If this rental unit sold, it would go for a million American dollars, but the tenant pays only 500-600 rupees per month -- 13 to 15 American dollars -- because when the family first moved in, that was the going rate.  The landlord cannot throw them out, and, as long as the unit stays within the extended family, the rent may not be adjusted.  As a result, there is no cash flow to improve the building, and it just gets worse over time.
        The prevailing attitude is, "This is the way things are.  They're predestined.  I cannot change it.  I am but one person, so why bother?"  It's mind-boggling to a Westerner.  From the outside, you look at what has to be done and say, "Where do I begin?"
        On the positive side, serious growth is underway, and the examples are everywhere, from the cellular industry to back-office processing, services in general, the media, and so on.  The people are wonderful, the crime rate is negligible, and the place is alive -- the city is truly vibrant, wherever you go.  In addition, there are thousands of young professionals who have either traveled to, were educated in, or have worked in the West, and they have dreams, visions for what the country could and should be.  With a burgeoning economy and hope for the future, maybe, someday, life here will shift significantly.  In the meantime, it is a wonderful place to see, with innumerable things to do.  And no matter what you think of it politically, you will find the country magical.