My Indian Adventure started in March 2006 with an email from an oil company about to start production there. One of their people had seen a system I had developed for a UK oil field in the 90's and had recently converted from a DOS program to a Windows system. After sending them a trial version I heard nothing for several months and so it was a surprise when I received an email late in June saying they wished to go ahead and wanted me to spend 2 weeks in their Delhi office.
Since I had been selected to play Hockey for Western Australia in the Veterans Championship at the end of July, I suggested an August visit with an early July one as a possibility. They choose the July option and after a frantic few days I had organised tickets, a visa, bought a new camera, arranged for my cat to be boarded, had injections and am now ready to get on the plane on Saturday.
By a strange co-incidence, our book club had read two books related to India this year. Shantaram is a semi autobiographical (ie the names have been changed to protect the guilty) novel about an Australian, ex drug addict, bank robber and jail escapee who finishes up in Bombay. He mixes criminal connections and Bollywood stars with running a free clinic for thousands of slum dwellers. A fascinating book that really captured the flavour of India (or at least Bombay). The other was The Satanic Verses. Next year I'm going to find some books on Hawaii and hope they lead to a job there instead.
